THG 
 UNIVERSITY Of CALIFORNIA 
 
 LIBRARY _/ 
 
HAMMERSMITH 
 
 HIS HARVARD DAYS. 
 
 CHRONICLED BY 
 
 MARK SIBLEY SEVERANCE. 
 
 " Without a model, and without an ideal model, no one can do well." 
 
 JOUBEKT, translation of CALVEBT. 
 
 " For as the steele Is imprinted in the soft waxe, so learning is engraven in ye minde 
 of an young Impe." JOHN LYL.Y, Euphues. 
 
 < Namiue habitat modico multa Minerva loco. 
 
 "Toil, with rare triumph, ease, with safe disgrace, 
 The problem still for us and all of human race." 
 
 LOWELL, Under the Great Elm. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 
 (E&e Bitemte 
 
 1878. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1878, 
 
 BY MARK SIBLEY SEVERANCE. 
 Att rights reserved. 
 
 Franklin Press: 
 
 Electrotyped and Printed 
 
 By Rand, Avery, &* Company, 
 
 Boston. 
 
To HARVARD MEN 
 
 AND 
 
 ALL OTHER GOOD FELLOWS, 
 
 This Chronicle, 
 
 U1TOERTAKEN TO BEGUILE A LONG SEMI-TROPICAL 
 SUMMER, 
 
 Us DcUtcatrt. 
 
 39617; 
 
**# IT is well for readers to know that these pages were 
 written many thousands of miles from the scenes which they 
 attempt to describe, a fact that must be the excuse for 
 anachronisms, or other errors, which may have become so 
 imbedded in the body of the book as not easily to be removed 
 by the reviser s skill. #*# 
 
 Los ANGELES, CAL., 10 Jan., 1877. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEB PAOB 
 
 I. IN WHICH THE CURTAIN GOBS UP WITH CHEERS . . 9 
 II. SOME OF THE BRANCHES OF THE STOUT HAMMERSMITH 
 
 TREE 20 
 
 HE. THE INQUISITION OF THE BIG-WIGS 33 
 
 IV. A SCRIMMAGE AND A SUDDEN ALLY 43 
 
 V. WHICH DISCLOSES A MODERN FORUM 64 
 
 VI. A BUNDLE OF LETTERS 78 
 
 VII. EXHIBITING A LION-HUNTER AND HIS DEN .... 88 
 
 VIII. IN WHICH HAMMERSMITH QUITS THE VERDANT FIELDS, 104 
 
 IX. A FRESH EXCURSION INTO VERDANCY 122 
 
 X. A LITTLE ACTRESS IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE . . 132 
 
 XI. IN WHICH MR. TOM ALMOST SMELLS GUNPOWDER . . 153 
 
 XII. STRANGE BEHAVIOR OF MY LORD TUFTON 172 
 
 XIII. CROSSING SWORDS WITH THE FACULTY 199 
 
 XIV. THE HAMMERSMITH RUBICON 217 
 
 XV. A SUMMER CRUISE 238 
 
 XVI. JUNIOR YEAR, WITH A SECOND PHILIPPIC FROM BREESE, 248 
 
 XVII. A DANGEROUS SIDE-SADDLE 2G7 
 
 XVIII. Miss DARBY LEADS A "GERMAN," AND BREESE LOOKS 
 
 ON 286 
 
 XIX. AN OLD FRIEND ON THE WESTERN HORIZON . . . 311 
 
 XX. A VARSITY ACCIDENT AND MORE REVELATIONS . . 329 
 
 7 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXI. THE GREAT QUINSIGAMOND RACE 344 
 
 XXII. A MOUNT DESERT EPISODE 365 
 
 XXIII. SENIOR YEAR, AND ANOTHER PLUNGE BY BREESE . 379 
 
 XXIV. IN WHICH A GREAT MANY PEOPLE ARE BOWLED OVER, 386 
 XXV. A WORLDLING S ADVICE, WITH A SPEECH FROM 
 
 MR. TOM 403 
 
 XXVI. A GALLOP FOR A SENORITA 422 
 
 XXVII. WAR-NOTES AND OTHER SURPRISES 435 
 
 XXVIII. Miss DARBY AND MR. TOM ON THEIR HIGH HORSES, 444 
 
 XXIX. IN WHICH SOME PRETTY BARBARIANS INVADE THE 
 
 QUADRANGLE 453 
 
 XXX. THE WORLD is SET HUMMING FOR HAMMERSMITH, 470 
 
 XXXI. CLASS-DAY, AND A TALK OF SPURS 479 
 
 XXXII. EXEUNT OMNES . . 506 
 
HAMMERSMITH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN WHICH THE CURTAIN GOES UP WITH CHEERS. 
 
 " Quid turbse est apud forum? " TERENCE. 
 
 MANY magnificent youth were gathered about the 
 steps and through the corridors of Parker s, a 
 famous Boston hostehy of less than a hundred years ago. 
 There was pushing, jostling, loud talking, and excited 
 grouping. Coaches and hacks, drags and tilburies, and 
 every manner of turnout, continually arriving, set down 
 other gorgeous 3*oung fellows, who quickly merged and 
 were lost in the crowd of their compatriots. Now and 
 then, as a coach drew up, a rush was made for it with 
 much friendly ambition : its inmates were fairly pulled 
 from their seats, and carried off on the shoulders of their 
 captors ; while a voice cried out, "Three cheers for Per 
 kins ! " or, u Three cheers for Varnum ! " or, " Now, fel 
 lows, three times three for Witherspoon ! " as various 
 favorites appeared ; and sharp, ringing cheers, with an 
 explosive snap as of pistols, went up again and again, 
 echoing loudly from the stone walls of King s Chapel 
 opposite. 
 
 It is midsummer ; and the few passers-by are rather 
 amused than annoyed by the jolly demonstrations, the 
 
 9 
 
10 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 sombre* merchants 1 mnkmg- their way to their families 
 summering at Nahant and Cohasset, Swampscott and 
 Newport ; the smart clerks scurrying from the hot and 
 depleted city for a brief season of salt sea-air or moun 
 tain-climbing ; the fair young beauties returned from their 
 bronzing summer-pleasures for a day s tour among shops 
 and bazaars ; and the rest. To the eclectic eye of au- 
 thorit3 r , however, shining above an elaborate tin breast 
 plate, and looking on from the corner, the noisy hubbub 
 is becoming a breach of the city s peace ; and, after a 
 friendly warning or two, " Softly, young gentlemen; 
 not quite so much noise, if you please," the shouting 
 and cheering are at an end, and the crowd moves in upon 
 the interior of the hotel, leaving the street deserted, in the 
 hands of the police. 
 
 To a middle-aged gentleman dining with his nephew in 
 a far corner of the salle-a-manger, the cause of all this 
 street-noise, gradually taking possession of the hotel, and 
 storming, as it were, its very citadel, was quite a myster}". 
 His pepper-and-salt travelling-suit, of a decidedly English 
 cut, covered a well-knit frame somewhat inclining to heavi 
 ness ; and his gray-black hair and closely- clipped gray 
 mustache told him to be a man of between forty and 
 fifty. A beamish blush on each cheek rendered a closer 
 estimate of his age difficult : and, by the same token, the 
 brisk waiters under whose hands he found himself so often 
 in his roving life were led to forage for the choicest bits, 
 the most delicate dishes, for his table ; and they were not 
 mistaken in their man. 
 
 All that we care to know further of him at this point in 
 his history is, that he is taking his first dinner in Boston 
 for a space of twenty j ears, most of which he has spent 
 in China ; and that, at this latter stage of his meal, 
 after he has disposed of the more substantial courses, with 
 the aid of a bottle of claret and a half-bottle of sauterne, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 11 
 
 a straight cut over the right eye, scarcely visible at 
 other times, comes out as a blood-red line across the 
 forehead, and, like the Mussulman character-signs, seems 
 to point to some early escapade, or encounter of a dubious 
 nature. What or when this may have been no man ever 
 learned ; and a way which he had of turning somewhat 
 fiercely upon you in conversation, with an interrogative 
 " Eh? " was a sufficient bar to curiosity and impertinence 
 on all subjects. And, in the case of the scar, there was 
 also the natural instinct which ever3 T body had, that its 
 origin was essentially a private matter, and not the world s 
 concern. Young Buddicombe, indeed, had -blandly in 
 quired about it at the English legation in Canton, while 
 proffering a cigar; but the indignant "Eh?" and the 
 combmg-down that he received, were the talk of the colony 
 for months afterwards. Capt. Bungalow too, H. B. M. 
 Royal Fourth Artillery, and Periwinkle of the American 
 legation, and various too inquisitive friends of both sexes 
 at home and abroad, had attacked the subject in vain. 
 But that is neither here nor there. 
 
 The healthy appetite which he of the blush and the scar 
 carried with him around the world (and what philosopher 
 shall say that it hath not its value above learning and 
 riches?) was none the less rugged to-day after a dusty 
 ride from New York in a much-delayed train. The young 
 gentleman opposite, in blue flannel suit and simple black 
 scarf, though far from a pygmy himself, was satisfied long 
 before his robust and rubicund uncle, at whose red-lined 
 forehead he looked with a sort of inquiring wonder ; for, 
 to say truth, he had -seen it but seldom in their brief 
 acquaintance. 
 
 " Uncle," said he at last, pushing his chair slightly 
 away from the table, and choosing a cigar from the tray 
 which Charles, the pet of the university bons-vivans, had 
 1 rought with the black coffee, " was this house in vogue 
 when you were in college? " 
 
12 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 " Eh? " said that worthy, setting down his cup. " In 
 vogue ? God bless my soul, youngster ! it was almost 
 a howling wilderness about these parts thirty years ago. 
 Far from being in vogue, it was not even built or 
 thought of. Why Lord, how it comes back to me! 
 On this very spot where we sit it must have been about 
 here there was a musty old bookstore, Maggliabeck s, 
 where the digs used to come and poke their learned 
 noses into old black-letters and folios, and Heaven knows 
 what rubbish. Next door, towards the alle}^ was a little 
 milliner, Madame Grimaldi, with her roomful of sewing- 
 girls : your grandmother has had many a fine head-rig 
 from that shop, you may depend, sir. On the corner was 
 an old coffee-house, Harry Harry I forget his name ; 
 a round little roly-poly of a chap, with a perennial He, 
 he ! and shaking of his jolly sides. Gad, sir, what 
 larks those three shops had to witness sooner or later! 
 Madame Grimaldi ! why, I ve seen her chasing a dozen 
 students out of her front-door, while as many more were 
 passing in by the little wicket that gave upon the coffee- 
 room in the rear. It was surprising what a rage for old 
 vellum and editio princeps, Elzevirs, incunabula, and anti 
 quarian lore generally, took hold of the university all at 
 once ; and how of a sudden, just about contemporaneous 
 with the opening of Madame Grimaldi s shop, a coffee- 
 drinking mania broke out such as could only be quieted 
 by a cose}^ little supper at Harry Teabun s : that s his 
 name, Harry Teabun. Well, sir, one night," said the 
 rosy old boy, leaning forward on the table, and holding his 
 cigar on a level with his eye, as though he were talking to 
 it, instead of his nephew, "one night, Jim Minturn 
 and I (I admit we had been dining at Harry s, and ought, 
 perhaps, to have gone straight to Cambridge), passing 
 through the wicket at the rear of the shop Good gad, 
 Charles ! what may all this row be ? " he exclaimed sud- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 13 
 
 denly, turning to the waiter who stood near, as the crowd 
 outside, routed by the policemen, rushed pell-mell through 
 the corridors, carrying Witherspoon, hero of many a hotly- 
 contested boat-race, on their shoulders, and "shouting as 
 they went. Nor did they stop until they had surged into 
 the dining-room, where, seating themselves at different 
 tables, and depositing Witherspoon not far from our 
 friends, thc} T broke up into quieter groups ; while the 
 waiters, who stood grinning, were saluted with such 
 remarks as, "Halloo, Charlie!" "How do, John?" 
 " Trot out your grub now, old boys ! " and other saluta 
 tions equally familiar. 
 
 " Row/ sir? Harvard class-races to-day, sir. Fel 
 lows just coming up for a little jollifying, sir," returned 
 Charles, twisting his napkin. 
 
 Indeed ! And who may the young fellow be who was 
 brought in on their shoulders ? 
 
 That, sir ? that fellow with the shaved head and the 
 mustache? Why, that s the great Witherspoon, stroke 
 of sophomore crew: just won the race, I believe, sir." 
 And the uncle and Tom squared themselves to have a good 
 view of this young demigod of the hour and his friends. 
 
 It is a striking group, a motley collection of all classes 
 and types of students. What marvellous combinations 
 of colors ! What ferocious cravats and collars, striking 
 terror into the beholder ! What a museum of canes ! the 
 light, the herculean, the smooth, the knobby, the pkiy- 
 tliing of the festive sophomore, the dignified symbol of 
 the senior. What checks and plaids, diagonals and 
 stripes, careless shooting-jacket, English walking-coat, 
 trig "reefer," and all the varied shapes and styles of 
 garment known to Van Nason and Randidge, and the 
 other favorite university tailors ! 
 
 Here is little Fennex, temporarily removed from the 
 hilarious air of Cambridge by order of the college authori- 
 
14 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 ties for nailing Tutor Lummus into his room one fine 
 night, whence that agile instructor of dead languages was 
 seen to issue by the window for next morning s prayers. 
 Behold him- now, on the eve of returning to the kind 
 mother that had spurned him, resplendent in white flan 
 nel suit, with a flaming wonder of crimson neckerchief, a 
 pin of death s head, sleeve-buttons to match, a striped 
 horror of a shirt, and, oh ! such a jocund, devil-may-care 
 air, as of one that had done great deeds, and deserved 
 well of his country forsooth. 
 
 Here are the members of the crews, fine, stalwart fel 
 lows, not over-mindful if their collars flare a bit in front, 
 and disclose their well-tanned, muscular throats, Heaven 
 bless them ! they have pulled a glorious race to-day, 
 Walton and Kinloch and Miles, a promising freshman 
 oar, and Tallman, the celebrated single-scull, with a host 
 of others ; and, topping them all, Witherspoon, stroke of 
 the sophomores, and head of the river to-day, whose 
 fame as a boating-man, mutato nomine, will live long 
 among those who have hung up their dripping oars in the 
 vestibule of the university. 
 
 Pale scholars, flourishing a feeble hilarity by force of 
 example, are scattered here and there, hail-fellows to-day 
 with their more athletic comrades, Dwight and Dana 
 and Percy, mighty on the rank-list ; and Latimer, paler 
 than the rest, head scholar, and probable orator of the 
 juniors. 
 
 Luxurious young aristocrats, patrons of sports, athletic 
 graduates, gentlemen from the schools, all classes of the 
 young and middle-aged interested in the boating rivalries 
 of Alma Mater, are on hand to-day, joining in the demon 
 stration. 
 
 On hand also, and joining in the festivities in a certain 
 way peculiar to themselves, but not appreciated by the 
 timid iii those days of the nearing dog-star, are a number 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 15 
 
 of dogs, forbidden property at the university, but clandes 
 tinely nourished in coal-closets and other hidden retreats, 
 crouching now among table-legs and chairs, or coming 
 out to add their notes in the recognized terrier-like cheers 
 which their masters and their friends are giving, tailless 
 ratters, a pointer, a setter, a truculent bull-dog black of 
 one eye, which snaps trap-like at flies in dangerous prox 
 imity to trouser-legs, preserving, however, a decent ca 
 nine regard for the immaculate belongings of his master 
 Fennex, at whose feet he lies. 
 
 "May I trouble you? " asked our middle-aged friend, 
 he of the scar and the gray mustache, leaning toward a 
 brawny young lad at an adjacent table. " Has there been 
 a race to-day ? and who has won, if I may be so bold ? " 
 
 " Certainly," replied the 3 T outh, turning upon him a 
 frank, fresh face, such as we like to fancy typical of col 
 lege men, " certainly. Our annual Harvard class-races 
 have just closed to-day. Presume you re a stranger, sir? 
 Great rejoicing to-day, as Witherspoon yonder, fellow 
 next the window, who pulled stroke of the winning 
 crew, is looked upon as the only man to take the place of 
 Wayland in the varsity next year. Twas a great race 
 to-day, sir," continued he, seeing that more information 
 would be acceptable. " The juniors were supposed to be 
 the strongest crew by all odds : betting was very much in 
 their favor. But old Witherspoon there rowed a waiting 
 race for em ; and just after turning the stake (it was a 
 mile and a half, and return) Lord, what a spurt he put 
 on ! Came in live lengths ahead ; and Bobbins, bow of the 
 juniors, as game a fellow as ever pulled an oar, fainted 
 immediately after crossing the line. Sorry for him : par 
 ticular pal of mine. But we won the cup, if we did have to 
 work for it." And the glowing young fellow wagged his 
 head, and looked at his open palms, which were a mass of 
 blisters and torn flesh. At such cost is the head of the 
 river gained. 
 
16 
 
 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 44 So you were in the winning crew, eh?" asked our 
 uncle, beaming upon the ardent oarsman with a sort of 
 father!} 7 interest. 
 
 44 1 should say so," returned he. 4 My name is Tweedy, 
 sir. Allow me to show you the schedule of the race ? 
 And, fumbling in his pocket, he produced a card, which 
 
 the uncle and the nephew fell to examining eagerly, 
 ran as follows : 
 
 It 
 
 H^JRV^RD CLASS-PJ-A.CES. 
 CHARLES-RIVER COURSE. 
 Saturday, July 13, 185-. 
 Distance a mile and a half, and return. 
 
 Junior. 
 Pine shell, 
 40 feet long, 
 150 pounds. 
 
 Sopliomore. 
 Cedar shell, 
 44 feet long, 
 162 pounds. 
 
 Freshman. 
 Tine shell, 
 38 feet long, 
 141 pounds. 
 
 CHEW. 
 
 WEIGHT. 
 POUNDS. 
 
 COLORS. 
 
 fE. H. Walton (stroke) . . . 
 1 R M Latham 
 
 158 1 
 152 
 154 
 149 
 140 
 142 . 
 
 162 
 154 
 150 
 145 
 147 
 139 
 
 148 I 
 141 
 136 
 130 
 133 
 131 
 
 . 
 
 Crimson 
 handkerchiefs ; 
 bare backs. 
 
 Blue 
 handkerchiefs ; 
 blue-and-white 
 shirts. 
 
 Corn-colored 
 handkerchiefs; 
 white shirts. 
 
 1 T. Smith 
 
 1 J. L. Perkins 
 C. T. Abbott 
 1. R. Robbins (bow) 
 
 C. I. Witherspoon (stroke) . . 
 H. E. Kinloch 
 
 
 < E. T. Curtis .... 
 Q-. Willard 
 
 A Tweedy (bow) 
 
 II. Miles (stroke) . . . 
 
 G A Loring 
 
 R. L. Quincy 
 
 
 T B McGregor 
 
 V. Green (bow) 
 
 
 44 Eh ? Bow of the winning crew ? Gad, sir, I congrat 
 ulate you ! And will you do me the honor of presenting 
 me to some of }^our friends? Allow me," and he handed 
 him a small but heavy card, with 44 Mr. Gayton Hammer 
 smith " in small script on it, saying at the same time, 
 44 This is my nephew, Tom Hammersmith; and we are 
 very much obliged to } ou for your politeness, sir. I say, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 17 
 
 Charles," and between the champagne which was ordered, 
 and the introduction to Wither spoon, Walton, Varnum, 
 Dana, and others, Mr. Gayton Hammersmith felt the time 
 slipping away merrily, and himself slipping back ten % 
 twenty, thirty years into the past, when he, too, was a 
 jolly young student, draining the cup of enjoyment just 
 as eagerly as these gay boating-men, with just as happy 
 an oblivion of the morrow. 
 
 And Tom? He felt that he had entered into a new 
 world, with his uncle as fidus Achates; and as he sat 
 modestly listening to the general talk of the day s sports, 
 the explanations of defeat, the gratulation for victor}*, 
 the happy banter of the different crews, and his uncle s 
 none the less entertaining side-remarks and footnotes, it 
 was only by an effort of the will that he could identify 
 himself as the same Tom who had imagined himself such 
 a genius, such a sufficiency, such a knowing one, on the 
 banks of the Hudson so short a while ago. His dusty 
 tutor, and his saddle-horse, and his lame setter, and the 
 humdrum life that his widowed mother s family led, bah ! 
 Here was the life, here were the dashing fellows, for him ! 
 Who shall blame him if his past life seemed, in the face 
 of the present, a mighty stale and commonplace affair, as 
 old Pepys might say, and these cheerful youth the only fit 
 companions for one of his mettle ? 
 
 Mr. Hammersmith has risen at last, shaking hands with 
 Tweedy (who regrets that he has no " pasteboard " about 
 him, "A. Tweedy, sir: anybody can tell 3~ou where I 
 am in Cambridge ; glad to see you and your nephew at 
 any time "), and, bowing in his most magnificent Oriental 
 fashion to Witherspoon and the rest, walks off with his 
 nephew to their rooms. 
 
 " Regular old brick," says Witherspoon ; " and young 
 un a promising fellow for the crews, eh? Walton, 
 Tweedy, I say, three cheers for Mr. Gayton Hammer 
 smith!" 
 
18 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 " And his nephew," interposes Tweedy. 
 
 "No, sub-freshman, hang him!" says little Fennex, 
 universal hater of his race, because of his recent unpleas 
 antness at Cambridge. 
 
 And Mr. Hammersmith turned again to bow his 
 acknowledgments ; while Tom, who had caught just 
 enough of the above colloquy to make him a bit unhappj r , 
 marched stiffly out of the dining-hall. 
 
 " Well, Tom, my bo} T , what do you think of your new 
 compatriots, if they are to be compatriots, eh? Rather a 
 sudden introduction to the Vita NuovaJ don t you 
 think?" 
 
 " Jolty set of fellows, I should say, sir. Some of them 
 are regular toppers ; but there are others that I know I 
 should hate. What s the name of the little fellow in 
 white flannel ? 
 
 " I don t remember. Don t think I was introduced. 
 Why?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing," said Tom, who felt that only a mortal 
 combat with this particular young student, author of the 
 obnoxious epithet " sub-freshman," would satisfy him in 
 his present frame of mind ; and his uncle smiled slyly. 
 
 They went to their rooms, and passed the small fraction 
 of the evening that was left in discussing the men with 
 whom they had been thrown, Tom dissecting them in 
 rather an off-hand, provincial way; the uncle according 
 them that liberality of construction which he wished 
 granted to himself, and which the man of the world knows 
 so well how to bestow. 
 
 As Tom passed into the connecting room to retire, the 
 songs of the men below, now gathered in smoking-room 
 and billiard-hall, came pulsing up through the house, scat 
 tering what slight clouds might have arisen in his sky; 
 and he closed his eyes, with his mind filled with roseate 
 pictures and happy auguries. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 19 
 
 A half-hour later, as his uncle rang to despatch a mes 
 sage to Mr. Tom s mother, announcing their safe arrival, 
 he looked into Tom s room, and saw him lying asleep, 
 breathing quietty. The fond old gentleman looked at him 
 earnestly for a moment, and, with a hearty u God bless hia 
 young heart ! " turned to his table, and sat for a long time, 
 with his head resting on his hand, in thought. 
 
 The window was open ; and, as he sat thus in marked 
 contrast to his gayer self at dinner, the swelling strains 
 of " Fair Harvard," echoing up from the street below, 
 where the " student-men " were setting off for Cambridge, 
 floated in upon the night-air to this gray-haired cosmopoli 
 tan, busy with the memories of his youth. 
 
 He arose, and leaned a while from the window, whence, 
 with a "heigh-ho! " and a yawn, he turned before long 
 to his couch, happy refuge alike of the man of the 
 world and the ardent schoolboy, the sorrowing mother 
 and the " too, too happy " belle fresh from her " too, too 
 lovely" ball; anodyne alike for the griefs and the joys, 
 the hopes, fears, hates, and loves, of men. 
 
20 HAMMEBSMITH : 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SOME OP THE BRANCHES OF THE STOUT HAMMERSMITH TREE. 
 
 " Your family ! I don t believe you ever had a grandfather." FOOTE. 
 " Ovis sequitur ovcm ct filius eequitur opera patri sui." 
 
 TAULUS FAGIUS, Epistola Mincupatoria, 1542. 
 
 nplHERE had been a Hammersmith in the university 
 -L from time immemorial. I doubt if the chapel-bell 
 could have rung, or the Cambridge town-clock have 
 marked the hours of day and night for burgher and stu 
 dent life alike, if they had not known that they were 
 serving some 3 outhful member of this flourishing New- 
 England famiry, calling him reluctantly to morning and 
 evening prayers in the olden time, and scoring off the 
 hours, which were so many milestones on his way from 
 downy youth to confident young manhood. 
 
 Certainly the various Hammersmiths of the last two 
 centuries had done their full share in harassing these two 
 monitors of dut} T , from that colonial night, long past, 
 when the nomadic guardian of the peace, patrolling the 
 thin village, and calling the hours of the night in ancient 
 fashion, captured a Hammersmith in act of draping the 
 respectable parish clock-dial in a sheet, showing the 
 maternal initials " M. E. II." stitched in red in its cor 
 ner, down to these latter days, when his not unworthy 
 descendants and kin wage war with paint-brush and tar- 
 pot, hammer and chisel, against " the chiding of the 
 sharp-tongued bell," and return from Astolfian vo} T ages 
 to the steeple, laden with clock-hands and fractions of 
 
HIS HAEVAED .DAYS. 21 
 
 gilded numerals, to the no slight disturbance of the town s 
 business on the morrow. 
 
 No wonder, that, when in stout condition, they clang 
 and whir with an almost sentient malice at the thought 
 that they are sending some scion of this vexatious stock 
 unwillingly about his duty ; as though they said, " There, 
 bang ! Your grandfather choked my inverted throat with 
 coal-tar, thermometer at zero ; and your uncle appropri 
 ated my clapper one cloudy night. Bang, bang ! out 
 of your snug bed there, and away to dim pra3 T ers, bang ! " 
 Or the clock, " By Chronos, I m even with you, Sir Ham 
 mersmith, for all your insults to my face, and all your 
 inherited trophies from my tower ! Plump eleven o clock 
 I mark. Your Latin recitation, too many times evaded, 
 calls you in. And, by the way, here goes my pretty 
 Edith Summerdale, as blooming as the morning, fresh as 
 are my own new hands ; and she walks without an escort. 
 Away to your classroom ! " 
 
 The university printer, too, and he who concocts the 
 immortal roll of enigmatic honors for the sons of Alma 
 Mater, the M.M.S.S., in Congr. Amer. Deleg. et Rerum- 
 pub. Feed. Repr. et Senator, S.T.D. Neo-Cces. and such, 
 what would they have thought if at least one new Ham 
 mersmith were not under their hands for each triennial 
 catalogue? Indeed, I have heard the latter gentleman 
 declare, and the curious may satisfy themselves by an 
 easy computation, that, if all the honors and titles and 
 name-handles of all the Hammersmith graduates were 
 brought together, they would make so formidable a list, 
 that the university would feel prouder than ever of the 
 family, and would straightway proceed to mark its ap 
 preciation of their concentrated worth by adding fresh 
 honors and grander titles. 
 
 Everybody in the service of the university, from the 
 president down through spectacled professors, important 
 
22 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 tutors, nimble proctors, punctual janitor, even to the 
 ancient " goodies," and the itinerant "old clo " man, 
 who may almost be said to be in the service of the uni 
 versity, so faithful are his visits and his ministrations, 
 all were accustomed to the sturdy name of Hammersmith, 
 and acquainted, if only through dim tradition, with the 
 fame of the perennial family, its prowess in all manner 
 of sports and pranks, its sporadic saintliness, its generous 
 open-heartedness, the intermittent flame of scholarship 
 which shone along the line, and above all with its high 
 sense of honor, reaching almost to a dangerous sensitive 
 ness. 
 
 So regular, as I have said, was the succession of the 
 bearers of this name, that the university would have felt 
 a certain incompleteness without one or more of them in 
 its catalogue and on its sacrificial benches. What may 
 have been the origin of the family name, whether it 
 pointed back to a hardier Norseman era, when the smiths 
 of the hammer, the workers in iron and brass, were guilds 
 by themselves, and held in higher repute than in the 
 more refined civilization of to-day, is not our purpose to 
 inquire. Certainly the robust traits which that origin 
 might imply were not lacking in "their joyous gene 
 alogy," as Sterne would call it; for they were a hardy, 
 eupeptic race, with a Norseman s love of exposure and 
 adventure, and an occasional inspired singer among them 
 to illumine their rather dreary sameness of virtues and 
 vices. 
 
 In the small days of the university, when the grim life 
 of the colonies was vexed by French Papists on the one 
 hand, Indian Pagans on the other, and the ambushments 
 of Satan to fill up any gaps of their leaving," to adopt the 
 phrase of a lovingly-remembered professor ; when more 
 than half of the graduates became clergymen, and went 
 forth to fight the barbarous world, the flesh, and the devil 
 
HIS HARVAKD DAYS. 23 
 
 (with a wide generalization sufficient to include Quakers 
 and Anabaptists, as well as the more obvious heathen), 
 there was a goodly crop of Reverends Hammersmith an 
 nually produced, hard-smiting, stern- visaged gentry, who 
 could do a day s farming, lay a stone wall, carry their 
 matchlocks against the Indians, or do the Lord s work, 
 with equal earnestness and success. 
 
 On an ancient commencement, when these reverend gen 
 tlemen had come on horseback, carefully attended, from 
 their distant parishes in the wilderness, you might have 
 seen them walking sedately in small-clothes, ruffs, and 
 steeple-crowned hats, about the open plain, skirted on the 
 east by marshes and ox-pastures, whortleberry-patches 
 and nascent orchards, where is now the campus, with its 
 arching elms and well-ranged quadrangle, flanked with 
 halls. A brother Hammersmith from his Medford farm, 
 or the far-off Thule of Plymouth, or a cousin of different 
 cloth, from the Indian war in Connecticut, draws near ; 
 and these ancient worthies exchange the lusty gossip of 
 the period with a gusto born of family pride, and a sense 
 of their rare meetings. What stalwart figures ! Of what 
 a larger life they seem, as seen through the distorting 
 mists of intervening years ! 
 
 And so down through the history of the universit} , the 
 names and exploits, the professions and the glories, of the 
 Hammersmiths might be gathered, far too numerous for 
 the scope of this chronicle. It was a Hammersmith, in 
 1665, when the only Indian graduate, Cheeshahteaumuck, 
 was about taking his degree, who stepped up and defended 
 him from the insults of the Seldens and Vassals, Boling- 
 brokes and Cokes, and other young aristocrats of the 
 time, who were taunting him with his doubtful parentage. 
 And, as if following out this kindly trait, it was the Rev. 
 Jabez Hammersmith who aided the apostle Eliot and the 
 interpreting Indian in the translation of the Bible into 
 
24 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 the native tongue, and followed the apostle among the 
 Naticks and other tribes in his efforts at Christianity. 
 
 There were strong-limbed, martial Hammersmiths in the 
 Pequot, King Philip s, and French and Indian wars, un 
 doing the works of the Rev. Jabez ; and, by a still more 
 curious inversion, it was a madcap of a Hammersmith, 
 who, many years later, fired, perhaps, by the traditions of 
 his ancestors, was brought before the college government 
 by an indignant Cambridge citizen for appropriating a pair 
 of Indian images from off his manorial gate-posts one 
 cloudy November night. 
 
 There was always a pushing vitality about them, which 
 must find its vent in some way ; if not by the hoarse 
 channel of war, and the thunders of anathema from the 
 pulpit, then by the tamer outlet of mere wantonness. If 
 all the superfluous animal spirits of a race like the Ham 
 mersmiths could only be utilized from }<outh to old age, 
 what an era of improvement might dawn for the world ! 
 
 When that " wicked book," " The Wonders of the 
 Invisible World," by Robert Calef, arrived in the colony 
 from London, and was burned in the college-yard by 
 order of President Mather, the records of the family set 
 forth that there was a young sophomore Hammersmith 
 present at the bonfire, dancing about it in great glee, in 
 company with his fellows, and seeing in it a precedent, 
 and a high one, for the later fires and explosions and 
 effigy-burnings which successive generations of students 
 have maintained in almost unbroken illumination, like the 
 sacred fire of the ancient Roman colonies. 
 
 To advance to later days, you may be sure, that, in the 
 hot times of the Revolution, the Hammersmiths were on 
 hand, and acted their parts with spirit and dignity. 
 
 When the General Court, complaining of the British 
 troops and cannon in Boston, was transferred by the 
 governor s orders to Cambridge, and held its sessions 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 25 
 
 for a period in the college chapel, the student-life was 
 brought into vitalizing nearness to the stirring events of 
 the day ; and when James Otis, himself a graduate of 
 1743, before the opening of the court one morning, deliv 
 ered one of his most impassioned orations, and, turning 
 to the large body of students present, besought them to 
 remember the example of the classic ages which they 
 were then studjing, and, reminding them that their time 
 to do and suffer for their country might come, closed with 
 the watchword, u Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori," 
 there were at least two Hammersmiths in the throng who 
 were fired to a high pitch of patriotism, and rendered 
 good account of themselves in the war which began soon 
 after. They were even then in martial training Major 
 and Orderly Sergeant Hammersmith of the Marti Mercu- 
 curian Band, a company of the most imposing students, 
 with frequent parades, and a banner with the motto 
 " Tarn Marti quam Mercuric." Of all that dazzling 
 squad of young students in blue coats faced with white, 
 nankeen breeches, top-boots, and cocked hats, the major 
 and the orderly sergeant were conspicuous for not only 
 their stalwart figures and soldierly bearing, but a certain 
 seeming scorn of their trappings, which became them 
 well. 
 
 The major, Jacob Hammersmith, accompanied Wash 
 ington through most of his varying campaigns, and was 
 present at the surrender of Yorktown with Rochambeau. 
 The orderly sergeant, Benjamin, lost his life in that 
 gallant charge at Stony Point in 1779, under "Mad 
 Anthony," where the troops advanced up a steep hill in 
 double column, officers at the head, with fixed bayonets, 
 without firing a shot. It was a grandson of the latter, 
 Col. Rupert Hammersmith, that led the famous charge at 
 Buena Vista, seventy years later, which routed the Mexi 
 can Lancers, and turned the tide of battle in our favor. I 
 
26 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 have it from fellow-officers of his on the battle-field, that 
 when he lifted his hat, and shouted, " Charge, gentlemen, 
 charge ! " as though he were leading the company of De 
 Champernoun into France, the troops seemed inspired by 
 his noble command, and swept down the hill, and over the 
 Mexicans as though they were field-mice. 
 
 When the President of the United States, Monroe, 
 visited the university in 1817 ; when Lafayette, in his 
 triumphal tour of 1824, came to receive the plaudits and 
 the honors of college government and students alike ; and 
 later, in 1833, when President Jackson was welcomed to 
 Cambridge, you may be sure, that, among the officers 
 and privates of the smart Harvard Washington Corps 
 which did escort-duty on those occasions, the distinguished 
 visitors eyes were attracted by the soldierly figures of the 
 Hammersmith family, and that at least the hard-featured 
 hero of New Orleans made favorable comment on their 
 martial bearing. It was a Hammersmith, indeed, who 
 was called up and complimented by President Monroe, 
 together with the commander of the corps, who was 
 offered a position at West Point if he would choose to 
 accept it. 
 
 The records of the family do not show it, but I have it 
 from a trustworthy source (the son of the college janitor 
 of the day) , that the student-marshal who stepped from 
 the ranks of the procession to offer an umbrella to the 
 venerable Lafayette, as a protection against the August 
 sun, was a Hammersmith, father or uncle of that Rupert 
 who distinguished himself at Buena Vista. We all know 
 that the genial old marquis turned to him, and said, 
 " Thank you, young gentleman ; but I love the sun in all 
 its warmth and all its brightness." 
 
 If we were to give a list, however, of all the exploits 
 of the undergraduate Hammersmith family, all the college 
 societies to which they belonged, and sports which they 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 27 
 
 patronized, as well as the literary honors which from time 
 to time were hung upon the family-tree, we should be not 
 only overstepping our limits, but taking the wind out of 
 the sails of our hero, whose career is to follow. Suffice it, 
 chat in all the forrays and larks of student-life, the hazings, 
 the rebellions, the sign-filchings, the paintings of obnox 
 ious tutors doors, the stealing of college Bibles from the 
 chapel, attacks on -recognized institutions like the clock 
 and the bell, burning of effigies, and blowing up of build 
 ings, (innocent sports these !) the daring Hammersmiths 
 could always be counted on to lend a hand, and generally, 
 if it must be confessed, to bear the brunt of the affair. 
 In all the societies, be they sporting, convivial, dra 
 matic, nautical, musical, military, purely literary, or 
 purely religious, Marti-Mercurian, Med. Fac., Lazy Club, 
 Navy, Washington Corps, Hermetick, AxQifiohoyovnwoi, 
 Patriotic Association, /Jstavocpayoi, Pierian Sodality, Glee 
 Club, Pudding, Porcellian, Institute of 1770, and the 
 swarm of Greek-letter societies of later days, members 
 of the family were generally found among the most active 
 and ardent of their supporters ; and in the prizes, exhi 
 bitions, and commencements, as well as in that no less 
 important catalogue of the honors bestowed by the votes 
 of the class, the spoils that fell to the Hammersmiths 
 were by no means inconsiderable. 
 
 The dire truth must be stated, however, that of late 
 their literary achievements were yearly growing less and 
 less. Whether the superabundant vitality which had 
 worked itself off in more vigorous ways in early colonial 
 da} s was restive under modern restraints, or that the fam 
 ily was returning to a wild state, like those neglected 
 apple-trees which one sometimes sees in pastures and 
 by-lanes, certain it is that latterly the honor-list of the 
 university held fewer and fewer of the time-hallowed 
 names, and that oftener and oilcncr a Hammersmith was 
 
28 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 called before the dread faculty, charged with some con 
 tinued neglect of duty, or with complicity in some wild 
 midnight escapade. 
 
 It was especially in the second year that this correction 
 was apt to be applied ; and I regret to say that many a 
 Hammersmith had in that year been either temporarily 
 suspended from the university for a certain period, or 
 remanded utterly to the limbo of ordinary citizen-life. So 
 it came about that sophomore year was at length regarded 
 as a sort of Rubicon for the family. Paternal Hammer 
 smiths gave their sons sage advice on entering its danger 
 ous terms, while related Hammersmiths inquired anxiously 
 if Tom or Rupert or Nat had been suspended yet. 
 
 It was looked upon rather as the fulfilment of prophecy 
 than as a novelty, therefore, that, some time before the 
 middle of the present century, the rumor rushed through 
 the far and near branches of the stock, that Mr. Gay ton 
 Hammersmith, sophomore, the youngest son of Mr. 
 Nathaniel Hammersmith of Quincy , the favorite of his 
 class, and first man in their sports, but, alas ! not in their 
 class-rooms, had been expelled from the university. " For 
 continued neglect of the college curriculum, and late dis 
 orderly conduct too marked to be passed over in silence," 
 the note of the president put it ; the said disorderly con 
 duct having been the heading of a crowd which had col 
 lected all the barber-poles and available signs of the town, 
 and burned them en masse in front of the chapel, where, 
 the following morning, the rushing throng of worshippers 
 had to pass through their charred remains. This rumor 
 was confirmed a few days later by the appearance at home 
 of the young man in question, who, for obvious reasons, 
 by the way, had been passing by the significant name of 
 Gay Hammersmith, at Cambridge, for many months past. 
 He invaded placid Quincy with the airs of a conqueror, 
 in most gorgeous raiment, and carried himself as bravely 
 
HIS HAHVAUD DAYS. 29 
 
 as a prince, receiving as so much homage to- his powers 
 the silent stares of his neighbors and townsmen, and the 
 timid wonder of his fair young friends, who thought him 
 " awfully wicked," but still " so fascinating ! " 
 
 The humiliation and disgrace which Mr. Gayton carried 
 off so bravely, and which nobody seemed to hold impor 
 tant, seeing the young gentleman s happ} 7 manner and his 
 father s ready forgiveness (he had been a young Hammer 
 smith once himself) , came with especial heaviness to his 
 elder brother Richard, a senior at the time of the expul 
 sion, and rightly looked upon as the most promising of the 
 family for several generations. As the same stock will 
 produce, now a mighty scholar and now a mighty brawler, 
 now a saint and now one in whom Lavater s " devil- 
 moments " preponderate, there were at the same time in 
 college these two brothers of essentially different tem 
 peraments and tastes, Richard, the scholarly, the re 
 served, the sensitive even to shrinking ; and Gayton, the 
 hilarious, the athletic, the hail-fellow of his class. It was 
 a bitter experience for Richard, this seeing his brother go 
 on from bad to worse in spite of his repeated protests, 
 and finally end his university career so ingloriously : it 
 seemed a blow to his own amour prop re, or at least to his 
 family pride ; and he said afterwards that he felt it had 
 affected his whole after-life, so sensitive he was ! 
 
 Did space allow, we might follow these brothers in their 
 subsequent variant fortunes, and observe how differently 
 the Fates parcelled out their lots. We might follow the 
 younger as he sailed away to China, and chronicle his 
 golden progress in that land of the almond-ej r ed, a 
 golden progress which soon procured him the name of 
 "The Duke" among his friends, from a certain lordly 
 and imperious manner natural to him. We might follow 
 the elder till we found him living hi a mild, ecclesiastical 
 way, as the Rev. Richard Hammersmith, in his little par- 
 
30 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 sonage "Ivy Hill," on the banks of the Hudson, with 
 his wife, his sons Tom and Dick, and his sweet young 
 daughter Mabel. 
 
 If we could linger on this portion of our story, we might, 
 too, dwell for a brief space upon that sad, sad day when 
 Mr. Gay ton arrived from China just in time to have his 
 brother die in his arms, the same arms which had 
 brought him such fame in his athletic college-days, and 
 which now caught up the tall, wasted preacher as if he 
 had been a babe, and bore him about the house from one 
 suniY^ spot to another, until his eyes were closed forever, 
 and his soul was bound on its last brightening journey. 
 We might follow the jovial, sunny-hearted ".Duke," as 
 he strove to comfort the forlorn widow, and bring order 
 out of the business chaos in which her affairs had been 
 left by her husband. We might follow him as he argued 
 and protested, and argued again, in favor of Mr. Tom s 
 being forthwith prepared for the university. 
 
 " It will break my heart to have him go," she had said, 
 shaking her head. But the dear old Gay ton had painted 
 Mr. Tom as a hero, returning every half-year to gladden 
 her eyes and soul with his load of honors ; and she smiled 
 feebly. 
 
 "I shall, at any rate, go and live in Cambridge, and 
 look after him," she continued, yielding a point. But 
 he laughed at the idea of coddling a Hammersmith. 
 
 " Might as well bring up a young eagle on a bottle, } T OU 
 dear, little anxious mamma ! No, no, God bless me ! 
 let him flop about for himself a while. What if he does 
 have a fall or two? I ve watched him: he s the right 
 stuff, madam ; and, on the word of a Hammersmith, he ll 
 go through it all, and come out a man to make your poor 
 broken heart dance, ma am." 
 
 And then, if we were telling the story of }~oung Ham 
 mersmith s "coaching" days, we might follow him for 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 31 
 
 the two and a half years that he was under the hands of 
 Mr. Andrew Pipon (II. U. 185-), a learned young tutor 
 with the self-importance of recent graduation still dewy 
 upon him ; showing how he advanced in amazingly quick 
 fashion through his classics and mathematics and history ; 
 how he rode and swam, and pulled an oar better and better 
 as his strength developed, a fact which pleased his 
 uncle s stout heart even more than his commendable prog 
 ress in his studies, as the cheery " Duke " rushed on from 
 his Boston club now and then, and beamed upon the still 
 life at "Ivy Hill;" how his young soul was fired with 
 the marvellous, and, I must own, rather apocryphal stories 
 poured into his ear by his neighbor Bob Riiddiman, a 
 student at Yale, in recounting the wonderful deeds of him 
 self and his class ; how he thrashed to the bellowing point 
 the hulking son of Mangul Wurzcl, the corner grocer, who 
 had called him a " mammy-dear," or some such obnoxious 
 name, returning with bloody face and torn jacket to burst 
 in upon the sewing-society in full cackle in his mother s 
 drawing-room ; and how his mother alternated between 
 solicitude and a flickering ambition for her boy, whose 
 rapid progress she almost begrudged, as it brought him 
 nearer and nearer the day of separation, the da}^ when 
 he would leave her mild wa} T s, and take his place among 
 those nois} r , important, conceited, "horrid" college-men. 
 But that day at last came. Mr. Andrew Pipon, having 
 exhausted his power of " tutoral glazing," and declaring 
 his pupil amply prepared to pass the severest examination, 
 if only he would have confidence, was dismissed by Mr. 
 Gay ton Hammersmith, who had arrived a few days before. 
 The worthy tutor, not quite so all-knowing as on his arri 
 val, but with fuller purse and figure, left for his mother and 
 sisters in Massachusetts (whom he was largely support 
 ing from his earnings) , with the best of feelings between 
 himself and Tom. 
 
32 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 "Come and see me in Cambridge, won t you, old fel 
 low?" Tom had said, pressing his hand warmly at part 
 ing. Then, suddenly recollecting himself, he had added, 
 u that is, if I pass the confounded old examinations, which 
 I very much doubt." 
 
 And then, with a mixed feeling of confidence and dis 
 may, and with a large part of his technical acquirements, 
 such as the irregular Greek verbs and mathematical for 
 mulae, confided in a small hand to numerous little cards 
 (which he carried about with him, and studied at odd 
 intervals) , young Tom soon after left for Boston, with his 
 uncle, in a rain of mingled tears and blessings from his 
 mother. 
 
 He had turned on leaving. With his arm around her, 
 he said, 
 
 " Don t carry on so, my little mother ! I m not in yet : 
 perhaps I may never be. But, whatever happens, I shall 
 always love you just the same. And you can depend that 
 I will never do any thing unworthy of you or father: 
 can t you?" 
 
 "That I can, my dear boy," she answered, smiling 
 tearfully ; and, with a kiss and a last wave of the hand, he 
 was gone, the boy going forth full of hope to meet the 
 shadowy future ; the mother remaining to live, and brood 
 over the more real past, and to pray for her dear boy ii 
 the new life to which he was rushing so gleefully. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 33 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE INQUISITION OF THE BIG- WIGS. 
 
 "Academic meads trembling with the earthquake of Athenian peripatetics 
 
 pacing up and down." RICHARD OF BURY. 
 " II piu bel fior ne coglie." DELLA CRUSCAN MOTTO. 
 
 IF the merry scene at Parker s had seemed to young 
 Tom a very startling novelty, before which all his 
 previous life sank into the commonplace, his first sight 
 of the noble halls and elm-shadowed vistas of the univer 
 sity was something never to be quite forgotten. 
 
 Mr. Tom had paid but little attention to the uninviting 
 surroundings through which they had been passing he 
 and the "Duke" in a hack, one morning not long 
 after the going-up of the curtain at Parker s ; the uncle, 
 indeed, beginning to think that the youngster was taking 
 it all " deusedly as a matter of course, begad ! " Tom s 
 heart began to beat quickly, however, and he leaned eagerly 
 out of the carriage-window when they came in sight of the 
 solid halls and picturesque grounds of the old university, 
 the Gothic Library ; the massive, granite Boylston Hall, 
 cutting off a view of the quadrangle ; the vistas of arch 
 ing elms and distant halls, whose names even Tom did 
 not yet know ; and scurrying students and slow-pacing 
 professors scattered here and there. The " Duke," tying 
 comfortably in one corner of the hack, was amused at the 
 young fellow s sudden interest, and smiled to think that 
 he had ever felt the same quickening of blood in himself, 
 
34 HA MMERSMITH : 
 
 not many decades ago, at sight of this same brick and 
 mortar and stone. 
 
 If he had scoured both hemispheres since then ; had 
 made his bow in palaces, and been pilloried at great din 
 ners, with a dowager countess on either hand ; had hob 
 nobbed with the great and the blase from China to Peru, 
 and had begun to feel that every thing was a bit stale, 
 he was not displeased to watch the zest of ardent young 
 fellows like Tom, rushing headlong to the great show of 
 life. What confiding young fools they are ! 
 
 A half-hour later they stood in the study of Professor 
 Rajiand Darby, on a retired Cambridge street, presenting 
 a letter of introduction from the late tutor, Mr. Andrew 
 Pipon, which, by the way, as a specimen of pedantic phra 
 seology, might well bear transcript into these pages. 
 
 They were a striking couple, the slim, broad-shoul 
 dered nephew, with a straight-in-the-eye look which caught 
 you at once, and, for one so young, a large share of that 
 shadowy somewhat called a presence, which was sure to 
 announce itself the moment that he entered a room with 
 others ; the uncle, larger of girth than when he climbed 
 the barber-poles some thirty years ago, broad-chested like 
 Tom, and with the rather distinguishing marks of the scar, 
 the close gray mustache and slightly-waving grayish hair, 
 before mentioned. 
 
 "Ah! Mr. Hammersmith and Mr. Hammersmith. I 
 am very happy to meet you. May I not ask? 3*es, it 
 must be ! Mr. Hammersmith, if I am not greatly mis 
 taken, 3 ou left Cambridge just before I entered. Your 
 fame lingered after you, sir," said the professor ; at which 
 the two elders smiled a broad smile, to Tom s wonder. 
 
 " Yes : the air of Cambridge did not agree with me. 
 It has grown much more healthy since then, Tom," said 
 the " Duke," turning to his nephew ; and the " Duke " 
 and the professor went off into a fit of explosive laughter, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 35 
 
 which Tom made his uncle explain the moment they were 
 outside the door, the young innocent ! 
 
 " And so } T OU are coming up to live among us, Mr. 
 Hammersmith? " said the professor, addressing Tom. 
 
 " I can hardly say that as yet, sir: I wish I might! 
 But I am going to try pretty hard," answered Tom. 
 
 "Try, man!" interposed the "Duke." "It s the 
 same thing, or you re no Hammersmith, sir ! Try ! God 
 bless me ! " 
 
 "I m very glad to welcome you, very glad indeed," 
 continued the professor. "You will be pleased to learn 
 that the class this year promises to be exceedingly large. 
 The schools are sending up very large numbers, and, as 
 far as I can hear, of very good material. But it is draw 
 ing near to nine o clock. Shall I accompany you to the 
 university, and introduce you to some of the examiners ? 
 My duties do not carry me there to-day ; but I shall be 
 most happy to do what I can to make the plunge easier 
 to you. Have you been in Cambridge before? No? 
 Well, I hope, Mr. Hammersmith, that you and 3 T our 
 nephew will make my house your headquarters while here, 
 and do me the honor of dining with me to-day." 
 
 And the "Duke" accepted with a courtly bow, and a 
 " Thanks, very much ; " while Tom, as they walked to the 
 college, found himself talking with unusual open-hearted- 
 ness to the professor, to whom he had warmed at once, as 
 he saw the genuine interest with which he had welcomed 
 them, and the s3Tnpatlry with which he entered into his 
 own rather anxious feelings. The appointments of his 
 study, too, a collection of fragrant pipes on the mantel, 
 a gun in a corner, a pair of horns over the door, a mysteri 
 ous black sign with " R. Darby " in white letters on the 
 lintel of the door, and man}^ other cheering, unprofessional 
 marks which caught his eye, told him that here was a 
 man not of the stamp of Mr. Andrew Pipon and the tj pi- 
 
36 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 cal professor, but one in whom he could look for hearty 
 fellow-feeling and an appreciation of the young-man 
 world. 
 
 Would you follow Mr. Tom through the details of his 
 two-days martyrdom? If the familiars of the rack and 
 thumb-screw had your brother in charge, gentle reader ; 
 or your son, my dear madam, were doomed to sit for a 
 period with his precious feet in the stocks (which may 
 the Fates forefend !) would you be present to watch his 
 torture? Well, perhaps you would, with that tender 
 compassion which is one of your sweetest possessions, or 
 perhaps from a spirit of inquisition in another sense, for 
 which man-moralists give you credit. But I like to think 
 that you would prefer to keep out of the way while the 
 screws were turning, and the boards were pressing, and 
 be on hand to receive the poor fellow after it was all over, 
 and cover him with the mantle of } r our sympathy and love. 
 
 Who that has been through it does not remember, as 
 though of yesterday, the restless commingling of candi 
 dates, like a band of wild horses as yet without a leader? 
 The clannish body from the great schools, Exeter, 
 Andover, Dixwell s, Boston and Roxbury Latin, each 
 with petty chiefs of its own, and each destined to strive, 
 in a measure, for the mastery of the class ? the irregulars 
 from distant cities, and private tutors, and from country 
 hamlets, where the departure for Cambridge of the solitary 
 candidate hero of the village Debating Society was 
 the event of the summer, hamlet- shaking ? and Harvard 
 Hall, with its portraits of placid benefactors of the uni 
 versity smiling down upon many a lad floundering in an 
 ebbing flood of classics, and consuming his pencil in 
 despair ; its long rows of tables and benches of symbolic 
 greenness ; an awful knot of professors and big-wigs 
 gathered in the middle, opposite the door; with soft- 
 footed tutors and proctors, quick of eye, and suspicious, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 37 
 
 from recent personal knowledge, patrolling the lines, 
 suave of speech, but, oh! so negative in answer? the 
 various smaller rooms in Harvard and University repeat 
 ing this scene on the second day, the day of the viva voce 
 examinations ? and, giving the throb to all this machin 
 ery, the fervent youth, working as for life at the benches, 
 rushing from one examination to another, or powwowing, 
 Indian fashion, on the small grass-plats by University 
 steps (a favorite railing-point in Hammersmith s day), 
 discussing their papers, their success, their professors, 
 whom they already begin to call " Old Darby," or " Old 
 Brimblecom," or " Old Bone," and beginning even now 
 to crystallize, like all new bodies of men, around certain 
 leaders and oracles ? ah ! how it all comes up before me 
 again these thousands of miles away ! 
 
 They were in the midst of an unusually stiff mathemat 
 ical paper, on the first da}^, when Professor Darby walked 
 quietly to Tom, whom he had seen squirming, and consult 
 ing his hair for some minutes, and asked, 
 
 " Well, sir, how are you getting on $ " 
 
 "Making a pretty bad mess of it, I m afraid. I d 
 give a year s growth to know the answer to No. 8 ! " 
 
 " Yes? Let me see." And glancing at the paper and 
 Tom s manuscript, which was in a bold, large hand, he 
 added, " Well, it is rather a tough one ; but you re coming 
 on all right; don t despair," and walked off towards a 
 sturdy young fellow in 4he corner, whom Tom had noticed 
 as a man of some importance among his fellows. They 
 whispered together ; and the 3 7 oung man looked towards 
 Tom. 
 
 After this paper was over, and as the young men were 
 separating for dinner, Professor Darby appeared at the 
 outer door, and, taking Tom by the arm, approached the 
 young fellow with whom he had whispered, saying, 
 " George, I want to introduce you to Mr. Hammersmith, 
 
38 HAMMERSMITH I 
 
 Mr. Tom Hammersmith. My nephew, George Goldie, 
 Mr. Hammersmith. He s a stranger, George, and I would 
 like you to introduce him among your friends." And the 
 two young fellows, eying each other as though tluyy were 
 selecting members for a crew, shook hands powerfully 
 (after the manner of boating-men) , and walked into each 
 other s acquaintance and tastes, hopes and fears, at once, 
 meanwhile taking their way to the professor s to dinner. 
 
 And the "Duke"? Well, he walked about the old 
 familiar neighborhood during these two days of trial ; he 
 smoked the professor s stud} T full of smoke a dozen times 
 or more ; he waited anxiously for his nephew at the college- 
 doors now and then, and asked Professor Darby again and 
 again, " Gad, I hope the young fellow s going to pass 
 muster, eh? " In fact, old cosmopolitan as he was, and 
 cool philosopher, he was most uncommonly interested on 
 Tom s account, and betrayed his solicitude to an extent 
 for which he severely reprimanded himself when looking 
 in the glass next morning. But the beaming young fellow 
 came up with such a smiling face after every encounter, 
 as the Hammersmith fashion was, after success and 
 defeat alike, that the anxious old boy was confident it 
 would all come out right, and was proud, at any rate, to 
 have such a handsome and resolute young candidate in his 
 charge. 
 
 I suppose that the man waiting to be hung, or the soldier 
 blindfolded standing to be shot, or Miss Arabella waiting 
 to be taken out in the " German," and only a half-hour 
 left, or the lawyer expecting his first brief, or any other 
 anxious person in any expectant mood that you may 
 picture to j^ourself, is in a rather unenviable state of sus 
 pended animation, or of animation so intense as almost 
 to seem breathless. But I doubt if the position of any 
 of them can be compared with that of the young candi 
 date who waited in old University Chapel in Hammer- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 39 
 
 smith s time (it is bisected in two directions now, I hear, 
 and devoted to other use) , and waited and waited till his 
 name was- called by Fate, and he left his friends as 
 others had left him, one by one to meet the dread pres 
 ence in the facult} room, the arsenal of so much direful 
 enginery. Why the names of the freshman candidates 
 were not posted, as abroad, or the papers handed about 
 in a more wholesale way, the aspirant of earlier days 
 wondered in vain, but concluded with imagining that the 
 faculty had prescribed the solitary method as a sort of 
 civilized barbarism, or running of the gauntlet, for the 
 more stoical training of its neophytes. 
 
 " Goldie ! " had been called, " Penhallow ! " and " Free- 
 mantle ! and many others whom Tom did not know 
 personally had been called. Shouts were heard outside, 
 below stairs, as the successful men rushed into the arms 
 of their classmates. And at last, when Tom had nearly 
 twiddled a button off the cushion on which he sat, "Ham 
 mersmith ! was shouted by the proctor at the door ; and 
 Tom scuttled into the faculty room, where the president, 
 JEgidius Dummer, 1 stood holding a paper towards him, 
 
 1 It cannot be too emphatically stated, that the rather nebulous characters of 
 Dummer and other members of the college faculty introduced in these pages are 
 purely imaginary. So true is this, that the biographer of Hammersmith did not 
 even know the name of the honored occupant of the presidential chair at Cam 
 bridge when yEgidius Dummer was first selected for service in Hammersmith s 
 day. A brother alumnus who was captured on his travels by the present chroni 
 cler, and made to wade through a sea of manuscript, whether he would or not, 
 has kindly suggested that a suspicion of caricature might be raised by the rather 
 grotesque name chosen for the head of the university. This note is appended 
 to lay that suspicion. The brazen bull of Phalaris, excommunication by Alma 
 Mater, or any other dire punishment, would be too good a fate for one who 
 could dare to attempt caricature, or direct portraiture from real life, in a place 
 like this. The present writer, at any rate, who retains nothing but the most 
 respectful regard for the gentlemen under whom his youthful days were passed 
 in Cambridge, would prefer that these pages should remain forever unread, 
 rather than that he should be accused of indulging in burlesque of their high 
 offices, than which none can be higher. Why a semi-humorous name was 
 chosen for the head of the university, and why Professor Darby, Dr. Brimble- 
 com, and others were drawn as they have been in the pages which follow, will 
 be evident to any one who considers the needs of a book like this, and who wiL 
 
40 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 and bowing in silence, like the dummy which he was called 
 in nickname. 
 
 Tom took the paper, and waited for the president to 
 say something on his case. As he said nothing, except 
 "Mr. Hammersmith," and continued to bow as before, 
 and as another man was coming up for his papers at the 
 moment, Tom bowed in return, and went out by a side- 
 door, rushing down the stone steps, with papers in hand, 
 but having not the least idea whether he had been admit 
 ted or ignominiou/sly rejected. 
 
 "How is it, Hammersmith?" called Goldie and a 
 dozen others, rushing at him. 
 
 " Haven t the least idea. He never said a word," an 
 swered Tom innocently ; but Goldie tore open his papers 
 and shouted, 
 
 Hurrah ! Admitted without conditions ! Congratu 
 late you, old boy! " And he hugged him with the hug 
 which Tom soon learned was the sign of exceeding great 
 joy at the university, the acme of congratulation. But 
 Tom hardly stopped to receive the hands and the plaudits 
 of his friends, nor to regard more than in passing several 
 woful figures on the outside of the crowd, Brand and 
 Mountfort and Cleland and others, who had come up con 
 fidently to examination year after year, and were every 
 time rejected by discriminating Alma Mater. 
 
 He was rushing headlong to Professor Darby s, to 
 carry the good news to his uncle, when a voice at the 
 college-gate arrested him: "Tom, Tom, where are you 
 going? " and he turned to find the anxious old " Duke " 
 in a hack drawn up outside the college-gate, where he 
 had driven to get tidings as soon as possible. "All 
 right, all right, uncle ! Admitted without conditions ! 
 H-i-g-h ! " shouted Tom, and jumping into the hack, and 
 
 be good enough to follow the course of Dummer and the rest as it coincides with 
 the path of Hammersmith, or runs counter to it, as the case may be. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 41 
 
 ordering the driver to make haste to Professor Darby s, he 
 handed his uncle the papers, and sank on the seat, looking 
 back at ther buildings as they whirled away, with a sort of 
 possessory interest vastly different from the feeling with 
 which he had first approached them. 
 
 How the old gentleman hugged him, and congratulated 
 him, and looked fondly at the young fellow s radiance ! 
 And how the professor s family repeated the operation, 
 with modifications ! for, though we have not mentioned 
 it, there were members of the professor s household from 
 whom to receive the uncle s congratulations in exact kind 
 would hardly have been proper. What a dinner they had 
 that evening, with Goldie, Penhallow, Freemantle, and 
 Arthur Tweedy, the last of whom had shown many polite 
 attentions to Tom during his examinations (" I m a junior 
 now, traditional friend of freshmen, you know," he had 
 remarked to the " Duke," who was thanking him for his 
 kindness) , it does not concern us to describe. 
 
 We may pass over, also, the proud } T oung fellow s tri 
 umphal reception at " Ivy Hill ; " his fond mother s tears, 
 and Mabel s and } T oung Dick s delight ; and how he strut 
 ted about the stables and dog-kennels; patronized his 
 mare and Trim, the lame setter ; looked deprecatingly at 
 his lapstreak in the boathouse ; and altogether bore him 
 self as many a happy, high-spirited lad has carried himself 
 before and since, and will carry himself, let us hope, to 
 the end of time, so long as health and spirits and youthful 
 pride shall be held the good things that they are. 
 
 As his own thoughts and yearnings are carrying him 
 now continually away from his quiet home to idealized 
 Cambridge, and the stirring life awaiting him, we will fol 
 low their direction, and, passing over the few weeks spent 
 at " Ivy Hill," Tom s restless impatience, the notes of 
 preparation, the boxing of choice books and pictures and 
 room-ornaments culled from the widow s none too abun- 
 
42 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 dant store, and the final blessings at parting, meet him 
 returned to the university, and preparing to find his niche 
 in the little world of four-years whirling into which he had 
 been introduced. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A SCRIMMAGE AND A SUDDEN ALLY. 
 
 " Unus homo nobis currendo restituit rern." ENNIUS. 
 " Contending with twith and nail." 
 
 NINIANI WINZET, Booke of four scoir thre questions. 
 
 I SAY, G oldie, are you going into the football match 
 to-morrow ? 
 
 " Of course I am ! So are you, or you re not the fellow 
 I take you for." 
 
 The first speaker, Hammersmith, who had come over 
 from his quarters in Brattle House, was seated in the 
 luxurious window-seat of Goldie s Holworthy room, on 
 the first Sunday of fall term. G oldie himself was lying 
 prone on his sofa, with knees crossed high in air, blowing 
 rings from his pipe towards the ceiling, and tiying to prod 
 them with his right foot as they rose. His chum, Pinck- 
 ney, an open-hearted, somewhat combustible Southerner, 
 was out visiting his new classmates, or promenading the 
 town, or, perhaps, already running his neck into danger 
 from t3Tannical sophomores even thus early in his univer 
 sity life, impetuous fellow as he was. 
 
 It was a peaceful Sunday afternoon. A breeze was 
 just rustling the drooping foliage of the elms, which were 
 casting flickering shadows on the close-cut turf, where the 
 merry al fresco dances of Class Day (not yet become 
 obsolete or unpopular) had so recently been held, radiant 
 with youths and maidens, 
 
 "Dancing neath the checkered shade." 
 
44 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 The chimes on Christ Church were ringing for afternoon 
 service, and their pensive music floated harmoniously into 
 the current of the 3 oung men s thoughts and revery. 
 How many a lad, fresh from a far home, his boyhood 
 behind him, the big future looming before, has sat thus, 
 and listened to the chimes which were sounding this after 
 noon for the new freshmen for the first time ! What are 
 their thoughts ? Are they brave ? Are they despondent ? 
 Do the} 7 think of the mothers and sisters that they have 
 left behind? Do they long for fame, and a great name 
 among men? Or are they content with the present, and 
 resolved, for these happy four years at least, to live and be 
 merry, and let the future take care of itself, as the past 
 has done ? 
 
 " Why, all the fellows are going in," continued Goldie. 
 " Freemantle says it s often the making of a man s uni 
 versity fame ; and he s seen a good many games since 
 he s been at Dixw ell s." 
 
 "Freemantle! Can he kick? He looks too delicate, 
 and weak on his pins," said Tom. 
 
 " Kick ! Why, my dear fellow, guess you haven t seen 
 the game, eh? or heard of it? See that picture? " blow 
 ing a cloud of smoke towards a colored print next his 
 bedroom-door, "The Chicken" and "Yankee Boy" 
 in attitude of defence. Tom nodded. " Are those birds 
 kicking ? Kicking has no more to do with this football 
 game than with the sparring of those bullet-headed fellows 
 yonder ! Do you box ? and Tom was about to answer, 
 wondering what strange rules could govern the football 
 games of the university, when Pinckney entered with a 
 number of freshmen. They were introduced, shook hands 
 warmly, and subsided into easy-chairs and window-seats, 
 
 " Well, George, I ve seen lots of the fellows this after 
 noon," said Pinckney, " they re coming over in crowds 
 from Boston and Brookline and Roxbury ; lucky clogs to 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 45 
 
 be able to spend Sunday at home ! and I think we shall 
 make a pretty good stand to-morrow evening." 
 
 " Are they all going in? " asked Goldie, turning on his 
 elbow towards the new-comers. 
 
 The freshmen present made impressive vows of loyalty, 
 such as " You bet we are ! " " Well, I rather think so ! " 
 .and so on ; and Pinckney continued, 
 
 "Yes, haven t seen a fellow that was chicken-hearted; 
 and a mighty good-sized lot they are ! Oh, yes ! there s 
 one chap What s his name? He rooms in your 
 entiy, Brinton, right across from you." 
 
 "A Breese, you mean? " 
 
 " Yes, Breese. Rural chap, I should say ; strong smell 
 of turnips in the room. A tall, raw-boned fellow, with a 
 fist like a bargeman s. Jove, I thought he d break every 
 bone in my fingers when I shook his ugly flipper just 
 now ! And Pinckney looked at his own white tapering 
 hands sympathetically, and, passing them through his black 
 forelock, added, "Guess he s one of your strait-laced 
 coves, Sunday school, and that sort of thing. He said 
 he had heard that it wasn t a square game, but a fight ; 
 and he should decline to join on principle. Hang his 
 principles ! What we want is muscle. He d make a 
 rattler for a rush !" 
 
 "Can t we secure him? " asked Goldie, with the air of 
 a general about to lose a valuable adjutant. 
 
 " Fraid not ; firm as a rock, I imagine, when he s made 
 up his mind. They say he walked all the way from Ohio 
 here. Pity to waste such leg-muscle, eh?" 
 
 " I know a fellow that knows him," interposed a small 
 man, perhaps not sorry that such a muscleman should 
 be on hand as a possible buckler for himself in the con 
 test. " I ll ask him to speak to him." 
 
 "Of course you re going in," said Pinckney, turning 
 to Hammersmith. 
 
46 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 "When j^ou re in Rome, and so forth," said Tora- 
 u I ve never seen the game, and I don t box ; but I think 
 I can do some pretty tall knocking about." And the 
 men present looked admiringly, and at the same time 
 pityingly, at him. 
 
 Provident fellows ! Every one of them had been postur 
 ing, and hitting from the shoulder, and learning the rudi 
 ments of the manly art, for months now, from various 
 square-visaged gentry in different places, but mostly from 
 "The Chicken," a notorious Boston light-weight, at 
 present a great favorite with university men. In fact, 
 Henchman and some of the fast set had been in the habit 
 of inviting him to Cambridge to little suppers and wines, 
 at which his cropped head and flattened nose made a 
 startling contrast to the modish young students ; and 
 his quick sparring and nimble " fives," when the tables 
 were moved and the gloves put on, were rather too much 
 for the amateurs who stood up against him. 
 
 This practice had come to a sudden end, however, after 
 a peculiarly uproarious -supper at Porter s, a neighbor 
 ing tavern, whence, after a night of carousal and con 
 siderable fist-practice, the company, none too steady in 
 the night-air, descended upon Cambridge, pounded suc 
 cessive remonstrant watchmen in turn, and at last, after 
 a desperate struggle with the united police-force, left 
 " The Chicken," weary with much fighting, but still game, 
 safely jugged, with several of their number, in the town 
 jail. Three of them were suspended next day ; and The 
 Chicken " was a hero in college-circles from that day on. 
 Though shy of Cambridge suppers, proctors, and police, 
 he remained the pet of the fast and the muscular sets, 
 and received full pay from his pupils for the sudden 
 stars that he showed them at his dingy little office adjoin 
 ing Milo s gymnasium in Boston, an office stale with 
 bad tobacco, and hung with flaring pictures of the P. R., 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 47 
 
 grandiose bullies with bulging biceps, standing ever 
 ready to strike, but never striking. 
 
 As all proscribed men, like forbidden fruit, have a pecu 
 liar piquancy, " The Chicken" found himself surfeited 
 with popularity ; and not only undergraduates, but men 
 from the schools, and } r oung lads not coming up for years, 
 buttoned on his gloves, and stood up in his little office to 
 be pounded, and have their eyes opened and shut to the 
 beauties of the manty art. 
 
 So Tom sat now and listened to the talk of The Chick 
 en s " pupils, their descriptions of other games, their sev 
 eral plans and devices for this one in particular ; and, 
 before he left, he had received a fair though quite new 
 idea of the nature of this first inter-class contest. 
 
 Freemantle came in from his room at Morgan s, a 
 fast man of the better sort, if such an expression may be 
 used, rich, handsome, thin, but wiry and muscular, a 
 capital boxer, runner, and fencer, but hardly up to the 
 more sturdy sports. Pie was received with the homage 
 which is generally paid such men by young hero-worship 
 pers ; and sitting down, half on the sofa, half on Groldie s 
 feet, he entered at once into their conversation. 
 
 He had not said five words before Tom recognized his 
 mistake in thinking him ignorant or incapable of the 
 game ; and the skilful way in which he turned their ram 
 bling talk into a business-like discussion of ways and 
 means of organizing their men, and working together for 
 victory, showed the younger fellows that here w r as a man 
 to whom they might look as a leader, and one likely to 
 deserve well of his party. 
 
 More men, freshly arriving, dropped in. The strength 
 and abilities of most of the prominent members of the 
 class were already pretty thoroughly canvassed ; and, 
 when the bell for afternoon chapel rang, the make-up of 
 their party for the great football match was as complete 
 
48 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 as could be expected from the raw recruits under their 
 command. 
 
 Freemantle and Hammersmith went off arm in arm to 
 chapel, which was not yet become the importunate temple 
 of worship that four years compulsory attendance on 
 prayers and sendees contrive to render it in the minds of 
 most undergraduates. And as the reverend preacher rose 
 in his place, and began to read, "I have fought a good 
 fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith," 
 more men than Hammersmith and Freemantle smiled, and 
 looked mischief at each other, and wondered if that grave 
 face and devout manner could shelter a double entendre. 
 
 There was a new choir that da} , and several dainty 
 bonnets in the pews, to which Freemantle had called atten 
 tion when they entered ; so that between all these, and 
 the crowding memories of home, which the place, and the 
 hour, and the parental associations with the preacher s 
 office, called up, I doubt if Mr. Tom could have given so 
 fair a synopsis of the sermon as he had been used to giv 
 ing of his dear father s at home, just before the lamps 
 were brought in, as they sat together in the dusk. His 
 mind was busy with all the teeming thoughts natural to 
 his new departure in life, and especially with the anticipa 
 tion of the great struggle which he had just heard dis 
 cussed, and which was so soon to come off. 
 
 When Miss Darby, and her cousins the Barlows, from 
 Jamaica Plain, drove up in their carriage to the Delta, the 
 following evening, about an hour before sunset, they 
 found that ancient playground scene of so many sports 
 and struggles surrounded on every hand with several 
 rows of carriages and horsemen and pedestrians, gath 
 ered to witness the struggle and scrimmage which went 
 under the name of the football match. 
 
 Cambridge and the neighboring towns and country were 
 
HIS HARVARD t>AYS. 49 
 
 out in full force to see a brother, or a cousin, or a son, 
 rush into somebody s else brother, or cousin, or son, or 
 fall over the ball now and then, or stand up to be knocked 
 down, or perform other brave deeds, for the honor of his 
 class. Small boys, grinning with foreknowledge of the 
 sport, were perched on the posts, or maintained a dubious 
 equilibrium on the upturned angle of the fence-rails. 
 Tutors and proctors, and here and there an old professor 
 with a young heart, mingled in the crowd, and prepared to 
 watch the questionable sport, a sport which was not 
 forbidden by the faculty, to be sure, but regarded rather 
 as the inevitable though degenerate relic of ancient usage, 
 and a not undesirable safety-valve for the semi-hostile 
 feelings of sophomores and freshmen, better worked off 
 in these earlier and less occupied days of the term than 
 later. 
 
 " Why, Ellen, are we late? Oh, dear! we shall have 
 no view at all. What a crowd there is ! " said Miss Bar 
 low, addressing her cousin Miss Darby ; and the young 
 ladies stood up a moment in the open carriage to have a 
 better view. 
 
 " Sit down, won t you! " said the peremptory Ned. 
 " Game hasn t begun. What do you want to stand up 
 for ? Girls are always so curious ! and the young ladies 
 subsided. 
 
 At this juncture the dowager Mrs. Malachite, whose 
 old-fashioned barouche was just inside the Barlows , next 
 the fence, spoke sharply to her coachman ; and the ancient 
 vehicle, with much cramping, and backing, and disturb 
 ance of neighbors, lumbered out, and rolled towards Bos 
 ton. The patient dowager had waited an hour now to see 
 her darling Sam march out to do battle with the freshmen, 
 and she was due at the Minturns , Beacon Street, at eight 
 o clock, for a quiet rubber of whist, the Miniums hav 
 ing returned early from Nahant, on account of the raw 
 
50 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 weather which had set in prematurely on the seashore ; 
 and, " if there was any thing in all the world " that Mrs. 
 Minturn and the dear girls " hated," it was " those awful 
 <;ast winds," which went through their poor pampered 
 bodies like knife-blades. 
 
 So old Mrs. Malachite bowled off to her whist and her 
 dish of tea with the dear Minturns (Mr. Minturn and the 
 late Malachite had been partners in the East-India trade ; 
 and they do say, that, if Malachite had not been so ex 
 peditious in marrying Mrs. Malachite out of hand, Mr. 
 Minturn but that is mere gossip, and does not concern 
 us), Mrs. Malachite, I say, was trundled away to her 
 rubber of whist ; and the Barlows carriage slid quietly up 
 into the vacant place. 
 
 They were so near now, that they could see the fresh 
 men tying in groups under the trees towards the apex of 
 the Delta. Several of their leaders were moving among 
 them, apparently giving advice. If the young ladies had 
 been still nearer, they would have seen several small 
 freshmen sheepishly extracting cotton-wool and old hand 
 kerchiefs, and other such padding, from their boot-legs, 
 and might have heard them chaffing each other on their 
 ignorance of the game and the precise point of attack. 
 But they were not near enough for that, or to see the 
 blanched lips of many of the young fellows, for the first 
 time in their lives brought into such an arena, and feeling 
 that the coming struggle was big with Fate for them. 
 
 They could only pity the raw young fellows in a gen 
 eral way, and look about them at the faces that they 
 knew, in carriages and elsewhere. 
 
 "Why, there s Miss Fayerweather ! I thought she 
 was in Newport," said Miss Barlow. "Who s that on 
 horseback talking to her? " 
 
 " One of the Abbotts, I think," said her sister Madelon. 
 "But, Ellen, as sure as you live, isn t that your father 
 
HIS HAKVABD JDAYS. 51 
 
 leaning against the post ? In a line with that horrid red 
 shawl don t you see? " 
 
 " Red shawl? It certainly is. I thought he had some 
 Latin papers to look over. But what s that noise?" 
 asked Miss Darby. 
 
 " There they come ! " shouted } r oung Barlow, forgetting 
 his awful self in the excitement. "Aren t they a jolly 
 set of coves? " 
 
 As he speaks, a long procession comes in view. Can 
 they be students, these tatterdemalions in old coats and 
 older hats, in winged raggedness both, marching two by 
 two past Holworthy , and singing at the top of their voices 
 some popular college-song, u We won t go home till 
 morning," I think it was ! They file out of the quadran 
 gle, cross the street, and, entering the enclosure by an old 
 gate long since vanished, take up their places by the 
 two spreading trees which formerly stood guard near 
 the broad end of the Delta. 
 
 It is all changed now: the noble Memorial Hall has 
 been flung down into the middle of the Delta ; and the 
 noise of knives and forks in commons, the rounded 
 periods of orators, and the festive music of commence 
 ments, have chased away the echoes of the games and 
 contests of Hammersmith s day. Whether these two 
 trees, the rendezvous in so many different sports of the 
 early times, have given way before the eastern fa$ade of 
 Memorial Hall, I know not, in my exile ; but they spread 
 a welcome shade for the young cricketers and athletes of 
 the da} r s of which I write. And under them now our 
 sophomores have collected, depositing their coats at their 
 bases, and looking across at the band of freshmen. 
 
 The latter have risen, and are bunched near the middle 
 of the Delta. 
 
 " Do you know many of the men?" said Miss Made- 
 Ion, addressing Miss Darby. " What frights those sophs 
 are!" 
 
52 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 " Only my cousin Geor-ge Goldie, a classmate of his 
 named Hammersmith, and one or two others." 
 
 Hammersmith ! One of the Hammersmiths ? Is he 
 nice?" 
 
 " M m I hardly There he is now, looking this 
 way ; " and, as Mr. Tom raised his cap to her, she said, 
 "How do you do, Mr. Hammersmith?" in that bated 
 whisper with which one addresses people rods away, feel 
 ing inexpressibly silly for it afterwards. 
 
 "Yes; and there s George going over towards the 
 sophomores ; and that big fellow has the ball. They re 
 going to begin," she added. 
 
 Miles advances with the ball, Goldie meeting him half 
 way. 
 
 " Heads, or tails?" says Miles, holding a coin in his 
 hand. 
 
 "I ll wait till you flip it up. Heads! " says Goldie, 
 as the coin is in air. 
 
 " Heads it is," answers Miles, picking up the piece, and 
 delivering the ball to Goldie, who returns to his party, 
 now considerably elated at their winning the toss and the 
 send-off. 
 
 Goldie calls about him the Pretorian Band, made up 
 of the largest freshmen and the boxers. 
 
 " Now, fellows, keep close together. Don t strike a 
 man, unless necessary (keep all your strength for rushing 
 the ball through) ; but, if you re struck, give as good as 
 you receive. And you fellows," addressing the crowd 
 in the rear, " don t get excited ! Trip up any fellow rush 
 ing towards goal with the ball ; and, if we here are making 
 headway, press in after us hot and heavy. But leave a 
 dozen men always in the rear. Hammersmith, keep close 
 to us, but don t get into a fight if you can help it." And, 
 turning to the sophomores, he cries out, 
 
 "Warners! " 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 53 
 
 " Take em ! " returns Miles ; and Goldie gives a rapid 
 run for the ball, lying fifty feet ahead of him on the ground, 
 his band following by his side. lie makes a magnificent 
 drive ; and the ball rises over the heads of the advanced 
 sophomores, falling in the midst of the crowd behind. 
 Goldie and his men forge ahead, and, before a return-kick 
 can be given, are well among the sophomores, keeping a 
 sharp lookout on every side. 
 
 The ball comes bounding toward them. Pinckney 
 jumps high for it, catches it, and starts to run toward the 
 enemy s goal. A dozen blows are aimed at him, several 
 of them telling severely ; but he holds on to the ball, Miles 
 and other sophomores closing round him. The pupils of 
 "The Chicken" are working bravely now: but they are 
 on both sides ; and the question is the old Waterloo prob 
 lem, which can "pound the longer, gentlemen." Pinckney 
 catches a stinging blow under his left ear, and turns invol 
 untarily to see his assailant. A small sophomore immedi 
 ately trips him, seizes the ball, and darts obliquely for the 
 front. 
 
 After him ! shouts Goldie ; and as many as can 
 evade the press start in pursuit. Tom happens to be in 
 his path, and throws himself wildly on the runner. They 
 both fall heavily, in a cloud of dust ; but the little man 
 rights himself, and tosses the ball to his friends. 
 
 Several of the freshmen are limping and bloody by this 
 time. Tom has lost half a coat-lapel; Pinckney s left 
 hand is disabled ; Freemantle keeps one eye knowingly 
 closed ; Goldie and the rest of the chiefs are panting hard 
 with the exertion, but rallying boldly after the ball as it 
 goes here and there. 
 
 It is hopeless to expect the rabble of inexperienced lads 
 to stand against the organized sophomores, who have been 
 through the mill before, know each other s strong and 
 weak points, and are to-day c regulars fighting against 
 "raw recruits." 
 
54 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 The freshmen hold out pluckily, however. Stand after 
 stand is made ; roosting urchins on the fence cry out, 
 " Well done, Freshy ! " and bright eyes flash with admira 
 tion, or melt in pity, as Tom s classmates make a good 
 sally, or some unhapp3 r fellow finds himself ploughing 
 through the ground on his nose. 
 
 Tom has a bout with the small sophomore again on the 
 edge of the game, and discovers him to be the same little 
 wretch that had insulted him at Parker s, when a sub- 
 freshman. But they are both novices at pounding ; and 
 after a good deal of squaring about, and truculent regard 
 ing of each other, they are not sorry to see the crowd 
 swaying in their direction, and sweeping over their battle 
 field. 
 
 So the ball and the surging crowds go back and forth ; 
 men are rolled over, and come up the color of mother- 
 earth ; and players on both sides, who have won their 
 local glory at Exeter or Dixwell s, or the other schools, 
 perform prodigies of valor, striving for still wider fame. 
 But slowly and surely the freshmen are driven back 
 towards their goal, contesting every foot. A rush by 
 Miles and his crew, a lively scrimmage under the trees 
 by Professor s Row, and the ball is sent flying over the 
 freshmen s goal, while Miles shouts, " Game ! " 
 
 There are cheers and shouts from the spectators, and 
 many cries of admiration for the freshmen s pluck, 
 " Bravo, freshmen ! better luck next time ! " " Oh, well 
 led, Goldie ! " and so on. The parties change sides, 
 resting a while under the trees at either end. The sopho 
 mores scatter more or less, some of them going out to 
 chat with their friends in the carriages, their chests still 
 heaving a little, but conscious, let us suspect, that their 
 muscles, and their torn clothing, and the "drops of 
 onset," lend a peculiar interest in certain C} T es. 
 
 "How could you trip up that poor little freshman, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 55 
 
 though?" says Miss Fayerweather, beaming from her 
 carnage upon Apple ton, one of the waist oars of the 
 sophomore crew. And Appleton shoots a return-beam, 
 and begins something about " What s a freshman? " when 
 Miles calls, " Warners ! " again ; and he lifts his hat, and 
 runs off. 
 
 Goldie had spoken a few words to his fellows as they 
 lay under the two trees before mentioned, had compli 
 mented them on their pluck, and made some changes in 
 organization. 
 
 44 We are not strong enough in front. Don t you see, 
 we want more driving force? Penhallow, Hammersmith, 
 and some of } ou fellows, keep closer with us, and go in 
 for the rushes. If I shout Go it ! let every man lay to, 
 and do the best boxing that he s capable of. We shall 
 have the wind this time, and we ll give em a closer rub, 
 or my name s not Goldie. What do you say?" And 
 they wagged their heads, and tightened belts, making up 
 their minds to do or die this very afternoon. 
 
 Miles kicks ; and the ball goes skimming over the heads 
 of the freshmen, even farther than at the first kick-off. 
 The very rear-guard made up of the laggards, the timid, 
 and the delicate pick it up, and rush it forward to the 
 van, who have turned to meet it. But the sophomores 
 are upon them, charging with the idea of making short 
 work of this inning, and overturning freshmen right and 
 left as they plunge in. Goldie looks serious. He sees 
 that they are to have rough work, if they would win. 
 He shouts, "Go it! " to his band; and at the signal 
 they square off, and begin to use their fists in earnest, 
 each selecting a foeman worthy of his steel. 
 
 Yes, madam, they begin using their fists, experto crede, 
 on your darling of a Sam, my dear Mrs. Malachite, and 
 on other devoted offspring by his side. I can only hope 
 that j^our Sammy was in the front rank, taking his pound- 
 
56 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 ing like a man. It would be somewhat of a consolation for 
 this chronicler of a bygone savage custom to know, that, 
 if the custom must be sustained, every man was on hand, 
 and doing his share of the hard work. This is a chroni 
 cle, and not a sermon ; and if your Sam came home with 
 a very ensanguined eye that week, my dear madam, and 
 if Hammersmith was its colorist, you must blame neither 
 me nor Hammersmith. I am but the biographer of a 
 brief period of his life : he is merely a follower of your 
 own cherub in his adherence to a time-honored institu 
 tion, " time-hon rd inchtooshon, very long time-hon red 
 inchtooshon," as your son and heir proclaimed it this 
 very evening after the game at a festive little meeting in 
 McGregor s rooms. 
 
 The game goes whirling on. The ball is almost lost 
 sight of for a while, as the leaders of both parties are 
 engaged in single combat, and the rest await the issue. 
 
 Tom had met more than his match this time. When 
 Goldie s signal came, he found himself near the fence, 
 towards the quadrangle ; and, turning to select his man, 
 he ran plump into McGregor, a smallish but long-armed 
 boating-man, who immediately made for him, and put 
 him on his defence. Poor Tom put in practice the few 
 hints on counter and defence that Goldie had given him ; 
 but the science and long arms of the boating-man were 
 too much for him. He received a shivering blow under 
 the chin, staggered a moment, but came up with a good 
 defence and clinched teeth. An old gentleman on the 
 sidewalk leaned over the fence, and shook his cane dep- 
 recatingly, "Why, young men, you re fighting, you re 
 fighting ! and young ladies looking on held their breath 
 to see the way that Tom stood up under the blows, which 
 were coming faster and more effectively as he began to 
 lose his head more and more. He remembered afterward 
 hearing the old gentleman s call, and vowing that he d 
 die game for the old man s edification, at any rate. 
 
HIS HARVAHD _D AYS. 57 
 
 McGregor was not to be stopped longer by this stub 
 born freshman, however, and made a furious rush at him. 
 Tom caught the blow on his right eye, and fell backward 
 heavily just a second too soon ; for Goldie, who had had 
 a drawn battle with Miles not far away, spying Tom s 
 plight, dashed towards him, and sent McGregor reeling 
 in the opposite direction. The crowd now came tearing 
 this way with the ball, and, before Tom and McGregor 
 could rise, had rushed completely over them, leaving 
 freshmen and sophomores piled about them and above 
 them. 
 
 " All right? " asked Goldie, as he pulled Tom from 
 under a wreck of freshmen. 
 
 " Y-e-s, I think so," said Tom, trying his jaw, and 
 blinking with one eye, while he grinned through a dusty 
 stratum. 
 
 " Follow me, then," returned Goldie, plunging like an 
 old war-horse into the thickest of the fight ; and, followed 
 by Tom, he made his way as best he could towards the 
 ball. 
 
 Heavens ! Miles has it ! He has passed the van of the 
 freshmen, and is making with long strides for their goal. 
 Will nobody stop him ? But what is this ? 
 
 From the freshmen s very rear a tall figure, in long, 
 flapping coat, suddenly darts towards the rushing Miles 
 as he is preparing to kick the ball over the goal. He falls 
 upon the very kick, as it were, plucks the ball from him, 
 and dashes forward, Miles striking at him in vain. He 
 dodges men and blows alike ; his men gather in his wake, 
 but he presses on ahead of them all. 
 
 "Who is he?" "Is he a freshman?" "He s the 
 devil!" 
 
 " By Jove, it s Breese," gasps Pinckney, " the fellow 
 that nearly broke my fist. Follow him hurrah ! " And 
 the gallant Pinckney, almost gone with fatigue from his 
 
58 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 rapid work, for he has been everywhere, makes after 
 him with the rest of the freshmen. 
 
 And Breese strides and rolls on through the crowd, as 
 though he were himself india-rubber. Men dart out, and 
 deal him blows ; but he brushes them off with his long, 
 sinewy arms. They trip him up ; but he rolls over and 
 over, and comes up hugging the ball as if it were a pet 
 "principle," or he a kangaroo in flight. The fleetest 
 runners make after him ; but he only shows them his long 
 coat-tails floating horizontally on the breeze. 
 
 "He s down! " 
 
 He surely is ; and a mass of struggling men Miles, 
 Appleton, McGregor, Goldie, and many others are 
 fighting and falling about him. Nobody can see for the 
 dust, and the crowd outside the Delta is filled with excite 
 ment ; for it is the turning-point of the game, as every 
 body can see, and the apparition of the long-skirted one 
 is a novelty in the learned neighborhood. 
 
 Nobody can see and nobody can tell who will emerge 
 with the ball ; but as the struggling and pushing go on, 
 and a dozen men are rolh ng in the dust about Breese, he 
 suddenly extracts himself from the mass, holding the ball, 
 and rushes, with a solitary coat-tail now following him 
 like an exclamation-point, for the sophomore goal. A 
 few men are standing guard, expecting a rush ; but, just 
 before reaching them, he takes a drop-kick, and sends the 
 ball flying far up into the apex of the Delta. 
 
 The freshmen cry, "Game, game!" and run up to 
 congratulate Breese, who does not wait for them ; but, 
 vaulting the fence in an easy manner, makes his way 
 through the carriages, and quietly walks towards the 
 halls. 
 
 "Breese, Breese, come back!" his classmates shout; 
 and Goldie, Pinckney, and others rush after him. 
 
 "For Heaven s sake, come back, man! Where are 
 
HIS HARVARD "DAYS. 59 
 
 you going? You ve saved our side, my dear fellow, 
 Aren t you well? " asked Goldie. 
 
 " Perfectly so. I ve had enough, that s all." And no 
 amount of beseeching and complimenting could bring him 
 back. He went off slowly to his rooms, as though return 
 ing from an afternoon constitutional: and the freshmen 
 felt much like the Romans after the battle of the Lake 
 Regillus and the disappearance of the two horsemen ; or 
 as the people of Hadley after the Indian fight, and their 
 deliverance by the nrysterious old man in white hair, sup 
 posed to be a regicide, who fought, and saved them, and 
 vanished into the night. 
 
 The evening light is going fast, however ; and Goldie 
 is calling " Warners ! " again ; for the rubber comes now ; 
 and the freshmen will have ample time after this to discuss 
 their curious victory. 
 
 We need hardly follow them through this last struggle. 
 The game wavered and varied much as before, except that 
 the freshmen had not the endurance of their opponents, 
 and worked with less vim now. The encouragement of 
 their victory, however, was almost a counterpoise for their 
 fatigue ; and they girded themselves for their work with 
 grim determination. 
 
 Only those who have struggled in an up-hill, stubborn 
 game like this for hours, who have felt that they had a 
 furnace for lungs, and a scorching lime-kiln for a throat, 
 but who have yet put all their remaining strength into 
 the last desperate charges, can appreciate the condition 
 in which both sides, and more especially the freshman, 
 are playing this decisive rubber. It is a terrible strain on 
 the heart and the lungs, and a test of the stoutest pluck. 
 
 Only one episode marks the grim monotony of the game 
 now, which is played in almost complete silence. 
 
 The ball flies over the fence, and falls in the street, 
 among a number of carriages drawn up near the Delta. 
 
60 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 Horses snort and prance ; and a half-dozen men of both 
 sides, who have gone over the fence like deer, dash in 
 among them. McGregor has the ball ; but a pair of high- 
 stepping grays, from under whose feet he had pulled it, 
 plunge and rear ; and there is a cry of horror, as Pinck- 
 ney, trying to avoid them, is knocked over, and lies 
 motionless under the forward-wheels of the carriage. 
 There is a rush for him ; and while men of both sides 
 swarm over the fence, and many too inquisitive strangers 
 press around him, Goldie, the glorious, comes vaulting 
 over the rails, and diving through the crowd. 
 
 " For God s sake, give him air, gentlemen ! " he shouts, 
 as he pushes them away, and lifts the flaccid form of his 
 chum. " Pinck, Pinck ! are you hurt? Where is it? 
 Some water, quick, some of you ! " And somebody runs 
 for the quadrangle. 
 
 Pinckney opens his eyes at length, draws a long breath, 
 with wide-opened mouth, and puts his hand to his side. 
 It was a cruel kick in the side, which had knocked the 
 breath out of him for the moment, but has worked no 
 permanent injury. 
 
 " Shall we stop the game? " asked Miles. 
 
 " No, no ! You can go on, can t you, Pinck? " said 
 Goldie. 
 
 " I think so," answered Pinckney; and, straightening 
 himself with an effort, he climbed the fence, and took his 
 position ; while the united classes and the crowds about 
 the Delta joined in a mighty shout, and clapping of hands. 
 
 " Take your kick," called Goldie; and the sophomore 
 kicked off. Pinckney started, as of old, in the direction 
 of the ball, but doubled over as a sharp stitch in his 
 muscles caught him. He walked to the side of the Delta, 
 leaned wearily against a stone post, and saw, with a 
 bitter, sickly feeling, in less than five minutes, the victo 
 rious sophomores driving the ball over the freshman goal. 
 
HIS HARVARD .DAYS. Gl 
 
 Victory had settled with the sophomores, to be sure. 
 But as the conquerors and their not unworthy opponents 
 mingled, and walked towards the quadrangle, and the 
 mass of spectators broke up and molted away, if yon had 
 been among them, you would have heard them declaring 
 that such a well-fought game had never been, in the 
 memory of the oldest graduate. Miles and Goldie, leaders 
 and followers, were complimented on their brilliant play ; 
 and Tom felt that his cup was full when McGregor, who 
 had knocked him down, caught him up as they were near- 
 ing the halls, and extended his hand frankly, saying, 
 
 " How s the eye, Hammersmith? You re the toughest 
 customer, for a novice, that I ever got hold of." And 
 Tom opened a rather unhappy eye for proof, and became a 
 fast friend of his generous antagonist, from that day on. 
 
 So the first rough initiation into his university life had 
 come and gone ; and Tom (who could call this his first 
 initiation without tautology, for he was to have many 
 more), in spite of pounding and bruises, weeping eye, and 
 somewhat of disgust at the rather barbarous pastime, was 
 glad that he had been through it, and felt more of a man 
 than ever in his life before, as he walked to Ms room in 
 the midst of these fellows, who could give and take such 
 severe punishment without wincing. 
 
 Philosophers, and you, gentle readers, may smile ; but 
 such was the fact. I find in Tom s diary, under date of 
 Monday, Sept. 19, 185-, the following entry : 
 
 " Weather fine all day. Recitations not yet under way, except 
 in Latin. Darby is a brick. Took little lesson in boxing in 
 Goldie s room. Football match in evening; great crowd. Bowed 
 to Miss Darbyj had pretty girls with her. We won only one in 
 nings, the second. Breese, queer fellow, ran clear through with 
 ball. Fight with McGregor; knocked down; bad eye. Pinckney 
 kicked by horse. Bloody Monday night ; lots of hazing. [Here 
 occurs a star, referring to a blank page at the end of his book, 
 where he went for space to describe the hazing of that evening. 
 
62 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 We need not follow him now.] Feel more of a man to-night than 
 ever in my life. Began a letter home." 
 
 Of all the ring of spectators that day, who cheered and 
 shouted, held their breath, and laughed at the horizontal 
 coat-tail, there was no one who followed the game in gen 
 eral, and Mr. Tom in particular, with more interest than 
 our friend the "Duke," sitting in a drag with his old 
 classmate Shaw, who was just home from a two-years 
 absence, hunting in South Africa. 
 
 He had settled himself in his club dreary and de 
 serted enough at this time of year for an afternoon of 
 letter- writing, where Shaw had caught him, and whence 
 he had whisked him out to Cambridge to renew his youth 
 (if the young old boy could be said to need such a reno 
 vation) by a look at the match. They were late, and 
 drew up near the corner of Quincy and Cambridge Streets, 
 just in time to see Tom squaring off in his fatal bout with 
 McGregor. 
 
 "Good gad! there s my youngster at it, like a pile- 
 driver ! Whew ! he s down ! Can t you drive a little 
 nearer, Shaw?" And the anxious uncle stood up in his 
 place, and almost lost his balance, as the tandem wound 
 about to a nearer point of view. "Ah! he s up again, 
 grinning like^a Cheshire cat. There he goes ! " And he 
 rattled on thus about his beloved charge, while Shaw kept 
 his restless horses in control. 
 
 He had followed the fluctuating game with the most 
 absorbed interest, giving a long, old-fashioned cheer when 
 the freshmen had won, and following Tom with his eyes 
 everywhere. He saw Tom rendering a good account qf 
 himself in the rushes and struggles and set-tos and he 
 smiled as he thought that he was bringing no disgrace 
 on the stout old Hammersmith name by skulking, or 
 hanging back, or avoiding his share of the fight. He had 
 
HIS HARVARD PAYS. 63 
 
 laughed till the scar on his forehead grew red as fire, 
 when he saw the widowed coat-skirt of Breese floating 
 behind him in his flight. He had stood up again with 
 many " Good gad, sirs!" when Pinckney was knocked 
 over, and the crowd had gathered about him. 
 
 But when the game was over, and the men were scat 
 tering, he had lost sight of Tom, and, not finding him at 
 his rooms, had driven back to a late dinner with Shaw ; 
 after which, they dressed, and dropped in, at the end of 
 the evening, at Mrs. Minturn s, disturbing Mrs. Mala 
 chite s quiet tete-a-tete with the host, by delivering to that 
 indefatigable whist-player and indulgent mother the news 
 of her Sam s victory at Cambridge. History does not 
 relate what especial prowess the descendant of a hundred 
 Malachites displayed that day. I fear me, however, that 
 he was dancing wildly in the rear of his party, and shout 
 ing, " At em ! At em ! " But he was small. 
 
64 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WHICH DISCLOSES A MODERN FORUM. 
 
 " Sapientiam sibi adimunt qui sine ullo judicio inventa majorum pi obant et 
 ab allis pecudum more ducuntur." LACTANTIUS. 
 
 " Tonto, sin saber Latin, nunca es gran tonto." SPANISH PROVEBB. 
 
 HOW simple and artless seem those early weeks of 
 freshman life in retrospect ! and yet how grand 
 and world-shaking they were in the minds of the young 
 neophytes ! I doubt if any of the chiefs whom we follow 
 in later life, in church, or state, or social ways (if so be 
 we follow any) , have the satisfying proportions of those 
 earlier captains of our class-room, our sports, and our 
 social world, so roseate is the imagination, so facile the 
 admiration, of youth ! How we looked up to the tremen 
 dous senior walking slowly in deep thought, like the 
 ancient Greek, whose learned men, according to Winckcl- 
 mann, were always slow of gait ! How the insouciance 
 and easy manners of the middle classes, freed from hobble 
 dehoy hood, but not yet feeling the weight of ultimate dig 
 nity, filled us with wonder and admiration! would we 
 ever leave our simple ways behind us, and make so daz 
 zling a picture to others ? And the heroes around whom 
 we began to cluster in our own class, were there ever 
 greater? Brown, who had carried off the honors at Exe 
 ter, and was making faultless recitations, passing perfect 
 examinations in the larger fields of Cambridge letters ; 
 Jones the athlete, who could whirl the hundred-pound 
 clubs as easily as- } T OU or I the fifty, and had been known 
 
HIS HAEVAKD BAYS. 65 
 
 to pull himself up with one hand in the rings three times 
 running, the summa cum laude of biceps exercise ; Rob 
 inson, champion-walker of the class, who had done the 
 distance from the Revere House to Harvard Square in 
 thirty-six minutes by a stop-watch, good square heel- 
 and-toe walking ; and all the other head men, whose brain, 
 muscle, or personal magnetism were carrying them to the 
 front, and enrolling an army of worshippers behind. Ah, 
 how many of them have exchanged sceptres since then ! 
 
 Our modest Tom, even, had had a brief lease of immor 
 tality, and been revered for a season as the coming Greek 
 scholar of his class. His " fit " in that * ancient mummy- 
 bandage " had been quite perfect, thanks to Mr. Andrew 
 Pipon. He had passed a very fair examination in it at 
 entrance ; and when, some three weeks after the beginning 
 of fall term, it was learned that he had received maximum 
 in his first Greek examination, his fame was immediate 
 and vast. Less successful men pointed him out to each 
 other as he walked past their rooms, and wished that they 
 had that fellow s brain ; (the young cannibals !) the most 
 scholarly men of the class received him among them, think 
 ing that they had at least secured a Macsenas, if not an 
 eminent genius ; the Greek professor, even, so it was 
 rumored, had called Tom up, and congratulated him on his 
 success, hoping to hear the " same good report" of him 
 always ; while Mr. Tom carried his chin a little higher, to 
 be sure, but otherwise behaved as though it were a matter 
 of course, the most natural thing in the world, Greek 
 examinations, what were they ! He would stroll in and do 
 his paper as easily as he would write a letter home, and 
 so out again, perennial victor ! 
 
 The instructors under whom Mr. Tom was placed in 
 this first year of his college-career, as they made more 
 impression on his tender life than those of later years, 
 demand a few words. 
 
66 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 Chief among them, in Tom s mind, was the Professo r 
 Darby at whom we have hastily glanced once or twice 
 already. As we shall meet him many times again, please 
 God, we need add little to his sketchy outline in this 
 place, except to say that he was a man in the prime of 
 life, a scholar by instinct and inheritance, and filled with 
 a hearty zest and enthusiasm, which especially endeared 
 him to his young pupils. They sat through his longest 
 lectures on Roman literature, and his most tortuous me 
 diaeval genealogies, because he made every fact a breath 
 ing reality to them. And had they not seen him this 
 very afternoon watching their cricket-game from over the 
 fence, smoking his cigar in contemplative after-dinner 
 content? Hadn t he complimented Clifford on his bril 
 liant bowling, when he passed by the professor in pursuit 
 of the ball ? " Beautifully bowled, Mr. Clifford ! Pretty 
 little corner of the game you make ; you as bowler, and 
 Thorpe at mid- wicket." And weren t they aware that he 
 was present at ever}^ regatta and match, if possible, with 
 his wife and daughter, Miss Ellen, applauding with the 
 most enthusiastic ! Ah ! and how they wished they had 
 him for president, in place of " old Dummer," -ZEgidius 
 Dummer, faugh ! In fact, he was the most popular, 
 because the most natural and hearty, of the professors of 
 Tom s day; and "the fellows" would as soon have 
 thought of blowing up their grandmothers as of making a 
 disturbance in his class-room. The " Old Darby " which 
 they called him was a sign of the most devoted affection, 
 far different from the feeling covered by " Old Dummer," 
 or " Old Wizzen," or " Old Bone." Easy popularity, if 
 all instructors were only gentlemen, and could treat their 
 charges as though they were flesh and blood, and not 
 anatomist s specimens. 
 
 Tutor Bone, Philander Bone, head scholar of his 
 class, now several } T ears graduated, at present instructor 
 
HIS HARVARD PAYS. 67 
 
 in physics, and lecturer on chemical analysis, was at the 
 antipodes from Professor Darby in point of personal 
 popularity^ If he had applied at the State Department 
 for a passport to foreign parts, a thing which his ardent 
 patriotism, and his hatred of the " effete civilizations of 
 Europe," would never allow, his description therein 
 would have read somewhat as follows : " Philander Bone, 
 tutor of youth, age twenty-seven, height five feet ten 
 inches, weight one hundred and thirty-two pounds, eyes 
 blue, hair yellow, figure very spare, no visible hair on the 
 face, uses glasses, has a slight lisp." His head was 
 enormously developed, his ears standing almost at right 
 angles with it ; and when he donned his soft black hat, of 
 a style that he always affected, with all this expansive 
 head-gear he gave one the impression of a porter approach 
 ing, with a mass of baggage on his shoulders. He was a 
 most exemplary man, I doubt not, but quite out of his 
 place as a "tutor of } T outh." He was like Thorcau s 
 heavy-topped men, of ideas instead of legs, a sort of 
 intellectual centipede, that made you crawl all over. 
 Certain am I, that, if Sydney Smith had met him in the 
 streets of Cambridge, he would have buttonholed him, 
 and said in a tragic whisper, " My dear unknown friend, 
 your intellect is indecently exposed. Run as fast as your 
 legs will carry you. Here s a policeman." 
 
 Ranged between these antipodes Darby and Bone 
 were several other instructors of more or less negative 
 characteristics, under whose ministrations Tom and his 
 classmates came. 
 
 Dr. Brimblecom alone stood out among them as an 
 especial friend of the students, a mild-mannered man, 
 whose quiet gaze seemed hardly to comprehend his sur 
 roundings, but whose ample heart had room for the 
 troubles and trials of any or all of the undergraduates 
 who chose to come to him. How many who knew it 
 
68 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 went to him for advice and consolation as a kindly reposi 
 tory for their student griefs ! 
 
 Let me, in this place, distinctly state, however, before 
 proceeding farther, that I do not hope or endeavor, in 
 these pages, to do justice to the great kindness, the self- 
 sacrificing, scholarly lives, of the various members of the 
 faculty of Hammersmith s day. This chronicle can do 
 little more than follow the history of Mr. Tom and his 
 immediate friends, as I find it set down in his journals, 
 and gather it from the young gentleman s lips ; and into 
 it can be introduced only the two or three instructors who 
 had more or less influence on the history in question. 
 
 Let the indulgent reader continue to imagine, therefore, 
 this more sober background of persevering, kind-hearted, 
 often distinguished body of gentlemen, against which the 
 light movements of the young undergraduates stand out 
 in relief; and let me not seem insensible to their larger, 
 more scholarly life, because the limits of this biography 
 do not allow of the introduction of many of their number 
 into its pages. 
 
 There was an ancient superstition, I know not from 
 what dim source, that societies of all kinds were pro 
 hibited in freshman year. Whether it was really derived 
 from the "College Bible," as the rules and regula 
 tions are called, or had as ghostly an origin as the leap 
 of McKean from Hollis to Harvard Hall, or as those fab 
 ulous legends which are retailed for the purpose of making 
 each particular freshman hair to stand on end, is not at 
 this distance known. The veneration usually paid to col 
 lege superstitions, however, of never so recent growth, 
 was accorded to this, as a general thing. 
 
 But there was a clannish spirit, as well as a sprouting 
 genius, in Tom s class, which could not endure the inhibi 
 tory maxim. Tom and his friends had not been many 
 weeks in Cambridge, therefore, before a club was formed 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 69 
 
 "for purposes of mutual improvement, debate, and the 
 learning of parliamentary law," as its preamble set forth 
 rather clmrisily ; the mutual improvement admitting 
 of a wide solution, as Sir Thomas Browne would say, 
 according to the tastes and interpretations of the mem 
 bers, and covering, perhaps, the lessons in manners and 
 customs, the comparative coloring of meerschaums, and 
 the free-and-easy proceedings of their ordinary meetings, 
 as well as matters more purely literary. It was " an awful 
 secret," this club, " expelled, if we are found out," 
 and all that sort of thing ; and after the first meeting in 
 Albemarle s rooms, where the subscribers were heavily 
 sworn to secrecy and k^alty, they went about their col 
 lege-duties burdened with a sense of the fearful risks they 
 ran, and the tremendous effect they were to have in 
 shaping the thought of the age. It was to be no con 
 vivial or wide-ranging society, like many that might be 
 mentioned. Its purpose was plain, its character was to 
 be severe: what other name than " The Forum" could 
 satisfy these classical name-hunters ? 
 
 Albemarle a Boston man of the severely-classical 
 type, cold-blooded, if } r ou will, and conservative, but 
 of keen mind and scholarly tastes was its first presi 
 dent. Goldie, our friend, was secretary. Pinckney, Free- 
 mantle, Hammersmith, Penhallow, and several others, 
 some of whom we have mentioned before, were members. 
 
 Can any thing exceed the gravity and range of the 
 discussions of these young orators ? As nothing but the 
 most substantial of names would satisfy them for the club, 
 so they would endure none but the most ponderous sub 
 jects for debate and oration. There were to be none of 
 your ordinary schoolboy themes: "Which is the better 
 place for a university, city, or country? " and the like, 
 but hcav3 r , solemn queries, which have vexed the tough 
 brains of philosophers and statesmen for centuries, be 
 sides others evolved out of their own intellects. 
 
7 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 It is curious to follow the careers of these ambitious 
 young debaters among whom Mr. Tom first tried his 
 teeth on the tough nuts of philosophy and politics. 
 Time, alas ! has dealt roughly with some. Many of those 
 young forms that stood up so proudly in debate have 
 marched with prouder grandeur to meet the stern argu 
 ment of war. Many have gone down in nameless strug 
 gles. Some have been lost in the great rabble of life, 
 jostling and pushing towards what? Some have risen 
 to eminence ; others are known in both hemispheres. A 
 few pass each other with a cold nod ; still fewer retain the 
 fire and zest of those early days. 
 
 And their callow arguments and opinions, where are 
 they? Here is Wasson, who was the dainty aristocrat and 
 conservative politician of the day and " The Forum," who 
 made ringing speeches about this being a " white man s 
 government," and advocated sending the negroes back to 
 Liberia (" Yes, sir ; every mother s son of them," he had 
 shouted in his peroration, for which he was called to order 
 by the chairman, " Gushing s Manual " under his thumb) , 
 Wasson, I say, who joined the John Brown party in 
 Kansas, and fell by the rifle of a border-ruffian near Ossa- 
 wattomie. Here is Lytton, who maintained that poetry 
 was the true lever of society, and inveighed for above an 
 hour, at a protracted meeting, against materialism and its 
 encroachments, Lytton, who presides at the best-laid 
 table in New York, is vice-president of the Four-in-hand 
 Club, and has several material sons, who are diving deep 
 into his money-chest for their quite material luxuries. 
 And Freemantle and Goldie and Hammersmith, and the 
 rest? We shall see more of them before we are through. 
 
 Small wonder if " The Forum," with its weekly meet 
 ings, and its cudgelling of knotty arguments, came, after 
 a while, to be regarded as rather a sombre institution, and 
 if its members were just a trifle sated with the heavy fare 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 71 
 
 served up to them every sennight. Like so many institu 
 tions, however, which do not know how to die gracefully, 
 it continued to drag on an enfeebled existence, and was in 
 a fair way to adjourn sine die, when an event occurred 
 which put a new life into it, or, at least, stirred its dying 
 ashes a bit. 
 
 Breese s novel appearance at the football game, his 
 kangaroo race, his victory, and stout refusal to join in the 
 concluding part of the game, had naturally been the sub 
 ject of much comment among his classmates. Men asked 
 each other who he was, where he was from, what sort of 
 a fellow he was, and where he lived in college, and specu 
 lated as to what he could mean by such odd behavior as 
 leaving them in the lurch in that way. The college cata 
 logue gave them answers to some of their questions : 
 " John Breese, Cincinnati, O., Graduates Hall, No. 18. " 
 But whatever pique or disgust they might feel at his 
 strange conduct was stilled by the consideration, that 
 but for his charge, strange as it was, and with so strange 
 a sequel, they would have won absolutely no glory in the 
 game in question ; so that Breese became, in a sense, 
 master of the field, and kept his own counsel. 
 
 He was known to live in Graduates Hall. Men had 
 been to his rooms, and reported their plain furniture and 
 scanty array of books ; both furniture and books of rather 
 an heroic type, as the simple iron bed, and the Marcus 
 Aurelius, Epictetus, Carlyle, Emerson, and other well- 
 thumbed books, showed. He was known to be making 
 brilliant recitations, his attendance at chapel was as regu 
 lar as the tolling of the bell ; but he was seldom seen 
 walking or talking with his classmates. He took long 
 constitutionals by himself, flourishing a stout walking-stick 
 of knotty oak ; and it was when returning from one of 
 these that he met Hammersmith near Fresh Pond, coming 
 across from Belmont by the railway. The men were, of 
 
72 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 course known to each other by name long before this ; and 
 though Breese put on a little more steam, and lengthened 
 his pace for Cambridge, Tom overhauled him with a 
 cheery, " How are } T OU, Breese? Stretching your legs a 
 bit, eh? I ll walk in with you, if you don t mind." And 
 the two came in side by side to Harvard Square, much to 
 the wonder of some of Tom s friends, who were going in 
 to afternoon recitation. 
 
 That evening the following conversation took place in 
 Hammersmith s rooms, where Goldie and Pinckney, and 
 several other men, had " dropped up," as they expressed 
 it, to discuss a hamper just received by Tom from the 
 "Duke." 
 
 "I say, Goldie, think I ve made a find for The 
 Forum, " said Hammersmith. " Whom do you think? " 
 
 " Why, Breese, of course ! Didn t we see you toddling 
 in with him this afternoon, chummy as could be? He s a 
 fine bird for The Forum, eh, Pinck? " 
 
 "I should say so. Agriculture, Mr. President and 
 fellow-Romans, potatoes, onions, turnips fiddlesticks ! " 
 
 "Well, now, don t you be in such a hurry, my dear 
 fellow ! " said Hammersmith. " Have you ever had five 
 words with him, except when he squeezed your fist so? 
 I have ; and I can tell you that he talks like a book, has 
 mighty clean-cut ideas, and isn t afraid to blurt em out. 
 He s a topping good walker, too, by Jove ! My respect 
 for him has increased a hundred per cent since he spurted 
 in from Fresh Pond at such a pace this afternoon." 
 
 " Thought you looked a little blown," chimed in Pinck 
 ney, leaning forward to prod a pickle. 
 
 There was no especial enthusiasm on the subject of 
 Breese manifested ; but, as the host of the evening had 
 made the proposition, it was decided that Tom should be 
 appointed ambassador to negotiate with Breese, and " pro 
 duce either him or his dead body," as somebody proposed 
 by way of codicil. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 73 
 
 The result was, that at the next meeting of "The 
 Forum," which occurred in Tom s own rooms, for the 
 club was nomadic by necessity, Breese appeared, was 
 duly sworn, and continued from that day an active Roman 
 citizen. He had pooh-poohed the idea at first, and even 
 stoutly refused. 
 
 "No, no, can t think of it, Hammersmith! You re 
 very kind ; but reaUy I fear it will do me more harm than 
 good." 
 
 What do you mean by that ? asked Tom, with a 
 tinge of honest Roman indignation. 
 
 Breese waited for a moment, looking at Tom the while 
 steadily, from his boots up. Tom felt a bit nervous. 
 Then he said, 
 
 " I ll tell you. I came up here to Cambridge with a 
 definite purpose, and, I flatter myself, with a little enthu 
 siasm and some few ideas of my own. What I fear is 
 that your club will take the enthusiasm clean out of me, 
 and that you fellows will interfere with my settled purpose 
 in coming here." 
 
 Tom didn t understand him at all, but looked out the 
 window for relief; while Breese continued, 
 
 " What do you fellows do in the club ? And what is the 
 curse of this college ? The curse of this place is the lazi 
 ness of many of the best minds in every class ; or, perhaps, 
 I should say their lack of interest in the curriculum, which 
 everybody knows is narrow and old-fashioned enough ! 
 As to what } ou fellows in the club do, of course I can 
 only judge from what you tell me ; but I should imagine 
 tluit most of you don t know what you are talking about, 
 and the rest don t even know what they came up for." 
 
 Tom took this for almost a personal insult. He was not 
 used to plain, unvarnished truths. He rose, bowed sightly 
 and stiffly, and said, 
 
 "I m sure, Mr. Breese, I beg pardon for inviting you to 
 
74 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 join such a worthless set of fellows. I thought we knew 
 pretty well what we were after, and were aiming for it. 
 But as you say we don t, why, I suppose " 
 
 "Sit down, sit down, Hammersmith! I shall not 
 allow you to leave me in this way. And I really, on second 
 thought, shall be glad to join you, if you will take such 
 an out-and-out truth- teller as I am, and on the condition 
 that you will try to give up the grandiose style of debate 
 and oration, in which I should infer that you must have 
 been indulging, and descend to things that we all know 
 and can talk about. If there s any one thing settled in 
 this age, it is, that, when a man has any thing to say, he 
 can say it plainly, effectively, without need of flourish. 
 But all the genius in the world can t put a soul under the 
 ribs of borrowed thinking, or make of parrot-speaking 
 any thing but a travesty." 
 
 They talked a while longer on this theme, Breese warm 
 ing to his work, and striding up and down the room as he 
 spoke. And Tom, thinking him at first a most deusedly- 
 conceitcd fellow (to put his own thoughts into words), 
 came gradually to see a good deal of sense, and what 
 struck Tom as originality, in Breese s way of looking at 
 things. That he was earnest, and had ideas, there could 
 be no doubt. 
 
 The first meeting that he attended was rendered a trifle 
 constrained by the knowledge of Breese s peculiar esti 
 mate of the Roman citizens, which Hammersmith, as 
 faithful envoy-extraordinary, had reported. Breese sat in 
 the corner, with eyes half closed, the entire evening, never 
 speaking, never changing a muscle. The aroused intellect 
 of The Forum was struggling with the question : Did 
 the climate of Greece have an appreciable influence on its 
 art and literature ? 
 
 You would have supposed that Breese was drinking 
 in every word of the inspired orators as a draught of 
 
HIS HARVARD I^AYS. 75 
 
 the spiciest originality, so absorbed he appeared while the 
 young fellows laid down their axioms, or set up their men 
 of straw to knock them over. They asked him at the end 
 of the debate if he would not say something ; but he shook 
 his head sadly, as though he were the most ignorant man 
 in the world, saying, " No, thank you : I know very little 
 of the subject under discussion." And Hammersmith, at 
 least, felt that " The Forum " was snubbed. Breese, too, 
 seemed to feel that his words might imply more of a snub 
 than he intended ; for he presently added, 
 
 " If you ve nothing appointed for next meeting, I shall 
 be very happy to give you a little talk, or oration as you 
 perhaps call it ; " and he smiled very pleasantly. 
 
 The offer was accepted ; and a week later the fullest 
 " Forum" of the term convened to listen to Breese, who 
 electrified the astonished assembly by the downright ear 
 nestness and almost savage bluntness of his speech, 
 probably the plainest, most practical speech to which 
 their scholar!} 7 ears had ever been treated in their ambi 
 tious club. Its length prevents its introduction in tin s 
 place ; but its tenor may be gathered from the concluding 
 portion, given below. And, in reading even this small 
 extract, it should be remembered that Breese s youthful 
 harangue was delivered fully twenty years ago, when the 
 university was slumbering peacefully, dreaming of the 
 fair groves of Academe, and not yet roused by the strong 
 hand that guides her to-day. Its rather severe philippic 
 character would be quite out of place under the new 
 regime and the present liberal university curriculum. It 
 is presented as showing the effect that the old order of 
 things in Cambridge had upon a mind of Breese s order. 
 
 " Do you know what I would do," continued Breese, 
 by way of peroration, " if I could hold the reins of 
 power here for a da} r ? 
 
 " I would appoint a professor, and he should be caJled 
 
76 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 the Professor of Vim. He should have mixed literary 
 and social duties ; but, above all, he should have that 
 kindling enthusiasm and sympathy with us fellows, which 
 should enable him to galvanize and fire all the dry life of 
 this place into a blaze. He should be like Richter s ima 
 ginary tutor from Hesperus, of irrevocable strictness and 
 order, sincere friendship, good fellowship, and persuasive 
 ness. We may think involuntarily of one or two such 
 among our professors, as I quote. He should be able to 
 receive the ardor and emulation and scholarly zeal of the 
 young men, as they come crowding up here fronr the 
 schools, and lead them to still more glowing heights, 
 kindling them with fires of his own which would outlive 
 himself. He should persuade us that sports are good (an 
 easy persuasion), that studies are good, that culture is 
 good, but that the perfect citizen, with nerves and mus 
 cles of steel, a mind equipped and trained for every erner- 
 genc} r , and a spirit informed with the past, and alive to 
 the present and the future, is the highest product which 
 the republic asks of the university in these degenerate 
 days. 
 
 " Why shouldn t this professor appear, even if he have 
 not the new Vim Professorship ? Why should the chiefcst 
 college rivalry be among boating and sporting men? 
 Why except that their training and contests are pres 
 ent, vital matters, stirring to the blood, while our class 
 rooms seem set up as a sort of exhauster, to drain the sap 
 and life and soul from the nineteenth-century lad, and 
 turn him out a colorless imitation of a Greek or a Roman, 
 whose great men would have shrivelled, like him, under 
 like treatment ? 
 
 "If he should come, this ideal professor or president, 
 I believe we should see a new era in the life of the uni 
 versity : it would be the age of vim. I believe we 
 should see an end of the paralysis of young graduates, 
 
HIS HARVARD D.AYS. 77 
 
 opening their ej es on their own country and times for the 
 first time, the day they are graduated. I believe we 
 should see a new set of leaders spreading among the peo 
 ple of the republic ; or rather, for I will not be extrava 
 gant, I believe we should see the habit of England ap 
 pearing among us, of England, where the highest glory 
 of young men is to be able to serve their country under- 
 standingly. And, finally, I believe we should see all of 
 our idle fellows up here spurred into some sort of enthusi 
 asm, upon however trivial a subject, and this dry-rot of 
 indifference and blase lounging, this century s curse, come 
 to an end. 
 
 " I thank you for your attention." 
 
78 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 "Feelings come and go like light troops following the victory of the present; 
 but principles, like troops of the line, are undisturbed, and stand fast." 
 
 RlCHTEB. 
 
 Mrs. Hammersmith to her Son Tom. 
 
 " IVY HILL," Sunday Afternoon, 
 Jan. 14, 185-. 
 
 MY DARLING BOY, Your letter from Milton, dated the 4th 
 of January, came a few days ago. I was very glad to hear that 
 you passed the holidays pleasantly; but you do not know how we 
 all missed you here at Christmas, the first Christmas that you 
 have ever spent away from me, my dear boy. I do not think I 
 can forgive your friend Penhallow for keeping you away from us. 
 Is he a very nice young man, that you like him so much? 
 
 ... I suppose your studies do not let you go into Boston very 
 often : I remember your father used to say that it was only a fast 
 kind of men who were always going over to Boston, running away 
 from their recitations, and often spending a large part of their 
 nights there. But I will not put such thoughts into your head. 
 I have no doubt there are bad men in your class, like all others ; 
 but I trust and believe that you have nothing to do with them, 
 but cleave only to the good young men who will keep your feet in 
 the right way. 
 
 Now, I have been " lecturing " you, haven t I? Your next letter 
 will tell me so, and that you are " all right," as you always do, and 
 will beg me not to " worry." I try not to ; but what else have I to 
 do but live for you and the children? And how can I help being 
 anxious about my great generous Tom, so far away, and in the 
 midst, of so many temptations? But I will try not to "worry" 
 any more. I trust you, Tom. 
 
 There is very little news to send you. We live on in the same 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 79 
 
 quiet way, and the neighborhood is entirely without incident. 
 The Ruddimans were here till Christmas, but are in the city now. 
 The young ladies are very gay, I hear; and Mr. Ruddiman is a 
 good deal worried about Bob, who is living pretty fast at Yale, I 
 fear. So I heard yesterday from Mrs. Schuyler, who was calling: 
 you used to call her the "Grampus," you bad boy! because she 
 blows so, going up stairs. 
 
 I am packing a few things for you, which I shall send very soon, 
 and hope you may enjoy. Mabel promises to write to you before 
 long. She is growing so pretty, and has improved so in her sing 
 ing! Mrs. Schuyler was quite surprised. 
 
 Now good-by for a while, my dear Tom. Write as soon as you 
 can find the time, without neglecting your studies, which I would 
 never have you neglect, except in case of absolute necessity. And 
 never forget that you -are followed, wherever you go, by the prayers 
 arid love of 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 P.S. Mabel and Dick send their love, and thank you ever so 
 much for their lovely presents. 
 
 Mr. Tom Hammersmith to Ids Mother. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, Feb. 3, 185-. 
 
 DEAR MOTHER, Your letter of inquiry about uncle Gayton 
 came to me a week ago, and I should have answered it instanter ; 
 but, fact is, I ve had a little accident. Don t go and worry, now, 
 for I m all right again; or how could I be sitting here writing to 
 you? I had a pretty narrow squeak of it, though, as you ll see 
 when I tell you how it happened. 
 
 It was last Saturday afternoon, and I had been dining at Mrs. 
 Faycrweather s. She s a mighty nice old lady, a little older 
 than you are, and lives out near Mount Auburn. Jack Fayer- 
 weathcr is in my class. Well, you see we had finished dinner, and 
 were playing a game of billiards (Jack and I), when Jack proposed 
 that we should go up to Fresh Pond for some skating. So I bor 
 rowed a pair of his brother s skates, rockers they were, and 
 mighty nice, and we started to go. His sister Miss Edith wanted 
 to go, though : so we waited for her, and were driven over in their 
 double sleigh in fine style. She s a mighty pretty girl, no end of 
 accomplishments, and goes out to all the parties in Boston and 
 Cambridge. I m almost scared to talk to her, she is such a friend 
 of the seniors and juniors. But I shall never get on at this rate. 
 
80 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 We fcmnd a lot of follows that we knew, Penhallow and 
 Goldie and Freemantle, and lots of others; and Miss Darby and a 
 pretty Miss Summerdale were with Tweedy, and a young Barlow, 
 some relation to Miss Darby. Jack knew them all, and intro 
 duced me; and I found myself sailing round with them, pretty 
 soon, as chipper as if we had been friends all our lives. The 
 girls about here skate mighty well, most of them; and Mabel 
 would be rather surprised to see them doing the outward roll, 
 cross-cut backwards and forwards, and many things I can hardly 
 do myself. And they have such a nice way of joining hands inside 
 their muffs with a fellow they re skating with: it s mighty nice. 
 
 Well, we d been skating about a good deal, changing our sets 
 now and then, getting very jolly; and as Goldie and most of the 
 college-men were playing a game of hockey, rushing about like 
 mad, and knocking the ball in our way, we went over towards the 
 Belmont side; that s the west but then you don t know it: so it 
 doesn t matter. It was quieter here; only some juniors cutting 
 fancy figures on the ice, figure-eights, circles, initials, and so on: 
 so we had a nice time. We were skating the outward roll back 
 wards and forwards in a quartet, Miss Darby and I backwards, 
 Tweedy and Miss Fayerweather forwards. They re stunning skat 
 ers, these two girls (young ladies, I suppose I ought to begin to 
 say); and we were gliding along beautifully, with such a wide 
 swing! when a small mucker sang out, " Hullo, Mister! ain t safe 
 there!" I can remember just how it sounded, and shall to my 
 dying-day. It was " Mishter " as he said it. And he had no more 
 than got the words out of his mouth, when I felt the ice giving 
 under me. 
 
 I stopped as short as I could. Tweedy pulled back with all his 
 might, and he and Miss Fayerweather didn t go in. But Miss 
 Darby and I had too much momentum ; and, before I knew where 
 I was, I found myself over my head in the coldest water I ever 
 felt in my life, Miss Darby holding on to me, and looking so white 
 and scared. She behaved like a brick, though, or it would have 
 been all over with us in a jiffy. I told her to put her hands on 
 my shoulders, and she did it without a second s hesitation, drop 
 ping her muff in the water; and I went on treading water as well 
 as I could. 
 
 I won t keep you in suspense, though, dear mother, or try to 
 tell you all that I thought of in those few minutes. You may be 
 sure that I thought of you and father, and Mabel and Dick, and 
 about everybody in the world ; but I believe I thought most of 
 
ins HARVARD T)AYS. 81 
 
 saving Miss Darby, and what the fellows would say if I let her 
 drown, and how the dear old professor would be cut up. So I 
 shut my teeth, and settled to it, keeping one arm under Miss Dar 
 by s shoulder, which was trembling and shaking awfully, and 
 striking out with the other for the ice. But it was fearfully brit 
 tle; and I no sooner clutched it than it broke off, and I found 
 myself afloat again. It seemed an age before help came, and I was 
 about used up ; but Freemantle and Goldie, and all the rest, came 
 sweeping down from the ice-houses ; and Tweedy, who had been 
 trying to reach me by lying flat on the ice, and extending his hand, 
 seized one of their boards, ran it out towards me as quick as a 
 flash, and crawled out to help me on. 
 
 " For Heaven s sake hold her up a moment longer, Hammer 
 smith!" he shouted; and, as he spoke, her dear little head came 
 plumping down on my shoulder, eyes closed, and I thought it was 
 all up with her. How we managed to get her out, and how I got 
 out myself, I never knew till afterwards. I heard Tweedy s shout, 
 and after that was only aware of several men jumping into the 
 water by my side, catching us both in their strong arms, and strug 
 gling with us, while a great shouting and hubbub filled my ears. 
 
 The next thing I knew, I opened my eyes on the shore, found 
 several men rubbing me and kneading me like mad, and heard 
 them whispering anxiously, "How is he?" "Is he breathing 
 well?" "Jove, how cold his feet are!" "Pass that towel, 
 Breese ; " and so on. 
 
 "Where is she?" I asked; and, the next thing I knew, I was 
 in my own room in the Brattle House, which was whirling round 
 like a top, a solemn old party holding on to my pulse, and Pen- 
 hallow turning up the gas to throw some light on the doctor s 
 chronometer-hands. 
 
 But I shall be exciting you, my dear mother, and I shall see 
 you popping in at my door some fine day, if I do not hurry to tell 
 you that I am really all right now, and as sound as a trevet. I 
 had a pretty hard time for three days, however ; out of my head 
 now and then, the fellows say, and calling out all night, " Where 
 is she ? where is she ?" The fellows have been regular trumps, 
 sitting by me, and watching with me, day and night, so I hear. 
 And some of the tutors and professors have called to see how I 
 was getting on, Professor Darby, Dr. Brimblecom, and, what 
 cut me up worse, old Philander Bone, the curious duck of whom 
 I ve written to you, and whom I ve done nothing but laugh at in 
 his lecture-room. 
 
82 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 You ask after uncle Gayton. I have seen nothing of him for 
 weeks. He has sent me several nice things during the winter, 
 and used to run out here occasionally. I heard of him in Milton 
 on Christmas, dining at the Cliffords : he was sent for right after 
 dinner, however, and so I didn t see him at the children s party. 
 But I had a note from him, written the very day of my accident, 
 which the fellows kept for me till yesterday, with the rest of my 
 leiters ; and the dear old fellow is in a peck of trouble. He says, 
 " I m in a terrible boggle, my dear Tom; afraid I ve got to run 
 over to China. Long, Shewshong, & Co., who have my name on 
 their paper to a fearful extent, are reported in a very bad way. 
 They write me that the river-war has interfered a great deal with 
 their trade; but they hope to pull through. You can t trust any 
 body in this world, my dear Tom, and I must go and look into this 
 matter. Come and dine with me Tuesday evening, if you can get 
 away; if not, send me any commission you may have for your 
 mother. I shall try to see her before I leave New York. I leave 
 this Wednesday morning. 
 
 " Your matters and your mother s are safe, I am happy to say; 
 and I have asked my lawyers, Brooks and Bates, both Harvard 
 men and good fellows, to honor your drafts to the extent agreed 
 upon between us last year. Try not to overstep that limit ; for I 
 don t know just where I shall bring up. God bless you, dear 
 Tom! " and so on, and so on. Isn t it a wild, sad kind of letter? 
 And now he s gone, and I never saw him, or even sent him a 
 single word. I trust he has called on you ; and yet I can see how 
 anxious he would make you, bringing no report of me. 
 
 The box came safely, and I have been luxuriating in its con 
 tents. Haven t had time to hang the pictures yet, which the fel 
 lows admire very much, especially the pheasants and the stag. 
 Since you ask me, I will say that I might have preferred a red 
 border to my dressing-gown ; but the gray and blue go very well 
 together. Imagine your beloved invalid, arrayed in all its gor- 
 geousness now, sitting in the gilded ruins of his hospital ! 
 
 By-by, now, my dear mother. You have promised not to 
 worry, so you must not, but remember how many kind friends I 
 have about me, and that I am 
 
 Always your loving 
 
 TOM. 
 
 In the long and effusive letter which Tom received in 
 answer to the above, filled with solicitude and advice, and 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 83 
 
 fond, motherly imagining, and which he read hastily one 
 evening after returning from a lark in Boston, none too 
 beneficial to him in his present state of health, was 
 enclosed a girlish note from Mabel, from which we quote. 
 
 HOME, Feb. 17, 185-. 
 In my room. 
 
 MY DEAR, DEAR TOM, ... Such an awful thing has hap 
 pened ! I must tell you of it. Bob Ruddiman has been expelled 
 from college. Just think of it ! And how mortified his mother 
 and father and sisters must be ! He does not seem to care much 
 himself, but came out to his house the other day, with a couple of 
 servants, and opened the house (it has been closed all winter, you 
 know; only old Watson the gardener left in charge of it); and 
 he has several noisy boys staying with him. I don t believe his 
 father knows it ; for they say he was sent here to study. And 
 they ride all over the country all the time, and frighten poor old 
 ladies and little boys by pretending to ride over them ; and I think 
 he is a horrid boy. 
 
 We have not heard just how he came to be expelled; but it was 
 something about a donkey, a poor little innocent donkey ! 
 which these bad boys bought somewhere in New Haven. And 
 they took him into the chapel some way, and tied him by the 
 pulpit, back of some high s.eats, and they left him there till morn 
 ing; and when the boys all came in, and the minister came in, 
 and he saw him, he began to bray (the donkey, I mean) ; and the 
 boys all laughed ; and the minister rebuked them, and told them 
 to go to their rooms ; and they found out that Bob and some other 
 boys had brought the donkey there, and they were all expelled. 
 Wasn t it awful ? But I am more sorry for the poor little donkey. 
 What do you suppose he thought of, all night long, tied up in the 
 dark chapel, with nothing to eat ? I m sure, if / had been in his 
 place, I should have brayed and kicked, and then somebody would 
 come and let me out; wouldn t you, Tom ? I haven t heard what 
 became of the donkey. Do you suppose the president killed him, 
 Tom ? He must have been awfully mad at him. I do not care 
 half so much about the other boys ; but the donkey, I think, had 
 the hardest time of them all. They say he is white : so Bob told 
 Dick. 
 
 I don t ride much now, of course: it s too cold, and there is 
 too much mud and snow: I get my habit all draggled. But last 
 fall I rode almost every afternoon ; for I wanted to ride well by 
 
84 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 Christmas, so as to surprise you : but you never came. But I find 
 I like it a great deal better without the third pommel now, as you 
 said I would ; but I did not feel so secure at first. I keep telling 
 Dick that he turns his toes out too much when he rides. But he 
 always says, "Oh, bother! What do I care for style as long as I 
 can stick on." Isn t he a rude boy ? 
 
 Haven t I told you how I am getting on in my singing ? You 
 do not deserve to know ; for you never write to me now, and I 
 believe you are forgetting all about us. But I am improving very 
 much, so mother says, and I like the Mendelssohn songs so 
 much (oh, dear! is his name spelled right? I always forget), 
 only they are very, very hard to learn; but they are easy when you 
 have learned them. Isn t that funny? I have to get mother to 
 play the accompaniment in these songs, though I play all the rest 
 of my own accompaniments. Mother likes the Scotch songs the 
 best; but I don t, only that lovely one, "And ye shall walk in 
 silk attire." I like that ever so much; but the minor passage is 
 pretty hard for me. 
 
 Now I have come to the end of my paper nearly, and I must go 
 down and practise before supper. It is snowing very hard, and I 
 hope we shall have some good sleighing at last. Dick uses your 
 sled all the time now: he says his is getting too small for him. 
 Mother has told you, probably, that uncle Gayton left for China 
 last week. He staid here only two days; and he s lovely. I like 
 him ever so much. He gave me the sweetest little writing-desk I 
 ever saw, all filled with every thing. I am writing on it; but 
 I shall never write you again unless you answer this. 
 
 Now good-by, my dear Tom, and write soon to 
 
 Your loving sister, 
 
 MABEL. 
 
 P.S. I have been reading this over. I forgot to say that Bob 
 Ruddiman wears a tall black hat now, and carries a little cane, as 
 if he was the biggest man in the world. He talks about the " men 
 of his class" too: so Dick says. Dick is quite disgusted with his 
 airs, and I am too. I hope you do not wear such a horrid big 
 shiny hat, or have such noisy friends as he has. The way they 
 strut into church is something fearful. Trim is well, and sends 
 his love to you. We keep him tied up a good deal now, and he 
 barks whenever I speak to him of you. I think he knows your 
 name. 
 
HIS HARVARD- DAYS. 85 
 
 Mr. Tom Hammersmith to his Sister. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, March 2, 185-. 
 
 MY DEAR LITTLE SISTER, ... I am sorry for Ruddiman ; but, 
 to tell you the truth, I never expected much better things of him. 
 He was always a harum-scarum sort of chap; and old Parallax, 
 his tutor two years ago, told Pipon that Bob led him a dog s life at 
 " Grasmere," and he would be glad to be through his engagement 
 there. Of course there are such kind of fellows in every college, 
 arid we have our share ; but do not imagine that I have much to 
 do with them, or make friends of them. Of course a man has to 
 meet them in class and elsewhere, and must be civil to them; and, 
 if they come to your room and make you a call, what can a man 
 do but trot out a little something, and do the polite? My particu 
 lar friends are, for the most part, I may say, a very steady-going 
 set, and I find many fellows that I cotton to immensely. 
 
 I laughed heartily over your tirade against beavers and canes 
 in general, and Ruddirnaii s in particular. Why, bless your dear 
 little heart! we ve all mounted beavers for nearly two months 
 now, your humble servant among the rest. And as for canes, 
 hardly a man but has a half-dozen or more of all styles, colors, 
 arid weights. Cave canem is the chronic joke; but you won t 
 understand it, of course: ask Dick to translate. I don t go much 
 on canes, however; too much bother; and a man can t get his 
 hands in his pockets so well. 
 
 The Darbys and Fayerweathers, of whom I have written so 
 much, are very kind to me all the time, and it seems as if they 
 could not do enough for me. I go to see them now and then ; but 
 it isn t much fun: there are always several upper-classmen there, 
 and we fellows stand no show yet : next year it may be different ; 
 then we ll see! 
 
 Miss Darby is about again, as usual, but I hardly think is 
 looking as strong as before the accident. You should have seen 
 her the first day that I was allowed to see her after her illness ! 
 I had sent her flowers now and then, as a sort of pleasant duty, 
 and inquired often at the door about her progress. But this day, 
 when I was ushered into the parlor, and saw her propped up on a 
 glorious great sofa, looking very thin and pale, but " too pretty for 
 anything," as you young creatures say, I was almost frightened at 
 the change and at the brilliance of her eyes. I stood like a fool, 
 holding my hat, and bowing, afraid to speak. But she said quietly, 
 "How do you do, Mr. Hammersmith?" putting out her hand ; 
 
8G HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 and I walked across, and took it, and felt like crying, to feel how 
 wasted and crumply it was. But I sat down near her, where I 
 could be in the shadow (the room was quite dark), and found my 
 tongue to say something or other. 
 
 " They say that you have been very good and kind, Mr. Ham 
 mersmith;" and I mumbled, "Oh! it s nothing," or something 
 equally idiotic, with my eyes on the cretonne of the sofa, noti 
 cing the blending of the blue and gray with the gown she wore, 
 and thinking, I remember, how well my new dressing-gown 
 would match the same coloring but I m a fool! 
 
 "I m sorry," she said, " to have been such a great trouble to 
 you and Mr. Goldie, and the rest of your kind friends. They say 
 that you were kindness itself : I can believe it, and I thank you 
 most sincerely. I m sure, that, without you, I should have been 
 drowned." And she looked at me, and I felt as if I had been 
 drowned. And she thanked me for my flowers, and I thanked her 
 for hers; and she said, "Oh, no! they were from mamma." And 
 so we got on to the details of the accident (though I did not tell 
 her every thing), and we were quite merry before I left. And she 
 made me change my seat to where she could see me ; and just then 
 the door-bell rang, and the maid announced, " Mr. Yarnum, Miss 
 Ellen." But she said, "Tell him to excuse me to-day: I m not 
 feeling strong enough." And I could have kissed the maid, or any 
 body; for Yarnum is a swell junior; and here he was, turned out 
 into the cold, and your humble servant snugly ensconced with the 
 princess, for, as I looked at her at the moment, she reminded 
 me of that Peruvian princess called Runtu, "the white of an 
 egg," from the whiteness of her complexion; and I often think of 
 her now as the princess, in consequence. 
 
 But, as I was saying, I don t go there very often, because I m 
 pretty busy in college, and there are generally a good many fel 
 lows coming and going : in fact, the very next time I was calling, 
 I could hardly get a word in edgewise. Tweedy and Freemantle, 
 and that odious little Fennex, were there, with some others; and, 
 instead of talking with the princess, I was put through a chapter 
 of genealogy with an old Mrs. Malafright, or Malachite, or some 
 thing, who had driven out from Boston to call. She s a powerful 
 wagger, and seems to know more of me and my ancestors than I 
 do myself. 
 
 Whatever you do with your singing, my dear Mabel, don t 
 screech! There s a young woman opposite my windows here, that 
 
HIS HABVARD DAYS. 87 
 
 almost drives me wild with her high notes every night. I shall 
 set the police on her soon. It was "Hear me, Norma," for an 
 hour last night, and then a half -hour s practice on the trill, I 
 can hear it yet! Ever your affectionate brother, 
 
 TOM. 
 
 I am afraid that I am always forgetting mother s injunction 
 about using slang words. I have been looking over this letter, 
 and find, that, as usual, a great many have slipped off my pen; but 
 it is a very difficult thing to avoid, the men all talk slang so much, 
 and a man hears it about him continually, from morning till night. 
 Some men affect it more than others ; and I have heard a couple 
 of fellows talking for an hour together in such a jargon that you 
 could not have the least idea what they were talking about, my 
 dear little sweet-singing Mabel. I think you can make out most 
 of my slang in this letter, though. Many men argue that it is so 
 expressive, this slang, that it ought to be generally introduced in 
 society; but I can hardly believe it: it must make a man very 
 poor in speech, by confining him always to a few phrases and 
 words. It s mighty jolly, though. Love to mother and Dick. 
 
 Yours, TCM. 
 
88 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EXHIBITING A LION-HUNTER AND HIS DEN. 
 
 " Hold the cuppc, good fclow, here is thyne and myne." AMDREW BORDK 
 The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, 1500. 
 
 "II faut que tous les sujets soient persuades que vous ne doutez de rien et 
 que rien ne peut vous Conner." FBEDEKIC THE GREAT. 
 
 SUCH letters passed between the anxious, doting 
 mother and the fond sister on one hand, and Mr. Tom, 
 the young debutant, on the other. 
 
 Simple, pathetically simple, loving letters ! There was 
 the mother, following the boy continually with her prayers 
 and hopes, as she had written, and wishing all good things 
 of him ; and little Mabel, who was growing into a fine 
 young maiden, looking upon her brother s life in Cam 
 bridge, and among grand people, as a bit of romance 
 rather than sober reality, a view of his career which 
 that imaginative young gentleman did not fail to increase 
 by adding a certain rosy halo to his account of the men 
 and exploits and new wonders about him. And Mr. Tom ? 
 Well, he was not unmindful of the tender solicitude and 
 anxious pleading of his mother, or insensible to the quiet 
 influence of his fond sister s girlish home-letters. 
 
 If he often read these domestic outpourings somewhat 
 hurriedly, just before running down to see the Varsity come 
 swinging up to the boat-house of an evening, or in the 
 intervals of dressing, or at any odd moments which he 
 could find, he often sat a long while brooding over their 
 affectionate contents alone in his room, with so many 
 
HIS HARVARD J)AYS. 89 
 
 reminders of the dear home about him, calling him back 
 to his early boyish days. And he made many of the best 
 of resolutions, and vowed that he would "cut" this ac 
 quaintance, and cultivate that, attend more systematically 
 to his study-hours (a list of which he had mapped out, and 
 hung conspicuous on his bedroom-door) , try not to smoke 
 too much , and in every way be worthy of himself and the 
 tender souls who expected so much of him, and so confi 
 dently. 
 
 He had not much to reproach himself with, to be sure. 
 Many a young man who had come up as innocent and 
 ingenuous as he had fallen into evil courses long before 
 this, and was drifting where we hope Mr. Tom may never 
 be found. Many who were vastly better prepared, and 
 had eclipsed him earlier in the year, were dropping behind ; 
 and Mr. Tom had discovered that his natural talents were 
 such, that he hardly needed to exert himself to maintain a 
 good average position in the class. But w r as a merely 
 average place all that was expected of him ? And would 
 the fond soul on the banks of the Hudson, or his sainted 
 father if he could return to the scenes of his youthful 
 triumphs, be satisfied with this? 
 
 A truthful biographer is obliged to own that Mr. Tom s 
 maximum examination in Greek in the first term was 
 something not soon repeated in his academical career. It 
 was but a brief lease of fame which that had brought him. 
 The scholarly fraternity which had received him as a new 
 light among them gradually began to shake their heads 
 over him as a doubtful problem. " The Forum," which 
 had been the rallying-point for Mr. Tom and others in 
 their more ardent days, was no longer frequented as 
 before. The Roman people had fled, or returned fewer 
 and fewer as the days went by, shouting the louder as 
 their numbers grew less, like their namesakes of the 
 shabby toga on the modern stage. Breese s philippic had 
 
90 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 called forth several spirited speeches at the next meeting, 
 chief among which was a defence by Pinckney of the 
 world in general as it is, and the maintenance of exist 
 ing institutions. But we can hardly expect to spread the 
 minutes of all their meetings upon these pages, or do 
 more than record its gradual decline, until it expired 
 before "the tremendous coming" (as Leigh Hunt says 
 of DC Stael) of " The Institute of 1770," and other socie 
 ties of succeeding years. 
 
 The last letter from Tom to Mabel, which we have seen, 
 and which put that young girl in quite a " twitter of 
 excitement," with its graphic account of Tom s experi 
 ence in Cambridge, was lying, scarcely dry, on Tom s 
 table. Mabel s ingenuous little letter, with its sprawling, 
 schoolgirl hand, and laborious flourishing of capitals, lay 
 open beside it. The mother s long letter, in which Miss 
 Mabel s had come enclosed, Mr. Tom held in his hand, as 
 he lay stretched on his sofa, winking at the gaslight, and 
 listening to the wind, which went roaring about the Brattle 
 House, tossing a whirl of snow against his window, and 
 then moaning off across the square. He expected no visit 
 ors : it was too wild a night. So hejiad devoted the even 
 ing, as we have seen, to his affectionate little sister, and 
 was lying now in the attitude of meditative Dumas on his 
 Mediterranean yacht, allowing himself to be borne along 
 by white-winged thoughts of his mother and sister, and 
 his boyish ideals, pondering, in a troubled lad s way, on 
 the mixed good and evil of every-day life, as many a 
 3 r oungster has pondered before and since. Is the problem 
 ever quite solved ? 
 
 A soft footstep in the passage, a double knock at his 
 door, with a furious stamping of snowy feet, Tom s 
 4 Come in ! " and a 3 r oung man enters whom Tom has 
 several times met in Cambridge, but who had never before 
 entered his rooms. 
 
HIS HARVARD. DAYS. 91 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Tufton, how do you do? You re very coura 
 geous to-night! " 
 
 " How do, how do, Hammersmith? I confess I d no 
 idea it was snowing and blowing so furiously. My rooms 
 face south, you know. Jove, I was nearly blown off my 
 legs, crossing the square ! Gimlet collided with me, and 
 I thought I had run into the meeting-house. But the old 
 buffer put me on my pins, and strode off to toast his toes 
 in the police-station. You re ve^ snug here, by Jove ! " 
 
 "Yes, rather. Throw off your overcoat, won t you? 
 Put your shoes in here." And Tom unwound from him an 
 immense coat, which reached to his heels, and helped him 
 off with his overshoes, opening to view, when he was thus 
 peeled, a most gorgeous young man in velvet shooting- 
 jacket, with curious linen unconscious of snow-storms, 
 and a waistcoat sporting a marvellous cable watch-chain 
 and bunch of charms, which made music as he stepped 
 across to a lounging-chair, and filled himself a pipe. 
 
 There was a quiet accommodation in his manner which 
 put them both at their ease at once, and might have been 
 prophesied, if one had but known Mr. Tufton s long 
 practice in the graceful art of lounging. 
 
 The young men s conversation, as they sat smoking, 
 and toasting their feet before a glowing fire, is not espe 
 cially worthy of transcript in this place. It was rambling 
 and leisurely, gossipy and merry, turning on Tom s acci 
 dent and convalescence, the chances of the new Varsity 
 crew, with Wayland gone, the glories of the French opera, 
 then performing to crowded houses in Boston, and the 
 thousand and one things that were current about them 
 The object of Mr. Tufton s visit was not made known for 
 a while : he was too skilful a diplomate not to conceal his 
 real intention under a pretence of mere sociability, and 
 anxiety for Tom s state of health, a state of health 
 which all Cambridge knew, and for which they sympathized, 
 
92 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 while admiring his pluck and enviable glory in the Fresh 
 Pond mishap. 
 
 It was only as Tufton was laying aside his pipe, many 
 times refilled during the evening, and was concluding an 
 account of his escapade with some friends behind the 
 scenes at the Boston Theatre, that he said rather casual- 
 
 iy,- 
 
 " Oh ! by the way, I m going to have a little supper in 
 my rooms Friday night. Friend of mine from New York 
 is on, and I want to introduce him to some of the men. 
 Shall hope to see you, Hammersmith. I ve asked some 
 of your friends, and I think you ll enjoy meeting my 
 friend Crosby. Eight o clock, punc. ; some of the men 
 may want to go off to Boston afterwards. I can depend 
 on you ? 
 
 Tom accepted the invitation with thanks, feeling no 
 little pride at being singled out by Tufton, whose fame as 
 a " gold-bug," and a giver of select little entertainments, 
 was widespread in Cambridge halls. Men had been 
 known, indeed, to resort to many devices and much wily 
 intrigue to get a footing in his comfortable good graces, 
 and a seat at his table. But our friend Tom was spared 
 this devious method. Mr. Tufton was a lion-hunter, and 
 with the profound instinct of that entire social species, 
 which detects the coming roar from afar, he had divined, 
 from various dim prognostics known to the fraternity, and 
 especially from his late heroism with "the ladies," as 
 Mr. Tufton always called the sex, that Mr. Tom was a 
 young lion-cub in leading-strings as yet, whom he would 
 do well to capture for his collection. 
 
 Mr. Tufton was not a member of the university, a grad 
 uate, a man of business, nor yet a candidate from the 
 schools, up studying in Cambridge. He was of that mys 
 terious order of men, who come from nowhere, do nothing, 
 and appear to be going nowhere, a fungus-growth which 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 93 
 
 every university town develops. His money seemed abun 
 dant ; his rooms were gorgeous in a young man s eye ; he 
 gave the most select of suppers ; he dressed faultlessly. 
 
 Legends ran that he had tried several times to enter 
 one class after another ; but, not even his golden key 
 sufficing to open the college oak to him, he was now liv 
 ing on in a princely independence, enjoying the droppings 
 from the sanctuary in the sense of much vicarious educa 
 tion absorbed from his student-guests, and surrounded 
 with the halo of vast success in knowing the world. He 
 was liberal with his money too ; and whether it was a 
 struggling cricket-club, or an impecunious boat-club (both 
 proverbial for being without the sinews of war) , a class 
 subscription, or the lesser demand of a hack for a student- 
 journey into some doubtful limbo, Tuf ton s name was 
 sure to be found on the list, often heading it with a good 
 round sum. 
 
 He distributed invitations to his feasts ; and Sam Mala 
 chite and men of his bibulous kind were captured. He 
 presented a set of oars, the newly invented " spoons," to 
 the Varsity ; and even the great Wayland was brought 
 over. He contributed largely to the assemblies ; and the 
 dancing set, Glidewell, and the rest of the nimble-footed, 
 were his friends, as well as the fair partners with whom 
 he was made acquainted, and whom he whirled rather un 
 steadily over the waxed floor. " Thank you, Mr. Tufton, 
 that was a very nice turn," says a breathless young dancer, 
 subsiding into her seat in a cloud of tulle, but confiding 
 to her neighbor, as he moves away complacently, that he s 
 a " frightful dancer," trod on her feet ever so many times, 
 11 and he guides so poorly ! " 
 
 With such judicious application of coin of the realm, 
 with a careful eye to signs of the social weather, and an 
 instinctive selection of the coming man and the rounds 
 of his ladder, Tufton succeeded in surrounding himself 
 
04 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 with much of the ga} T est and most conspicuous life of the 
 university and the neighborhood, if not the most desirable 
 or refined. But when Boston, where Mr. Tufton spent 
 a large part of his leisure in various ways needless to men 
 tion, latterly under the able leadership of Mr. Sam Mala 
 chite, when Boston asked its usual questions, " Who is 
 he ? Who was his mother ? questioned humanity was 
 obliged to shake its head, dubious. Unless, to be sure, 
 some pampered champion of his were present, like Mr. 
 Sam, to declare that he didn t care, Tufton gave mighty 
 nice suppers, any way, and had lots of money, " rocks," 
 I am afraid Sam would say ; when, of course, the city re 
 signed itself with a sigh. 
 
 Thus mysterious were Tufton s origin, his belongings, 
 his ways of life, except to the happy few ; and so was 
 even the preparation of the marvellous little suppers to 
 which these happy few sat down, and which could hardly 
 have been concocted in the modest cuisine of his board 
 ing-house, that would have been as great a marvel as 
 the celebrated moon-gun of Bergerac s, which shot, killed, 
 plucked, roasted, and seasoned its birds, all at once. Out 
 siders gradually settled into the belief that his suppers 
 were prepared in a neighboring restaurant by a deputation 
 of cooks from Parker s, detailed at enormous expense. 
 Certain it was that various well-known waiters from that 
 popular house were on hand on these occasions, opening 
 iced champagne in the passage- way, coming and going 
 with dishes, ultimately removing the debris, together with 
 the last sleepy reveller, and preparing the rooms for Mr. 
 Tufton s morrow of lounging. 
 
 To come to more personal matters, Mr. Tufton, in 
 manners and dress, was almost faultless, if we may ex 
 cuse an occasional splendor of raiment not very common 
 with him, and a certain restrained care in his conversa 
 tion and mien, which would pass with the more observant 
 
HIS HARVARD "DAYS. 95 
 
 as diplomacy. He had the smooth, broadcloth manners 
 of a practised gambler, never giving away to excitement, 
 and coolly watchful where others have lost their heads. 
 No one had ever head him laugh a hearty laugh ; and his 
 ordinary talk was of that subdued, appropriative kind, 
 which so flatters him to whom it is addressed, as though 
 he were hearing things too private for common ears. 
 
 Dominique Busnot, historian of Muley Ismael, records 
 of that monarch, that his prevailing temper might be 
 learned from the color of the garments which he wore, as 
 well as from his complexion. " Green is his darling 
 color, which is a good omen for those that come to him ; 
 but, when he wears yellow, all men quake, and avoid his 
 presence ; for that is the color he puts on when he designs 
 some bloody execution." Tufton was not the fool to 
 show his hand in this autocrat s way: he was not yet 
 monarch, and no man should know what was passing in 
 that cool brain, underneath that carefully-tended blonde 
 hair. So that, although he certainly paid incessant homage 
 to the " clothes-devil," as the old theologians called the 
 toilet, and postured long of a morning before a mirror, 
 swinging above a vast collection of preparative bottles, 
 eau de cologne. Macassar, bear s grease, and the like, 
 the result was quite satisfying. He issued from his dress 
 ing-room, radiant, scrupulously neat, never indicating the 
 last night s carouse by the slightest sign, and dressed in 
 colors so subdued and neutral, that men wondered, when, 
 they knew his ample wardrobe, and his long semi-annual 
 bill at Van Nason s. They wondered, also, at his modest 
 scarfs and pins, when they had been permitted a sight of 
 the marvellous array of neck adornments and curious 
 pins which garnished his toilet-table. 
 
 " Oh ! I bought all those when I was young and green. 
 A gentleman oughtn t to wear flashy things, or too much 
 jewelry," he would say, smiling one of his inexplicable 
 
96 HAMMEHSMITH : 
 
 smiles ; and the young men felt, what a deal of life that 
 mail must have seen ! 
 
 It was such a host as this who came forward to 
 welcome Hammersmith on the Friday night set for the 
 supper, as Mr. Tom was admitted by an elaborate flunky 
 into the brilliantly-lighted rooms. 
 
 " How do, how do, Mr. Hammersmith? You are quite 
 fashionably late." 
 
 " Ah! I m sorry, I" 
 
 " Don t speak of it, don t speak of it ! others to come 
 3*et." And, whispering in Tom s ear, he walked with him 
 to the other end of the room, and introduced him to a 
 rakish young man, with the whitest of complexions and 
 the blackest of mustaches. 
 
 " Crosby, this is my friend Hammersmith. Mr. Ham 
 mersmith, Mr. Crosby. I ve been telling Crosby of your 
 adventure with the ladies, you. sly dog ! " and, whispering 
 the last sentence in Tom s ear, Tufton moved off to 
 receive Varnum and Glidewell, who came in together, leav 
 ing Tom and Crosby to skirmish on over the few topics 
 that they had in common. 
 
 The rooms were tolerably full by this time ; and Tom, 
 looking around him, found that he was in the company of 
 many of the fashionable set, a few of the boating set, 
 several of the very fast set, with but three of his own class, 
 Freemantle, Pinckney, and Penhallow, to whom he 
 nodded with a sense of relief, as they sat or stood here 
 and there, in conversation with upper-classmen, and show 
 ing their new dignity in a certain stiffness of manner un 
 usual to them. For it was the first of Tufton s suppers to 
 which freshmen of this year had been invited ; and the 
 four present knew it, and felt important in consequence. 
 
 There were easy-chairs and sofas on every side, on 
 which resplendent youth were lounging, several of them 
 smoking huge meerschaum pipes absorbedly : they were 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 97 
 
 sophomores, perennial smokers, before, during, after, 
 meals ! And if the racing prints and flashy pictures of 
 ballet-dancers on the walls, and the meagre bookcase next 
 the fireplace, showed Mr. Tufton to be far from a student 
 of high art and profound letters, the general air of rich 
 ness, the cosey window-seats, the pretty jardinieres filled 
 with flowers, and the profusion of red curtains, through a 
 pair of which the lights on the supper-table were just 
 visible, proclaimed him a man of luxurious habits and a 
 graceful knack at arrangement. 
 
 Tom was looking about him, and admiring the rich 
 appointments, the absorbed sophomores pulling at their 
 pipes, and the quaint ornaments of the mantel, when 
 Tufton returned to him, and, taking his arm, introduced 
 him to the men with whom he was unacquainted. Mr. 
 Tom felt queerly when he grasped the hand of Fennex, 
 he of the biggest pipe, who rose, bowed, and shook 
 hands, without a smile ; and was proud when Varnum and 
 Glidewell asked after his health ; and was merry almost, 
 when his own classmates gave him hearty grips, and 
 beamed upon him. 
 
 A waiter enters, and whispers to Tufton, who nods ; 
 and the next instant the red curtains are drawn. Tufton 
 says, 
 
 " Gentlemen, will J T OU walk in? We re all here, I 
 believe. Varnum, will you be so kind as to take the 
 other end of the table ? Crosby, here at my right. 
 Hammersmith, will you sit here?" and he touched the 
 chair on his left. " Sit down anywhere, gentlemen, and 
 make yourselves at home;" and the men, fourteen in 
 number, of all classes, settled into their seats, and squared 
 themselves for the feast. 
 
 It is not my purpose to follow the young gentlemen 
 through the various courses and the increasing merri 
 ment of the supper. Anybody who has sat down at a 
 
98 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 supper like Mr. Tufton s, with a dozen healthy youngsters 
 in the growing time of life, knows what it means. 
 
 You, gentle readers, who do not know it, may better 
 rest in your ignorance, and continue to imagine these 
 feasts a miniature copy of the formal banquets at which 
 3^ou have been sandwiched between these young gentle 
 men in their later years, when their appetites are less, 
 and their cares are more, and they are thinking of that 
 note due to-morrow, and whether Smith will foreclose 
 his mortgage, and how their girls shall be put to school 
 if he does. Alas ! these cares are a woful curtailer of 
 the zests of boyhood ; and the gentleman in white tie by 
 your side, nibbling at a bit of salmon, is not quite the 
 same young party who made such havoc about him at 
 Tufton s on that night and many other nights, more s 
 the pity ! 
 
 Cigars had been brought in ; stories and songs were 
 going about ; Fennex and Malachite were becoming a bit 
 uproarious ; and you could scarcely see across the room 
 for the smoke. Tufton, who smoked but little, though 
 of the best, pushed his chair back, and finally left the 
 table, with a few others, Tom among the number, telling 
 the rest to follow or not as they chose. The old habitues 
 knew his custom, and that he only left because he could 
 not stand the cigar-smoke ; it was quite in rule to remain. 
 But the freshmen, all except Penhallow, who was at the 
 far end of the table, followed their host into the front- 
 room. He dropped the curtains, and, relighting his cigar, 
 sank into an easy-chair near the fire, while the others 
 made themselves at home where they chose. 
 
 "This is liberty hall, Hammersmith: do just as you 
 hang please. I keep my door always open, and some 
 pretty fair cigars and wine ; and I tell my friends, that, if 
 they don t enjoy themselves, it isn t my fault. Eh, 
 Glidewell? You re not smoking, Hammersmith. Pipe, 
 or cigar ?" 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 99 
 
 " Think I ll try a pipe," said the young fool, who had 
 never had a stem in his mouth in his life. 
 
 " There s a favorite brierwood of mine next the clock. 
 No, the other. Sorry my tobacco s so dry: you ll find 
 the best in that jar." 
 
 Mr. Tom made several attempts, and finally got his 
 pipe to go, and then wished he had taken a cigar instead, 
 but held on pluckily, and felt the room go round, till coffee 
 was brought in, and he changed his pipe for a cigar, and 
 .felt better. 
 
 " How s the crew practising, Perkins?" asked the host, 
 after some rambling talk. 
 
 " Oh, fairly ! Dumb-bells and clubs mighty slow work, 
 though, after the river. Robbins is a perfect bulldog for 
 a bow, too. Jove ! how he keeps us at it !" 
 
 "Think Witherspoon will make as good a stroke as 
 Wayland?" asked Freemantle. 
 
 "It s hard to say till we see how we can work with 
 him. He has a quick recover, a very quick recover. We 
 only pulled behind him three or four times last fall, and 
 had pretty hard work to recover with him. Robbins 
 thinks we can pick it up, though. By the way, weren t 
 you in the crew that we nearly swamped that windy day 
 last fall, Hammersmith? " 
 
 " Yes : I was pulling bow for the second crew, and got 
 the tiller-ropes twisted. Robbins steered you away from 
 me beautifully, or our old lap would have had a bump." 
 
 " Are you going into rowing? " asked Tufton. " You 
 pull a very good stroke, Hammersmith." 
 
 "I don t know: I haven t thought much about it," 
 said Tom. " They want me in my class crew ; but I don t 
 know if I can spare the time." 
 
 " What are you going to do? study? " asked Tufton, 
 turning on his elbow, and smiling curiously at Tom. 
 
 "Oh! I don t know: perhaps so, a little," answered 
 
100 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 he, feeling the force of Tufton s sardonic smile, but despis* 
 ing himself the next minute for speaking as he did. 
 
 u Well, that ll do for a while. You ll soon get over it, 
 eh, fellows? They re all taken the same way at first. 
 But I used to see you very often last fall on the river. 
 Where did you learn your stroke? " 
 
 " I picked it up about home, the North River. I used 
 to see the Pinto brothers practising quite often ; and one 
 of em gave me a little coaching last spring." 
 
 " Ah, ha! I thought so. I said to Curtis and several 
 other fellows last fall, the day you came in with Goldie 
 as stroke, that yours was no freshman s stroke," said 
 Tufton, looking admiringly at Tom. 
 
 Tom reddened, and felt the rest looking at him ; and 
 Glide well said he didn t see how men could go on wearing 
 themselves out in boats, and submitting to be bullied by a 
 beastly little bow, and going through the tortures of well, 
 of training, just to win a beastly little pewter cup ; and 
 Perkins asked him if it wasn t about as manly as swelter 
 ing in a ball-room, and dancing yourself black and blue in 
 the face, all for the sake of a beastly little ribbon, or a two- 
 cent star on your coat; and Glidewell said, "Oh, that s 
 different ! " in which nobody denied him ; and Crosby was 
 asked what was the news from New York, and answered 
 that " every thing was lovely," which was received as con 
 clusive : and so these learned young men prattled on, from 
 one light subject to another ; and the party in the supper- 
 room grew more hilarious as their songs grew more numer 
 ous and confused. 
 
 A tremendous crash was heard on a sudden ; and Tufton 
 walked quietly to the curtains, and drew them apart. If 
 there was one thing at which he rebelled, it was a sudden 
 noise. An enemy might say that he was afraid of some 
 thing, say, a sudden grasp of a policeman on the shoulder ; 
 but Tufton said he hated noises worse than the devil, and 
 always had. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 101 
 
 Tom was near the curtains, ami, with reprehensible 
 though quite natural curiosity, stood up by Tufton as he 
 looked in. 
 
 It will not be well for us to look in over Mr. Tom s 
 shoulder at the disgraceful orgy which met his gaze. It 
 will be better to drop the red curtains again, and shut out 
 the scene from your bright eyes, my dear Bulbul, who 
 would be quite horrified at some of the practices of these 
 " sweet " young men that you have met in the gay routs 
 of the neighborhood. 
 
 The declamatory sophomore, standing unsteadily on a 
 chair, and haranguing the chandelier with a maudlin itera 
 tion of Quousque tandem abutere, candelabra, patientia 
 nostra; the scientific senior dropping lighted matches 
 into a half-bottle of wine, and grinning inanely as they 
 were extinguished ; Sam Malachite on his knees with Tuf 
 ton s dog Scamp at the fireplace, trying to force him to 
 swallow an andiron ; the merry junior dancing in a corner, 
 flirting a colored napkin after the manner of a senorita in 
 the bolero, coquetting the while with a door-knob ; the 
 dashing Varnum, prancing about the room with a pair of 
 deer s horns on his head, while Penhallow the deer-slayer, 
 fired with the thought of so much juicy venison escaping 
 him, was bombarding him, through an improvised shoot 
 ing-iron, with French peas and the more deadly ammuni 
 tion of spherical confectionery, till he finally brings him 
 down in a wilderness of plates and dishes by the buffet, 
 causing the crash which brought Tufton to his feet, how 
 the sight of it all sickened young Tom, or would have sick 
 ened him, if its grossness had not shaded so evidently into 
 the comical ! 
 
 And when Malachite, spying Tom by Tufton s side, 
 rushed at him, and dragged him into the room, saluting 
 him as " Ham smith, joll good fell , Ham smith," and 
 making many personal allusions to Hammersmith s college 
 
102 ^ HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 life, Mr. Tom s lip quivered, and a dangerous look came 
 into his eye. But when the young wine-bibber called for 
 a toast, in incoherent phrases that need not be exhibited 
 on this page, and finalty exclaimed, "Oh, here tis! 
 4 Ilam smith, awf 1 swell ! Fresh Pond, awf 1 scrape ! 
 Here tis, feU s, The ladies ! no, that won t do ! -Too 
 many ladies. Too many ladies ain t good ! Here s Miss 
 Miss what s her name, Fennex? Here s Miss Dar " 
 Tom rushed towards him, shouting, " Hold your tongue, 
 will 3 T ou, if you re a gentleman!" and looked as if he 
 would strike him. 
 
 Tufton and others gathered about Malachite, and suc 
 ceeded in pacifying him ; while G-lidewell and several men 
 came in, and begged Tom not to mind him. "He s 
 always going off at half-cock, my dear fellow, and is 
 hardly responsible." 
 
 There is enough of this, and more than enough, to show 
 what manner of man is this my Lord Tufton, and how his 
 little suppers served not only to turn his young guests into 
 riotous livers, but to deliver them over, body and soul, 
 into his gilded net, with its carefully-contrived meshes. 
 No man is so much your master as he who has witnessed 
 your excesses, and pulled you out of your scrapes. Tuf 
 ton knew this ; and his whole policy (for his life, like that 
 of so many others, was a network of policy and diplo- 
 mac} 7 ) was arranged accordingly. 
 
 You may be sure that so skilful a host as Tufton did 
 not allow any temporary ill-feeling engendered by this 
 little contretemps to remain between his two guests, both 
 of whom he thought necessary to his plans ; and that, 
 before the party broke up that evening, all concerned had 
 shaken hands amicably, (what gentleman could withstand 
 Tufton s honeyed appeals?) and only Tufton himself 
 chuckled over it as another move on his board. You 
 cannot be so sure what Mr. Tom s private thoughts were 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 103 
 
 that night, as he shut himself in his room, and looked at 
 his flushed face in the glass. But, if you had been in hi? 
 study when he entered, you would have seen him throw 
 himself after a while on the sofa, from which Tufton had 
 aroused him several nights before, and lie there a long 
 time, staring at the ceiling, till his cold room made him 
 shiver, and he arose, and went to his bedroom. 
 
 How could Hammersmith foresee the result of this first 
 festive evening at Tufton s sumptuous table? How could 
 he prophesy the ultimate effect of Tufton s evident par 
 tiality for him ? What young gentleman can at once com 
 prehend the various moves of a skilful player like my Lord 
 Tuftou? 
 
 Ah, what threads are woven into the substance of a 
 man s life by a careless shuttle, that he would gladly have 
 omitted ! Is it a careless shuttle ? Who shall say ? 
 
104 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IN WHICH HAMMERSMITH QUITS THE VERDANT FIELDS. 
 
 " Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, 
 
 Old Time is still a-flying; 
 And this same flower that smiles to-day 
 To-morrow will be dying." HEKRICK. 
 
 " He said he knew what was what." 
 
 SKELTON, Why come ye not to Courtet 
 
 IE early summer daj T s, nowhere more lovely than in 
 New England, were at hand. The sun, that had so 
 many times looked down through scurrying clouds to see 
 if this bleak corner of the world were ready for summer, 
 seemed satisfied at last, and was calling the timid flowers 
 from their hiding-places all over the dear New-England 
 hills, and rocky pastures, and urban garden-fronts. The 
 ice had long ago left the river, bumping its way seaward 
 through the numerous bridges, the curse of boating-men : 
 even the icy circlets about their lower timbers, which 
 hung in stubborn rings long after the river was free, 
 had vanished before the warm winds blowing over the 
 marshes, and opening the doors of the boat-houses for 
 the first adventurous crews. The treacherous roof of 
 Fresh Pond, which had let Mr. Tom and Miss Darby 
 through into its cold quarters several months ago, had 
 long since been cut into glistening cubes, and packed 
 away in the ice-houses which line the shore, whence, in 
 due course of time, it will issue to travel to the Indies, or 
 bring relief in clamorous hospital- wards, or cool the fer 
 vors of next winter s ball-rooms, or, perhaps, to tinkle 
 
HIS HAftVAKD ITAYS. 105 
 
 in many a glass at club, and public-house, and college- 
 supper, where Mr. Tom may take his revenge on its 
 former freezing hospitality. 
 
 Boating-men were happy to be released from their mo 
 notonous winter practice, and to launch their various craft 
 on the river once more. Crews which had been under 
 watchful e3 es all winter, forbidden indulgences of every 
 sort, kept up to their daily work at clubs and dumb-bells 
 and weights, by a merciless captain, now tried their 
 strength and their new stroke in their boats, and were 
 wonderfully mysterious over success and failure alike. 
 Courageous freshmen, who now ventured to embark in 
 cranky shells, with novel outriggers and oars, crawled 
 along the winding stream, and were fished up here and 
 there by passing crews. Pale students, paler from the 
 winter s hard work and confinement, paddled up and down 
 in " constitutionals," often furtively concealing a book 
 between their feet. Less studious men, on pleasure bent, 
 rowed leisurely to Watertown, where the famous Spring 
 Hotel offered abundant cheer ; or down stream to Boston, 
 where they tied up at Braman s Baths, and scattered for 
 Ripley s or Parker s, or other haunts well known to the 
 inquisitive student. Still more daring crews and pair-oars 
 ventured as far as Hull and Point Shirley, famous for 
 fish-dinners and joll} T -tar revelry. In the very preceding 
 year, indeed, a crew had gone as far as Nahant, and was 
 nearly swamped by a north-west wind in returning. 
 
 Of an evening, when the primitive boat-houses of the 
 day were filled with men in all stages of dressing, boats 
 putting off, perhaps, to have a brush with some local wa 
 termen or Boston crew, captains giving their orders, oars 
 flashing, and the banks lined with men watching and 
 criticising, it was a pretty sight, tell me, dear lover of 
 horses, polishing your Mexican bit over yonder, was it 
 not ? Many a time have I seen your broad back rising 
 
106 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 and falling before me, regular as a trip-hammer, as I 
 
 pulled behind }*ou, and put my last pound on my oar, to 
 keep up with j our slashing stroke. But you stepped out 
 of the boat as cool and fresh as a water-god, while the 
 rest of us fellows were white about the mouth, and trem 
 bled just a bit, and could hardly climb up the ropes, 
 which was the only way of reaching the houses in those 
 primeval boating-days. 
 
 Cricketers, too, merry fellows in white flannel suits, 
 pitched their wickets of an afternoon on the Delta, and 
 bowled away at each other s stumps till the bell rang for 
 afternoon recitation. If you had been near them, you 
 would have heard them forever discussing the nice techni 
 calities of their graceful game, the comparative merits 
 of underhand and round-arm bowling, the draw and the 
 drive, hit to leg and off, or shouting, " Oh, a beauty, 
 Smith ! " " Well cut, Brown ! " " Stumped, by Jove ! 
 Yes, your foot was out of the crease ! " as their practice 
 went on. Or they packed themselves into coaches, with 
 a profusion of bats and gloves and pads ; and with a half- 
 dozen rosy-white fellows clinging on the top, cheering and 
 singing, the}* rattled away to play a match with the Bos 
 tons," or the new " Aristonicans " of Roxbury, or other 
 neighboring club. The gentlemanly " Nonantums " of 
 Newton, who had, later, a brief but brilliant existence, 
 were not yet organized. 
 
 What heart}*, jo} r ous young fellows they were ! You 
 would see a couple of them practising slow twisters at 
 each other for hours together : indeed, the good Ox}*tone, 
 professor of Greek, hearing a strange hubbub above his 
 head in Holworthy one evening, went up, and found Hali- 
 burton and his chum bowling at an improvised wicket in 
 their bedroom, and practising the drop-catch with each 
 other, quite regardless of stud} -hour regulations. And 
 men often ran down to East Cambridge of a Saturday 
 
.HIS HARVARD DAYS. 107 
 
 morning to the " Bostons " grounds, and stood up for an 
 hour or two, elaborately padded and gloved, to be bowled 
 at by their professional, an Englishman from the Mary- 
 lebone Club, who spoke of Lilly white and Pilch and 
 "Old Clarke," the great slow bowler, as personal ac 
 quaintances, and droyped his h s over many an account 
 of two-day matches with Eton and Harrow, and the All- 
 England Eleven ; while various red- faced gentry in cords, 
 with flamboyant neckerchiefs, smoking short clay pipes, 
 leaned on their favorite bats, or lay on the close-cut grass, 
 criticising genially the dapper " college-boys." 
 
 Walking-men, sure again of good roads, strode off to 
 Mount Auburn, or Belmont, or the heights in Somerville, 
 or, if anxious for a longer stretch, to West Cambridge and 
 around Fresh Pond, or to Watertown, or Parker s Hill, 
 returning often with wild flowers, and bringing a whiff of 
 the woods, and a spicy gusto into their close scholastic 
 life. 
 
 With balmy weather came also the throwing-up of col 
 lege-windows, and the upward incense of fumacious men, 
 sitting mild-eyed in ample window-seats, and sending their 
 smoke to mingle with the tender green of the elm foliage ; 
 came, also, an occasional shout of "Heads out!" from 
 some diligent lounger, the signal that an unprotected 
 young woman was crossing the college-yard, sweetly un 
 conscious of the ancient custom, but likely to have it 
 impressed on her by the rapid opening of windows, and 
 protruding of student heads. 
 
 On still and moonlit nights came the Glee Club, from its 
 rooms on the corner of Holyoke and Harvard Streets, and 
 sang its echoing glees about the college-steps, the pen 
 sive "Lovely Night," and the Marschner " Serenade ;" 
 the "Artillerist s Oath," with its strong anvil-notes; 
 Boieldieu s " Praise of the Soldier," with finale of ringing 
 hurrahs ; or Vogel s " Waltz," which had set everybody s 
 
108 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 feet going at their last concert in Lyceum Hall. And the 
 "Pudding" came down from its mysterious quarters in 
 Stoughton ; and young freshmen listened in awe, not un- 
 tinged with expectation, as the members gathered about 
 the steps of the hall, and sang their booming choruses, 
 ending with the club-song from some favorite singer, and 
 the whirl about the tree near the corner of Hoi worthy. 
 The " Institute of 1770," too, on Friday evenings emptied 
 itself from the lower story of Massachusetts, and adjourned 
 to the shadow of the church across the way for its own 
 vigorous choruses, " Rumsti Ho ! " and " MacElroy," 
 " The Irish Jaunting-Car," and so on. And, if you had 
 been especially inquisitive and especially keen-eared, you 
 might have detected other bodies of young men emerging 
 from other mysterious club-rooms, with softer tread and a 
 quieter dispersion, and making their way to their rooms in 
 the quadrangle. But the open and tolerated societies were 
 enough of a wonder and enchantment for the freshman 
 Hammersmith and his friends, to whom the existence of 
 secret societies, with clandestine grips and pass-words, 
 and diabolic paraphernalia, came as yet only as a faint 
 rumor. 
 
 All these novel events of student-life were now trans 
 piring about Mr. Tom, bewitching him with their mystery 
 and their heartiness, and, I fear, drawing him still farther 
 from the memory of his dull boyhood on the Hudson. He 
 was taking his share, too, in every thing that interested 
 his classmates, or the rather small set with which he was 
 intimate. He had risen to the proud position of No. 2 in 
 his class-boat, Goldie being the stroke. He had given 
 way to the dancing epidemic which broke out among his 
 friends in early spring, when the young man s fancy 
 lightly turns to thoughts of friskiness, and might have 
 been seen, with Freemantle and others, twice a week in 
 the dancing academy of Madam Tocy, in Boston, one- 
 
-HIS HARVARD DAYS. 109 
 
 two- three-ing with that antique sprightliness. He had 
 long ago had his quarter with "The Chicken," and had 
 been pronounced a very fair boxer by that pugilistic A.M. 
 " Lor bless you, sir, e don t know is hown strength, e 
 don t!" "The Chicken" had remarked to Penhallow, 
 after a couple of lessons, " e as the most hextraordi- 
 nary reach, e as ! " And he was already well known as 
 one of the most promising athletes in the class, who had 
 taken kindly to exercise from the very first night of his 
 freshman life, when he had been tossed in a blanket by 
 the sophomores, and complimented by them as " a plucky 
 one." 
 
 You may be sure that Mr. Tufton, too, was on hand at 
 these opening summer festivities, as fresh and bloom 
 ing as the delicate boutonniere which he wore, culled with 
 care from his overflowingjarcfo mere. Who of those days 
 does not remember him in all his jauntiness, standing at 
 the boat-houses in the dusk, as the crews came in, rolling 
 slender cigarettes the while, and patting big-muscled oars 
 men with his dainty fingers ? If his knowledge of water- 
 craft was exceedingly rudimentary, and his criticisms on 
 the styles of rowing and the form of crews somewhat at 
 random, there was an undoubted attraction in the frequent 
 " Come up, come up, and take a glass of wine! " with 
 which he greeted many of the oarsmen as they emerged 
 from the dressing-rooms. Where, indeed, was a more 
 promising jungle for his lion-hunting than these same 
 rickety boat-houses, and this wilderness of boats, from 
 which many a hero of the hour was destined to come 
 forth? 
 
 And whether it was a cricket-match, or a bout with the 
 gloves in u The Chicken s " rooms in town; a glee-club 
 serenade, or the trial of a new man in the Varsity, 
 Tufton was sure to be there, lynx-eyed, smiling, dressed 
 to suit the occasion, and always contriving to single out 
 
110 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 the prominent man, be he great batter, graceful boxer, 
 tenor of liquid notes, or powerful oarsman, and to cover 
 him with a few careful compliments. 
 
 G oldie was perhaps the only man among Tom s imme 
 diate friends who was entirely proof against the well- 
 aimed attacks of the diplomatic Tufton. He was almost 
 the only man who systematically refused his polite invita 
 tions, the only man who gave him the cold shoulder at 
 wines and suppers where they unavoidably met, and the 
 only man to dare to say a word of disparagement of the 
 elegant young Macchiavelli. 
 
 u Mark my words, Tom," said Goldie one evening, 
 "that fellow will turn out a rogue or a blackleg, or my 
 name s not Goldie. Who is he? Where does he come 
 from? I tell you nobody knows, and nobody dares to 
 inquire. It s a disgrace, that a man of such habits as we 
 know this fellow has should have the entree that he has, 
 and be able to meet your sister and mine in society. 
 Malachite is to blame for that. And that friend of his, 
 what s his name? Crosby! I didn t have the distin 
 guished honor of his acquaintance, as I m not down on 
 my Lord Tufton s books, thank Heaven ! But I fancy 
 I can tell a gambler when I see him ; and, if ever I 
 clapped eye on one of the nimble-fingered gentry in my 
 life, he s one of em ! If you want to know about him, 
 just ask your friend Gimlet, the policeman, what he 
 knows about him (he was on duty in New York for 
 several years, you know), or call at any of the lowest 
 gambling-hells in town, and you ll learn what a sweet 
 young gentleman }^ou were asked to meet at Tufton s orgy 
 that night! " 
 
 Tom was inclined to resent such severity on Goldie s 
 part. He said that he was judging Tufton and his friends 
 harshly ; and had Goldie a right to talk thus, when he had 
 never been inside of his rooms, or taken the pains to say 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. Ill 
 
 ten words with him in his life? And then he grew a 
 little proud and lofty, to think that he had been so early 
 distinguished by Tufton s flattering recognition ; and he 
 spoke rather hotly to Goldie, and intimated, that if Goldie 
 meant to imply there was any danger of Tufton s pulling 
 the wool over his, Hammersmith s, eyes, he was very much 
 mistaken ; that he had cut his eye-teeth, by Jove ! and 
 fancied he could tell a blackleg from a gentleman as well 
 as the next man ; and he d thank him not to be quite so 
 quick in condemning men who had been very polite to him, 
 and with whom Goldie himself had no sort of acquaint 
 ance. 
 
 Goldie shrugged his shoulders, and said merely, "As 
 you will ; while Tom got up and left his room rather 
 abruptly, going, by a sort of instinct, straight to the slan 
 dered man s rooms, where he found a number of men 
 playing cards and smoking, " Tufton gone to town." 
 
 Tom, who had never spoken harshly to Goldie before 
 in the whole year, refused a hand in the game, in which 
 money was changing hands pretty freely, and sat quietly 
 in a corner, thinking over what his Puritanic friend had 
 said, and questioning how much was truth, and how much 
 mere conjecture. 
 
 But one of the lessons which Tom was learning now 
 a lesson not put down in the text-books, but learned and 
 unlearned from the iron leaves of experience was that 
 every fellow was his own master, and any fellow that came 
 about peddling advice to another fellow had better be sent 
 packing. That was about the way in which the lesson 
 ran in Tom s mind that evening, and I set it down as his 
 thoughts ran, plainly. 
 
 A headstrong young fellow who has made up his mind 
 to have his own way, and fight his own battles, and whose 
 appetite for pleasure, moreover, and what is called " seeing 
 life," is insatiable, is pretty apt to shed advice as a duck 
 
112 TTAMMETtSMlfn: 
 
 sheds water. I question if Goldie would have thought it 
 well to say even as much as he did, if he had known the 
 Hammersmith character better. But he liked Tom, he 
 hated Tufton (about as much as that worthy hated him in 
 return ; for these things are very apt to be mutual) , and 
 he had spoken several times now to Tom from the interest 
 he had in him, and the anxiety he felt lest Tom should 
 come too much under Tufton s corrupting influence. So 
 Mr. Tom, as usual, took the matter in his own hands, 
 decided that he knew " what was what," and felt a sort 
 of shame in the very satisfaction which he gave himself 
 in deciding against Goldie. It is pleasant, very pleasant, 
 to have your own way, but not so pleasant to be obliged 
 to run counter to a tried friend like Goldie. 
 
 I doubt if all the pronunciamentos and bulls, ukases 
 and messages, of all the powers of Christendom, which 
 are pasted up or tacked up, or proclaimed by trumpeter, 
 or sent to a house of Congress, or scattered broadcast, 
 inflammatory, carry greater awe and consternation to the 
 bodies for which they are issued than those which are pro 
 claimed to the Cambridge student- world from the bulletins 
 and numerous society-boards hung up in front of University 
 Hall or which were hung there in Hammersmith s time. 
 
 Here were the orthodox bulletin-boards of the univer 
 sity authorities, where were posted the lists of successful 
 competitors for prizes, lists of rooms for the classes as 
 they move on from year to year (peripatetic, and chan 
 ging their abode like the soul of Rama) , lists of those 
 passing their examinations, and all manner of announce 
 ments of exhibitions, and changes in routine and author 
 ized orders. Here graduating seniors advertised their 
 merchantable property : An iron bedstead and exceed 
 ingly comfortable easy-chair for sale at Holworthy 14. " 
 " A hat-tub and pair of clubs, weight forty pounds each, 
 
HIS ITAHVATID DAYS. 113 
 
 at Brattle House 57. Boxing-gloves and dumb-bells will 
 be sold if desired, though the owner is not anxious to 
 part with them." " Come to Brown s ! An entire estab 
 lishment to be cleared out ! Every thing that a gentle 
 man can desire to make life comfortable, and college-life, 
 in particular, a bed of roses; spring-bed thrown in." 
 Here, too, were put up announcements of cricket-matches 
 and boat-races, and football-matches between Stoughton and 
 Hollis ; and the meetings of committees of this, that, and 
 the other club ; with tradesmen s cards, and the prices of 
 wood and coal at the college- wharf ; and professional no 
 tices of this and that Polish exile, or French or German 
 nobleman, in reduced circumstances, who would consent 
 to teach fencing and single-stick, or the noble languages 
 of their country, for a consideration. 
 
 And here, more awful and portentous than these, ranged 
 in the windows as their days of meeting came round, were 
 the boards of the various open societies of the period, at 
 which freshmen gazed open-mouthed, the Hasty Pudding 
 Club, with the placid sphinx and other pictorial ornament 
 by the artist of the club, its corn-colored ribbons (" seges 
 votis respondet "), and proud signatures of president and 
 secretary ; the Porcellian, equally mysterious and elabo 
 rate ; the Glee Club and the Pierian Sodality, the Insti 
 tute of 1770, St. Paul s, the Christian Brethren, and the 
 rest. How many regiments of youth have looked up with 
 wonder at their fateful announcements, or have stolen fur 
 tive glances at them as they rushed in to recitation ! Oh, 
 no ! they weren t anxious to know about the societies ; 
 they didn t care who was president or secretary ; they 
 didn t care to be " first man." And while fond parents 
 at home are dreaming of the scholastic success of their 
 hopefuls at the fount of knowledge, and anxious mammas 
 are writing that they shall be very careful not to injure 
 their health by too close application to study, their Neds 
 
114 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 and their Sams, their Bobs, Joes, and Jims, are looking 
 up to these cabalistic boards on university, listening to 
 such traditions as are allowed to trickle as far down as 
 freshmen s ears, and la} T ing their pipes, as far as possible, 
 to be first man here, or at least in the first ten there, 
 ardent little hero- worshippers, forever Jcotou-ing before 
 their idols ! 
 
 I do not proclaim it of all freshmen ; but I ask any 
 Harvard man who was an undergraduate at the time of 
 great society activity, if their contemporary Neds and 
 Bobs and Jims were not considerably harassed in mind, 
 about the end of freshman year, by the great question, 
 Who will be the first ten in the Institute? and if the 
 fever produced by this all-important query did not last 
 them through their course, and often take on a very 
 malignant type towards its close, productive of heart 
 burnings and estrangements and divisions of whole 
 classes. 
 
 There was no small excitement in the quadrangle, there 
 fore, one morning towards the end of term, as the In 
 stitute board appeared in its usual place, with the usual 
 announcement and well-known signatures, but with the 
 addition of a slip of paper pasted in one corner, which 
 was being eagerly read by a large crowd on the return 
 for prayers. It ran thus : 
 
 "First ten members of the freshman class elected into the In 
 stitute : 
 
 FBEEMANTLE. GOLDIE. 
 
 PINCKNEY. FAYEBWEATHEB. 
 
 HAMMEESMITH. ST. JOHN. 
 
 PENHALLOW. LYTTON. 
 
 ALBEMABLE. WASSON. 
 " They will be initiated next Friday evening, July 11." 
 
 This awful initiation, with its iterated "thanks for the 
 honor conferred," and Malachite s solemn announcement 
 
TTTS HARVARD DAYS. 115 
 
 in behalf of the vacant-minded freshmen, as they groped in 
 vain for ideas and words, " H-u-s-h, fellows, he has an 
 idea ! " which caused Mr. Tom, when his turn came, to 
 make some emphatic remark about " punching somebod} T s 
 head;" the preparation for the final examinations of 
 freshman year, during which Freemantle, Hammersmith, 
 and a host of others, were gathered nightly in Free- 
 mantle s rooms, galloping over the year s work, with the 
 aid of ready ponies, while Breese was working like a 
 Trojan, scorning the practices of the Freemantle party, 
 and keeping himself in magnificent form with his daily 
 constitutionals, his plunge in the river, and an occasional 
 terrific header from a diving-board that had been set up ; 
 the class-races, in which the freshmen came in an easy 
 second, with Goldie, Hammersmith, and Penhallow at 
 Nos. 1, 2, and 3 respectively, and Freemantle as bow 
 (who had consented to row, after much solicitation, de 
 claring at the same time that it was a " demnition 
 grind"); the final examinations, with Mr. Tom s an 
 nouncement to his mother, that he had passed, and passed 
 very creditably as he thought, but that Pinckney and 
 Wasson had been suspended (" Pinck is awfully cut up 
 about it, afraid his governor may take him away entirely. 
 I hope he won t, as Pinck s a mighty nice fellow, and we 
 should miss him awfully. Wasson, though, doesn t seem 
 to care a fig, laughs about it with everybody, and invites 
 everybody up to see him at Concord, to which he is sent 
 oif for three months "), all these things might receive 
 more than passing mention from Hammersmith s biogra 
 pher, if the gathering pages did not warn him to be brief. 
 Yes ; and Mr. Tom s final letter to his mother, declaring 
 that she must give up the idea of his rooming alone any 
 longer (it was too lonely, and he and Penhallow were 
 going to room together, if they could secure a room in 
 the yard) , how the fond mother brooded over it, after 
 
116 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 the manner of women, and over her Tom s announcement, 
 in a postscript, that he was going to bring Pen home for 
 a part of the vacation ; and wouldn t she please put the 
 north room in order, and " cheer up " ? And, shaking her 
 head, she yet set about executing Sultan Tom s commands 
 at once, and preparing to receive the dear wanderer with 
 a fitting welcome. 
 
 So about the 20th of Juty, these two young bucks 
 descended upon the quiet home on the Hudson, gay with 
 knots of crimson ribbon at their buttonholes, and crimson 
 handkerchiefs, which the}^ allowed to appear seductively 
 from their pockets, none the less bright and cheery 
 themselves ; for they came with the airs of conquerors, 
 and brought a different atmosphere, and much foreign 
 movement, into the rather stagnant life at " Ivy Hill." 
 
 And their boy was changed to the doting mother, and 
 to young Mabel, who had shot up fair and tall by this 
 time, and who almost blushed, as Tom came bounding up, 
 and kissed her, and was fairly covered with becoming 
 blushes, when Tom presented "My friend Penhallow, 
 Mabel," and Penhallow bowed elaborately, and said, "I 
 am very happy to meet you, Miss Hammersmith," Miss 
 Hammersmith! she who had been plain "Mabel" till 
 then, or "Miss Mabel" at most. The mother hugged 
 her dear returned boy to her heart, and would not let him 
 go ; and yet felt that he was not the same Tom who had 
 gone away from her a ten-month ago, such a long ten- 
 month ! She was v&ry glad to see Mr. Penhallow, and 
 did all that an absorbed parent could do to make the 
 young men s visit pleasant ; for she appreciated that it 
 was but a visit, even to Tom : and she had a shadowy 
 notion that she must prepare as attractive as possible a 
 counterpoise to the gay life that the lad must have been 
 leading, lest he grow weary of home, and wish himself 
 away. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 117 
 
 Yes, she felt that he was changed. He was no longer 
 the simple Tom, so artless, so devoted, so naturally im 
 petuous, as before ! He had an absorbed air. His voice 
 was more manly and decided, as she had expected, of 
 course ; but it had a harsher tone. He had lost the half- 
 shrinkiug manners of boyhood, and had now almost a 
 swagger, as he strutted about the place with Penhallow ; 
 and, horror of horrors ! he had picked up the filthy habit 
 of smoking. And the poor widow s heart received a more 
 cruel blow than ever when she saw her darling boy giving 
 way to this "horrid, horrid vice." She felt that her influ 
 ence over him was indeed waning. She remonstrated 
 with him when she had him alone ; but he met her anxious 
 pleading with a trifling jest, and quoted hosts of the head 
 men in the upper classes in Cambridge who smoked, and 
 smoked incessantly. 
 
 And she remonstrated, with abated force, at his fine 
 clothes, and the money that he must have spent on them. 
 But he said, " You should see some of the fellows ! Why, 
 I m dressed more quietly than almost any man in my 
 class." And she was sorry that he was going to move 
 into the college-yard with a room-mate. "What! don t 
 you like Penhallow?" asked Tom. And, of course, she 
 did ; " but, then " And Tom put his arm around her 
 impulsively, and told her she must not have so many 
 4 ; notions ; that he could take care of himself. She 
 appreciated that only too well, alas ! and went on wonder 
 ing over the maternal problem which has vexed so many 
 fair heads before, why boys cannot be kept always bo} T s, 
 and girls always girls ? 
 
 She knew the Hammersmith nature better than Golclie, 
 however, and was aware that too much remonstrance 
 would be worse than none ; and she could only pray God 
 that her Tom might not forget her entirely, or fall into 
 evil courses in his succeeding years. She did not thor- 
 
118 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 oughly like young Penliallow, gentlemanly and polite as 
 he alwa} r s was. He had a more hardened, sarcastic man 
 ner than her Tom; and she feared his influence. The 
 young men lingered too long in the dining-room after 
 dinner, she thought ; and once or twice, when Tom had 
 insisted on having Bob Ruddiman over to dine, they had 
 taken too much wine, as she feared. They sang college- 
 songs, which came floating out to Mabel and her on the 
 piazza ; and there was much boisterous laughter and 
 clinking of glasses. The young men, too, had many 
 knowing winks and dumb-shows among themselves, which 
 she could not understand ; and, altogether, she wished it 
 was not so, but that she had her boyish old Tom back 
 again, with all his gentle, loving ways, and that there 
 might be no change. Ah, me ! 
 
 Meanwhile the young men were beguiling the time as 
 pleasantly as such careless youngsters are wont. 
 
 If some of the stories that they brought home, as 
 many of their songs, were of a rather questionable char 
 acter, better suited for Tufton s gay chambers than the 
 widow s dining-room, there were many, also, which they 
 retailed to the mother and Mabel, to their vast entertain 
 ment. Pcnhallow, who could play a few chords on the 
 piano, contrived to make them do heavy duty, by way of 
 accompaniment, to a number of comic songs ; and Mabel 
 was intensely amused at their piquancy, and thought she 
 had " never heard any thing half so funny," when Tom 
 and Penliallow, arrayed in solemn black, with open music- 
 books in their hands, which they thumbed vigorously, 
 stood up by the piano, and sang, though without accom 
 paniment, the serio-comic ditty of "Josephus and Bo- 
 hunca," of abbreviated finale. Ruddiman was fired to 
 emulation, too, and essa} r ed a song of Yale. But his voice 
 was not designed for a solo; and, though he grinned 
 feebly when he came to the funny parts, it seemed very 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 119 
 
 serious work to the rest ; and he looked rather sheepish 
 when he had finished. Mabel said, " Oh ! that was very 
 funny." But Bob knew she didn t think so ; and he felt 
 more uncomfortable still. 
 
 Ruddiman, in fact, was never cut out for a parlor orna 
 ment, and had a number of fashionable sisters just enough 
 older than himself to make him feel his own gaucherie, 
 which the young ladies took care, also, to impress upon 
 him on all important occasions. An early career with 
 governesses and tutors (whose positions were far from 
 sinecures with the lively young animal Bob) had led up 
 to a later intimacy with grooms and gardeners, and men 
 about the place, in whose company he had spent most of 
 his time, and from whom he had learned many things that 
 might better have been omitted in his education. 
 
 His stables were full this summer. The family was 
 away at Saratoga, with a single pair of horses ; and Bob 
 never tired of driving and riding and roystering with the 
 young Harvard men, who were made free of his horses, 
 and lured over to Grasmere almost daily by the lively 
 young gentleman in charge. 
 
 The river was as tempting as ever in the cool of mid 
 summer evenings, when Tom had been accustomed to 
 row ; but the men had had enough of boats for many a 
 long day, they said, and preferred the diversions on land 
 which Ruddiman and their own devices provided. And 
 they scandalized the neighborhood with their boisterous 
 conduct ; and Mrs. Schuyler and Mrs. Bogardus called as 
 often as possible to gather food for gossip and village 
 amplification, that the 3 r oung gentlemen s reputations 
 might not dwindle in eclipse. 
 
 One Sunday, in fact, when the young men came out of 
 church (there had been a very affecting sermon by the 
 Rev. Lawnsleeve of New York), and found Ruddiman 
 waiting for them with his dog-cart, smoking an immense 
 
120 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 cigar, and he called them up and drove them off, with a 
 shout to his horses, cutting Mrs. Van Wyck s coach-dog 
 with his whip as he whirled away, there was a great com 
 motion. Mrs. Schuyler prophesied that no good would 
 come of Tom s associating with young Ruddiman, whose 
 father had better come and look after him if he didn t 
 want to see him in the penitentiary some day. The village 
 busybodies caught up the incident with gusto. The report 
 soon spread, that the young reprobates had actually lighted 
 their cigars in the vestibule, in the face and eyes of the 
 congregation coming out ; and people wondered how a 
 certain mother could be so blind, and what the father 
 would have thought to see such goings-on. 
 
 But the 3 oung men were hardly as abandoned, and 
 utterly given over to the Evil One, as the quiet hamlet 
 would like to make them out. What sinister atoms can 
 there be in the human brain that delight in twisting and 
 torturing and magnifying the errors of their kind ? 
 
 Though these gay young gentlemen strutted and sim 
 pered about the town as if they were thinking of buying 
 it for a pasture, and ogled the few buxom beauties of the 
 place with the air of connoisseurs, and stared in at the 
 milliner s with deused knowing airs, and nodded to young 
 Mangul Wurzel and his cronies as if they said, "How 
 arc you, old cabbage-seeds and gunny-bags?" they were 
 harmless little idiots, and meant no wrong. Bless me ! 
 how this thin varnish, this rather dazzling veneer of man 
 ner, will rub off when they enter presently the great rab 
 ble, and push and jostle on their way through life ! 
 
 And so, after three weeks or more of this bucolic merri 
 ment, which had set the village teapot boiling and fizzing 
 so spitefully, the party broke up. Ruddiman was sum 
 moned to Saratoga to render an account of his steward 
 ship ; and his green suit and shiny red face, which had 
 made him such a picturesque addition at "Ivy Hill," 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 121 
 
 were seen there no more that summer. Penhallow, who 
 had accepted Ruddiman s hospitality, but by no means 
 approved of his coarse manners, went off to join a walk 
 ing-party of Boston men in the White Mountains ; and 
 Tom remained at home. 
 
 The}^ had brought many novel glimpses of life to Miss 
 Mabel among the other effects of their visit; and the 
 young girl felt more than ever that it must be like living 
 in a romance to be amid the whifl and excitement and 
 fine setting of their daily existence. They had not 
 thought fit to cultivate the sweet young singer. She was 
 a mere girl yet ; and " Girls are such infernal idiots ! " 
 said Bob, speaking from domestic experience perhaps. 
 But she had heard and seen and imagined enough to 
 believe that they were all young princes in disguise 
 (whether princes of darkness or of light she did not ask 
 herself) ; but, as a matter of course, they were princes 
 of light, pure and chivalric of life. 
 
 And when they were separating, and Penhallow, mak 
 ing his adieus, said to Mabel, "I hope we shall see you 
 in Cambridge some day, Miss Hammersmith," she blushed, 
 and said she didn t know ; for she had never thought of 
 such a thing as intruding on this enchanted ground, and 
 actually seeing and enjoying all the beautiful things of 
 which she had heard. 
 
 Then she turned to Tom, who broke out with, "Oh, yes ! 
 we ll have her come up some day. I think she would enjoy 
 it. But she s too young yet. . And she felt very small at 
 this, and as if these were very critical princes after all. 
 
 At last Tom, too, left, to stop a week in Stockbridge 
 before returning to Cambridge. And Mabel came to her 
 mother, when they were all gone, and the old quiet was 
 resumed, and, leaning her head against her, asked, 
 u Wasn t it all very bright and merry when they were all 
 here together, mother ?" And Mrs. Hammersmith said, 
 " Yes, my child," and kissed her. 
 
122 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A FRESH EXCURSION INTO VERDANCY. 
 
 " Don t pour water on a drowned mouse." 
 
 OLD PBOVERB. 
 
 " After a little while, lifting Ms head from the collar of reflection, he removed 
 the talisman of silence from the treasure of speech, and scattered skirtsful of 
 brilliant gems and princely pearls before the company in his mirth-exciting 
 deliveries." ORIENTAL BAIIAK-DANUSH. 
 
 OUR duty now is to chronicle a fact about Mr. Tom, 
 which, however discreditable to him as the chief 
 actor in these pages, and however incongruous with the 
 young gentleman s previous resolutions, is yet necessary 
 for those readers who would duly estimate the temptations 
 with which he was surrounded. For certain it is, that 
 after having had all his finer feelings outraged at the 
 beginning of his college- course by the rough scenes and 
 midnight hazing with which he was greeted, after having 
 been himself put to bed, and smoked out, and otherwise 
 made to suffer for the privilege of coming up to Cam 
 bridge, and after having resolved that it was all unworthy 
 of gentlemen, and that, for his part, he would have nothing 
 to do with it, we find him, very soon after his return, set 
 ting himself up for a tyrant and a hazer, against all his 
 better convictions, and going the very way which he had 
 resolved against. 
 
 We do not attempt to defend him, much less to analyze 
 the reasons, if there were any, which led to this result. 
 Alas ! the actions of youth of his age and temperament 
 are not always to be explained by reasons, or at least by 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 123 
 
 reasons that would find favor with maturer critics. If he 
 were an orthodox puppet-hero, whom I might twitch and 
 pull this way or that, perhaps the unities would demand 
 that he rise superior to his surroundings, and we might 
 already behold the sprouting of his young wings for an 
 early translation. But he is no such "goody" young 
 man or premature cherub ; and, if timid readers are un 
 willing to hear of the trials and pitfalls which awaited him, 
 they will do well to skip this chapter, and not only this, 
 but his entire sophomore year : for, by his diary, I see 
 that we are promised fairer sailing in the latter half of his 
 course ; though he would be no Hammersmith, if his 
 instincts did not infallibly guide him into whatever of 
 danger or adventure even that period of comparative quiet 
 had to offer. 
 
 I have no doubt that Penhallow, his merry chum, was 
 partly to blame. I have no doubt that Freemantle and 
 Tufton, and the rest with whom he prowled, were partly 
 accountable for the change in him. It may be that Gol- 
 die s rather hasty words of condemnation of his relations 
 to Tufton spurred him on. Doubtless, too, his early train 
 ing, which had kept him too carefully at home, and away 
 from the larks and scrapes, and boisterous doings, of boys 
 of his age, was another cause. 
 
 But, bless you ! do not imagine that Mr. Tom gave 
 these reasons to himself, or gave any reasons. These are 
 merely my conjectures and yours ; and .that fiery } r oung 
 sophomore would resent with scorn the throwing of blame 
 upon anybody but himself (if blame is to be given) , and 
 would maintain simply that he did thus and so because all 
 the fellows did, and it was fun. I make no doubt, that, 
 while delivering this speech, he would look you frankly in 
 the e}-e, and smile so pleasantly and honestly, that even 
 you would forget to blame the lad, my dear Icicle, and 
 would join in his smile, and say, laughing, "Well, boys 
 will be boys after all." 
 
124 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 4 Bloody Monday night had been passed as usual. 
 Tom and his friends had passed the evening in visiting 
 various freshman rooms outside and inside the quadran 
 gle, spending most of it in Goldie s old quarters, No. 1, 
 Ilolworthy. It was, indeed, with very odd, changed feel 
 ings that they lounged into the familiar entry, through 
 the old oak, where they had entered as freshmen so often, 
 and sat now quizzing and dragooning their successors in 
 this ancient fortress. 
 
 Men had been ducked under the town-pump ; men had 
 been led blindfolded into the river until they were over 
 their heads. One young freshman had been sewed up in 
 a bag, and hung out of his window all night ; another, for 
 too early sporting a beaver, had been left similarly con 
 fined all night in the marshes, where he contracted a cold 
 with which he left Cambridge never to return. Brave 
 men had darted forward in the darkness, thrown a stone 
 or two through a freshman s window, and run for their 
 lives, conscious of great prowess. At the traditional 
 hour the time-honored cobble-stone was hurled through 
 the windows of Holworthy 1 , carrying half a sash with it. 
 Buckets of water had been lowered from upper windows, 
 and swung with a crash into freshmen s rooms below. A 
 whole regiment of youngsters had been put to bed together, 
 in a Stoughton room, on the floor, in the beds, in window- 
 seats, on top of the bureau. " Greek crosses," a fear 
 ful bugbear to un-Moslem freshmen, had been erected 
 in many a trembling fellow s room, when the smallest 
 man was sure to be flattened on the floor, and the largest 
 to surmount the pile with unhappy weight. In fact, all 
 the enginery of the small warfare had been employed 
 against the new-comers, who had begun, before many 
 days, to discuss the relative cruelty of their tormentors as 
 one might argue the points of a state measure, or the 
 character of a sovereign, simply as a matter of course, in 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 125 
 
 which one s own feelings, pro or cow, were not for a mo 
 ment to be considered. 
 
 There had been a variety of excesses of late, however, 
 which the faculty had thought best to notice, and condemn 
 by formal proclamation. Several men had been warned, 
 several " private admonitions " had been sent home to 
 alarmed parents and guardians, and the proctors were 
 ordered to keep a sharp lookout for certain suspected indi 
 viduals, and to repress all disturbance in the quadrangle. 
 
 As a natural answer to this challenge of the college 
 government, therefore, the bold sophomore youth had 
 arranged for a mighty coup some time before the Thanks 
 giving recess. There was to be a hazing party the like 
 of which had never been seen before. Everybody was 
 invited to join whose presence could be of the least ser 
 vice ; all except sticklers and originals like Brcese and 
 the " Sculpin" (as little Totman was called by Mr. Tom 
 and others) , who were carefully excluded as not only use 
 less co-efficients, but possible marplots. All the rooms 
 outside the yard were to be visited ; and it was arranged, 
 that, if proctors made their appearance, eve^ man was to 
 stand his ground, and a dozen fellows provided with masks 
 and disguises should undertake to dispose of them ; how, 
 was left to the exigencies of the moment, and the temper 
 which the proctors might see fit to exhibit. 
 
 Perhaps, now, some hilarious young readers of Ham 
 mersmith s biography may expect that I am to lead them 
 with circumstantial description (as of "Baedeker" or 
 " Murray") along the route of these merry young sopho 
 mores one dark night in early fall, a route which they 
 left strewn with freshman wrecks. But they will be mis 
 taken. How the band of hazers visited one freshman 
 after another, and went through with what devilish or sim 
 ply grotesque performance the moment and the chief tor 
 mentor suggested ; how a deputation from the Massachu- 
 
126 HAMMEKSMITH : 
 
 setts Humane Society, beaded by Commodore Whirlpool, 
 was pleased to instruct the 3 T outhful freshman, Algernon 
 Vernon Beverly ("Lord, what a name! So small, and 
 all that handle to you ! exclaimed the commodore) in 
 the graceful and eminently useful art of natation, making 
 use of the youth s study-stable as a swimming-bath, 
 "the Massachusetts Humane Society especially recom 
 mends the use of the tabula rasa in this course of instruc 
 tion," explained the learned commodore ; how the Albert- 
 son brothers, a brace of blue-ej^ed freshmen who came up 
 to Cambridge with the reputation of line oarsmen, were 
 made in the dead of night to strip to boating- costume, and 
 pull a ghostly race for the championship of their room, 
 seated on a Latin and a Greek lexicon, and encouraged by 
 such shouts as " Two to one on the blue ! " " Five dol 
 lars my man turns the stake first!" "Go it, red!" 
 " Lift her on the beginning of the stroke ! " " Oh, nobly 
 rowed ! see how he reaches ! " and so on ; how this man 
 had his head shaved, and that one had his furniture thrown 
 into the street ; this man smoked into blindness, that one 
 baptized under the convenient pump ; how Madam Rip 
 raps, the famous boarding-house mistress, was for calling 
 the police when her premises were invaded, and was only 
 with difficulty pacified by Goldie and others, these and 
 many other things were among the incidents of that long- 
 drawn night, on which we may well drop the curtain. 
 
 They order these things better under the new regime; 
 and it is not pleasant to exhibit practices more fit for the 
 pages of the "Newgate Calendar " than for a chronicle of 
 nineteenth-century lads calling themselves gentlemen. 
 
 All freshman Cambridge, then, was visited, and ulti 
 mately put to bed with friendly wishes for "pleasant 
 dreams, Freshy ! " the sophomores parading the town with 
 regular tramp, singing stout choruses when they were 
 well away from the college neighborhood ; while placid 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 127 
 
 Cambridge burghers, pressing the domestic pillow, turned 
 in their disturbed sleep, grumbling, "There they are, at 
 it again ! Confound those students ! " " Yes, dear, what 
 a frightful noise ! I hope Harry isn t with them." 
 
 Thus they paraded through the town, leaving despair 
 and dismay in their wake, together with Gimlet, and one 
 or two of his brother-officers, who followed to see that 
 dismay and despair did not take to themselves fists or 
 weapons, and engage with roistering tyranny, and that 
 tyranny itself did not relapse into license and the destruc 
 tion of municipal property as well as the sleep of inno 
 cent tax-payers. 
 
 It is always pleasant to have a friend at court, if it be 
 only a police-court. With divers friendly advances, and 
 more substantial ditto in various forms, Mr. Tom, fol 
 lowing Tufton s advice (which my lord had imparted from 
 a full experience) , had long ago secured such an ally in 
 the person of Gimlet above mentioned ; said Gimlet being 
 a portly peeler farthest removed from the shape of his 
 insinuating namesake, but possessed of a crafty penetra 
 tion of student tactics, which the wary would rather allay 
 than brave. And the Gimlet, too, had worked himself 
 into Tom s good graces by many a favorable turn too 
 numerous to mention, till he came to be considered al 
 most in the light of a protecting genius by the young 
 gentleman in question, who felt safe, and not only safe, 
 but sure of himself, which was more important, with that 
 burly guardian of the night in his wake, as to-night. Mr. 
 Tom s assurance that it was " all right, no disturbance of 
 the peace intended," was enough to satisf} an easy con 
 science keenly alive to a sense of benefits to accrue ; and 
 Gimlet and his friends waddled after the crowd, smoking 
 much better cigars than usual, Gimlet, for his part, 
 thinking, in moments of fat reflection, how vastly better 
 was this than patrolling the purlieus of New York as of 
 yore. 
 
128 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 The gray of night was shading into a faint yellow on 
 its eastern edge when the crowd was nearing Harvard 
 Square again. Many men had dropped away, tired or 
 sleepy ; but Tom and Tufton, and several of our friends, 
 remained, warned, by a growing viciousness in the tortures, 
 that a restraint might be necessary on the reckless fellows 
 who had been conducting most of the hazing in the latter 
 part of the night. 
 
 They were in the room of a very young freshman, just 
 above Church Street. They had roused him from sleep, 
 and his peaceful dreams of home and friends and his col 
 lege-life, so new to him yet, and had set him on the 
 table, looking very white from head to foot, and quailing 
 before their roughness. They had about finished with 
 him ; had made him read aloud, with appropriate ges 
 tures, a letter from his mother, which had been found 
 open on a writing-desk ; and the little fellow s quavering 
 voice, and eyes filling with tears (for it was a simple, 
 touching home-letter), made more than one man in the 
 throng blush for himself and the work in which ha was 
 engaged. 
 
 Ladbroke, a bull-necked sophomore who had just en 
 tered the class as fresh-soph, a swaggering, brutal- 
 looking fellow, flashily dressed, was acting as chief 
 tormentor just now ; and it was largely on that account 
 that Tom and Goldie and others remained. They hated 
 the looks of the man ; and they did not know to what his 
 diablerie might lead if he were not watched. 
 
 When the little freshman was through his letter, and 
 Ladbroke had made a variety of coarse comments on it, 
 calling the freshman a "young sniveller/ a " mammy- 
 darling," and so on, he told him to hustle away into his 
 trundle-bed, like the baby that he was. 
 
 " See here, though ! " he shouted with an oath, " what 
 do you mean by going to bed without saying your prayers ? 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 129 
 
 Down on your knees here, } 7 ou little hypocrite ! Say your 
 prayers now ! 
 
 But this was too much ; and when the little man turned 
 his eyes appealingly and forlornly at Ladbroke, as if he 
 said, " Can it be possible that } ou mean what you say? " 
 Hammersmith (God, bless him!) stepped forward by the 
 freshman, and faced Ladbroke. 
 
 " Come now, Ladbroke, this is going a little too far! 
 You ve no right to ask him to do that." 
 
 " No right ! What do you mean by < no right ? " 
 
 " I mean what I say. There s a limit to all things ! 
 Don t you say so, fellows? " said Tom, tossing a look to 
 the crowd. 
 
 "I d like to know who s going to stop me, that s all! 
 Come, freshman ! " 
 
 u I m going to stop you, if you aren t gentleman enough 
 to hold off yourself ! I swear, by Jove ! this thing shall 
 not go on ! " shouted Tom. 
 
 Ladbroke looked to the other men, to see if they would 
 stand by him ; but they shook their heads, and muttered, 
 4 Better leave off, Ladbroke!" " Little fellow s a pretty 
 tender chicken!" "Rather rough on him, I think!" 
 And, like many another coward and bully, he ate his own 
 words, and backed down before the unflinching Hammer 
 smith, who told the freshman to go to bed, and forget the 
 fellow s words if he could ; and they left. 
 
 Ladbroke had backed down, to be sure ; but he mingled 
 with his cronies, muttering against Tom, and sore in 
 his flabby spirit to have been balked before the whole 
 crowd. He was a dangerous man to have for an enemy : 
 but Tom did not think of that when he stepped forward 
 to champion the freshman ; nor would he have hesitated, 
 if he had thought of it, as I am happy to believe. 
 
 But the party was broken up by this contretemps; Lad- 
 broke and his few pals going off to some much-to-bc-com- 
 
130 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 miserated freslinicn on Brattle Street, and Tom and the 
 rest returning to their rooms. They crept noiselessly to 
 their various "pens," as an able but caustic feminine 
 critic has called the hard-featured quarters of those days ; 
 whence, in a few moments, they heard the cry of " Proc 
 tors, proctors! " and saw the Ladbroke company scurry 
 ing through the quadrangle in flight. 
 
 Later in the day, for the sun was now tipping with 
 light the spire of the church opposite, Wasson and 
 Lytton were found to have been the only captures. Was 
 son, as a rusticated man who had no business in town on 
 any pretext without leave, was formally expelled from 
 the universit3 r , and ordered to leave Cambridge within 
 twenty-four hours. I/ytton, a harmless dawdler in the 
 last end of the class, of whom nobod} T had a word to say 
 for good or bad, except that he swelled the numbers of 
 his class, and was a graceful smoker, was rusticated till 
 second term. 
 
 How the class, as one man, rallied about these two 
 men, the first to be suspended or expelled in term-time ! 
 How they magnified their heroism with the proctors, and 
 looked up to them as they moved about, this last day of 
 Wasson s, collecting their effects, and taking leave of 
 their old quarters ! 
 
 Toward evening, when all Cambridge is humming with 
 the news of the vast hazing of the night before, a hack is 
 seen drawn up at one of the corners of Holyoke Street ; 
 and presently the entire sophomore class comes marching 
 down the street, escorting the two men. They cheer, and 
 hug the men and each other, and dance about the hack, 
 and the horses leap forward, and the two men are gone, 
 waving their hats till they are out of sight, and then, for 
 the first time, sinking back upon the reflection what sorry 
 young idiots they are. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 131 
 
 The class goes back to the square, very hoarse and very 
 hungry ; and the men separate, saying among themselves, 
 4 It s too bad! They re mighty nice fellows, aren t 
 they?" 
 
132 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A LITTLE ACTRESS IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE. 
 
 " The strings of the harp are wet while the bard repeats thy tale." 
 
 FROM THE NORSK. 
 41 Malum est osculura, labia venenum aunt." MOSCHUS. 
 
 drag, which that young gentleman was 
 wont to use to convey himself about the neighbor 
 hood of Cambridge, with its flashing red wheels, and dark 
 bay horse sporting a carefully "banged" tail, drew up 
 suddenly on Mason Street, in the rear of the Boston 
 Theatre. Tufton threw the lines to an hostler, bespoken 
 at Garcelon s as he passed ; and by the light of the street- 
 lamps and a bulbous luminary over the small rear-door of 
 the theatre, the street urchins and wistful outcasts gath 
 ered on the spot saw Mr. Tufton and our friend Tom leap 
 lightly from the drag, and approach the private entrance, 
 where hurrying actors, men and women and children, 
 were admitted momently. 
 
 A quick knock, and the small door was moved cau 
 tiously, and then thrown obsequiously open, as the well- 
 known face of Tufton appeared. He entered with Tom, 
 pressing the usual douceur into the palm of the aged ser 
 vitor as he passed, and presently emerged through a nar 
 row dark passage upon a wilderness of flats and scenes 
 and stage-effects. 
 
 " Ah, Garibaldi, how do? " said Tufton, as a figure of 
 ample circumference, in a faded velvet coat and brilliant 
 neckerchief, came slowly into view up a subterranean 
 
HIS HARVAED DAYS. 133 
 
 stairway at their feet. "Eh cosi, cosi," returned he of 
 the velvets, producing a capacious silk handkerchief, and 
 mopping himself vigorously, his small dark eyes looking 
 piercingly at Mr. Tom. 
 
 " This is my friend Mr. Johnson. We d like to go on 
 to-night if you ve no objection/ said Tufton ; and Tom 
 felt a bit suspicious of a place where a changed name 
 seemed a necessary safeguard, but said nothing, and 
 bowed to Garibaldi, head functionary of the lower regions 
 and supernumeraries. 
 
 " Of course, of course," answered Garibaldi. " You 
 be a leetle late : curtain is rising in five minutes. But I 
 keep two suits for you : I have expect you. Make all the 
 haste is possible, if you please ; " and Garibaldi s fat palm 
 received the same beneficent touch as the ancient door 
 keeper s, while our young gentlemen descended a rickety 
 flight of steps to a musty dressing-room under the stage. 
 
 It was not the first time that the two had been to the 
 theatre together. Much less was it the first time that 
 they had been in to beat the town of a night, and drive 
 out at a furious pace, in time for a brief nap before Tom s 
 morning prayers ; Tufton, happy sleeper, having no clang 
 of bell, or rushing to cold chapel, to disturb his matutinal 
 rest, but dozing away peacefully in his pretty little pink- 
 hung bed, after a night out, till his man Jordan bethought 
 him that his lord had had rest enough, and came in to 
 wake him. But it was the first time that Tom had entered 
 the mysterious regions in which they were now laying 
 aside their nineteenth-century envelopes, and donning the 
 tawdry splendor of a bygone civilization ; the first time 
 that he had looked on the reverse side of the great stage- 
 curtain hanging before the vast spaces w r hich reach up 
 wards into nowhere, and side wise into passages lumbered 
 with the paraphernalia of illusion. 
 
 Tufton, as has been implied, was an old hand at this 
 
134 HAMMERSMITH .* 
 
 sort* of thing. When the two emerged as knights of 
 the middle ages, crusaders, janizaries, mounted police, 
 or whatever kind of fugleman was meant to be indicated 
 by their motley magnificence, Mr. Tom was not a little 
 amazed at my Lord Tufton s sang-froid, and familiarity 
 with the gods of the stage, little and big. 
 
 He nodded familiarly to the chief actors ; had a word 
 for each of the smaller fry (whom he called by their 
 Christian names in many cases) , and a joke or a compli 
 ment, in a low voice, for the gauzy young girls that were 
 encountered at every turn, seated on old trunks and 
 chairs, or a green bank temporarily out of use, or leaning 
 wearily against the flats, their faces wofully frescoed with 
 paints and rouge. Some of these my lord treated with 
 even more familiarity, chucking them under the chin, or 
 chaffing them on their get-up, or standing long with one 
 and another of them in absorbed whispering. 
 
 In fact, he was quite another Tufton from him that Tom 
 knew in Cambridge. Tom wondered at the sudden ease 
 with which he seemed to have thrown off his mask of 
 reserve and restraint, habitually worn in the university 
 neighborhood, and appeared as a jolty, off-hand young 
 party, with a laugh and a joke for everybody and every 
 thing. There was many a mask to come off, and many 
 a curtain to be removed for Mr. Tom, with all his boasted 
 knowledge and self-sufficiency, before he could see the 
 world as it is, alas ! But he was fated to learn it by bitter 
 experience, like the rest of us ; and it is perhaps well that 
 it is so. The lesson is vastly better remembered thus 
 learned ; and it is, perhaps, a kinder dispensation that 
 confident youth should go on believing and trusting, and 
 making their young mistakes for a while, than that we 
 should tell them of the shams and failures, and to 
 morrow s disappointment which await them, and so rob 
 life of half the joy of its expectancy. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 135 
 
 Tufton introduced Tom to some of these much-painted 
 young women in abbreviated draperies ; and though " my 
 friend Johnson " was a handsome, keen-eyed fellow, who 
 ought to have known better, and didn t look as .green as 
 he in reah ty was, he blushed like a schoolgirl, and fiddled 
 with his belt or his uncomfortable helmet, and, like the 
 man in "Punch," had " absolutely no conversation " fitted 
 for the occasion. Tufton rallied him on it when they 
 were on their way home. But Tom said, "Pooh! non 
 sense ! You don t suppose I was going to say what I had 
 to say before you and the rest of them," implying that 
 he was elaborately eloquent when he had the field to him 
 self. But, at the same time, he felt that it would take 
 a long apprenticeship to equal his master Tufton in his 
 nonchalant gallantry and adaptability. Nevertheless, he 
 vowed that he would be " even with my Lord Tufton yet." 
 
 Later in their career, they will not deign always to 
 incase themselves in these rusty velvets and fustian gar 
 ments as to-night, when they are performing their great 
 roles as armed retainers to the evil genius of the nether 
 realms in the moving spectacular drama of " The Emer 
 ald Grotto," with its nymphs of ne quid nimis draperies, 
 its clap-trap effects, its judgment-day of red lights. Later 
 in their career they will saunter in as others of the jeu- 
 nesse doree to ogle the players languidly, or stand at the 
 flats to receive some especially-to-be-congratulated actress 
 as she comes off, or chat for a while with Boggle, the sub- 
 manager, as he sits smoking his inevitable clay pipe. 
 
 But it is all so fresh and dazzling to Tom to-night, that 
 he rushes into every new scene with a spirit which he will 
 soon lose ; my Lord Tufton gracious!} 7 feigning an enthusi 
 asm which he cannot in reality feel, out of regard for Mr. 
 Tom s novitiate, or perhaps. from a more sinister motive, 
 which ma} appear later. 
 
 Now, you are not to suppose that Mr. Tom became a 
 
136 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 regular attache of the green-room, like yonder plump fla 
 neur by the flats there, nightly on hand with his nosegay 
 for a favorite actress ; or that he eloped with the first 
 walking-lady ; " or did anything else especially extraor 
 dinary, and unbecoming a } T oung gentleman of his high 
 honor. But when Tufton came bowling into Cambridge 
 of an afternoon in his drag, as Tom was coming from 
 recitation, and, pulling his horse up on his haunches, in 
 vited Tom so cheerily, " Come, Hammersmith, let s go 
 in to the Boston to-night: we ll take a bite at Parker s, 
 and tool round to the play afterwards," what especial 
 reason was there for refusing ? It was very pleasant to 
 toss his books to a friend, and saying, " Here, Jack, just 
 throw these down in my entry, will you ? " to jump into 
 the shining drag, and whirl off at a spanking trot for town. 
 Less fortunate fellows looked at him enviously ; and 
 under-classmen wagged the. head of admiration, saying 
 among themselves, " Deused rakish pair of fellows, eh? " 
 all which the observant Tom saw and enjoyed, you may 
 be sure, as do most others who are riding on the top-wave, 
 as they imagine, and looking down upon those in the 
 trough of the sea. 
 
 So that many a night in the fall, and during the long 
 winter-season, the old gentleman under the bulbous lumi 
 nary opened his little door for the young reprobates, the 
 younger of whom was rapidly feeling the different rounds 
 of the ladder which he had set for himself, and rapidly 
 becoming a worthy peer of my Lord Tufton in the dubious 
 arena. My lord was a skilful diplomate in this, as in all 
 other things ; and, knowing his man now pretty thorough 
 ly, he played his cards with an adroitness worthy of a 
 better game. 
 
 Meanwhile the " autumn , twilights in all their melan 
 choly," of which De Guerin speaks, had come and gone. 
 Long-drawn winter evenings and the small routs of Cam 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 137 
 
 bridge society came on, and Tom was often in request at 
 the many houses where he had entrance. 
 
 College-clubs and secret societies were again in full 
 blast ; and Tom, with many of his friends, had been ini 
 tiated with clue solemnity into a Greek-letter society, the 
 very name of which as only a rumored existence had 
 almost frozen his young freshman blood but a short year 
 ago : (how rapidly he seemed to himself to be aging, and 
 putting on the airs of wisdom !) the transcript of its 
 fateful three letters to these pages would be followed by 
 I know not what dire consequences to Hammersmith and 
 his biographer alike. But when I say that he was blind 
 folded, and taken in charge by his initiators in a distant 
 field of Cambridge, "led and driven and ridden for miles 
 about the town, dipped into the river, pushed from stone 
 walls, finally rammed down a coal-hole on a certain side 
 walk, and received by brother initiators below, whence he 
 was conducted up stairs, and subjected to the society rack 
 of torture (" f xyx?.o^, o crtatfopo?, o fikdyxsroij, brothers " ), 
 fellow-members of his at least may know where to place 
 him, and may know also the grip which he was taught, 
 which he used so exultantly for a few years, and then 
 utterly forgot. 
 
 Sophomore class-supper, too, had come on in the short 
 Thanksgiving recess ; and the dining-hall of Porter s had 
 echoed till long past midnight with the speeches and 
 toasts, the shouts and songs, common to those festive 
 occasions. Freemantle had presided with an easy grace 
 which became him well. Trimble s fluty tenor enabled 
 him to fill his role of chorister with immense success. 
 And our friend Hammersmith, as toast-master, quite out 
 did himself with the wit and appropriateness and happy 
 rendering of the many sentiments which he provided, and 
 to which the freer rein of the later revelry allowed a large 
 liberty of addition by enthusiastic classmates. Hammer- 
 
138 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 smith, indeed, had made a strenuous effort to have Tuf- 
 ton admitted as a friend and entertainer of so many men 
 in the class. But Albemarle, the champion of precedent 
 and prerogative, Goldie, and, in fact, almost everybody 
 but Tom and a few of Tufton s especial pals, pooh-poohed 
 the idea from the start ; and it was only Tom s well-known 
 vivacity, cleverness, and sang-froid (the last so largely 
 learned under Tufton s tutorship) , that overcame the ob 
 jections which this advocacy of Tufton s admission had 
 raised against him, and that elected him toast-master of 
 the evening. 
 
 It was no disgraceful orgy, I am happy to say, as were 
 so many sophomore suppers in the days before the flood. 
 There was the restraining influence of an exceptionally 
 gentlemanly and refined chairman, who discountenanced 
 all excess ; and the presence of almost the entire class, 
 many of them sober to abstinence, all drawn together by" 
 that esprit de corps which is so pleasant a growth of 
 college-life, source of many errors and false judgments 
 though it may be. And although there was a prodigious 
 rapping of tables towards the close of the feast, and much 
 part-singing not put down in the " Arion ; " and although 
 Ladbroke wanted to fight a waiter for telling him the 
 champagne was out ; and Pinckney, who had just returned 
 to Cambridge, was toasted and pledged till he grew quite 
 uproarious and confidential by turns, there was no wild 
 scene, or whirlwind of termination, such as the old hotel 
 has seen many a time before and since, I doubt not. 
 
 Little Oliver s poem, too, was received with shouts of 
 applause, particularly his allusions to the facuhty, in sol 
 emn spondaic verse, and his gratulations over the success 
 of the class-crew, which were delivered in rattling dactyls. 
 And at last, when everybody was tired of his own merri 
 ment, and the stoutest reveller could shout no more, they 
 broke up with three ringing cheers, which shook the lights 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 139 
 
 on the tables, and woke the sleepiest cattle-driver in the 
 farthest room of the bovine hotel ; and marched back to 
 Cambridge in the frosty night-air, singing mighty choruses 
 as they went. 
 
 During all this time, the visits of Tufton and Tom to 
 the stage of the theatre were kept up with tolerable regu 
 larity ; and Tom, in accordance with Tufton s divination, 
 and almost as if in answer to an expressed wish, began 
 more and more to withdraw his interest from general fea 
 tures, and concentrate it on particulars. 
 
 " Tufton," said Tom one evening in midwinter, as they 
 were watching the stage from their usual place (marked 
 L. M. in stage-directions), " seems to me the Queen of 
 Love is hardly as seductive a looking female as might have 
 been picked out for the part," " The Emerald Grotto " 
 had been revived for a few nights, just after the holidays. 
 
 " I should say not. Why, bless you ! she s how old 
 should you think? " 
 
 Very hard to say, with all the toggery and war-paint 
 she has on. I should say somewhere near forty, to be 
 safe." 
 
 "Forty! Lord, Hammersmith, you d never do for a 
 fortune-teller ! If she ever sees sixty again, it will not 
 be in this world. But it s the old story, drunken hus 
 band, large family of infant loves, kind-hearted manager. 
 Boggle has acted like a brick toward her, all the company 
 calling for her dismissal, Too old, regular shrew, 
 4 taking all the chief parts, and so on. But Boggle has 
 stood by her through it all ; says she ll never want for a 
 place while lie has the reins, and while she retains as much 
 fire as she has now. Gad, she s not such a bad actress, 
 either! You should have seen her in Pygmalion. Half 
 the town crazy about her not over five years ago ; and 
 young Lumpkin of Jamaica Plain lost a bet of a hundred 
 and fifty that she was not over twenty-five." 
 
140 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 "More fool he," said Tom: "I should have known 
 better than that myself. But who is that speaking 
 now?" 
 
 "Why, that s Boggle s own daughter." 
 
 " What! " said Tom. "By Jove, she s a neat little 
 figure ! How sad-looking, though, when she s through 
 her speech ! I don t remember noticing her particularly 
 when The Grotto was on before." 
 
 "No wonder! she wasn t in it; had a long spell of 
 fever, and is only back a week now. You would think 
 she had cause to look sad if you knew her history." 
 
 "Why, what do you mean?" asked Tom, bristling 
 with curiosit} 7 . 
 
 "Hush, not so loud! Old Boggle! Tom, you will 
 hardly believe it ; but Boggle, who is so kind to Mrs. 
 Jacobs, the Queen of Love there, is a perfect brute to 
 his own daughter. I don t know that I have a right to 
 tell you, as I only came by it under pledge of secrec} 7 ." 
 
 "Oh, do ! " said Tom. " What s the odds? I m sure 
 you can depend on it s not going any farther than me." 
 
 " Well, it s no great secret, after all. Everybody on 
 the stage knows how he watches her while she s here, 
 never lets a man speak to her, keeps her shut up all the 
 time she s not acting. But that s not so bad ; though I 
 did nearly have a row when I first came on, not knowing 
 the old Argus s squeamishness. But the way he treats her 
 outside is a perfect shame ! 
 
 "Why, what do you mean? " asked Tom, feeling his 
 curiosity merging into a strong chivalric interest in the 
 young actress whose history was so mysterious and so 
 sad. 
 
 But Tufton pretended to be unwilling to tell him any 
 thing further where they were, for fear of being over 
 heard, promising, however, to enlighten him on the way 
 home. He knew very well how a little suspense would be 
 
HIS HAKVAKD DAYS. 141 
 
 apt to work with an impetuous young fellow like Tom ; 
 and he smiled to himself to see that Tom followed the 
 actress in question intently with his eyes the rest of the 
 evening, apparently noticing no one else. 
 
 " Don t you think you could manage to introduce me? " 
 asked Tom. 
 
 "Afraid not," said Tufton. " Not here, at any rate. 
 See the old boy watching her ? Perhaps we might manage 
 it some time, if we re sly. But I warn you : you may 
 put your foot in it before you know ifr, my boy ! Art 
 ful Tufton ! didn t he know that this was the very condi 
 tion of affairs to tempt Tom on? Hadn t he waited for 
 this very conversation to spring up, fearing, at last, that 
 he might have to broach the matter himself, and so rob 
 his plan of its naturalness ? An oppressed young woman 
 domineered by a brute of a father ; dangerous ground, 
 too, where Tufton himself had almost been mired, what 
 conjunction of circumstances could have been imagined 
 more alluring to chivalrous Tom, eager for adventure, and 
 careless of danger ! 
 
 " It s simply this," said Tufton, as they were on their 
 way to Cambridge. " You saw what a delicate, sad little 
 piece she is. Well, sir, old Boggle not only takes every 
 cent of salary the little girl earns, and you can imagine 
 where it goes," continued he, inverting his fist before his 
 mouth, "but he keeps her shut up, like a nun, in her 
 room on Joy Street, from morning till night, doing what? 
 working at sewing and other such jobs as are brought in. 
 And the old villain, you can be pretty sure, receipts the 
 bills for them, and pockets the swag, as he does the sala 
 ry ! By Jove, no wonder she had a fever, and was laid 
 up for a month ! And they do say that he has beaten 
 hor, and kept her shut up in a closet, and done all sorts 
 of mean things with her. But I imagine that it is till 
 exaggerated a good deal : people about a theatre are such 
 
142 HAMMEKSMITH : 
 
 tattlers ! At any rate, the little thing has had the same 
 sorrowful look ever since I ve known her, and " 
 
 " You know her ! I thought you did not." 
 
 "I can t say that I do exactly," returned Tufton. 
 " Boggle has introduced me ; but I ve never had a chance 
 to see her alone : he s always glued to her side, the old 
 sinner ! and I ve more than half a mind that she is not 
 his daughter, after all ! " 
 
 " What a fiend ! " shouted Tom. " Is there no way of 
 putting a stop to his persecutions? " 
 
 "Hardly see how," answered Tufton. "Oh, I 
 wouldn t borrow any trouble about her ! She ll run away 
 some day, or put a little strychnine on her tongue, and 
 then the old brute will find out what a treasure he has 
 lost. For she seems, though remember I only speak 
 from seeing her on the stage, she seems a very ladylike 
 little woman, with considerable talent in a small way : in 
 fact, she seems completely out of place in her present 
 position. Perhaps the same idea has occurred to 3 r ou? " 
 
 "By Jove, it has! more than once, since I ve been 
 watching her to-night. Her manners are entirely different 
 from those of the crowd around her ; and I could not help 
 fancying, when I first saw her, that there was some great 
 sadness eating away at her heart. I don t see how you 
 can talk of her killing herself in such a cold-blooded way. 
 I think it s all a burning shame;" and Tom suddenly 
 became quiet. 
 
 We have no intention of following with a particular 
 description along the trail which Tom found opening for 
 him, or of recounting the various means by which he was 
 beguiled by the way. Tufton was careful to impress him 
 dail} r with an appreciation of the dangers that beset him, 
 but at the same time lent himself to the task of over 
 coming them with a readiness which might indicate, to a 
 cool observer, that the dangers were of his own imagining. 
 
HIS HAKVAKD DAYS. 143 
 
 Mr. Tom was no cool observer, however, but fired with a 
 noble resolve to see if some relief might not be brought 
 to the sad young creature ; and no suspicions of duplicity 
 on the part of Tufton came to disturb the large philan 
 thropy with which he was filled. 
 
 Now, do not smile at chivalric Tom, seeking to succor 
 a young actress, and calling it, if he call it any thing, by 
 the safe generalization of philanthrop}^. You and I, my 
 dear Philippus, who have perfect command over our feel 
 ings, and are aware how specious a cover is this same 
 philanthropy, may, perhaps, be amused at the lad s impetu 
 osity, and see dangers that he does not conceive possible. 
 We know how, in children of an older growth, philan 
 thropy becomes the cover of much private rebellion, and 
 love of fame, and dyspeptic unhappiness ; and we may 
 well fear lest the love of his species, in a vivacious 3 T oung- 
 ster like our Tom, take on a rosy complexion, and suffer 
 itself to be narrowed to a dangerous unit, destructive of 
 a wide application. 
 
 As these memoirs, however, are drawn solely from 
 Hammersmith s own confessions and the explanations of 
 his journals, and as the family failing has never been 
 towards deliberate misrepresentation, we are compelled to 
 believe him when he says, that however much appear 
 ances may be against him, and a later construction of 
 several parties may be insisted on, his first and only 
 thought was of helping the unhappy 3 T oung girl, if so be 
 he could. If, in spite of his best endeavors, he was 
 unable to afford her assistance, and if, later, he contented 
 himself but we are outrunning ourselves. He has always 
 maintained, and will to the end declare, that all the Gar 
 risons, Howards, Phillipses, Nightingales, and Frys of 
 Christendom, were no more led on by philanthropy than 
 he, when he begged Tufton to contrive, if possible, to 
 procure him an introduction to the sad-eyed 3 oung actress 
 
144 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 who figured on the play-bills as Miss Graciana Lee. Her 
 real name, or rather the name by which she received the 
 various needle-work at her little rooms, was Emily Boggle. 
 
 This introduction, and the insinuation of Mr. Tom into 
 the little rooms of Miss Graciana, Emily in the vulgate, 
 were no very difficult matter, in spite of the imaginary 
 dangers, when we consider the ready consent of all con 
 cerned. Not that it all came about at once, or that Tom, 
 for his part, did not suppose that he was doing most won 
 derful things, running, as he would have said, " no end 
 of danger," and pursuing his philanthropy under most 
 discouraging circumstances, the fear of possible surprise 
 and of terrible parental retribution. 
 
 " Mind, Tom, I distinctly wash my hands of all respon 
 sibility, if any thing happens to you," Tufton had said. 
 " I warn you of the risk, but cannot refuse to get you an 
 acquaintance with her if you really wish. Heaven knows 
 the little thing needs friends badly enough ! 
 
 And Tom looked very grand, and, I must own, not at all 
 philanthropic, as he tossed his head proudly, and made 
 some rejoinder about hanging the danger and the risk, 
 or something of the kind. He did not feel the less grand, 
 and neither more nor less philanthropic, as he found him 
 self escorting Miss Graciana across the Common to her 
 rooms one night not long after Tufton s warning. 
 
 You are shivering : are you cold ? asked Miss Gra 
 ciana. 
 
 "Yes, a little. The wind always sweeps across the 
 Common so ! " said Tom. 
 
 "Let me button your coat at the neck," said she. 
 " Why, } T OU silly boy, your throat is all bare ! " And she 
 fumbled at his great-coat, rising on her toes to do it ; and 
 a gas-light showed him a pair of very bright little eyes 
 without a particle of sadness in them now, and peachy 
 round cheeks which ought never to be wet with tears, and 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 145 
 
 small red lips that looked exceedingly inviting, but some 
 Harvard men were singing towards Cambridge in the next 
 mall ! and, altogether, a trig little being, which might well 
 tempt a stronger moralist than Tom to concentrate a wide 
 philanthropy upon herself, to the neglect of the rest of 
 mankind. 
 
 But the dangerous little unit dropped his arm at the 
 corner of a dark court on the western end of Joy Street, 
 and put out her hand. 
 
 " I live in here," she said. " I thank you so much for 
 your kindness ! Good-night. And, while Tom was mum 
 bling some nonsense or other, she pulled her hand away, 
 and was gone. Tom strode rapidly out to Cambridge, 
 twirling his cane excitedly, and winding this novel thread 
 of experience around his romantic bo} r s heart. 
 
 Why hadn t she asked him to call on her, though ? why 
 had she torn herself away so suddenly? Ah, my dear 
 Tom ! you are propounding riddles too deep for Delphi. 
 You are forgetting your Virgilian varium et semper muta 
 ble femina. You are attempting to drain one of those 
 long thin wineglasses called "impossibles" because they 
 never can be quite emptied. Why is woman a sphinx? 
 Why are we pensive at twilight ? Where is the odor of 
 last year s roses? She did not ask you to call and see 
 her, to come up, in fact, this very evening, my dear young 
 ignoramus, because she was extremely anxious to have 
 you do this very thing. She tore herself away, and ran 
 off like Galatea in the eclogue, because she was longing 
 to remain right here at the corner, by your side, her little 
 hand in yours, listening to your light twaddle and all your 
 vows of sympathy and admiration. But you are very 
 3 r oung yet, and may understand these things better before 
 you join the ranks of " all good fellows whose beards are 
 gray." 
 
 About contemporaneous with this first escort to the Joy- 
 
146 HAMMEKSMITH : 
 
 street court, a careful inspector of college-belongings 
 might have detected the beginning of many marked pas 
 sages in the ancient tragedies and comedies in which Mr. 
 Tom was engaged. Beauties of expression which had 
 escaped him before now caught his eye with a personal 
 application. His Antigone and Alcestis showed many a 
 pencil-mark abreast of an epigrammatic description or a 
 noble sentiment ; while, as for his Horace and Theocritus, 
 they were fairly disfigured with his significant pencillings 
 and a whole gallery of dainty heads and vignettes with 
 which the 3 r oung philanthropist embellished appropriate 
 odes and idyls. And I fear me, that if pains were taken, 
 and these various signboards of Mr. Tom s sentimental 
 journey were collected, they would be found to point, not 
 to the unselfishly beneficent goal to which he declares he 
 was aiming, but to a private pleasure-ground of romance 
 and sentiment of quite another character, in which he 
 delighted to disport. 
 
 As he went on in this journey, came again and again 
 to the theatre, again and again escorted the young sphinx 
 to her home, and at last was admitted again and again to 
 her narrow quarters in the little court, Cambridge could 
 not be supposed to be ignorant of Mr. Tom s infatuation, 
 and almost nightly absence from its learned halls. The 
 utmost precaution on his own part, and a reticence which 
 told many things because it was so sudden and marked, 
 could not prevent the bright skirts of his sophomore 
 romance from appearing now and then in the area of 
 university gossip, where they received a mighty inflation. 
 
 Small scraps of information were brought out also from 
 the metropolis now and then. Tom had been frequently 
 seen hanging about the corner of Tremont and West 
 Streets when the theatre- crowds were pouring out. " Oh ! 
 I m waiting for a friend," he would say, if a fellow ad 
 dressed hun. He was known to be almost as constant an 
 
HIS HAKVAED DAYS. 147 
 
 attendant on the stage now as the call-boy himself. Fen- 
 nex could swear that he had seen him once or twice cut 
 ting into the Joy-street court, with a small, hooded figure 
 on his arm ; and so, amid much leisurely smoke and gos 
 sipy lounging, Tom s little escapade grew and spread, like 
 the genius from the fisherman s net, till it threatened 
 quite to overshadow that } oungster himself, and become 
 the sensation of the hour. 
 
 Hence, too, it came that he acquired a prodigious repu 
 tation as a man of the world among Cambridge men, a 
 reputation which a certain other person in Cambridge was 
 taking great pains to increase by various personal embel 
 lishments and rather unjustifiable disclosures. For, though 
 Tom did not know it till long afterwards, Tufton was well 
 aware of the impulse that a reputation of this sort would 
 give his pupil ; and, while Tom was as secretive of his own 
 affairs as the college-pump is of the long history of quad 
 rangle events which it has witnessed, Tufton, by crafty 
 insinuation and occasional contribution of facts, contrived 
 to add considerable substance to the shadowy rumors that 
 were floating about the college-walks, and looking in at 
 college suppers and societies. 
 
 His fame was greater, I regret to say, though quite 
 other, than after his wonderful Greek examination of 
 freshman year. His absorbed air and pensive smoking 
 were remarked by men who had been used to expect jollity 
 and laughter and openness from him. Some men dared 
 to say that Tufton the Great was ruining him ; and fearful 
 stories of his losses at play, and his excesses in company 
 with Tufton, were told ; which were happily untrue. Un- 
 der-classmen, in whose hands legendary history grows 
 so rapidly, added rows of ciphers to the amounts of his 
 losses, and a dubious spice to many harmless escapades. 
 They looked up to him as to something quite awful, as he 
 paced the }-ard in an abstracted mood, after the fashion of 
 
 
148 HAMMEESMITH: 
 
 Dante ; and it was not long before the story ran, that he 
 had fought a duel or two on account of an actress ; and 
 small freshmen at their ambitious wine-parties retailed 
 many startling facts about him, and winked at their wine 
 glasses with a deused knowing air. 
 
 Ah, what a glamour they threw over the young fellow ! 
 And how supremely unconscious he was of his Lovelace 
 fame ! though occasional hints of the estimate placed upon 
 him came to his ear, not unpleased to listen. Philanthro 
 pists are not of the stuff, forsooth, to quail and halt before 
 an unfriendty showing, to put their hands to the plough, 
 and then turn back ; and a Hammersmith philanthropist 
 least of all. 
 
 " Why won t you tell me all about your troubles, Miss 
 Lee? " said Tom, leaning his elbow on her table one even 
 ing, where the young girl was busy with her needle, under 
 a flattering drop-light, working prettily at a fancy hand 
 kerchief for the young philanthropist. 
 
 "I am not sure that I know you well enough," she 
 answered, threading a needle, and looking peculiarly 
 comical, with one eye closed, as she turned towards the 
 light. 
 
 "Know me! Haven t I been with you almost every 
 evening for two months now? Haven t I brought you 
 home again and again on the wildest kinds of nights? 
 Haven t I brought } T OU books and flowers, and no end of 
 things? " And he opened, and twiddled the leaves of, a 
 Byron in lavish binding, his latest gift. 
 
 " Yes, you ve been very kind certainly ; but " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " How am I to know that you are any better than most 
 of the young men in Cambridge? How am I to know 
 that you are going to do all the fine things that you speak 
 of?" 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 149 
 
 " By Jove, Miss Emily ! you re too hard on me. Have 
 I ever done any thing to make you distrust me ? " 
 
 "N-n-no." 
 
 " Have I ever been impertinent or forward? " 
 
 " I should say not," said she with a laugh. " On the 
 contrar3 r , I thought, that first night on the Common, that 
 3 ou were mightily afraid of me. You ll never die of 
 over-boldness, you may be sure." And Tom vowed he d 
 try that mode of death some day, if sufficiently provoked ; 
 and she had better be careful (this to himself) . 
 
 " Do you take me for a man like Tufton? " he asked, 
 casting about for the first man with whom to compare 
 himself. 
 
 " Ugh ! don t speak of him. I hate the sight of him ! 
 Such an odious-looking man ! I am sorry to see you with 
 him every time I see 3^011 together." 
 
 "I don t think he s so bad-looking," apologized Tom. 
 
 " So he s not except for his eyes. But men don t 
 notice such things." 
 
 "Well, what can I do, then, to prove myself worthy 
 of confidence?" asked Tom. 
 
 "I ll not tell you now. There, please pick up my 
 thimble," folding her hands meekly in her lap. Tom 
 sprawled over the floor, fished the thimble from under the 
 sofa, and was handing it to her, when he stopped, and 
 said quickly, 
 
 "What s that?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I heard a noise in the next room. Isn t it your 
 dressing-room ? 
 
 " Yes ; but I heard no noise. It was your own ima 
 gination. Perhaps it was a cat on the shed. Now, }~ou 
 little goosey, come here ! Don t be such a nervous little 
 man. Was its little heart scared because it heard a tom 
 cat _at the window? Now give me my thimble, and be 
 good." And she pierced him with a blue-tipped lance. 
 
150 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 " I ll do nothing of the sort till you tell me what I can 
 do to be worthy of your trust." And he held the thimble 
 behind his back, poking his chin at her. 
 
 " That isn t at all becoming to you," she said. "Now, 
 Mr. Johnson, there, you see how little I know you! 
 I didn t even know your right name. Johnson isn t, I m 
 very sure. They re all called Johnson on the stage, all 
 you naughty men. I ll tell you what : I ll make a bargain 
 with you. You give me my thimble, and tell me your real 
 name, and I ll promise to tell you any thing you wish to 
 know." 
 
 "Anything?" 
 
 " Yes, unless it s very impertinent." Why did she look 
 at him so roguishly ? 
 
 " I m to give you the thimble, and tell you my name? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You re to tell me any thing I want to know? " 
 
 " Yes, any thing." 
 
 "Can t do it. Isn t a fair bargain. I m to do two 
 things ; you only one." 
 
 " Well, but perhaps I shall tell }^ou lots of things. 
 They ll count more than one ; that is, if you care any 
 thing about me at all," she said, with an appearance of 
 great dejection. Then she suddenly looked up, took a 
 skein of red silk from the table, which made a pretty bit 
 of color against her black dress, habitually worn, and her 
 general coloring of face and hair, which was clear and 
 gold-yellow," like Heine s friend, saying, 
 
 "Now hold this for me, that s a good man! You ll 
 not want too hard a bargain from me? " 
 
 Tom resigned the thimble, and put his great brown 
 paws in the pretty coils of red silk ; but his clumsy fingers 
 would get hopelessly tangled, and his thumb was always 
 in the way ; and the young siren bent over him, as he sat 
 on a low seat before her, and removed the snarls, telling 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 151 
 
 him that he did it on purpose. But Tom said, " Oh, no ! " 
 and looked very innocent. And he felt her warm breath 
 on his face, and snarled the thread again, and again said, 
 "Oh, no!" Altogether it was a funny situation for a 
 philanthropist ; but I make no doubt that he "tried to 
 endure it as well as he could. 
 
 "Now tell me your name, Mr. Johnson," she said, 
 when they were about half through, and Tom was watch 
 ing her rapid fingers. 
 
 " What wiU you give?" 
 . " Oh ! any thing, almost." 
 
 "The whole name?" 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 " Samuel Brown." 
 
 " I don t believe a word of it ! You were never a Sam, 
 you know perfectly well." 
 
 " How could you tell? Well, I ll confess : I was fool 
 ing that time. It s Arthur Simpson." 
 
 4 Arthur Simpson ! Where did you invent such a name ? 
 You re no Arthur, cither ! Arthur is too soft for you ; 
 though } T OU are pretty s s " 
 
 "What do you say?" he exclaimed. But she drew 
 back, and told Tom to behave ; and he did, although he 
 didn t feel at all like it. 
 
 " No, really, what is it? " she asked. 
 
 "Thomas" 
 
 " Well, why not say Tom? That s stronger." 
 
 "Tom Sampson." 
 
 "No, that s too strong. You re no Sampson! Come, 
 now, you ll never tell me ! " 
 
 " Tom Hammersmith," he said. 
 
 " No, really? that s very nice and strong." 
 
 "Why do you believe me this time?" he exclaimed, 
 looking a bit discomfited. " Did you know it? By Jove ! 
 I believe Who could have told you? It isn t fair!" 
 
152 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 And the thread was fearfully tangled of a sudden ; and 
 there was a pretty little melodrama of red silk and blue 
 cravat, small hands, fair blooming cheek, and impertinent 
 mustache ; after which came her epilogue, 
 " O you naughty man, go home ! " 
 
 And Tom at length went though not as one driven, 
 and astonished Gimlet with his hilarity, meeting him on 
 his beat towards Cambridgeport ; and, bursting into his 
 own rooms, performed a war-dance, and shook Penhallow 
 in his bed, howling like a dervish at him. 
 
 Penhallow opened a sleepy eye, and growled, 
 "What in thunder s the row? Go to bed!" which 
 Tom at length did, after considerable prancing about, and 
 a little private worship of a knot of red silk which he took 
 from his button-hole. 
 
HIS HARVAKD DAYS. 13 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 IN WHICH MR. TOM ALMOST SMELLS GUNPOWDER. 
 
 " A deer with a halter around his neck cannot go where he pleaseth." 
 
 SAADI. 
 
 Ovdft^ yvvatKbc; fydpftaK, f%evp7]K. TTCJ 
 
 Ka/c^f TOOOVTOV ka^ev uvOpcjTroif Kcmov. 
 
 EURIPIDES. 
 
 WE are not proposing to enlarge upon this episode of 
 Mr. Tom s career, or to set down much of his 
 harmless capering in those salad . days when he hovered 
 about the Joy- street court. 
 
 Placid men of the world, grown gray in service, may 
 smile at the lad s simplicity, his easy inflammability, his 
 guilelessness ; and I own that there is much that is laugh 
 able in the adorable verdancy and charming gravity of 
 youthful affairs of this sort. His word for it, Tom felt 
 that it was no laughing matter, as the phrase goes, at 
 the time. He seemed appreciably older since this chival- 
 ric mantle had fallen upon his shoulders. He moved 
 about with a sense that a part had been assigned him, and 
 that at last his turn to act had come. It is sad to have 
 to own, at last, that the part is mere ranting, and the fair 
 Dulcinea whom we would rescue a mere designing minx, 
 who has been playing us on a hook for veriest pastime. 
 But it is sadder to have to own that we are incapable of 
 sympathy and chivalry, and the tenderer sentiments that 
 come in their train, and proud that we are as stocks and 
 stones. 
 
 It was very pleasant, then, and seemingly much beset 
 
154 HAMMEE SMITH : 
 
 with danger, for our Hammersmith free-lance to charge 
 upon the unconscious metropolis (which would have been 
 electrified, and would have risen to him as to a conqueror, 
 he felt, if it had known how his heart was bursting with 
 great yearning plans) , and to hang up his shield in the 
 Jo} -street court, and chirrup with the beleaguered Graci- 
 ana in her third-story donjon, hung with dingy lace cur 
 tains, which were transfigured by her presence, as were 
 all the other tawdry appointments of the rooms, into 
 something quite wonderful and princely. How he poured 
 out his boyish hopes and plans to her ! How he read to 
 her, and quoted much unintelligible nonsense, while she 
 rolled her tender, melanchoty e} T es at him, and sighed. 
 He argued with her on the theatrical life that she was 
 leading, its trials, its hardships, its temptations, and by 
 degrees drew from her an account of her griefs, substan 
 tially the same as Tufton s version. And he walked the 
 room, his anger breaking out in excited speech, declaim 
 ing against her cruel father, and tortured his brain to find 
 some way of escape for her. 
 
 "Now, don t, Tom! " she would say, it was Tom 
 and Emily now, " remember, he s my father. It s very 
 hard to bear ; but I must do it." And she looked so re 
 signed and patient, and altogether captivating, as she sat 
 at her work-table, stitching away at some feminine mys 
 tery, that Tom could only rave and stamp the more, 
 bursting with sjTnpathy. 
 
 "But, confound it! There ought to be some way of 
 putting an end to it ! It s downright cruelty ! He ought 
 to be shut up ! Eniil}*, has he ever beaten you ? 
 
 " N-n-no ; but he s ver} r harsh and rough with me 
 sometimes. And, Tom, I don t know what he would do, 
 if he should ever catch you here. He only comes once a 
 week generally, to get the money ; but he might come, 
 and I don t know what I should do ! " 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 155 
 
 " Oh, don t you be alarmed ! I m not afraid of him, or 
 a hundred like him ! " Tom would answer, with a defiant 
 toss of the head natural to him, clinching his fists, and 
 striding about. Once, in fact, he had nearly demolished 
 a panel of the hall-door, bringing his hard knuckles down 
 upon it till it cracked, and Emily started. " I d like to 
 give him a piece of my mind, and ask him what he means 
 by treating you so ! 
 
 "Now, promise me you ll never fly out at him if he 
 comes here, or have any words with him at the theatre, 
 won t you? there s a good boy ! " And she pushed the 
 hair from his forehead, and kissed him. 
 
 "I can t," he said. 
 
 " But you must ! You have no idea how ferocious he is 
 when he s mad." 
 
 " Do you mean that I shall go on seeing him ill-treating 
 you, and taking all your money, and never try to help 
 you?" 
 
 4 But what can you do ? " 
 
 " I ll see what I can do ! " and he fell to thinking, and 
 looked very resolute. 
 
 Lamb says that he can conceive of two persons, who 
 have never seen each other, meeting for the first time, and 
 instantly falling to fighting. Mr. Tom had been endowed 
 by nature with no such subtle tendency to pugnacity and 
 sudden enmity, and, I imagine, was as amiable a young 
 fellow at this period of his life, and as free from unusual 
 ebullitions of feeling, as most lads of his ardent tempera 
 ment. The first sight of Boggle the actor had raised 
 no such dire longing in his heart as Lamb describes. A 
 bustling sub-manager, ordering about a gang of fustian 
 carpenters, and arranging stage-properties, is not ordina 
 rily considered in the light of a red flag to a bull. But 
 Tom felt now that the very sight of Boggle, the tjTant- 
 father, the miscreant, the villain, with which names he 
 
156 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 continually showered him, would be enough to rouse all 
 the worst passions in him. He would fall on him at once, 
 he knew he would, and, seizing him by the throat, 
 call him to account for all his harsh treatment of his 
 daughter. Such thoughts were very easy and quite natural 
 to Tom, as he paced the room, or strode grandly out to 
 Cambridge, or talked sympathizingly with Tufton on the 
 subject ; Tufton counselling extremest caution, but con 
 triving at the same time to add fuel to the young fellow s 
 wrath and devotion by various judicious means, while 
 appearing anxious to quell his fiery spirit. 
 
 Breathing such vows and dark intentions, the lad man 
 aged to lash himself into quite a frenzy. And exchanging 
 soft speech, such as that of which we have seen a speci 
 men, Miss Emily and Tom continued to promenade the 
 private pleasure-ground of sentiment above referred to, 
 absorbingly happy in the present, and looking forward to 
 the time when they could shut the gate entirely on odious 
 parents and all obnoxious intruders. If Miss Emily 
 played her part perfectly, as though she had learned it 
 from the stage-book, with all the proper exits, entrances, 
 asides, and so on, carefully marked and conned, Tom, on 
 his side, was the least suspicious subject of all with whom 
 she had tried the role before and Tufton could have 
 told you that their number was legion. Indeed, Tufton 
 had their names all carefully written down in a little pri 
 vate book, with various specifications against each, the 
 nature of which may be imagined as this history pro 
 ceeds. 
 
 Yes, Mr. Tom (I have his word for it) was completely 
 and engrossingly happy in these few too brief weeks. He 
 smiles a cynical smile at it all now, and wonders how he 
 could have been such a condemned fool. But at the time, 
 while he was pouring his hot words into the little actress s 
 ears, and firing himself to the fighting^point in her behalf, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 
 
 he was as completely sub mellifluo imperio to the young 
 schemer (to adapt Fortescue s phrase, quite differently 
 applied) as any infatuated boy who has dangled at the 
 belt of a flirt, or sighed his heart out in unappreciated 
 verse. 
 
 As he had not the innate impulse of which Lamb speaks 
 to fight the casual stranger, none the more had he the 
 mawkish sentimentalit} 7 that idealizes every pretty face 
 which one meets, and sets him spinning romances and 
 wrapping himself in their folds. We shall have portrayed 
 his young life thus far to no purpose, if we have not 
 shown him to be quite too sensible and sturdy for that ; 
 and if it shall not already be seen that the stuff of which 
 he was made was quite different from that of erotic Sterne, 
 who declared, that, if he were in a desert, he should love 
 some cypress. 
 
 Here, however, was a romance ready made to Hammer 
 smith s hands, waiting only for time to give the crown 
 ing stroke. Here was a pretty face, which needed no 
 idealizing to account for its tender melancholy and piteous 
 grace ; and should he, Hammersmith, with his mind filled 
 with classic models, and his heart still unsullied with 
 evil, refuse his aid? Is there any wonder, then, that not 
 many weeks of artful coquetting had passed over him, 
 before he was Miss Graciana Lee s most abject slave, 
 most loyal knight perhaps we should say? And Miss 
 Graciana, who could drive a tandem of flirtation as skil 
 fully as Tufton could manage his single bay (my lord, in 
 deed, .had more weight on the lines in this case than Mr. 
 Tom at first suspected) , Miss Graciana had but little 
 trouble, and certainly infinite amusement, in winding the 
 boy Hammersmith about her pretty fingers, till at length 
 she saw him almost writhing under the tortures of his 
 pleasure, and enduring the lover s dolci durezze and placide 
 repulse under her graceful whip. 
 
158 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 To what extreme the lad s impetuous nature might 
 have earned him, and what mode of escape his interested 
 scheming might have arranged, we are scarcely able to 
 conjecture. That he would have acquitted himself as a 
 brave and devoted Hammersmith, and shown no flinch 
 ing in the execution of his plans whatever they might 
 have been, no one who knows the family temperament 
 can doubt. This history might have run in quite a differ 
 ent channel, and Mr. Tom s academic career have ter 
 minated most abruptly (like those Western rivers that 
 come tumbling and booming down a canon, only to sink 
 in the sand, and be lost at its mouth) , if there had not 
 come a sudden check on his exuberance, in the form of an 
 intrusive presence in their pleasure-ground. 
 
 It was that season of the year when a man with an eye 
 for beauty, promenading the fashionable avenues of Bos 
 ton, knows not which to admire the more, the bursting 
 buds and early bloom within the trim city areas, or the 
 gorgeous raiment and splendid finery which burst into full 
 flower outside the iron palings, with the rising of the 
 Easter sun. In all the throng of returning worshippers 
 and saunterers along sunny Beacon and Boylston and 
 Tremont Streets that Sunday, there were none happier, 
 and freer from care, than our friends Freemantle and Ham 
 mersmith, walking arm and arm along the gay sidewalks 
 about noon, lifting their hats to friend after friend, and 
 basking as well in the welcome sunshine of spring as in 
 the proud consciousness^ of being regarded as chief orna 
 ments of their class in the neighboring university. Un 
 der all the dainty bonnets to which they bowed, however, 
 covering I care not how high-bred and brilliant beauties, 
 Mr. Tom saw no face, so the young rascal thought, which 
 wore such an appealing tenderness and melancholy beauty 
 as a certain blue-eyed little lady of whom he was think- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 159 
 
 ing, I fear, not only to-day, but every day and night for 
 many weeks now. For shame, Mr. Tom ! to associate 
 in your mind, even for an instant, thoughts of these spot 
 less maidens, these demure young worshippers, and your 
 pining Dulcinea in the Joy-street court! But pardon 
 innocent Hammersmith, and permit him for a day or two 
 more to idealize his young actress, and fold his chivalric 
 mantle about himself and her alike ; for the denoument is 
 coming fast enough, when ideal and mantle will be torn 
 relentlessly away. 
 
 It was the Monda}^ night after this Easter Sunday. 
 Cambridge had put its scholarly head on its pillow, and 
 was sleeping peacefully. The round Gimlet, rolling on 
 his beat, saw only here and there a light still burning, and 
 encountered only a belated reveller now and then steering 
 with unsteady motion collegeward. 
 
 A hack came tearing furiously out of Boston, its lights 
 bobbing up and down as the horses now galloped, and 
 now trotted, under a whip constantly applied. If Gimlet 
 had looked within, he would have seen his patron and 
 friend Hammersmith, sitting with his hat on the back of 
 his head, and an unlighted cigar crunched between his 
 teeth, looking wildly into nothingness. If he could have 
 followed him, he would have seen Mr. Tom putting his 
 head again and again out of the hack- window, and shout 
 ing to the driver, "For God s sake, get on! Never 
 mind your horses! Give them the whip!" and sinking 
 back upon his seat again. 
 
 The hack turns swiftly into Tufton s street, rattling 
 and echoing in the narrow thoroughfare, and stops before 
 my lord s door. 
 
 Tom is out almost before it has stopped, hands the man 
 his fare (liberally increased) , and bangs at Tufton s door. 
 The driver wheels his horses, walks them slowly off 
 towards Boston, and turns to look at Tom, saying to him- 
 
1 G H AMMERSlttlTH : 
 
 self, " Young chap is in a peck of trouble, I should say 
 Liberal with the coin, howsumdever : them kind mosV 
 generally is. Get up, Susan ! get up, gal ! " 
 
 Jordan, blinking fearfully, appears with a candle at the 
 opened door. 
 
 "Hah, Mr. Ammer smith, it be you? Master ave ad 
 a powerful bad eadache this hevening. Might hit be 
 hany thing poorticular ? 
 
 " Yes, yes, Jordan ! Hang his headache ! " and Tom 
 brushes past him, and runs quickly up to Tufton s rooms. 
 
 "What is it? Who s there?" came in answer to 
 Tom s call. 
 
 "It s I, Hammersmith! Must see j-ou, old fellow! 
 Come out as soon as you can. . Or shall I come in? " 
 
 " No, I ll be out in a minute." And Tufton throws on 
 his dressing-gown, thrusts his feet into slippers, a smoking- 
 cap on his head, and, as he gives his mustache a twirl at 
 the glass, says to himself, " So the trap is sprung, eh? " 
 
 He appears, yaw^ning, and stretching out an arm. He 
 starts to roll a cigarette which he has taken from his 
 bureau. 
 
 "My God, Hammersmith, you look ill! What s the 
 row? Here, take a pull of brandy. Jordan, Jordan, a 
 small glass ! " And Tom, a pitiable sight, doubled up in 
 an easy-chair, with his hat still on the back of his head, 
 takes the brandy, and tosses it off. 
 
 " It s all up, Tufton, all up ! I ve had a terrible time 
 to-night. Her father came in on us, and " But Tom 
 had to stop for breath in his excitement. 
 
 " You didn t have a fight? " 
 
 " No ! Wish to Heaven I had ! Wish he d killed me, 
 or I him ! Tufton, I m a ruined man ! " 
 
 " Pooh, pooh, man, not so bad as that ! Tell us about 
 it." But it was a long time before Tom could go on to 
 explain it all, and then only with man3 T halts, and much 
 striding about the room, and glaring at Tufton. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 161 
 
 " In the -first place, old fellow, you were right. If I 
 had taken your advice, and steered clear of her, I 
 shouldn t have made such a mess of it, and such an ass 
 of myself. But I couldn t help it, God knows! And 
 she s worthy of every thing I can do for her, by Jove ! 
 she s worthy I say ! " shouted Tom. 
 
 " Yes, yes, I hear you. Go on," said Tnfton, a little 
 moved by Tom s excited manner, and not quite knowing 
 if every thing had been done according to the card, and 
 if his lion-cub might not be minded to turn upon him, 
 after all. 
 
 " Well," said Tom, staring into vacancy as he recalled 
 the scene, " we were sitting quietly in her rooms : I was 
 just through reading something out of Herrick to her, and 
 she was embroidering a handkerchief for me, bless her ! " 
 A long pause. 
 
 " She looked up and said, Aren t you going to read 
 any more? and, as she said it, her face became as white 
 as marble, and she said, O Tom ! O Tom ! two or 
 three times, dropping her work. Jove, I shall never for 
 get it as long as I live ! I thought she must be awfully 
 ill, and jumped up to catch her ; but she ran towards the 
 door, saying very quickly, He s coming, he s coming ! 
 Who? said I. My father ! What shall we do? 
 and she turned towards me, and opened her arms in the 
 most helpless way. I caught hold of her, and so forth, 
 and told her not to be afraid ; but she trembled and shook 
 so, I thought she was going to faint. You must hide, 
 Tom, you must go in here ; and she started to open a 
 closet-door. I was excited, of course, and was starting 
 to go in ; but I thought what a disgraceful, cowardly 
 thing it would be, and I turned round, and told her I 
 would do nothing of the sort. She begged me, and 
 and so forth. But I was bound not to be caught hiding 
 in that way ; preferred a square fight by far. 
 
162 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 4 She had just time to say, Well, then, sit down 
 quietly, and don t say any thing till I explain things/ 
 when the door was thrown open with a kick, and old Bog 
 gle strode in. The old bird had been drinking fearfully, I 
 could see that ; but he looked as sober as a judge, and 
 scowled like a thousand devils when he saw me. 
 
 " Papa, this is Mr. Johnson, said Emily. 
 
 " Mr. Johnson, ugh ! growled the old fellow. 
 
 " Yes. He s called to see if he can borrow that fancy 
 suit of yours for a masquerade in Brookline. Won t 
 you 
 
 " Fancy suit be blank-blanked ! Girl, go to your 
 room ! he roared. 
 
 "But she sank down on the floor, and kept saying, 
 Please, please, father ! And I couldn t stand it any 
 longer. I jumped up, and threw myself between them, 
 saying to him, 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir ; but what s all this for? I m 
 a 3 T oung man ; but I fancy I m a gentleman, and I ll not 
 see a woman abused by anybody ! 
 
 " Who the devil are you? You think I m going to 
 swallow all your rot? " Fancy suit " ! He, he ! And, 
 quickly turning the key in the hall-door, he put it in his 
 pocket, and said harshly to Emily, Sit down, then, and 
 keep quiet, if you want to see it out, while I could feel 
 my blood turning hot and cold. I could have struck him ! 
 I could have killed him ! But I got over that feeling, 
 when I saw him quietly open a small mahogany chest of 
 drawers near the window, and sit down, with his hand rest 
 ing in the opened drawer, fumbling with a pistol, which I 
 caught sight of, and heard him put at full cock. I wasn t 
 such a fool as to exasperate him, with his hand on a pistol 
 at full-cock, although it was all I could do to sit still. Do 
 you know that feeling, Tufton? Have you ever had a 
 man standing guard over you in that way? " 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 163 
 
 * I I -no, oh, no! It must have felt mighty tic 
 klish, eh?" 
 
 " I tell you it did at first. But I soon forgot it, and 
 gave my whole attention to keeping as cool as possible, 
 and mollif3dng the old boy as much as I could. He took 
 out a cigar, and offered it to me. 
 
 " Will you smoke, Mr. Johnson? It may take us 
 some time to settle this little matter. 
 
 " No, thanks, said I. I was afraid of his villanous 
 weeds. He lighted and puffed away in silence a moment, 
 looking from Emily to me, and back again to Emily, grin 
 ning feebly as he did so. I couldn t stand it, and blurted 
 out, 
 
 " Mr. Boggle, we may as well understand each other. 
 
 " Precisely, precisely, understand each other, said he, 
 crossing his knees. 
 
 " That matter of the fancy suit was a mere fiction of 
 your daughter s, said I. 
 
 " Precisely, fiction, a fiction ! Emily, he talks tol ble 
 well. 
 
 " But I am here, sir, because I know 3 T our cruel treat 
 ment of 3 our daughter. I have heard it all ; and 3 T ou 
 have treated her shamefully 3 7 es, sir, shamefully ! And 
 I could scarcely keep n^self from shaking my fist in his 
 face. 
 
 " Precisely, precisely, shamefully! That s good! 
 Mr. Johnson says shamefully, Emily. You hear? 
 
 " Yes, sir, shamefully. And I am here by the right 
 that all gentlemen have, of protecting oppressed women 
 eveiywhere ; and I 
 
 " Precisely, oppressed women! Emily, 3 T ou hear 
 him ? You are an oppressed woman, Emily, devilish op 
 pressed ! 
 
 " And as you are a gentleman and a father, sir, 3 r ou 
 can appreciate the motive 
 
1G4 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 " Very good, very good ! Gentleman and father ! 
 You hear, Emily, I m a gentleman and a father ! He s a 
 gentleman and a father, Emily, he, he ! Heaven forgive 
 for me calling him a gentleman, Tufton ; but I thought it 
 might pacif} 7 him. 
 
 " I can t remember all that we said, or how long it 
 took : it seemed hours then ; but I suppose it was about 
 fifteen minutes. I was going on to upbraid him (I know 
 it was impolitic ; but I couldn t help it, and Emily sitting 
 there so pale and frightened, begging me with looks not 
 to do any thing rash) , and I was telling him that I had 
 never harmed his daughter, or meant to, so help me 
 Heaven ! when his whole manner changed. He said in 
 a perfectly natural wa}~, dropping his semi-maudlin 
 speech, 
 
 u Don t waste } T our breath, young man. I suppose 
 we understand each other ; and, as I m a bit sleepy, we ll 
 get to business. 
 
 " I could have taken my oath that he was as tight as a 
 lord when he came ; and he changed in a jiffy. Do you 
 know I think it was all put on? Wasn t it extraordi 
 nary?" 
 
 " Yes, very," said Tufton. " Well? " 
 
 " Well, he took out a greasy old pocket-book, fumbled 
 in it, turned his back to me, scratched away with a pen, 
 and handed me a paper. My God ! " 
 
 u Well? " said Tufton, blowing a ring of smoke. 
 
 " What do you suppose was in it? I can t remember 
 exactly : but it was like this : 
 
 " The undersigned hereby agrees to pay to Graham Boggle or 
 order, for value received, one thousand dollars current money 
 United States, in the following sums and under the following 
 conditions: one hundred dollars within five days from date, the 
 balance monthly in three instalments of three hundred dollars 
 each. 
 
 " BOSTON, April 19, 18^-. " 
 
l< 
 
 HIS HARVARD DAYS. 165 
 
 You didn t sign it? " said Tufton. 
 I didn t at first. I could hardly believe my senses ; 
 but I read it twice, and then threw it on the table. 
 
 " I have done nothing to warrant this, sir, said I. 
 4 I ll not sign it. 
 
 " i Oh! don t be in a hurry, of course, he answered. 
 4 One does not carry that amount about with one all the 
 time, of course. Reflect a moment ! 
 
 14 4 I appeal to you, Emily! I shouted. But Emily 
 looked frightened ; and her father said, 
 
 " Oh! that doesn t matter. It s out of the girl s 
 hands now : it s between us as gentlemen. And he smiled 
 most sarcastically. 
 
 " 4 I ll have you prosecuted, sir ! I shouted. 
 
 44 It will be necessary to appear before a justice. We 
 keep none in these rooms, he said coolly. 
 
 44 4 I ll have you branded as a scoundrel, sir ! 
 
 44 4 Perhaps so. But that will be to-morrow, or the next 
 day, or the next. To-night this paper interests us more. 
 But come, this has gone far enough. Your name, sir, in 
 that place at once ! No Johnson, either ! he added. 
 4 That will not go down in this court. 
 
 44 What could I do ? I held out still, told him it was 
 impossible, I hadn t the mone} 7 , it would ruin me, and so 
 on ; and Emily added her appeals. But he was as cool as 
 an iceberg, never lost his temper ; and, at last, seeing no 
 relief, I signed. He put his name in the other corner, as 
 a witness, folded the paper, and put it back in his book. 
 
 4 4 And now we have the pleasure of wishing you a very 
 good-evening; haven t we, Emily? he said, with just a 
 momentary relapsing into his old tone. 4 1 shall be glad 
 to receive these remittances as promptly as possible, or 
 we may both be put to considerable trouble and expense ; 
 and, throwing open the door, he bowed stiffly. I seized 
 my hat, bowed to Emily, poor girl ! passed him as 
 
166 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 straight as a ramrod, and walked down stairs. I don t 
 know how I got out here ; but here I am, a ruined man ! " 
 
 "By Jove, it is a pretty rough deal!" said Tufton. 
 " But don t let it make you desperate. I thought it was 
 a great deal worse when you first came in." 
 
 " But heavens and earth ! what am I to do? " gasped 
 Tom. "I can t raise the money! I don t know a man 
 who can lend it me, unless yourself, my dear fellow " 
 
 " I m exceedingly sorry, Hammersmith, you know I am. 
 But the fact is, my own exchequer is most uncomfortably 
 low just now, and I have been thinking how I could raise 
 the wind myself." 
 
 " Then I m a used up community ! " said Tom. " If 
 I only had that hundred that I loaned you last month, I 
 might make this first payment, and so get a little time to 
 breathe, and look about me." 
 
 "It s too bad!" said Tufton. "And I promise you 
 I ll help you as soon as I can. I am expecting some 
 money shortly, and will pay you as soon as it comes, on 
 my word." 
 
 " What can I do? Can you suggest any plan? " asked 
 Tom. " Penhallow has no money, I know: he s always 
 hard up. Freemantle is even worse off. And Goldie, 
 who is the only man that s flush at this time of j r ear, I 
 couldn t ask a favor from, if I were dying ! We ve hardly 
 spoken for months." 
 
 I ll think it over," said Tufton. But, pon my word, 
 I hardly know where to turn. Why couldn t you write 
 home?" 
 
 "Gad, I hadn t thought of that! I get my money 
 through my uncle s lawyers in Boston, and don t draw on 
 my mother. I ll do it the first thing in the morning. But 
 I ll tell } r ou what," continued Tom, cheering up visibly, 
 and strutting about the room, " I don t despair of being 
 able to arrange it without paying any thing to old Bogglo 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 167 
 
 at all. You know him, Tufton : can t you intercede for 
 me ? On my word, Tufton, I have done nothing in this 
 whole affair that any gentleman need be ashamed of, you 
 know that perfectly well. Don t you think you might 
 tell Boggle so emphatically, and get him to release that 
 paper ? 
 
 " I ll try," said Tufton. " I ll see him the first thing 
 in the afternoon," looking at his clock, which already 
 marked the quarter to three. 
 
 " Thank you, thank you most heartily, my dear Tufton ! 
 It s late, and I m keeping you from your sleep. Is your 
 head better? I m very glad. You ll carry a note to 
 Emily for me, too, won t you? " 
 
 " Mighty risky ! But I ll do it for you, old boy," and 
 Tufton pressed warmly the hand that was extended to him. 
 Tom left, and went to his room ; where, after tossing and 
 mumbling wildly in his bed for a while, he fell into the 
 sound sleep which comes to most healthy young creatures 
 like him. 
 
 In the morning he wrote hastily to his mother, begging 
 for the hundred dollars, or as much as she could conven 
 iently spare, making all sorts of excuses and explana 
 tions, after the manner of devoted sons whose pockets are 
 suddenly empty. 
 
 In the afternoon Tufton, the kind, the obliging, the 
 self-sacrificing, drove to town agreeably to appointment, . 
 canying the following note, which he delivered with most 
 uncommon difficulty, as he gave Tom to understand : 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, April 20, 185 - . 
 
 MY DEAREST EMILY, What a scene we had ! And how I have 
 been tortured with anxiety ever since, to know if your cruel father 
 has been treating you with fresh harshness since I have seen you ! 
 I have been wild, and beside myself with anger; but, with Tuf ton s 
 kind aid, I have grown calmer, and hope to find some escape out 
 of this terrible entanglement with your father. Tufton has be 
 haved splendidly, promises to do all he can ; and I assure you, my 
 
168 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 poor dear Emily, that you can trust him implicitly. He s as true 
 as steel; and, without him, I do not know what I should do. 
 
 I must see you, and as soon as possible, to learn how you are, 
 and to see you with my own eyes. What I suffered for you while 
 your villain of a father was abusing me last night, you can never 
 know. I do not think of myself, but of what you must be under 
 going, exposed to that man s renewed cruelty and most unjust 
 abuse. He s a brute, a scoundrel, and every thing that is low and 
 mean, and I do not see how you can longer endure his tyranny. 
 Write to me at once by Tufton, if possible, if not, through the 
 mail, directing to "Massachusetts 18, Cambridge," and tell me 
 where and when I can see you : make it as soon as possible. I 
 shall be consumed with anxiety till I can see you. We ll see if 
 we cannot devise some way of escaping from that odious brute; 
 and, if worst comes to worst, we ll but I leave every thing till I 
 see you, my poor suffering, patient little Emily. Write at once. 
 
 Always yours, 
 
 T. H. 
 
 On his return to his rooms, towards sundown, Tufton 
 met Tom, and, with a very long face, handed him the fol 
 lowing note, a small, much scented pink note, in delicate 
 feminine script : 
 
 DEAB SIB, Whatever feeling I may have had for you before 
 has been destroyed by your most abusive and ungentlemanly words 
 applied to my father in your note. No gentleman could have used 
 such terms as you employed in writing to a lady of her father. I 
 am disapointed in you, and now percieve that I have been thor 
 oughly mistaken in you. I can never see you again; and if you 
 dare to atempt to call on me, or speak to me, I have friends about 
 nie who will see that you are treated as you deserve. 
 
 I hope, when next you try to be a friend to a lady, you will 
 understand how a gentleman should act and talk under all cercum- 
 stances. Yours for the last time, 
 
 E. B. 
 
 P. S. Mr. Tufton has kindly promised to carry this to you. 
 He will tell you that this word of mine is final, and also that my 
 poor father, whom you abuse so basely, refuses most positively to 
 break off the business arangement that he has made with you. 
 Gentlemen generally keep their word, I believe. If you will send 
 somebody to fetch away your books, and the rest of the rubish that 
 you have left here, you will oblige me. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 169 
 
 " Can that be true? " Tom said, crushing the note in 
 his hand. 
 
 " Afraid it is," said Tufton. " I ll tell you what / 
 think. The old fellow must have come in on her when 
 she was reading your note, and dictated her answer. I 
 know that I handed your note to her myself, and she 
 seemed very pleased, only mighty sad, and red about the 
 eyes ; and she told me to call in an hour. I did so. Saw 
 old Boggle climbing up the street as I turned the corner 
 of the court, and found her cr}ing, when she handed me 
 her note there. She said, It s all over. I can never see 
 him again. And though I staid quite a while, expostu 
 lating with her, and taking your part, she was inflexible, 
 and I could get no satisfaction : she said her father would 
 kill you if he caught you near her again. She begged 
 me to hand you this note, and I left." 
 
 " You think, then, that she didn t write this of her own 
 freewill?" 
 
 " Exactly. I think her father must have scared her by 
 threatening to shoot you if she did not break with you 
 entirely." 
 
 "By Jove, Tufton, you are a brick! You always 
 encourage a fellow so ! " And with more diplomatic talk 
 from Tufton, who saw that Tom must be kept in good 
 hope, or he might do something desperate, leave Cam 
 bridge, jump into the river, or in some other way balk the 
 pajinent of the money to Boggle, the two sat and dis 
 cussed the matter long. Tom at last left, thanking Tuf 
 ton impressively for all his trouble and kindness ; and the 
 door was no sooner closed than Tufton threw himself at 
 full-length on the sofa, holding his sides, and indulging in 
 what passed for excessively loud laughter with his lord 
 ship : in other persons it would have been called a sub 
 dued cackle. 
 
170 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 Tom had a sorry success, however, in attempting to 
 prove for himself how much foundation there was for the 
 hope extended in Tufton s last conversation. He waylaid 
 the Boggle as she came out of the theatre-door the next 
 evening. 
 
 " Emily, may I walk with yon a little way? " 
 
 She turned her face full towards him, and drew away a 
 bit, as she said, 
 
 "Mr. Johnson, leave me! I don t know you, sir! " 
 And, as Tom did not leave, she turned herself, and walked 
 into the theatre. Tom waited under a distant lamp-post, 
 saw her come out in a few moments on her father s arm, 
 look about just a second, and then walk off with him. 
 
 We may leave to the imagination all that passed in the 
 young man s mind as he followed them, saw them disap 
 pear in the well-known dark passage where he had cut in 
 so often with such a pleasant titillation, and then took his 
 way for Cambridge. 
 
 We may only mention that he was leaning with his chin 
 on the railing of the bridge, looking down into the cool, 
 dark flood washing against the timbers, when Freemantle, 
 Pinckney, and several other men, stretching their legs 
 after a party in Boston, came upon him, and rallied him 
 on his " pensive attitude," as they called it. He joined 
 them, and walked to Cambridge. 
 
 Quiet as Tom had been of late, the men were alarmed 
 at his dejected and forlorn air to-night, and refrained from 
 the copious chaff with which any thing out of the common 
 order is usually showered by easy-going college-men. 
 
 " Goldie was put into the Varsity to-day," said Pinck 
 ney, as the crowd was breaking up in the quadrangle. 
 " Did you know it, Tom?" 
 . " No," said Tom. 
 
 " You ought to be there yourself too," continued the 
 ardent Pinckney. "They ve got Albertson in at No. 3 ; 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 171 
 
 but he s mighty weak for a waist oar, and you re the very 
 man to strengthen them there. Would you pull if they 
 asked you? " 
 
 " Let them ask me first," said Tom, and went off to 
 his rooms ; while Pinckney, full of manly tenderness and 
 pity for Tom, made up his mind that he would suggest 
 Tom for the Varsity at the very next meeting of the club, 
 his own position as vice-president, and his reputation as 
 an oarsman, rendering such a suggestion from htm entirely 
 in rule. He pulled one of the prettiest oars on the river, 
 had been frequently begged to row in races and crews ; 
 but a tendency to heart-disease, never apparent at other 
 exercise, was aggravated by severe work in a boat, and 
 he had been forbidden by his physician to take more than 
 gentle single-scull paddling. 
 
172 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 STRANGE BEHAVIOR OF MY LORD TTJFTON. 
 
 " Who gave me the goods that went since.? 
 Who raised me the house that sank once? 
 Who helped me to gold I spent since? 
 Who found me in wine you drank once." BROWNING. 
 
 HOFFMAN says somewhere in his note-books, that 
 on the llth of March, at eight and a half o clock 
 precisely, he was an ass. Tom now appreciated, what it 
 had taken him some time to accept, that on the 19th of 
 April, at about eleven of the clock, when he signed that 
 luckless paper of Boggle s, he was the longest-eared, most 
 pach}~dermous, of his kind. 
 
 It is a point gained, however, when one can be brought 
 to realize the long ears which he has previously regarded 
 only as picturesque objects in natural history, in nowise 
 related to himself as an actual prominent possession 
 of his own, patent to the world. It is an added virtue, 
 when he not only recognizes the proprietar} relation, but 
 takes the matter in hand, like a patient philosopher, and 
 endeavors, by various reducing processes unknown to 
 Banting, to diminish the unnatural growth. 
 
 Tom felt sufficiently the ludicrous aspect of his situa 
 tion. He appreciated perfectly now, that Boggle and the 
 daughter had conspired to extract that unhappy promise 
 to pay from him ; and he was clever enough to see through 
 the vulgar coquetry by which he had been led on. There 
 had been a certain ordered method in the tactics, however, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 173 
 
 which puzzled him not a little. Surely Graham Boggle, 
 a third-rate actor, and Emily Boggle, second walking-lady 
 of the troupe, could hardly be in the habit of luring the 
 unsuspecting stranger-youth into such carefully-arranged 
 pitfalls ! But who else could be plotting with them ? 
 Well, he would not bother himself with the conjecture, 
 lie had been duped, trapped, robbed : that was enough ! 
 He was not lawyer enough to doubt if his signature, thus 
 obtained, were binding ; and he would hardly have dared 
 put the question to his bankers, Brooks and Bates, if the 
 doubt had occurred to him. 
 
 But can any simple statement of his recognition of his 
 own folly adequately express the sickening disgust, and 
 self-discontent, and entire mental revolution, which came 
 over him? he, Tom, who had pledged himself so de- 
 votedty to his mother to do nothing unworthy of her or 
 his father, he to be entrapped and swindled by a couple 
 of actors, to feel that he had not the penetration to see 
 through the low-bred wiles and tawdry accomplishments 
 of the Boggle, and, worse than that, to find himself 
 pledged to pay a thousand dollars within a three-month, 
 a thousand dollars to come from he knew not where ! 
 
 What should he do ? where should he turn ? Oh that 
 his uncle, who knew the ways of the world so well, and 
 could pardon youthful folly, as Tom felt sure, were only 
 here ! Who else of all his friends and relatives could at 
 the same time pity and pardon, and act as paymaster for 
 him in this emergency ? But Mr. Gayton was not here ; 
 nobody knew when he would be : and poor Tom was left, 
 like so many lads in all time, to fight his own battle, and 
 decide if he, or the ogre Circumstance, should win. 
 
 It was what novelists call a rude awakening for Ham 
 mersmith, Hammersmith, who had never before been 
 brought face to face with the deceit and trickery, wiles 
 and villany, of the world, in all his young life. Did he go 
 
174 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 drown himself? Did he take to drink? Did he break 
 out into wild cursing of the human race in general, and 
 actresses in particular? Thank Heaven, no! But in the 
 sullen and silent Hammersmith who now went through his 
 college-exercises as mechanically as clock-work (if not 
 with quite its regularity) , one would hardly recognize the 
 gay and dashing Tom who had been the life of supper- 
 parties so short a time ago, or the earlier Tom who had 
 come up to Cambridge with smug face that had never 
 looked on treachery or sin, and with the ingenuous airs of 
 unsullied youth. 
 
 A ruder awakening still awaited him, however. 
 
 The Varsity and the entire Boat-Club had begged and 
 entreated him to enter the crew, Pinckney having started 
 the movement ; but Tom would not give his decision till 
 he had heard from home. If the money came, he argued, 
 he might make his first payment, join the crew, secure thus 
 a new channel for his thoughts and activities, and then 
 trust to his devices for securing funds to pay the balance. 
 If the money from home did not come, he hardly dared 
 think what might happen ; certainly he should be in no 
 mood to go into boating, he might have to run away in 
 deepest disgrace. 
 
 The Boat-Club, I say, had unanimously petitioned him 
 to try his hand in the crew. His splendid physique was 
 still as powerful as ever. The winter s carousals, while 
 they had taken him away from his exercise vastly more 
 than was good for a boating-man, and had led him into 
 some dubious excesses in my lord s banquet-hall, had as 
 yet no sensible effect on his superb development ; and he 
 was hailed as the coming man for the Varsity, in spite of 
 the croakings of the stricter trainers. 
 
 The letter from home came : it was fat and soft, and 
 Tom broke the seal excitedly. It was there, a draft for 
 seventy dollars ; Which is all that I can conveniently 
 
HIS HAKVAED DAYS. 175 
 
 spare, my dear Tom," the widow wrote, " and I hope you 
 are not living too extravagantly." 
 
 " Poor mother !" said Tom to himself; " if she only 
 knew where her money is going ! And he rushed to 
 Tufton s to announce the good news that he had raised 
 most -of the first instalment. Yes, if the good mother 
 could only have known where her money was going ! 
 
 So by his mother s happy aid, and by borrowing of one 
 or two classmates, Tom made up the hundred dollars, and 
 sent it in by Tufton, who said he was going to town to 
 see about some new engravings. In the evening came a 
 receipt from Graham Boggle for "one hundred dollars 
 on account." 
 
 The very next afternoon, with a lighter heart than he 
 had carried for many a day, Tom took his seat in the 
 Varsity boat at No. 3, and had his first pull with the 
 crew. It was months since he had had a good square 
 pull ; and with implacable McGregor in the bows, and 
 Miles pulling a slashing stroke of forty to the minute, 
 our Tom was put through a severe ordeal on this first 
 practice-trip of his. They pulled nearly to Braman s, 
 rested on their oars a moment (McGregor criticising the 
 crew) , and then came swinging back. They shot through 
 the bridge without a scratch, caught up a stroke or two 
 as they neared the boat-houses, and came tearing up at 
 racing speed. 
 
 44 By Jove, here she springs ! There s plenty of life in 
 her now ! " said Pinckne} 7 to the crowd in waiting, as the 
 boat came in sight above the upper bridge. 
 
 The crowd cheers. McGregor turns his head to take his 
 bearings, and, as he nears the houses, says sharply, " Way 
 enough ! " and then," Hold her, Three and Four ! " They 
 step out of the boat. The fellows gather about, and com 
 pliment them on their improved form, looking admiringly 
 at Tom s glowing muscles, and plucky, determined air. 
 
1 76 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 But nobocty in all the throng and in all the crew knew, 
 that when Tom was pulling away as if he would pull his 
 heart out, and laying on all his strength, with his eyes 
 glued to Goldie s back in front of him, he was saying to 
 himself with every stroke, "Co&found her! confound 
 her ! " or, " Hang him ! hang him ! " But such was the 
 fact, believe it who will ; and he is not the first man, I 
 conceive, who has vented his feelings in like fashion at 
 some sturdy pastime. He took a plunge in the river with 
 others of the crew, dressed in one of the narrow little 
 dressing-rooms of those da}^s, and, just as the sun was 
 setting over Mount Auburn, went up to dinner, feeling 
 like a new man. 
 
 It was but a few evenings after this first practice of 
 Tom s with the Varsity , that, returning to his rooms after 
 dining, he found under his door the following note, super 
 scribed to himself : 
 
 DEAR HAMMERSMITH, If you have nothing particular on 
 hand this evening, will you not come to my rooms at nine ? I 
 have something especially important to say to you, which affects 
 you very nearly. I ask you to come to me instead of offering to 
 meet you in your own quarters, as I think we shall be much less 
 liable to interruption over here. 
 
 Do not fail to come, if you can possibly spare the time. You 
 will regret it if you do not. Yours, &c., 
 
 JOHN BKEESE. 
 
 FRIDAY, May 13. 
 
 "Hang it! Why are fellows alwa} T s meddling in my 
 affairs, I should like to know ! Another lecture a la 
 Goldie, I suppose. Appears to me I have plenty of peo 
 ple overseeing me. But what can this be ? Breese is not 
 a man to waste time or words on a cock-and-bull story : 
 that I know perfectly well," communed Hammersmith 
 with himself. 
 
 When he went over to Breese s room, at nine, his door 
 was open. Knocking, and receiving no answer, he walked 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 177 
 
 in, and sat down, saying to himself that Breese had proba- 
 ably stepped out for a moment. 
 
 A lexicon lay open on the table, a Plautus upon the 
 lexicon, and several books scattered about. Tom took 
 up one mechanically, and glanced at its title, " Thoughts 
 of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus." Turning its 
 leaves absent-mindedly, he found passage after passage 
 marked, some with a single line, some with two and even 
 three, the favorite apothegms of the reader. Breese 
 not coming, Tom read here and there, and was soon busi 
 ly engaged in following from one marked passage to an 
 other, so apt they appeared to his present frame of mind. 
 
 "If thou workest at that which is before thee, following right 
 reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing any thing 
 else to distract thee, but keeping thy divine part pure, as if thou 
 shouldest be bound to give it back immediately ; if thou boldest 
 to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with thy 
 present activity according to nature, and with heroic truth in 
 every word and sound which thou utterest, thou wilt live happy. 
 And there is no man who is able to prevent this." 
 
 " It is a ridiculous thing ^for a man not to fly from his own bad 
 ness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men s bad 
 ness, which is impossible." 
 
 " If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this thing 
 that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it. And it is in 
 thy power to wipe out this judgment now." 
 
 "A cucumber is bitter: throw it away. There are briers in 
 the road : turn aside from them. This is enough. Do not add, 
 And why were such things made in the world? " 
 
 This passage Tom read over and over, not at first fully 
 comprehending its force, and then dwelling on it for its 
 epigrammatic pointing of the moral. 
 
 "He who does wrong does wrong against himself. He who 
 acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, because he makes himself 
 bad." 
 
 " No longer talk about the kind of man that a good man ought 
 to be, but be such." 
 
 "What is my ruling faculty now to me? and of what nature 
 am I now making it ? and for what purpose am I now using it ? " 
 
178 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 These, and many other sentences like them, which seemed 
 to have been especially set apart for his present mood, 
 Tom was reading absorbedly when Breese came in. 
 
 u Beg pardon, Hammersmith. I stepped across to 
 Donaldson s to return a book that I had borrowed." 
 
 " Don t speak of it. I ve been immensely interested in 
 this book here," said Tom. 
 
 " What, Marcus Aurelius ? Heaven bless him ! He s 
 a stand-by that I never am tired of leaning upon when I 
 feel a little down." 
 
 " You don t mean to say that men like you ever feel 
 down or discouraged? " asked Tom. 
 
 "Why, of course. I suppose everybody has a little 
 letting-down now and then : it s probably good for us. 
 But I am very seldom so down with the blues, that a good 
 constitutional, or a few pages of my Marcus Aurelius, or 
 other vade-mecums, will not bring me up again." 
 
 " Well, I must own I m surprised to hear it. If there s 
 a man in the class that I thought was always in tip-top 
 working-order, body and mind, it s you, Breese. But I 
 can t say I m sorry to hear that you are subject to the 
 same ups and downs as the rest of us fellows. I certainly 
 alwa} r s thought } T OU were a law unto yourself, and had no 
 need of outside aid." 
 
 "You see 3~ou were vastly mistaken," said Breese. 
 " No one can live at the top of his bent all the time, or 
 keep his wings going continually, however the wind blows ; 
 though I conceive that it is our duty to do so as much as 
 possible, or else give up at once, and creep about on the 
 earth, like blind animals. But I did riot ask } ou up here 
 to listen to a lecture on Marcus Aurelius and morality 
 generally : you probabty had enough of my style of ha 
 ranguing, last year, in The Forum of blessed memory," 
 he added with a serio-comic air. 
 
 Tom settled into his chair, and took out a cigar. Breese 
 would not smoke. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 179 
 
 " Perhaps I ought to apologize, Hammersmith, for say 
 ing any thing at all in an affair which does not concern 
 me immediately, except as your friend," began Breese. 
 
 " That depends upon what the affair is," said Tom, 
 hardening a little, and confirmed in his expectation of a 
 Goldie tirade.. 
 
 " But if the angel Gabriel were to come down and give 
 you important news about a man in whom } r ou were inter 
 ested, you would not think that you had a right to refuse 
 telling it to him, and helping him if possible, would you? " 
 Breese asked. 
 
 " You don t mean that that s the kind of company you 
 entertain here along with Marcus Aurelius and the rest ! " 
 
 Not exactly quite a different kind of bird ! I think 
 you will agree with me when you hear my news." 
 
 "Well," said Tom, "fire ahead." 
 
 "You know perfectly well, Hammersmith," Breese 
 went on, " that every thing a man does in Cambridge or 
 Boston, or anywhere about here, in fact, many a thing 
 that he doesn t do, is bruited about in college sooner or 
 later, and that we all know pretty well what our neighbors 
 are busy about, if they are only coloring meerschaums. 
 So you will not be surprised to learn that even men like 
 myself are tolerably well informed about your life for the 
 past few months, and all your " 
 
 " Well," said Tom, " what of that? " 
 
 " We ll let that pass," continued Breese. " I was 
 only mentioning it by way of preface, that you might 
 know I had some little grains of information on a certain 
 matter, even before the angel Gabriel flapped down upon 
 me. Yesterday afternoon," and Breese s brow clouded, 
 " I received a very sad letter from home. I need not re 
 fer to it, it is neither here nor there ; but I did what I 
 have never done yet in college, I cut afternoon recitation 
 and dinner alike, and staid here in my rooms writing." 
 
180 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 lie paused a moment, as though the recollection were 
 painful to him. "I had written for several hours, read 
 a bit, and about ten o clock went down to Kent s for a 
 little supper : I felt faint from my unusual fasting. I had 
 finished my supper, and must have been in the place some 
 time, re-reading my letter, and resting on my elbow, when 
 somebody came into the next stall." (The students fa 
 vorite restaurant of the day was this primitive place of 
 Kent s, with a number of narrow stalls ranged against 
 the wall.) 
 
 4 I certainly had no thought of eaves-dropping : I hope 
 I am not given to it. I should have gotten up and left 
 immediately, for the interruption had recalled me to my 
 self ; but I was attracted by hearing your name, accom 
 panied with an oath, almost directly on their entering. 
 There were two men as I now made out. Hammersmith, 
 I hope the Lord will pardon me for staying and listening 
 to them as they talked ; and I know that you will, when 
 I tell you what I heard. Did you know that there was 
 a plot on foot to ruin you? " 
 
 " Is that all your news? " asked Tom. 
 
 Oh ! I do not refer to Boggle and his daughter : every 
 body knows about that. But did it ever occur to you 
 that there was somebody else connected with them in the 
 plot, managing the wires? " 
 
 " Well, if it has occurred to me, what then? " 
 
 " Only this : I can supply the missing link. The two 
 men went on talking, sometimes in such low tones that 
 I could not hear a word distinctly, but generally so that I 
 could easily distinguish what they were saying. I heard 
 one called c Crosby again and again. He seemed to talk 
 the less of the two ; and I ve no idea who he can be : I 
 never heard of him about here before. The other name 
 I could not for a long while catch. It seemed a monosyl 
 lable, and was spoken very indistinctly. But presently I 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 181 
 
 heard that it was Tuf, and soon after recognized the 
 whole, Tufton. I surely justified myself, in my own 
 conscience at any rate, in staying to listen, when I learned 
 that a man with whom I see you continually was telling 
 your most private affairs to a stranger, cursing you now 
 and then (for what I could not make out at first) , and 
 telling the man Crosby how you have been led on and on, 
 with a great deal of difficulty, to you know what ! 
 
 11 Pooh ! " said Hammersmith : " you must be mistaken. 
 I tell } r ou the thing is impossible. You must have mis 
 taken the names. Tufton would never behave so shab 
 bily to me." 
 
 " Wait till you hear all. Crosby asked how it was 
 managed, and if you were a hard bird to catch. And, on 
 my word, Tufton told him the whole story, from the very 
 first night that you went on the stage with him, The 
 Emerald Grotto, I think he called the play. If you 
 doubt it, I can tell you many things that you will remem 
 ber as having happened, probably." 
 
 " No, no, go on ! " said Hammersmith, excited now, and 
 listening eagerly. 
 
 u Tufton told him all this ; how you were at last caiight 
 by old Boggle, made to sign the paper, and then came 
 tearing out to Cambridge in a hack. They were intensely 
 amused at this ; and I could hear one of them chuckling to 
 himself, while the other laughed heartily. Crosby asked, 
 with an oath, how } T OU were off, whether you bled easily, 
 and so on. Tafton answered, with a string of equally 
 polite words, that he had been most confoundedly mis 
 taken in you ; that he had taken you for a fearful swell/ 
 as he called you, but that he had not been able to get 
 more than a single hundred out of you, and you were 
 scared to death about the payment of the thousand dol 
 lars. And now, if you want to be satisfied that Tufton 
 has been trying to ruin you utterly and completely, though 
 
182 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 most slyly, let me tell you that Crosby asked, in quite low 
 tones, What division are you going to make, Tuf ? And 
 Tufton answered, Half and half: couldn t make a better 
 clivy. I get half, Boggle and Emily half. With what I 
 have out of Fennex, I think we shall have enough for our 
 passage-money, at any rate. They talked a long while, 
 discussed some matters apparently relating to parties in 
 New York, as far as I could learn, and of about the 
 same character as this affair of yours too, and at last 
 got up and left. If I had needed any confirmation of the 
 names, I had it ; for I saw through my curtains the elegant 
 Tufton paying his shot at the counter, and introducing his 
 friend to Kent, My friend Crosby, Kent/ and they 
 shook hands, Kent proffering a cigar. I waited till they 
 were some minutes gone, Kent meanwhile being relieved 
 by his boy, and then came out. 
 
 " I should have sent you word the first thing this morn 
 ing, if I had not questioned in my mind whether I was 
 called upon to meddle in another man s affairs. I have 
 been debating this since morning, rather inclining to be 
 lieve that I had best leave it alone ; but, as I happen to 
 know that Tufton has been preparing all day to leave 
 Cambridge, I thought I must certainly tell you to-night. 
 The shower came up this afternoon, and prevented your 
 rowing ; so that I could not see you at the boat-houses, 
 and left my note in your room." 
 
 Tom had been stalking and fuming about the room dur 
 ing this recital, much as he had been doing not so many 
 weeks before in a certain little court in Boston, and this 
 is the sequel ! This the substitute for that rosy pleasure- 
 ground up the three flight of stairs ! 
 
 " Breese, I tell you that this all seems like the poorest 
 invention and moonshine. You will pardon my saying so, 
 when I say in the same breath, that I know you are not 
 the man to lend yourself to any nonsense, or to believe 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 183 
 
 a harum-scarum story without foundation. If it is true, I 
 shall thank you from the bottom of my heart. You will, 
 of course, believe that I wish to sift the thing for myself. 
 If it is not true, I thank you equally for your kindness, as 
 I know it is proffered from the best of motives. Good- 
 by." And he put out his hand. 
 
 u Where are you going? " asked Breese. 
 
 " To Tufton s, of course, to charge him with this." 
 
 " You ll let me go? " asked Breese. 
 
 " Certainly," said Tom, "if you wish. It may be bet 
 ter." And, taking an umbrella, the two sallied out in the 
 drizzling rain, arm in arm, for Tufton s. Arm in arm, the 
 man w r ho had for months been leading the ga3 T est and free- 
 est life in Cambridge, and the man who had been plodding 
 the most like an ideal student, scorning self-indulgence, 
 polishing his buckler of scholarship in every possible way, 
 and girding himself with all good resolutions religiously 
 kept, and yet not so much of an anchorite, or so re 
 moved from sjTnpathy with his fellows, but that he could 
 stir himself to do a good turn to Hammersmith here, who 
 had barely spoken to him during the whole year, and go 
 with him to beard the villain Tufton in his .den. 
 
 It had been raining since noon, now a downright pour 
 ing shower, now an intermittent mizzle, one of those 
 variant days of early summer, when the exceeding beauty 
 of the morning changes to later cloudiness and showers, 
 as though Nature did not quite knojr whether to laugh or 
 be sad over her own loveliness and her nryriad budding 
 charms, until, like a beautiful petulant child, she ends 
 with tears and gleams of sunshine at once. 
 
 Tom and Breese knock at Tufton s rooms : no answer. 
 They push open his parlor-door, and go in. The man 
 Jordan is asleep in a window-seat. The} pull him, and 
 wake him to a maudlin consciousness. He has been in 
 dulging in a solitary revel, for which he has abundant 
 
184 IT AMMEttSMITH : 
 
 precedent in the late occupant s career, and has been 
 dreaming of the fine things that he will buy unto himself 
 when Tufton shall send him his salaiy from New York, 
 
 easily-persuaded Jordan, happ} T in your fuddled hopes ! 
 Tufton is gone, left for New York early in the after 
 noon, two trunks, all his personal effects, most of his 
 ornaments and pictures, little else. So much Tom learns 
 by boozy extracts from the grinning Jordan, wooing 
 temporary bliss, and by personal investigation of the 
 premises. 
 
 Tufton is gone, stolen off, like a thief in the night, 
 under protecting cloudiness, carrying his diplomacy and 
 his villany to some outer limbo, where we need not follow 
 him ; carrying, also, a bundle of unreceipted bills from 
 divers Cambridge and Boston tradesmen who will be seen 
 to-morrow sorrowfully re-appropriating such of their bor 
 rowed finery as they can lay hands on ; carrying, as well, 
 a pot of Tom s mone} r , not large, to be sure, but likely 
 to be increased by further remittances from the capitalist 
 Boggle, if Tom shall not succeed in wresting his note 
 from the hands of the swindling actor. 
 
 And 3 T et, with all this load that Tufton was carrying off, 
 increased by the maledictions and evil prognostics of his 
 late associates (which followed him in a black brood) , there 
 was something else in his caravan which cost him vastl} 
 more for transportation, and yet was infinitely pleasanter 
 to convoy than the appurtenances mentioned, the black, 
 battered trunks, unreceipted bills, and boxes of knick- 
 knacks. 
 
 For, by the next day at noon, it was known that Tufton 
 
 the dainty, the master of feasts, and worshipper of all 
 that is delicate and refined had left for New York with a 
 young party passing by the name of Miss Emily Boggle or 
 Miss Graciana Lee indifferently in these parts, but gifted 
 with a variety of aliases, which she assumed and laid aside 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 185 
 
 by my lord s orders in the different divisions of the globe 
 where they starred. They were gone, not to be heard 
 from for many long months ; and Cambridge hummed 
 with the rumors and counter-rumors, the winged and 
 seven-leagued reports, the exaggerations, suspicions, con 
 jectures, which the affair created, and which all revolved 
 about an unhappy central figure now temporarily reduced 
 to stony despair. 
 
 " How does he take it? " asked Albemarle in Goldie s 
 rooms, several evenings after Tufton s flight. 
 
 " Lord Harry, but he s mightily cut up ! " said Penhal- 
 low, Hammersmith s chum. "It s realty pitiable to see 
 the poor fellow mooning about the room, tr} T ing to study, 
 and every now and then slamming his books down, and 
 striding about. He gets up in the night, too, and sits at 
 the window, looking out for a whole hour together some 
 times, though he would brain me if he knew I told any 
 body of it. But I m really alarmed about him." 
 
 " Serves him right," said Ladbroke, "for putting on 
 such airs as he does. He isn t such a devilish shrew r d 
 fellow, after all. Catch me lending my money to Tufton, 
 or being gulled by an actress ! 
 
 "Can t we do any thing to cheer him up?" asked 
 Pinckney. 
 
 "Hardly know what," put in Goldie, "he s so con 
 foundedly touchy ! /can t do anything; that s certain. 
 We ve hardly had a cordial talk for a whole year. I never 
 knew a man to put his whole soul into any thing, in my 
 life, the way he puts all his into rowing, though. Jove, 
 how he pulls ! I can feel the boat leap now ; so different 
 from when Albertson was in ! And when he reaches for 
 ward, and lays on to the beginning of the stroke, I can 
 hear him breathing like a young giant right behind me." 
 
 " That s the worst part of it," said McGregor. " He ll 
 
186 HAMMEBSMITH: 
 
 never last till Worcester, if he works so like thunder now 
 I tell you a man can t get on in rowing unless his mind s 
 as clear as a bell. And Hammersmith is in a continual 
 worry, anybody can see." 
 
 4 Why can t you talk to him ? asked Goldie. You ve 
 more of a right than any of us, as bow." 
 
 " Haven t I tallied to him.! " said McGregor. 
 
 " What did he say? " asked several men. 
 
 "Say! What do you suppose he would say? You 
 know his spirit. I told him as politely as I could, one 
 day, that I was sorry to hear of his trouble. We were 
 dressing in the boat-houses ; and he threw down his towel, 
 and said, See here, Mac : I ve no objection to your 
 thinking what you please of me ; but you will particularly 
 oblige me by keeping your thoughts to yourself. I don t 
 want anybody s s} T mpathy. * 
 
 " That was surly enough, aiT^way," said Tilbury, whose 
 father had amassed an immense fortune in carriage- 
 making, and had sent up the first Tilbury of the line to 
 receive a little university varnish. 
 
 " I told him, another da}^, that, as we were drawing on 
 in the term, I should expect him to keep up his training 
 with the rest of the crew, and observe the crew rules about 
 hours of retiring, and so on. He merely nodded, and 
 walked off. Then I heard of his being in town very late 
 night before last, and expostulated with him, as I have 
 a right to do, by Jove ! and as I mean to do by all of 
 you, or you can get another bow. He turned on me like a 
 flash, and said, If you don t wish me in the boat, you are 
 quite at liberty to fill my place : I put my resignation in 
 your hands, to be acted on whenever you see fit. I told 
 him I didn t mean an} T thing of that sort. Don t I do 
 my work as well as the rest of them? he asked. Don t 
 I keep up my side of the boat? Certainly, I said: 
 4 you pull like a Trojan. But, Hammersmith, you can t 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 187 
 
 keep it up, you can t keep it up, if you don t train as 
 carefully as the rest. You ll go all to pieces some day, 
 I m afraid, just when we want to call on you for your best 
 work. Don t you borrow any trouble on that score/ 
 he added. I ll be on hand for any work you want of 
 me : only I think it s a bit mean to go about spjing into 
 a man s private habits, just when he goes to bed, how 
 many times he winks during the day, and so on. I ll do 
 my share of the pulling : you need not be afraid of that. 
 When I find I can t, I ll let you know. What more could 
 I say? He s too valuable a man to lose: I don t know 
 what we should do without him ; and he s as sensitive as 
 a girl about being spoken to." 
 
 " Some of the girls he s been in the habit of speaking 
 to arc not especially famed for their sensitiveness, I should 
 sa} T ," chimed in Ladbroke. 
 
 " Come, Ladbroke, why are you always picking at 
 Hammersmith in this way? " said Pinckney. " Striking a 
 man when he s down is hardly the thing for gentlemen, 
 
 where /live, at least." 
 
 "Hang him ! He s always treating a fellow as though 
 he were a prince, and could order us about as he chose," 
 answered Ladbroke. 
 
 "I don t think so, at all," said Penhallow. "He s 
 mighty high-strung and impetuous ; but I think he minds 
 his own business as well as most people." 
 
 " If you mean me, I beg you to recall the expression," 
 said Ladbroke. "I flatter myself I know what my own 
 business is as well as the next man ! " 
 
 " I mentioned no names, and I meant no offence. If 
 the shoe fits, let it go on. I don t think it is very good 
 form, though, to say things behind a man s back that 
 you would not dare to say before his face." 
 
 "That s so ! " said Pinckney. " And I wish some of us 
 fellows could do something to help him out of his troubles. 
 
 How much docs he owe, Pen? " 
 
188 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 " I can t say exactly. Several thousands, I m afraid. 
 He never would tell me, though I ve hinted that I was 
 ready to help him with my indorsement, if he wanted to 
 raise the wind." 
 
 " Fennex was badly bit last year, wasn t he?" asked 
 Albemarle. 
 
 " Yes, but never knew that Tufton was at the bottom 
 of it, any more than Hammersmith did. He hasn t j)aid 
 up every thing yet, I believe." 
 
 "Why, you don t mean that Hammersmith and Fen 
 nex are going to pay old Boggle any thing more, now 
 that they know it was a put-up job? " asked somebody. 
 
 "I don t know about Fennex," returned Penhallow ; 
 " but Tom, I believe, hasn t made up his mind whether 
 he has a right to go back of his signature, even if he has 
 been taken in. I know he went in to see some lawyers 
 about the question to-day." 
 
 " AVhat a jackass ! " said Ladbroke. " To think of 
 pajdng a cent in such a scrape ! " 
 
 "All I can say," said McGregor, "is, that, if we 
 lose that man, I don t know what we shall do at Worces 
 ter. / know nobody to take his place in the waist, and 
 I ve scoured the college. For his weight, he is the most 
 powerful oar we have up here ; and his style is something 
 only inferior to Miles s : perhaps he feathers a little too 
 high for beauty, but that is easily overcome. I have the 
 greatest admiration and s} T mpathy for the fellow ; and it s 
 almost enough to make a man cry to see him working like 
 a horse in the boat, never opening his head to say a word, 
 and going off as quiet as a churchyard from the boat- 
 houses, when we re landed." 
 
 "George dear, what are all these frightful stories I 
 hear about Mr. Hammersmith?" asked Ellen Darby of 
 her cousin Goldie, about a week after my Lord Tufton had 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 189 
 
 vanished into outer darkness. They were sitting under 
 the gaslight in the Darbys parlor. 
 
 " Oh ! nothing in particular," said Goldie. " He s all 
 right." 
 
 " Now, you need not attempt to satisfy me in that way, 
 George. I know he is not all right." 
 
 " Ho, ho ! what s this ! How do you know it, if you 
 please, Miss Omniscience?" And Goldie threw down a 
 copy of " Punch," over which he was smiling, and turned 
 towards his cousin. She put into her lap a book that she 
 had been pretending to read, and said, with a nonchalant 
 air, 
 
 u Wiry, how can I help knowing it? Who doesn t know 
 it ? I don t know just what it all is ; but I keep hearing 
 the most horrible insinuations wherever I go. Has he 
 really had such a fearful time, George? " 
 
 How do I know ? I have enough to do without both 
 ering myself about other people s affairs, Heaven knows ! " 
 
 " That s all very fine. But you are not as ignorant as 
 you seem, I know perfectly well, you horrid sophomore ! 
 If there ever was a disagreeable, conceited, ridiculous 
 set of men, it is you sophomores ! And the way you 
 stand up for each other is something marvellous. It is 
 your only redeeming quality. I don t believe you would 
 acknowledge it, if one of your class should commit a 
 murder, or steal somebody s money, or do any thing else 
 that s frightful." 
 
 " No, I don t think we would," said Goldie merrity. 
 " We would keep on associating with him just the same, 
 and sharpen his knives for him, and let him pick our 
 pockets whenever he chose ; and when he became too bad 
 why, we would bring him round to our cousins, let them 
 convert him, and send him on his wa} r rejoicing." 
 
 u You re as cross as } ou can be, George, and I don t 
 understand at all what you mean ! / don t want to con 
 vert anybody. Who is there to be converted? " 
 
190 HAMMEKSMITH : 
 
 4 Oh, nobody ! But what have you heard about Ilaln- 
 mersmith? " 
 
 "Oh! I ve heard nothing. I was only joking, of 
 course," and she began to read. But Goldie who was 
 a favorite cousin, and as plucky as favorite cousins ought 
 always to be came over to her, and entered a pleading 
 protest, as if he were the humblest sophomore of his 
 class ; and Ellen said that he was the most provoking fel 
 low she had ever known. 
 
 " Of course I am ! " said Goldie, the provoker. "You 
 never knew a fellow like me before, first in war, first in 
 peace, first in the hearts of his country s cousins ! " 
 
 "I m sorry for the cousins," said Ellen, with mock 
 gravity. " But, George dear, what is it all? " 
 
 "All what?" 
 
 " All this about Mr. Hammersmith." 
 
 " Appears to me you are a good deal interested in 
 Hammersmith," said Goldie. " Do you waste your sym 
 pathy on all of us fellows when we re in a tight place? 
 If so, I shall go off instanter and kill a goody. " 
 
 " Please be serious for one moment, George ! " 
 
 " I have had no thought of any thing else since I was 
 born. When does the sermon begin?" And Goldie 
 folded his arms resignedly. 
 
 " You re horrid, and I ll have nothing more to say to 
 you ! " But she could not read " Jane Eyre," with Gol 
 die peeping over the edge of her book in mockery of great 
 grief; and presently she laid the book down, and leaned 
 her head on her hand. 
 
 " Hammersmith ! Fresh Pond ! Tid-de-um-dum-dum ! " 
 said Goldie, drumming an accompaniment to his badinage 
 on the centre-table, and looking quizzingly at the fair, 
 drooping head. 
 
 "George, what do you mean? You have no right to 
 talk so ! You know it ! " And with a fine feminine rage 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 191 
 
 she added, " If I feel a special interest in Mr. Hammer 
 smith s college career, is it wonderful? Is it wonderful, 
 when you reflect that he saved my life once, and has never 
 done any thing to make me lose my respect for him? " 
 
 But the quizzing drummer only continued his Tid-de- 
 um-dum-dum ! Tid-de-um-dum-dum ! " as regular as a 
 metronome, marking time with his fingers. 
 
 "You are perfectly horrid, George! I never saw you 
 so before. What is the matter? If you think I am 
 ashamed to confess that I am interested to have Mr. 
 Hammersmith succeed, and go on through college 
 smoothly, you are infinitely mistaken. If you are such a 
 silly boy as to imagine any thing else, you are still more 
 at fault. I believe you are the hardest-hearted sopho 
 more in your class, and that is saying a great deal, 
 for I know Mr. Hammersmith is having a fearful time, 
 and I hear, though I cannot believe it, that my cousin 
 George Goldie is not doing what he can to help him." 
 
 The drumming stopped. 
 
 " Ellen, what do you mean? " 
 
 " Oh ! nothing in particular. I m ah 1 right ! " Roguish- 
 ness personified ! 
 
 "But I insist," said Goldie. 
 
 " Ah, you insist, Mr. Czar ! " 
 
 " Ellen, what is all this nonsense? " 
 
 " A little more careful in your choice of words, if you 
 please." 
 
 "Please, what is it?" 
 
 "What is what?" 
 
 " All this that you say of Hammersmith and me." 
 
 " Seems to me you are considerably interested in Mr. 
 Hammersmith," retorted Miss Darby. 
 
 "Come, come, Ellen, I apologize. Don t be too hard 
 on a fellow ! What is it ? Has he been complaining to 
 you of my coldness ? 
 
192 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 Who ? Mr. Hammersmith ! What do you think he 
 is made of ? Mr. Hammersmith complain to me of you ! 
 Why, George, you must be ill ! " 
 
 " Has he been here lately?" 
 
 " Not for weeks. I have hardly seen him for weeks : 
 so you may be re-assured on that point. He took me out, 
 as you may remember, at the Lyceum German two 
 months ago, and I occasionally see him at church with 
 Mr. Fayerweather. But I have hardly seen him, even in 
 the street, for weeks now. Oh, yes ! I did see him, only 
 two days ago, coming out of Church Street ; but he bowed 
 very coldly, pulled his hat over his eyes, and went across 
 to the quadrangle. He looked very sad." 
 
 u Ellen, what do you know about his affairs? " 
 
 " Oh ! very little, of course." 
 
 What do you want me to tell you ? 
 
 " Nothing whatever. George, I will relieve your mind 
 on the subject. I know enough already ; and I have my 
 own opinion of him, and of several other people as 
 well." 
 
 " But don t you want me to tell you more about him? " 
 asked Goldie. 
 
 " I do not wish to hear another word about his affairs. 
 I have learned a good deal from your manner in the last 
 five minutes, though you have not been over-communi 
 cative." 
 
 Girls are the most extraordinary creatures under the 
 sun, pon my word! " said Goldie, beaten at his own 
 game of provocation, and looking full of wonder at his 
 cousin. " I believe they know every thing ! " 
 
 " There you are too complimentary. They don t know 
 every thing, and they do not wish to know every thing. 
 But you cannot suppose that two such overpowering ge 
 niuses as Mr. George Goldie and Mr. Thomas Hammer 
 smith can have a quarrel lasting for over a twelvemonth, 
 and their admiring cousins and friends not know it !" 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 193 
 
 " We ve had no quarrel," urged Goldie. 
 
 " Or that Mr. Tom Hammersmith can make such 
 delightful acquaintances as Mr. Guy Tufton, and others 
 needless to mention, and yet keep Cambridge sewing- 
 societies, and the world in general, in ignorance of the 
 fact!" 
 
 " They do know every thing," said Goldie. 
 
 " And if Mr. Tom Hammersmith is having a fearful 
 time, and needs all the help and sympathy possible, and 
 men like Mr. George Goldie, who know thoroughly the 
 facts of the case, and how he has been deceived and ill- 
 treated, hold aloof, and let him fight it out alone, can 
 you suppose that the news does not, sooner or later, reach 
 even the provincial Cambridge girls, as you are pleased to 
 callus?" 
 
 " Well, if you really want to discuss the matter, Ellen, 
 I m willing. The fact is and you know it well enough 
 that Hammersmith wants no sympathy, allows nobody 
 to speak of his troubles, and is just the kind of a fellow to 
 prefer to fight his own battles, to use your expression." 
 
 "I ve no doubt of it. No manly young man wants 
 to have idle pity, which is almost always another name 
 for meddling curiosity ; or wishes gossip, or a stranger s 
 interest, wasted upon him. But you are his friend, 
 George, or were ; and I am very much mistaken in the 
 man and his character, if he does not feel your desertion 
 more than all the misery that he is evidently undergoing, 
 thanks to Mr. Tufton! " 
 
 " I don t think he minds it a bit." 
 
 4 Then I must inform you that you are very much mis 
 taken. I have reasons to know that Mr. Hammersmith 
 is especially despondent because just such men as you, 
 who ought to try to cheer him up, if nothing more, keep 
 away from him." 
 
 " But what would you have me do? I warned him long 
 
1 94 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 ago what lie might expect, if he trained with Tufton and 
 his crowd." 
 
 " What if he were young and inexperienced, and 
 thought you might exaggerate the danger? " 
 
 " Then he must take the consequences. He has made 
 his bed, and he must lie in it." 
 
 Is that the proper way of looking at it ? Would you 
 have liked him any better if he had taken your advice at 
 once, and said, My dear fellow (as you always call each 
 other), you are right. Tufton is an awful bad fellow. 
 He s very dangerous company ; and I promise you that 
 I ll never darken his doors again, or speak to him when we 
 meet ? Wouldn t you have thought him a pretty speci 
 men of a weakling to have given in like that? And can t 
 you appreciate how easy it was for him to be led astray, 
 and how novel and alluring all this life must have been to 
 him at first? You remember his uncle, Mr. Hammer 
 smith, telling my father how carefully he had been kept 
 at home, and in what seclusion ; and how he feared, that, 
 if he had his head too much, he might run away with him 
 self, I think it was some such expression that he used. 
 If he had been at Exeter, as you have, dear George, 
 he might have known men better, and not have been so 
 easily blinded." 
 
 May I say tid-de-um-dum just once ? interposed 
 G oldie prankishly. 
 
 "No, not once. You are very silly. And I do not 
 believe you care a straw about Mr. Hammersmith, or ever 
 did." 
 
 "Now, see here, Ellen, all you say is very true, very 
 true indeed ; and I will not deny that Hammersmith is 
 having a fearful time, as you say. But what would you 
 have me do? I can t go down and lick the dust at his 
 feet." 
 
 "Not at all ! You don t suppose I want you to. But 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 195 
 
 would it be such a very difficult thing to conquer your tre 
 mendous pride, your sophomoric dignity, and go and 
 make a friendly call on him ? Would it crush your dig 
 nity entirety? You need not pretend that you have ever 
 tried it ; for I happen to know that you have not, not 
 for let me see fifteen, sixteen months now." 
 
 " Ellen, you re a perfect nrystery ! Who keeps you so 
 well posted in college- aff air s ? I shall have the goodies 
 and skips cross-examined at once. There must be a femi 
 nine Freemasonry dogging us when we least expect it. 
 Tell me, what time did I go to my rooms last evening? 
 What is my beloved chum doing at this moment? No 
 answer ! Do you need to look at my palm, ecce ! " 
 
 "Now, George, promise me you will be good, forget 
 your silly quarrel with Mr. Hammersmith, and tell me 
 to-morrow evening that you have made up with him, and 
 are in a fair way to be friends again." 
 
 " Ellen, I can t do it: he s too mightily stiff-necked. 
 I should only get snubbed for my pains, I feel sure." 
 
 " I don t believe it, and I think you are very cowardly 
 to be afraid of such a thing," said Miss Darby. And, 
 rising, she took from a writing-desk a small manuscript- 
 book which she shielded with her hand as she came to the 
 lights. " Let me read you one or two things from a little 
 treasure-book of mine, though I know you will not mind 
 them : We are all of us very weak, and exposed to many 
 evils from within and without ; and every man finds he 
 hath enough to do to govern his own spirit, and to bear 
 his own burden. Let us not add to it by offence and 
 mutual provocation of one another. It may be did we 
 but know and were acquainted with the condition of 
 others we ourselves would think it very hard measure 
 to add to their sorrow, and would rather help to bear their 
 burdens. That is from Whichcote," she said, blushing 
 prettily to find herself reading thus to her handsome great 
 
196 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 cousin, and doing the very thing against which she had 
 at first protested, trying to convert Goldie to her for 
 giving point of view. This coincidence occurred to her 
 as she was reading, and added to her graceful tremor. 
 But she went on reading one more extract : " Suffer not 
 your thoughts to dwell on the injuries you have received, 
 or the provoking words that have been spoken to you. 
 Not only learn the art of neglecting them at the time you 
 receive them, but let them grow less and less every mo 
 ment, till they die out of your mind/ There, Mr. Goldie, 
 that was written for you ! " 
 
 "Did you write it?" 
 
 u Oh, no ! It applies to you, I mean. It s anonymous, 
 but pertinent, is it not? " 
 
 u You wrote it, I know you did ! You re very sly ; but 
 it sounds just like you. Let me see the book? " 
 
 " By no means," said she, pocketing the thin, morocco- 
 bound book. u I consider it a great favor to have read to 
 you from it. No one has ever been so privileged before. 
 And you. do not even thank me ! 
 
 " How frightful ! Thanks, ever so much, my dear Miss 
 Anonymous, for your pertinent texts. I suppose you wish 
 me to preach a sermon from them, or rather bring you 
 word that I have acted upon them, eh? " 
 
 u I do ; and you are going to do it." 
 
 11 How long will you give me? A man can t swallow 
 his pride all at one dose," pleaded Goldie. 
 
 " It s over the sooner, and you will feel better : I know 
 you will. But I ll let you have, well, I ll be generous ; 
 I ll let you have a week: this is Thursday, isn t it? If 
 you do not bring me word, before next Thursday morning, 
 that you have done your very best to get on a good footing 
 with Mr. Hammersmith again, farewell, cousin George. 
 And mind, if you call here ever so mam 7 times before that 
 (not that you are apt to) , and send ever so plaintive mes- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 197 
 
 sages, I shall be imperiously not at home to you, sir, 
 unless 3"ou bring the news I want." And with more such 
 talk, simple cousinly badinage and pleading, the two rati 
 fied their compact ; and Goldie presently left for his rooms. 
 
 lie could not resist the temptation, as Miss Darb}^ fol 
 lowed, and was closing the hall-door after him, to turn 
 and say lightly, " Tid-de-um-dum-dum, Tid-de-um-dnm- 
 dum," lifting a warning finger. 
 
 But she made a saucy mou e at him, and closed the 
 door ; while Goldie ran down the gravel walk, and out 
 under the elms, on his way home, pondering on his inter 
 view with his beautiful cousin, and on the marvellously 
 permeating nature of college-news. 
 
 How could she have learned so much of him and his 
 friend? How could she know almost what was pass 
 ing in his mind? How could she know what was just 
 breaking in upon his own consciousness, that it was in 
 expressibly silly to magnify a few words of difference that 
 had passed between himself and Hammersmith, and let 
 them keep two friends apart so long? He was not espe 
 cially astute ; and if he had been, and had not been much 
 more of a success as a boating-man than as a student of 
 character, he would still have been in the same bewilder 
 ment over the inexplicable feminine instinct, which divines, 
 where a man explores and seeks proof. 
 
 It was not an easy task that his cousin had thrust upon 
 him, however. lie had the young s man s inflated sense 
 of personal dignity and pride. All the class knew of his 
 lukewarm feeling towards Hammersmith ; and there was 
 more than one thing to make him hesitate, and debate in 
 his mind whether he could so far humble himself as to 
 make overtures to Mr. Tom, Mr. Tom, whilom a stiff- 
 necked and rather scornful young gentleman, who appeared 
 to know his own affairs, and wish to be unmolested, now 
 a sullen young sophomore much broken in spirit, needing 
 
1 98 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 and actually craving sympathy in his inmost heart, but 
 outwardly repelling it, and steeling himself against ap 
 proach in perverse boy-fashion. 
 
 So that into the midst of Goldie s communings, and his 
 reflections on the way that girls seem to know every 
 thing," came the thought, that he, Goldie, No. 2 in the 
 Varsity, secretary of the Institute, and might} leader, as 
 he deemed himself, in many ways, was undertaking a role 
 far from congenial, very difficult, and not unlikely to end 
 disastrously. Whether he would ever have carried it 
 through if he had been left to his own devices, or how 
 serious a cousinly estrangement would have been effected 
 by his failure, is entirely a matter of conjecture. But the 
 week of the cousins compact was fated to bring on events 
 totally unprophesied by the most skilled of university 
 augurs, events which were to turn the thoughts of sev 
 eral men into quite new courses, materially affect the 
 private relations of Tom and Goldie, and even reach so 
 far as to cast a shadow on the field of college-sports for a 
 time. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 199 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CROSSING SWORDS WITH THE FACULTY. 
 
 " Ubique, sed praesertim in principum et regum aulis, est consUiura optimum 
 eilere." PETRA-SANCTA. 
 
 "Chi parla semina, chi tace raccoglie." ITALIAN PROVERB. 
 
 TWO days later, students returning from early chapel 
 had their attention arrested by the following an 
 nouncement on the bulletin-boards, about which an excited 
 throng was presently collected : 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, June 12, 1S5-. 
 
 The sophomore class is notified, that unless the perpetrators 
 of the vandalism of last night shall come forward, and make them 
 selves known to the faculty, the class will be decimated, and 
 many innocent men will be obliged to suffer. 
 
 H. W. THUMPUM, Secretary. 
 
 Here was a bombshell. Few that read the fatal bulle 
 tin were yd aware of the nature or extent of the offence 
 comprehended under the sinister name "vandalism;" 
 but all who read it took in the idea that the blood of the 
 faculty was up, and retribution was preparing for the 
 guilty, or, in default of the guilty, for their innocent class 
 mates, who might have been sleeping in their beds, or 
 mewed in their rooms over their books, when the prowl 
 ing vandals had done their work. 
 
 " What is it? " asked freshmen. 
 
 " Terrible row last night," answered the knowing. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " Oh ! fight with policemen, after the Institute-meeting. 
 
200 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 Fountain in Mr. Bradstreet s grounds broken to pieces. 
 Sophomores on an awful tear ! * 
 
 And before long the vandalism was a fact known to 
 everybody within the - college-walls, where it was tossed 
 about from mouth to mouth, from dowdy bedmaker to 
 bedmaker, from boot-polishing skip to spry letter-carrier, 
 until you would have supposed that all the Goths and Huns 
 of barbarism had descended upon Cambridge during the 
 night, and held high junket within its quiet borders. 
 
 The " Institute of 1770," of which Albemarle was now 
 president, had adjourned at the usual hour the night be 
 fore, and crossed the street for the time-honored songs 
 under the shadow of the church opposite. Merryweather, 
 trombonist of the Pierians, was in the midst of a song, 
 " Dear Evelina," as harmless a ditty as ever the old 
 walls had listened to. The surrounding crowd was sur 
 ging out on the rising crescendo of the chorus, 
 
 " Dear Evelina, sweet Evelina, 
 My love for thee shall never, never die!" 
 
 how it has echoed along the New-England coast in days 
 gone by ! when a voice from the corner of Church Street 
 broke in as an unwelcome finale, 
 
 " Come, young gentlemen, we ve had enough of this! 
 Move off to your rooms ! 
 
 "What s up, Simpson? We re doing no harm," an 
 swered Freemantle ; and the crowd turned, to find some 
 half-dozen policemen sauntering towards them. 
 
 " Can t help it. There s too much racket. We ve 
 got our orders to stop it." 
 
 "But the Institute has always sung here in this way." 
 
 " There s no use of making any words about it. I tell 
 you you ve got to quit this howling. Go over and sing in 
 the yard if you wish." 
 
 "But we don t wish. And, by Jove ! we mean to sing 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 201 
 
 here; and you can go to thunder!" shouted some rash 
 fellow. 
 
 " What s that? You just try it on, that s all ! " And 
 there was great grumbling and murmuring, and much con* 
 sultation among the men, some of whom were for openly 
 defying the authorities, and maintaining the hallowed cus 
 tom vi et armis. 
 
 The policemen had, apparently without intent, put 
 themselves around the crowd, however ; and the milder 
 .counsels prevailed. The men started across towards the 
 quadrangle, the less turbulent in front, and the obstinate 
 and pugnacious, like Penhallow, Pinckney, Hammersmith, 
 Freemantle, Goldie, and others, in the rear. They started 
 for the quadrangle ; but, as they went, the impulse was 
 irresistible, and the whole throng broke out in a vicious 
 chorus, at first low, then swelling to a defiant loudness, 
 
 " I met three p licemen on the strand, 
 Luddy f uddy whack ful ludy I oh ! " 
 
 and more couplets equally edifying. 
 
 It was a chorus that had often been shouted in defiance 
 at pursuing officers of the town ; a species of " f a ira " 
 that was accepted as the symbol of revolution both by 
 students who sang, and policemen who felt themselves in 
 sulted by its well-known jerky movement. 
 
 The officers made a dash, seized two or three of the 
 laggards, and were canyingthem off, when the cry, u Res 
 cue, rescue!" was raised; and, almost to a man, the 
 sophomores turned , and engaged the officers. Penhallow 
 and Hammersmith had been rescued, and the crowd were 
 laboring for Freemantle, when a fire-company came lum 
 bering down from North Cambridge, directly in the track 
 of the scrimmage, and joined forces with the policemen. 
 
 No love had been lost between the students and the 
 Cambridge Fire Brigade from time immemorial. How 
 
202 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 the hostility had originated, history does not relate. 
 Whether it sprang from a professional contempt of the 
 earl} engine-company, made up among the students after 
 the first burning of Harvard Hall, or from a plebeian envy 
 of the fancy dresses and dilettante organization of the 
 later company of undergraduates, with their rendezvous 
 at Hollis Pump, their stated parades, and (most envied 
 perquisite of all !) their substantial suppers after a fire in 
 Cambridge or Boston which they had honored by extin 
 guishing, we cannot decide ; but certain it is, that, in 
 Hammersmith s day, the bitterest feeling existed between 
 the knights of the hose and the young Varsity men ; nay, 
 more than this. For because, forsooth, the tired scho 
 lastic head would fain protrude itself from the college- 
 windows, and bellow, "Heads out, heads out!" when 
 the fire-bells began to clang ; and because students 
 would now and then delight to stretch their legs, cramped 
 and grown weaiy from much worship before their lexi 
 cons and domestic gods, running patronizingly alongside 
 the professionals as they struggled with "the machine," 
 encouraging them with friendly chaff the while, the 
 rumor grew that the students themselves were in the 
 habit of setting fires in remote spots for merest sport, 
 find for cnjo3~ment of the firemen s drudgery. How such 
 a rumor, growing by what it fed on, came to add fuel 
 to the small village war may be imagined. A mere spark 
 was enough to set it in a blaze ; and an opportunity like 
 the present, for giving battle to their natural foes under 
 the protection of the guardians of municipal order, was 
 looked upon by the firemen as providential. 
 
 They deserted their engine, joined the officers ; and for 
 a few moments there was as lively a scrimmage as had 
 ever occurred between the old-time enemies. 
 
 Hammersmith was in the thick of the fight ; no such 
 mean antagonist now, as when he saw his first stars on 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 203 
 
 the Delta, in the verdant days so long past, but stubborn, 
 determined, powerful, and an excellent boxer. Again 
 and again a man was caught, and hurried off towards the 
 neighboring lock-up ; and again and again there was a 
 gallant rush and a rescue. It lasted but a few moments, 
 however; and, as it is only a prelude to the vandalism 
 referred to in the faculty-bulletin, this struggle does not 
 call for minute description. At its end the sophomores 
 had lost three or four men, Freernantle among them, who 
 were carried off, and safely jugged, being liberated on the 
 next day, with inconsiderable fines and a judicial benedic 
 tion. The rest of the men retreated within the quadran 
 gle, where they stood, breathing defiance, and daring their 
 opponents to enter its sacred limits. 
 
 Quiet sleep, even the contemplative pipe and mild gos 
 sip, with comparisons of deeds of prowess, were tame 
 affairs, however, after such an exciting stir of the blood ; 
 and the last shout of vengeance had hardly been hurled 
 after the retiring firemen, when a party sallied out of the 
 quadrangle, and made their way to the western end of 
 town. 
 
 We need hardty follow them on their raid. But if we 
 could have been at hand the following morning, and seen 
 the consternation of early-rising burghers, when they 
 came out to sniff the fresh morning air of June and saw 
 the altered face of Nature about their premises, we should 
 have had a rare sight. 
 
 u Dammy, what s this?" said old Mr. Boreman, look 
 ing out of his front-door, and advancing to the street. 
 A neat little stone wall surrounded his place, through 
 which a stout, low gate, sanded to stone-color, admitted 
 to his ample grounds. He reaches the gate ; and in place 
 of his solid, iron-strengthened wicket, with silver-plated 
 " B. Boreman " ornamenting its front, there is a weather- 
 stained, unpainted board affair towering high above hia 
 
204 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 wall, against which it leans. He kicks it over with a mad 
 burgher s kick ; and, with sundry strong expressions of 
 disgust, goes in to take a sorry breakfast with Madam 
 Boreman and the Misses Boreman, who are treated to a 
 homily on the sinfulness and license of student-life, and 
 the awful inefficiency of the Cambridge police. 
 
 Boreman s own gate has been carried a half-mile, and 
 propped up against an ungated entrance to a pasture, 
 where the itinerant milkman, going his rounds, grins at 
 its misplaced smartness, and winks at " B. Boreman," 
 shining in the morning sun. Other gates are carried from 
 street to street, and exchanged most unmatchedly : they 
 are suspended from trees ; they are tossed into flower 
 beds ; they are hung upon gas-posts. Gas-lamps, too, are 
 made to suffer, although the vandal knows that noisy de 
 struction is two-edged, and may cut back upon himself; 
 so that only here and there, in outlying streets, are the 
 glasses riddled, and the tops of the posts removed. 
 
 Street-signs, too, are purloined: " Appleton Street" 
 is transferred to " Appian Way ; " " Cambridge Street," 
 to " Fayerweather Street ; " and many are carried off to 
 grace the rooms of the students, where " Quincy 
 Street" may be seen pointing to a coal-closet, and 
 " Craigie Street " leading up a fireplace, along with vari 
 ous horse-car emblems ; an arrangement somewhat con 
 fusing to one topographically inclined. 
 
 This might all have been passed over, and the curious 
 spectacle of anxious townsmen employing a half Saturday 
 in hunting their lost wickets, cutting them down from 
 lamp-posts, and transporting them home on their shoul 
 ders or in carts, might have been regarded as rather 
 laughable than serious, if there had not been a greater 
 
 o 
 
 excess. 
 
 But when Mr. Augustus Bradstreet drove down to the 
 president s house in his rattling chaise, even before 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 205 
 
 prayers, surprising the worthy Dummer in act of exe 
 cuting his matin shave, and with much jingling of pon 
 derous watch-seals, and much violent language, announced 
 the destruction of his costly fountain, a marble Triton 
 with impossible convolutions of tail, which had been wan 
 tonly knocked to pieces, the matter became too serious 
 to be passed over lightly. 
 
 "Yes, sir; and I shall have a judicial investigation 
 instituted, and an example made of your young scape 
 graces if I can catch them ! It s a shame, sir, a disgrace, 
 and I think it is time that this vandalism should stop ! 
 Five hundred dollars would not have bought that fountain, 
 sir ! It was a copy, sir, a valuable copy, of the antique, 
 by Count Whacko Chisello of Florence, second cousin of 
 Victor Emmanuel, and an Eyetalian of extraordinary 
 genius." 
 
 " Well, well, Mr. Bradstreet, I shall be very happy to 
 co-operate with you in any reasonable measures you may 
 care to institute. But you must appreciate how powerless 
 I am to prevent such proceedings, anxious though I may 
 be, and equally anxious to see the actors properly pun 
 ished. Plato -was right when he said that boys were the 
 most ferocious of animals," concluded the learned Dum 
 mer ; and, embodying the indignant burgher s word " van 
 dalism " in the notice which we have seen, he despatched 
 it by his man for the secretary s signature, and it was 
 posted while prayers were in progress. 
 
 This faculty-bull hung up on the bulletin-boards worked 
 no exception to its many predecessors. Men would be 
 drawn and quartered before they would announce them 
 selves as the culprits pointed at. They would suffer the 
 rack and the thumb-screw rather than carry tales of their 
 classmates. And, to say truth, the men who held the 
 secret of the vandalism and the names of the party were 
 very few in number. And the decimation threatened might 
 
206 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 have proceeded, and the actual offenders never have been 
 known, if affairs had not taken an entirely unexpected 
 turn. 
 
 Sunday and a large part of Monday had passed. No 
 new developments under the faculty-order. Men were 
 debating among themselves if the full letter of the order 
 would be observed, and speculating on the chances of 
 being among the unfortunate victims. Ten into ninety- 
 nine, nine and nine-tenths times every man performed 
 the simple division, and knew his chance in the lottery. 
 Much questioning failed to bring out more than vaguest 
 conjectures as to the names of the men at fault. Stories 
 were told of the horrible fate that had overtaken tattlers 
 and tale-bearers in earlier, more ferocious days ; and, if 
 anybody had an itching desire to hand a name to the 
 faculty, he trembled at the thought, and quickly subdued 
 it. 
 
 Word spread, about mid-afternoon of Monday, that 
 Goldie and Hammersmith had been summoned to the 
 faculty-meeting of that evening. It could hardly be 
 credited : their names had been seldom associated with 
 the marauding party in the wildest guessing. The presi 
 dent s freshman was captured and pumped. Yes, he had 
 carried summonses to both Hammersmith and Goldie this 
 very afternoon. What for? Of course he did not know. 
 The men themselves were interviewed. They were sum 
 moned most assuredly: they produced the mysterious 
 little strips of paper which had been handed them ; but 
 they were as ignorant of the reason as the president s 
 young freshman himself. 
 
 " They look mighty innocent," said Ladbroke. " But 
 by Jove ! Hammersmith has a confounded mysterious air, 
 as though he knew more than he cared to tell." And Lad- 
 broke left a group on Stoughton steps, pleasing himself 
 with a secret hope that Hammersmith, at least, might be 
 about to meet what he considered his deserts. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 207 
 
 About nine o clock in the evening there was a furious 
 rapping at the door of Professor Darby s house, a mile 
 or more from the college-buildings. The maid appeared in 
 some trepidation, and, seeing Goldie, admitted him into 
 the hall. 
 
 "Is Miss Ellen in?" asked he, panting with excite 
 ment from running. 
 
 "Yes, sir, she is," answered the maid, who assumed a 
 very quizzical expression, as she added; "but she has 
 told me, when you call, that you shall say what news you 
 have brought, sir." 
 
 "What news!" said Goldie. "Oh, that s all right! 
 Tell her I have some news. Hurry, please." And Ellen 
 presently came running down the stairs. 
 
 "Well?" said she stopping half way down, with her 
 hand on the rail. " Are you serious to-night, George? or 
 have you made your way in under false pretences ? 
 
 "No, no, Ellen: I m serious enough to-night, in all 
 conscience sake ! Come into the library. Anybody 
 here?" 
 
 "No: father has not come from faculty-meeting yet. 
 Mother has just gone to her room. Why, George, what s 
 the matter? " she said, as Goldie sank into a chair, with a 
 great groan. 
 
 " Ellen, I suppose a girl doesn t know what it is to be 
 tracked, and deceived, and lied about, and slandered, 
 does she?" 
 
 " What are you talking about? " 
 
 " And to want sympathy, and feel that the one person 
 in all the world that can give it is denying it to you, and 
 keeping aloof? " 
 
 " Now you re talking about Mr. Hammersmith, aren t 
 you?" 
 
 " How can you tell ! Yes, I am. Ellen, he is the most 
 magnificent, great-hearted fellow in the world ! He has 
 
208 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 had a perfect network of villany and cunning surround 
 ing him for months now ; and this time they have tried tc> 
 rope me in ! " 
 
 " What can it all be, George? Can } T OU tell me? " 
 
 " Of course I can, my dear Ellen. You will be glad, 
 perhaps, to have me tell you, in the first place, that you 
 were entirely right about Hammersmith (you are alwa3 r s 
 right, somehow or other) , and that he and I are going to 
 be just as fast friends as ever again ; are already on the 
 way to it, I am happy to say." 
 
 I am so glad ! But how did it all come about ? I 
 knew you would do as I wished about it." 
 
 " You just wait. Don t be so sure of it ! I might not 
 have screwed up my courage, with all my trying, if things 
 had not fallen out oddly enough. I tried to go up boldly 
 to him, or speak to him at the river, several times : but I 
 couldn t do it ; it seemed to stick in my throat, and I felt 
 very foolish about it at the same time. Then that scrape 
 of Friday night came on. You ve heard of it, of course, 
 since you hear every thing, you little rogue? " 
 
 " Now, don t revive that silly expression, please ! Yes, 
 I ve heard of it ; but that is all. You don t mean that you 
 were in that, George? or Mr. Hammersmith? " 
 
 "No, not exactly. But don t be in a hurry! That 
 scrape came on ; and everybody was excited, and had 
 nothing else to talk about ; and then Tom went home with 
 Penhallow for Sunday, and to-day I have been so busy, 
 and we didn t go out in the boat, as they re altering the 
 outriggers, and " 
 
 "Oh, you procrastinating man! I verily believe you 
 have not spoken to Mm at all ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I have. Sit down. I thought you would 
 wish to hear it all : so I was beginning at the beginning. 
 Well, you know the faculty issued an order about Friday 
 night. Old Bradstreet came down, and made a fearful 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 209 
 
 touse about his old two-penny fountain, that the fellows 
 broke up, not that I think it was a good thing to do, 
 and they had to take notice of it ; so threatened to deci 
 mate the class, if the perpetrators of the vandalism, as 
 the} 7 called it, were not made known." 
 
 " What do you mean by decimating? " 
 
 " Why, taking out every tenth man, and suspending him, 
 or expelling him." 
 
 "No, really?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed! No joke, I assure you! Of course, 
 nobody came forward to announce himself: he would be a 
 precious fool if he did ! And this afternoon Hammer 
 smith and I were summoned to the faculty. 
 
 "Why, George! " 
 
 I didn t suppose it could possibly refer to the Brad- 
 street affair ; for I went to my rooms directly after the 
 scrimmage with the firemen, I suppose you ve heard of 
 that too? " 
 
 " Yes, I have ; and I heard that you were as wicked as 
 you could be, and did more fighting than anybody else, 
 and I m ashamed of you ! " 
 
 " Oh, no, 3 ou re not! You were mighty glad to hear 
 it, / know ! Well, I had gone to my rooms, as I say, 
 and I was quite sure Hammersmith had done the same, 
 though I could not have sworn to it ; and consequently I 
 was a good deal surprised at our being summoned. We 
 met in the anteroom of the faculty ; and although there 
 were a couple of freshmen waiting before us, in fear and 
 trembling, old Wizzen opened the door, and ushered us in. 
 Dummer sat at the head of the long table, and all the rest 
 of the old pods were ranged about it." 
 
 "Why, George, how you do talk about them! " said 
 Miss Ellen. 
 
 " Your father was there, and old Brimblecom, and 
 Bone, and the rest ; and they seemed actually tickled to 
 
210 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 see us brought in, and stand twiddling our hats. I don t 
 mean that your father did, or Brimblccom, but most of 
 them : in fact, uncle looked a good deal dashed to see us, 
 as I think he had no idea we were summoned. 
 
 " Well, old Dummer was tapping the table with a ruler, 
 as we came up near him, and grinned feebly, as he said, 
 4 Mr. Goldie, Mr. Hammersmith, 5 and we bowed. He 
 hemmed a little, and went on, looking about the table. 
 
 " We have received information, Mr. Goldie, that you 
 were concerned in the destruction of property in Cam 
 bridge last Friday evening, and particularly in the matter 
 of Mr. Bradstreet s fountain. We have thought it best to 
 summon you, and inquire personally of you about your 
 participation in the affair, before ordering any punishment 
 for the offence : this as a justice to yourself, a mere matter 
 of form I may say, a mere matter of form. What have 
 you to say in extenuation of the offence? 
 
 " I have only this to say. sir, that your information is 
 entirely incorrect. I had nothing whatever to do in the 
 matter ; went to my rooms after the Institute meeting, and 
 and a little disturbance with the police, said I. 
 
 " Yes, we have heard of that too, he said, smiling 
 grimly about the table. But I think we can pass over 
 that, gentlemen. The young men were interrupted in 
 their singing, I have been informed. 
 
 " The room murmured assent. 
 
 " i Then you say, Mr. Goldie, he went on, that you 
 had nothing to do with this affair ? 
 
 "Ido sir, said I. 
 
 " That you know nothing whatever of it, the names 
 of the party, and so on ? 
 
 " I do sir. I know nothing whatever of the affair, 
 beyond the vague rumors that have been flying about. 
 
 " Well, gentlemen, I do not know that we have any 
 thing more to ask Mr. Goldie. Our information is of 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 211 
 
 such an indefinite nature, that we give no especial cre 
 dence to it ; and the young gentleman s word is enough 
 to exonerate him. That will do, Mr. Goldie. Mr. Ham 
 mersmith, he said, turning towards Tom. And Tom 
 stepped forward, looking as handsome as a picture, but as 
 mad as a hornet. I saw that he was boiling over with 
 rage ; but I was not prepared for his cool manner. 
 
 " How is it with you, Mr. Hammersmith? asked the 
 president. Were you at all implicated in the affair? 
 
 " I will answer, sir, when I am told the character of 
 the information on which I am summoned, said Tom, 
 without the slightest tremor in his words. 
 
 " It it hardly signifies, said old Dummer : we 
 do not wish further to complicate the matter. A simple 
 " Yes " or " No " will be satisfactory. Eh, gentlemen? 
 
 " I will be happy to accommodate you, if I may be 
 allowed to know the name of the man who has brought 
 you the story of my complicity in the affair, said Tom. 
 4 1 do not think being stabbed in the back, in this way, 
 is a very noble death ! And I never saw a fellow s eyes 
 flash as Tom s did, though he was as cool as you are now, 
 in manner." 
 
 " Why, George, you do not mean that he was really in 
 the disgraceful affair ? asked Miss Darby. 
 
 " Not at all, not at all ! " said Goldie. 
 
 " He was simply cut to the quick, and stubborn, as he 
 always is when he s insulted. You can t imagine how his 
 last words affected the faculty ! There was a great hem 
 ming and hawing. Brimblecom took off his spectacles 
 and wiped them ; old Dummer glared horribly at the ceil 
 ing ; and though I would not dare breathe it to anybody 
 else, Ellen, I could take my oath that the slightest per 
 ceptible wink appeared in your father s left eye as he 
 looked up, and met Tom s gaze. I was watching him at 
 the time, and I am sure the dear old fellow was im- 
 
212 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 mensely tickled at Tom s pluck. Tom stood, meanwhile, 
 as quiet as a statue, looking about the room. 
 
 " Hem, these words Mr. Hammersmith, it would 
 avail you nothing to hear the nature of our information, 
 said Dummer. And I think you agree with me, gen 
 tlemen, when I say we have no wish to do Mr. Ham 
 mersmith an injustice. A simple denial will be entirely 
 satisfactory : otherwise we shall be obliged to proceed 
 on a presumption of your guilt. 
 
 " I regret, sir, that I cannot comply with your wishes. 
 I decline to say a word if I am not permitted to know the 
 grounds of the charge preferred against me. And Tom 
 tossed his head in the way that you must have seen, no? 
 and looked very defiant. 
 
 " Well, well, gentlemen. Yes, Mr. Hammersmith, 
 will you be pleased to retire to the next room, and Mr. 
 Goldie? And we stepped out. A hubbub, and confused 
 argument, and moving of papers, followed ; and in a few 
 moments we were called back. 
 
 We arrive at the conclusion with regret, Mr. Ham 
 mersmith ; but 3 T our manner will permit no other course, 
 said the president. You still persist in refusing to ex 
 plain your connection with this affair ? 
 
 " c I do, sir, most politely, but most emphatically. 
 
 " We are compelled, then, to announce to you that 
 you are suspended for six months. You will be expected 
 to pass this period in study ; and you will to-morrow be 
 informed with whom. 
 
 " Thank you, sir : is that all? asked Tom. Dummer 
 bowed his head, looking daggers at Tom, and we left." 
 
 u Is he really suspended, George? Is it true?" asked 
 Miss Darby, showing more interest than was discreet. 
 
 " True as gospel, I m sorry to say," said Goldie, " un 
 less your father, or somebody, can get it altered. But gra 
 cious ! Hammersmith is in such a rage now, that I doubt 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 213 
 
 whether he would stay in Cambridge, if they would let 
 him." 
 
 " Poor fellow! What did you say to him?" asked 
 Ellen. 
 
 4 Oh ! I went right up to his room with him ; and we 
 had such a half-hour s talk as I have never had with a 
 man in my life, Ellen, I can tell you. He is a stunning 
 fellow, by Jove ! " 
 
 " Can you tell me what he said? " 
 
 " Why, of course he was awfully cut up, when he saw 
 what he had really done, and appreciated it was all his 
 own fault, and might have been avoided. But I knew his 
 temper well enough not to make it worse by telling him 
 that he had made a mistake ; and, pon my word, I was 
 so delighted with his pluck, that I could hardly make up 
 my mind to call it a mistake." 
 
 " But it was, George, it was. I am so sorry he spoke 
 out so! " 
 
 Well, perhaps it was. But don t let us cry over spilled 
 milk. The thing to do is to try to save the poor fellow." 
 
 " Certainly we must." And the brave girl stood up as 
 though she were going at once to do it. But what did 
 he say, George? " 
 
 "I can t tell you all he said, Nell: I ve no right 
 to tell you all. Of course he raged round, and said he 
 would shoot the man who had told such a lie about him p 
 for it was a lie, a foul, slanderous lie, as he said. He 
 was in his rooms all the time that night, just as I was ; and 
 he asked me who I thought it was, and I could not give 
 the faintest guess, of course ; and then he seemed to think 
 of something. And he said a good many pleasant things 
 to me, about how I had given him good advice once, 
 which it would have been much better for him to have 
 followed, and what an egregious fool he had been, and so 
 on, and so on. That gave me a good chance, Ellen, which 
 
214 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 was all I was waiting for ; and I assured him how sorry 1 
 had been for him, and how I had wished to speak to him, 
 and cheer him up, but had supposed he did not care for 
 it, and might resent it. And he said it was the very 
 thing above all others that he wanted, my friendship 
 and sympathy ; that he had been more cut up than by 
 any thing else, because I held off from him (almost your 
 very words, dear Ellen), and so on. You can be sure I 
 made it all right, told him that it had been my fault all 
 along, and that I ought not to have been so obstinate, 
 but should have gone to him, and tried to help him. But 
 he would not allow me to put it in that way, and declared 
 that it was all his own fault ; that he had given me cause 
 for thinking harshly of him, and that, if he had not been 
 such a proud fool, (think of Hammersmith calling himself 
 a proud fool ! ) he would have come to me long ago, and 
 apologized for his hasty words in freshman year, and 
 well, Ellen, he behaved like a brick, and I felt like a 
 fool to have treated him so ; for it might all have been 
 avoided just as well as not. And now I see that your 
 advice was entirely correct, and that I have misunder 
 stood the fellow from the very start." 
 
 " I m very, very glad, George, that it has all turned out 
 so well, if we can only do something to save him. Who 
 can have been so wicked as to tell such an awful He about 
 him, and about you too? " 
 
 4 We can t make out. That s the very thing that 
 puzzles Hammersmith in the whole matter. It is bad 
 enough taking care of the scrapes that a fellow really gets 
 involved in, as Tom said, without having all the sins of 
 the college laid at your door ; and Hammersmith s excite 
 ment is not so much at the idea of being sent away 
 (though he feels that keenly enough) , but at the idea of 
 anybody being mean enough to slander him so disgrace 
 fully. Of course, if Tom had not been so high-strung, lie 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 215 
 
 might have avoided suspension by simply denying his con 
 nection with the fountain matter, as I did. I had no idea 
 of flying out at the charge : it came so suddenly, in fact, 
 that I had no time to reflect on it ; and I was glad enough 
 to be able to get off by a mere denial. But Tom had a 
 little time to think on it, you see, while they were ques 
 tioning me, and being the impetuous, open-hearted fellow 
 that he is, he was cut to the quick, I suppose, at the idoa 
 of being hauled up on a dark charge, evidently not of a 
 substantial character, and stabbed in the back, as he put 
 it to them. Gracious ! you ought to have seen old Wiz- 
 zen start when he plumped that phrase among them. 
 You would have thought the old bird had been stabbed 
 himself." 
 
 4 You have no idea who started the report ? He might 
 be induced to withdraw it, and apologize," said Ellen, 
 with a simple knowledge of ways and means. 
 
 " Hardly think that would do any good. You see, 
 Tom s manner of taking it is what has used him up : they 
 cannot forgive his severe speech. And Tom cannot begin 
 to guess who could have slandered him in this fashion. 
 By the way, I took the liberty of asking him to come up 
 here with me just now ; but he said he could not think of 
 it. He will call to-morrow, or before he goes off, and say 
 good-by, he sa3 T s, the idea of losing him just at this 
 time ! The crew will be simply demoralized. And I 
 shall feel that I am partly to blame, for not having stood 
 by him before, and so kept him a little more straight. 
 Good gracious ! good gracious ! Tufton, Tufton ! Can it 
 be possible that that fellow is pursuing him yet ? It never 
 occurred tome till this moment ; but it is impossible. He 
 has been gone more than a week now ; and some follows 
 s.iw him taking the cars for New York in the Boston and 
 Worcester depot. Hammersmith told me a great deal 
 about his relations with that scoundrel, moreover, that I 
 
216 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 have never known before ; and the way the poor fellow 
 has suffered at his hands is something frightful ; but for 
 Heaven s sake, Ellen, never let him know that I have 
 hinted a word of all this to you ! promise me." 
 
 "Of course, I never will, George; and I am more 
 sorry than I can say that it has all ended in his being 
 suspended. He shall not be. Come, George, what do 
 you propose?" And the fair cousin, with heightened 
 color, and more excitement than was common with her, 
 ran to the door to welcome her father, whose step she 
 heard at the moment. 
 
 The warm-hearted professor burst in upon their despair 
 with fresh news and kindly plans ; and the three fell to 
 talking of the episode and of Hammersmith s chances, 
 and sat together far into the night. 
 
HIS HAKVABD DAYS. 217 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE HAMMERSMITH RUBICON. 
 
 "Be bolde, Be bolde, and everywhere, Be bold." SPENSEB. 
 " Ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes vlros." SENECA. 
 
 MEANWHILE the young gentleman in question, 
 Mr. Tom, was pacing his room, and indulging in 
 reflections by no means calculated to cheer his despond 
 ency. This, then, was the end of all the hopes and 
 plans, the maternal anxiety and uncle s beneficence, for 
 his college-career ; for the idea of returning to Cambridge 
 after his period of rustication was over did not once enter 
 the indignant young fellow s head : he would never think 
 of such a thing. 
 
 Lope de Vega, jilted by a dark-eyed senorita, joined 
 the Armada, we are told, and used up, as wadding for his 
 gun, the verses that he had written to his treacherous 
 inamorata. Tom s Alma Mater, which he loved, and would 
 have fought for, though he had done nothing extraordi 
 nary as yet to testify his devotion, had spurned him. 
 A false tale, a slander, had been accepted by her ; he had 
 been struck in the dark ; he would have no more of her. 
 And all his rosy dreams and longing, his high-hearted 
 hopes and resolves, he now fashioned into simster weapons 
 against his too cruel mother, dipping them in a dark bath 
 of poisoned feeling. How gravely foolish the reasoning, 
 how simply impulsive the spirit, of the lad, laying at the 
 door of the constituted authorities the evil which his own 
 impetuous words had brought ! 
 
218 HAMMEESMITH: 
 
 Men dropped in to console, to inquire, to advise. It 
 was a cold comfort and a thin sympathy at best that they 
 could bring ; and the sombre Hammersmith did not seem 
 in a mood to appreciate or to plan. What planning could 
 there be, when the morrow would bring the ultimatum of 
 the Faculty, and he should step forward, demand his 
 papers, and- bid good-by to the college forever? Should 
 he write to his mother, advising her of his coming ? Oh ! 
 where was his uncle Gayton? He sat down, and wrote to 
 his mother. He tried to describe it all in a vein of pleas 
 antry, as though it were not so terrible a thing after all. 
 But his hand shook : he was telling her only half the 
 truth ; she knew nothing whatever of the Boggle affair. 
 He could not send her such a letter : he tore it up. 
 
 His chum Fenhallow spent the evening with him. He 
 was sympath} 7 itself. And yet he was deep in his own 
 troubles, much closer allied to Tom s than Hammersmith 
 knew ; and he was waiting only the developments of the 
 morning to take as decisive action as Tom himself. How 
 we deceive ourselves, and shake our own chains for very 
 sport in our misciy, looking with envy on lighter-hearted 
 mortals, whom we picture free as air, unvisited by griefs ! 
 Tom fairly begrudged his chum the careless ease and 
 untroubled tranquillity of his college-life ; while all the 
 time Pcnhallow was feeding on his own bitter bread, and 
 debating his own sorry problem. Should he come forward 
 3 T et? Would it save Tom if he did? Was it true that 
 Tom s own words had been the cause of his suspension, 
 and. that the faculty would go no farther in their investi 
 gation, as many men seemed to think? Penhallow was 
 as stanch a friend as Hammersmith had ; but was there 
 any thing to be gained by opening his mouth, if Tom were 
 not to be saved by the means ? Pen didn t know ; and 
 being no subtle moralist, but a youth remarkably apt to 
 grow uncommonly sleepy about eleven o clock, he turned 
 
HIS HAEVAKD DAYS. 219 
 
 in at that hour, and left Tom at the table, a sheet of paper 
 before him, his head leaning on his left hand. 
 
 Hammersmith had packed a few traps ; he had tried to 
 write home ; he had tried still harder to bring himself to 
 make an apology to the faculty, as the ardent Pinckney 
 had suggested, less afraid than Goldie of Tom s resenting 
 the very suggestion: but he could not do it. What? 
 apologize to men who had listened to a vile slander, sum 
 moning him to answer it without telling him its origin and 
 its author ? Get down on his knees to such men ? Never ! 
 And the blood of all the Hammersmiths was up ; and the 
 much-tossed Tom put on his hat, and went out into the 
 still night. 
 
 He hardly knew what course he took : he wandered 
 about without aim. He was on fire when he came out ; 
 he was breathing defiance at everybody : but the cool air 
 of midnight, and the calm stars, looking down on joy and 
 misery alike with impassive gaze, came to quiet his raging 
 mood, and lead Despair with gentle hand into a land of 
 hope and quiet reflection. 
 
 Here were the steps of Harvard Hall, where he had first 
 met Goldie. Here was the hall whence he had rushed ex 
 ultant, brandishing his entrance-papers, and falling into 
 the amis of his classmates below stairs. And there was the 
 very spot where his dear old uncle had waited for him in 
 his barouche, drawn up outside the gate, and received the 
 young freshman with hearty congratulations. There was 
 the Delta, where his first stout struggle with the sopho 
 mores had taken place ; where Breese had distinguished 
 himself, and vaulted the fence, just here, as he fled for his 
 rooms. And he stood on the very spot where McGregor 
 had caught him up, and congratulated him on his plucky 
 stand against him in the game. Goldie s old rooms, 
 where he had played such different parts ; the old Hollis 
 Pump, where lie had cooled his lips so many times, rush- 
 
230 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 ing in from cricket, or football, or rapid constitutional, 
 just in time for recitation ; the Institute, scene of his early 
 initiation and first office-holding ; all the different land 
 marks of his bright college-life, must he leave these in 
 disgrace, and look back upon them as only the fragments 
 of a broken dream? The swaying foliage of the elms, 
 that have listened to so many vows and prayers, songs 
 and shouts, before, and dropped their flickering shadows 
 on the merry and the grave, the thoughtful scholar and 
 the idle reveller alike, rose and fell with a quiet night- 
 whisper above young Tom, pacing under their arches for 
 the last time, as he thought, poor fellow ! The last lights 
 went out, and he was alone with the stars and the night. 
 He thought of his mother and his sweet young sister 
 Mabel, and of all the wild nights of the past year ; and 
 he cursed himself for all the wicked extravagance and 
 folly which had kept him from the high courses on which 
 he had started. 
 
 It was a sad, bitter fight that he was fighting with him 
 self; fighting to decide if he were to gain that victory 
 which is greater than the taking of cities, or to slink off 
 in disgrace, lowering his lance, and confessing defeat ; 
 such a fight as Amadis de Gaul and Dardan fought, stub 
 born, bitter, shield to shield, and axe to axe, till Amadis, 
 sore-pressed and well-nigh fainting, beheld the fair Oriana 
 at her window, received new strength, and conquered. If 
 only at the window of Hope some fair Oriana might appear 
 to Tom ! If only he knew that while he was struggling 
 thus, and facing the conflict within his own heart, there 
 was some radiant presence working for him, about him, 
 around him, who shall say if not within him ? inspiring 
 him to be worthy of himself ! But Tom knew little of the 
 sources of his strength from within and from without. He 
 had small conception of the power of sentimental inspira 
 tion ; and he knew nothing of a certain earnest little trip- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 221 
 
 artite meeting that was just about breaking up, as he went 
 over towards the river, across Harvard Square, lie knew 
 only that everybody seemed to be against him, and that his 
 own rash temper had wrought him nothing but harm from 
 his earliest college-days, first with Goldie, afterwards 
 with Ladbroke, then with the Boggles, the disgusting Bog 
 gles ! and now finally with the faculty itself. Whom could 
 he imagine working for him, even with prayers, and with 
 what effect, in any case, if his own temper insisted on run 
 ning away with him, and working his ruin ? No : it was a 
 single-handed fight, Hammersmith vs. Circumstance ; and 
 I am not sure that Tom was not deciding to call it a drawn 
 battle, and retire from the field, so hard the conditions, 
 and so relentless the malice of the warfare appeared to 
 him. But Oriana was coming. 
 
 Tom did not reflect, indeed, that he was merely meeting 
 the ordinary fate of his race, merely drawing near that 
 university Rubicon, where so many Hammersmiths had 
 halted, and turned back, at the full stream of sophomore 
 life. Nor would the reflection have brought a fit conso 
 lation in view of the circumstances of his own suspen 
 sion. There was something comparatively manly (in Mr. 
 Tom s mind at least) in plunging Hammersmith-fashion 
 into some dangerous adventure, and being sent away a 
 local hero. The family displeasure and admiring conster 
 nation of young sisters and cousins might be endured in 
 a martyrdom like that, and Tom was sure that he could 
 have carried off such a dismissal with not unbecoming 
 dignity and ease. But to be sent away for nothing, (what 
 3 outh will admit that hasty words are any thing ?) to be 
 turned adrift with all the disgrace, and none of the eclat, 
 which his ancestor Hammersmiths had carried off, that 
 was too much, that was too humiliating. 
 
 Thus reflecting, thus torn with his restless thoughts, he 
 passed, almost without noticing, his old freshman quar- 
 
222 HAMMEESMITH: 
 
 ters in the Brattle House. He turned, and went under tha 
 shadow of Tufton s deserted rooms, forsaken by even 
 boozy Jordan now, and made his way to the boat-houses 
 by a natural impulsion. He crossed the narrow plank 
 leading over the marshes : he opened the houses with a 
 key that he carried, and sat down on the timbers, facing 
 the water. 
 
 Here was the scene of his first considerable triumphs in 
 sports. Here he had first paddled out in freshman year, 
 and astonished onlookers by his faultless stroke. Up yon 
 der tackle he had climbed man} 7 a time, returning from a 
 pull with a crew. At this very door he had issued to take 
 his seat in the famous six of his first }^ear, which had 
 quitted itself so well, and in the Varsity, only a few days 
 ago now, followed by the hopes and praise of the college. 
 
 There was Tufton s favorite lounging-place, in that 
 corner, sheltered from the wind. Tom had seen him many 
 a time standing there, lazily watching the crews, and mak 
 ing those investigations whose purpose we have now some 
 what divined, and Tom, too, alas ! Ah, how he remem 
 bered Tufton s very words as he spoke admiringly of Tom s 
 stroke one day, so long ago, and asked him up for a glass 
 of wine ! And this man, who had professed such friend 
 ship, who had been at his side for weeks and months, who 
 had initiated him into ways and places which now made 
 him sick as he thought of them, this man had turned 
 on him, and swindled him, and lied to him, and made him 
 a laughing-stock among his friends ! For this man s 
 friendship he had sacrificed Goldie and Breese and Albe- 
 marle, and hosts of good men, with whom his relations had 
 been only lukewarm in consequence of his absorption with 
 Tufton. For him he had given hot, cruel words to Goldie, 
 best of fellows ! Through him, bah, the Boggle ! The long 
 asinine folly, the vulgar surroundings, the double-faced 
 actress, the soi-disant father, the wretched promise to pay, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 223 
 
 and all the misery which it had brought to him ! This 
 note! How could he ever pay it ? Could he ever pay it? 
 Ought he to pay it if he could ? Penhallow was right : 
 Tom had started for Boston to ask his lawyers if the law 
 could compel him to discharge an obligation which his 
 honor told him was not binding ; but Penhallow did not 
 know that he had quailed at asking the humiliating ques 
 tion, and having, possibly, to tell the whole story, by way 
 of explanation, and had come back to Cambridge with his 
 doubts unsettled. 
 
 Later financial embarrassments, a heavier note ap 
 proaching protest, may bring more distress and consterna 
 tion in their train, but I doubt if they are more harrowing, 
 than the sudden dismay with which a youth is over 
 whelmed when caught in a maze like Tom s. To be sus 
 pended in so causeless a way, to leave behind a fair repu 
 tation scarred and broken with folly, and seeming vice and 
 extravagance, that was grievous enough surely ; but to 
 have the truculent Boggle following him, like a Nemesis, 
 with Tom s signature on his paper, following him, as he 
 knew he would, wherever he went ; to feel that sooner or 
 later he must make a clean breast of it, and obtain help 
 from somebody (he scarcely dared think from whom) , or 
 else miserably evade his promise, that was too much! 
 How could he evade it? What desperate measure could 
 he adopt to free himself from the toils which had been 
 gathering about him for months now ? Why not end it 
 all by flight? Why not But do not brood on your 
 desperate chances, dear Tom, or let your thoughts drop to 
 the cool depths and quiet rest below the dark flood at your 
 feet, lapping the timbers with gentle wash. It is cow 
 ardly, it is unbecoming a Hammersmith and Oriana is 
 coming ! 
 
 He starts up, shakes himself as with fresh resolution, 
 and walks rapidly to his rooms. Whence the new hope , 
 
224 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 the brighter vision, had come, he knew not ; nor can any 
 of us know. But if prayers avail, and maidenly interces 
 sion can do its pure office without the medium of personal 
 presence, there was passing into Tom s soul an inspira 
 tion and a delicious uplifting strength from a source 
 which would have surprised the good fellow not a little, 
 had he been told of it, but the effects of which he felt 
 most markedly, thanking God. 
 
 There was much hubbub and dismay next morning in 
 the college-world. Hammersmith suspended ! It could 
 not be ! In the Bradstreet scrape ? Impossible ! A 
 dozen men could swear that he had gone quietly to his 
 rooms after the firemen s retreat. As many more could 
 testify, if they would, that no Hammersmith had been with 
 them in their after vandalism. But would these latter 
 come forward and testify ? And would their words save 
 Hammersmith, whose own words had been his ruin? 
 Nobody could say ; and Penhallow was vastly troubled in 
 spirit with certain facts which he was carrying in his head. 
 
 A monster petition was started. The sophomore class, 
 to a man, put down their names ; and the other classes 
 came forward almost unanimously to save Hammersmith, 
 and stave off the chances of defeat at Worcester. The 
 faculty was to be most respectfully petitioned to review 
 the Hammersmith case, and receive the testimony of men 
 who could show that he had no connection with the affair. 
 Classmates, members of the Varsity, men who hardly 
 knew him except by sight, called to beg him to apologize 
 to the faculty, and, for the honor of the university, not 
 give up his seat in the crew so easily. 
 
 Tom was flattered, he felt his importance, he was sorry 
 to be going ; but he would never write an apology. He 
 packed more of his effects ; he collected a few tradesmen s 
 bills ; he called on Miss Darby, and bade her good-by in a 
 that made that collected young woman s heart give 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 225 
 
 a great throb of pity for poor broken Tom ; and then he 
 waited and waited for the final word from the authorities, 
 when he felt that he would take such pleasure in announ 
 cing his determination to take up his connections forth 
 with, and never return to the cold hospitality of the uni 
 versity. 
 
 Early in the afternoon the president s freshman was 
 climbing to Tom s rooms again. He handed Tom a note, 
 this time from Dr. Brimblecom, requesting him to call at 
 once at his study ; and Tom went off from an anxious 
 roomful of friends, to hear his fate. 
 
 What passed in that interview may better not be de 
 scribed, how the good doctor received Hammersmith 
 most cordially, in a manner bespeaking his hearty sympa 
 thy, and proceeded at once to the object of his summons, 
 the faculty having deputed him to talk the matter over 
 calmly with Hammersmith, who had evidently not been 
 implicated in the offence (as they had since learned from 
 a trustworthy source), and to endeavor to adjust the 
 matter satisfactorily ; how Tom would listen to no ad 
 vances which did not include the disclosure of the origin 
 of the slander against him, although he was most sen 
 sibly touched, and deeply thankful for the doctor s kind 
 dealing ; how the doctor argued with him at greater 
 length, and nearly persuaded him that he was marring his 
 own life by mere obstinacy, and quite natural youthful 
 indignation ; how the doctor could not quite conceal his 
 admiration for Tom s fine rage and manly bearing ; and 
 how, at length, producing a small scrap of paper, he 
 told Hammersmith that he held in his hand the paper 
 charging Hammersmith with complicity in the fountain 
 affair. He was not exactly authorized to deliver this 
 paper to Tom, he added ; but he could take the liberty of 
 doing so, if Tom would but go with him to the president s, 
 and retract the severe language which he had used in the 
 
226 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 faculty room. And Tom still held out ; but the fatherly 
 interest of the kind-hearted doctor, the sight of the paper 
 almost within his grasp, the thought of his mother let us 
 hope, and the ease of stepping across to the president s 
 with Brimblecom, and saying the simple five words to the 
 offended Dummer, all conspired to weaken his resistance ; 
 and at last he said, 
 
 " I will do so, doctor, if you think best." 
 
 The doctor was handing him the paper, when he stopped 
 and said, 
 
 But I had forgotten that the faculty make it a condi 
 tion in the case, that you shall not take part in any more 
 rowing this term, Mr. Hammersmith, and shall show a 
 commendable devotion to your college-duties." 
 
 Tom was more aghast than ever, this condition thrust 
 in just when every thing seemed working smoothly for 
 him! And again he refused to have any thing to do 
 with the retraction. But the doctor did not mean that the 
 fine, stubborn fellow should destroy his whole college- 
 career from sheer perversity ; and, with that suave and 
 genial persistence which brought men down so effectually, 
 he worked awa}^ at Tom till he calmed his fresh fury, and 
 the paper was handed to him. 
 
 It was undated, signed with no name, and ran simply : 
 
 I have the honor of reporting that Mr. Goldie and Mr. Ham 
 mersmith were concerned in the destruction of the fountain on Mr. 
 Bradstreet s grounds on Friday night last, and were chief actors 
 in the disturbance of that night. X. 
 
 A simple enough slander, which a word from Hammer 
 smith might have refuted at once. But some idea of his 
 state of mind on reading the small paper may be had, 
 when it is known, that on opening the fatal missive, and 
 casting his eye rapidly at its flourishing chirography, Tom 
 recognized at a glance the well-known, too well-known, 
 hand of Tufton, jny Lord Tufton, whose curiously-folded 
 
HIS HAKVAI1D DAYS. 227 
 
 notes he had so often found on his centre- table, or stuck 
 up in his mirror, inviting him here and there. 
 
 The good doctor was rather astonished at this cool 
 reading of the note where he had expected excitement ; 
 but Tom was stunned, stunned by the persevering malig 
 nity of Tufton s hatred; and saying merely, "It is a 
 slander, my dear doctor, a foul slander and a lie ! " he 
 folded the note carelessly, and they went off to the presi 
 dent s. 
 
 A little later Tom was seen crossing the quadrangle 
 towards his rooms. A wild crowd pounced upon him as 
 he went, and plied him with eager questions. 
 
 How is it ? How is it, Hammersmith ? Any hope ? 
 
 "Oh, it s all right! I m not going off," said Tom 
 quietly ; and the crowd danced about him, and hugged 
 him, and cheered (the usual demonstration of university 
 jJ) you will observe), till the quadrangle echoed with 
 the noise of their shouts. 
 
 "Why, what is the matter, Tom? You don t seem 
 particularly glad. Have you murdered old Brimblecom? " 
 
 " Not exactly. But the fact is, fellows, I am forbidden 
 to row any more this term, and I was " 
 
 " Forbidden to row ! Good Lord, you don t mean it ! 
 Well, never mind, old fellow, cheer up ! We ll fix that 
 all right ! " And, sure enough, the monster petition was 
 produced (it had not }^et been handed in) , its caption was 
 altered completely, to cover an urgent appeal that Ham 
 mersmith might be allowed to retain his seat in the uni 
 versity crew, where his loss would be irreparable ; and the 
 long array of names was actually pasted below this prayer, 
 and sent in to the faculty. 
 
 But that august bocVy had jdelded points enough : on this 
 it was inexorable. Glad as Tom was then to unpack 
 his trunks, and settle once more into his old life (his new 
 life, I should say), and save himself and his poor mother 
 
228 HAMMEESMITH: 
 
 the disgrace which had hung over him, it was with veiy 
 bitter feelings and sad repining that he gave up his oar 
 to Albertson that evening, and, standing at the boat- 
 houses, saw the old boat go flashing down the river with 
 out him, under Miles s long, swinging stroke. 
 
 But Oriana did not so much think of Tom s handing 
 over a bit of pine timber to Albertson, and giving way to 
 regrets and self-reproaches instead of "giving way" 
 under McGregor s sharp orders in the boat: she was 
 rather rejoiced that she had such a dear father, who was 
 such a friend of young men, as well as such an intimate 
 of Dr. Brimblecom s ; and that the man who had saved 
 her life had been rescued from suspension through en 
 treaties of her own. 
 
 And the Tufton note, the real authors of the vandalism, 
 and the Boggle promise to pay ? 
 
 The note from " X " Tom did not show to a soul (for 
 some days at least), excepting only Goldie, who had 
 surely an equal right to know the source of the slander 
 involving himself as well as Hammersmith, and who was 
 drawn even more closely to Tom by learning how fatally 
 and skilfully the unscrupulous diplomatist had tracked his 
 victim all these weeks. Tufton must, of course, be still 
 hiding in Boston. Woe to him if Hammersmith or 
 Goldie should come upon him while this outrage is fresh 
 in their minds ! 
 
 The faculty was by no means satisfied with its success 
 in enforcing discipline ; and proceeding to decimate the 
 class, and having already selected several entirely inno 
 cent men, including Albemarle and Freemantle, the real 
 offenders were shamed into confession, came forward, and 
 gave themselves up ; and Penhallow and two men who 
 have not figured in this history were suspended for six 
 months as the ringleaders. 
 
 How the Boggle note would ever have been met, if i* 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 229 
 
 had not been for a sudden apparition in the college-yard, 
 is hard to say. But when the time for the second pay 
 ment the first three hundred dollars was several days 
 overdue, and old Boggle had left a greasy card of threats 
 under Tom s door, demanding immediate satisfaction under 
 penalty of public disclosure and prosecution, Tom was at 
 his wits end for some way out of his web. Suddenly, 
 one afternoon, he heard a familiar volley of " Gad, sirs ! " 
 under his window, and, rushing down, ran plump into the 
 arms of his bronzed uncle Gayton, who was about mount 
 ing his stairway, stouter and grayer than when he had left, 
 but jolly and opportune as ever. 
 
 To learn Tom s story, with all its important details, 
 which Tom told with shame not unmixed with a pleasant 
 sense of relief, and to run over his own roving history 
 since he had left Tom so many months ago, was not the 
 work of a single hour, or a single evening. It was a 
 long story on Tom s part : it was a merry, intermittent 
 chronicle on the part of his uncle, how he had sailed 
 away to China with a sinking heart, and arrived to find 
 his business going at sixes and sevens till he had put his 
 own shoulders to the wheel, brought his sturdy business- 
 head to bear on the matter, and had left, after a year, 
 with prosperity showing its shiny face in his coffers, where 
 before there had been ever-increasing elbow-room for panic. 
 
 How the dear old philosopher laughed over Tom s story, 
 as its ridiculous incidents were told him ! How he amazed 
 Tom by his easy reception of all the more distressing fea 
 tures of the business ! the midnight imprisonment with 
 old Boggle, the extorted note, the previous loan to Tufton, 
 and my lord s treachery throughout. He did his very 
 philosophical best to control his mirth, and to look be 
 comingly severe at proper intervals ; but his nephew alive 
 and well before his eyes, an early appreciation that the 
 business was not so bad as Tom would make out and as 
 
280 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 he had at first feared, and a not inexcusable or unaccount 
 able tinge of delight at finding the same old Hammersmith 
 pluck and love of warfare and stiff-neckedness still crop 
 ping out, would not allow him to look on the serious side 
 of the affair for long at a time, but tended to his exceed 
 ing merriment. 
 
 " So the old boy turned the key on you, that night, eh? 
 Gad, sir, why didn t you murder him? Ram him into the 
 closet, and elope over the roof-tops with the daughter, 
 like young Lochinvar, who came up out of the West? 
 Cambridge is to the westward, eh ? Had his hand on a 
 pistol ! What of that? I ll tell you a story about a pis 
 tol some day, humph ! And he instinctively put his hand 
 to his forehead. "Eh? Ferocious old party ! Death in 
 his eye ! All the more glory in getting away with him ! 
 The Hammersmith blood is only fairty aroused when it is 
 pounding away in an uphill game ; didn t you know that, 
 my boy?" And the old fellow rattled on thus about 
 Tom s various experiences, cheering him amazingly with 
 his merry treatment of it all, seeing that he cheered him, 
 and so rollicking on with him, and chaffing him the more. 
 
 Tom opened his heart to him, at last, as he had never 
 expected to be able to do to anybody on the subject. He 
 told him the whole sorry story of his connection with Tuf- 
 ton : how he had been flattered at the first by his polite 
 attentions and marked discrimination, led on by his pleas 
 ant suppers and wily tactics, going so far as to quarrel 
 with Goldie, the best friend he had, on his account, and 
 finally bringing up in this wretched Boggle business 
 and Tufton s slanderous accusation before the facult}-; 
 and how he, Tom, had shamefully neglected his good 
 friends, the Darbys and Fayerweathers and Summerdales, 
 till he was so inextricably involved with all this mass 
 of intrigue, that he was ashamed to show Ms face among 
 them, and didn t see how he could ever regain his footing 
 with them. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 231 
 
 " A bad fellow, a bad fellow, Tufton ! " said Mr. Gay- 
 ton. " But a sly-witted schemer, Tom, a low-born, sly- 
 witted schemer! Gad, sir! the way that class of men, 
 with their cursed hypocrisy of good manners, and their 
 showy seductions, pull the wool over the eyes of young 
 fellows (and old fellows, too, for that matter, unless they 
 know a thing or two) is something fearful ! Don t take 
 on about it, though, Tom, my boy. From your account, 
 3~ou must have plenty of company in your victimizing, 
 eh? Eh? Malachite, Malachite it must be the son of 
 old Mrs. Malachite, flame of Minturn s in the last century ! 
 Gad ! but there s a satanic grimness, a sort of poetic jus 
 tice, in the fellow s bleeding you young rascals, and then 
 inviting 3 r ou to a feast provided by your own kindness, 
 paid for out of your own pockets, eh ! A sort of Pelo- 
 pean banquet, isn t that what you d call it? A shrewd 
 fellow, Tom, a devilish shrewd fellow ! The deuse of it is, 
 how he could ever have kept it up so long. Two or three 
 years ! Everybody glad enough to keep mum about his 
 own folly, I suppose, and nobody daring to take the vil 
 lain by the beard, till you came along, Tom. So Breese 
 did you a good turn, eh? " 
 
 " Yes : Breese is a good fellow, a mighty good fellow ! 
 But, by Jove ! I wish I could have caught Tufton ! He 
 wouldn t have had " 
 
 "Yes, yes, I know what you would have done, 
 thrashed him, as I saw you thrashing a sophomore on 
 the Delta last year, only you were on the under side ! 
 for convenience of fighting, I suppose. You would have 
 had a big row, an awful exposure, no end of scandal, 
 your mother in tears, and you butting your head against 
 a stone wall in despair ; while now we can manage it all 
 well enough. Tufton has gone, good riddance ! Boggle s 
 note we can manage, money obtained under duress, 
 though I have a mind to take it out of your allowance, 
 
232 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 you } T oung reprobate, just for a lesson ! And, as for your 
 never being able to regain your footing with your Cam 
 bridge friends, don t you deceive yourself! Gad, man ! 
 what have you done to be ashamed of? My word for it, 
 you ll be received with open arms whenever you make 
 your first bow in their parlors. Have / lost my footing 
 with the good and the great ? Eh ? But you are sarcas 
 tic at times, I remember ; and you need not answer. My 
 only fear is, that you will meet such an ovation that your 
 silly young head will be turned, you rogue ! Nothing like 
 an adventure and a little dubious glory to make way with 
 the women, Tom ; though I would not inculcate that as a 
 doctrine for young men to live up to : men find it out 
 soon enough, Heaven knows ! " 
 
 And the soft-hearted old cosmopolitan was as good as 
 his word ; sent Boggle a polite note, requesting him to 
 call at Parker s on very particular business ; received him 
 as he might a prince, or an interior Chinaman from whom 
 he hoped to buy a province full of tea ; led gradually up to 
 the matter of Tom s promise to pay, with the slow progress 
 familiar to Oriental traders ; and then, by an exhibition of 
 unexpected firmness, and knowledge of the law in the case, 
 demanded the surrender of the paper in question. Boggle 
 had of course refused to make this surrender, and rose to 
 leave. 
 
 "As you will," said Mr. Hammersmith, shrugging his 
 shoulders. "I invite you here as a gentleman; I treat 
 you as a gentleman ; I talk over the matter with you 
 quietly ; we both know the follies of youth ; and you know 
 as well as I do, that you have no shadow of right or law 
 in demanding payment of that note. If you choose to 
 meet the issue in a different spirit from that in which I 
 approach it, of course I have no resource but to insist on 
 my rights. Relinquish that note at once, before to-mor 
 row noon, with the one hundred dollars blood-money that 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 233 
 
 you have already received, or I have you arrested as a 
 criminal, and publish you to the world as a you know 
 what! Good-day, sir." And, bowing magnificently, he 
 actually forced the mean-spirited actor out of the room 
 by his grand manner, without allowing him further re 
 joinder. 
 
 That very evening came a tobacco-scented note by the 
 hand of a call-boy, restoring the promise to pay, but beg 
 ging indulgence in the matter of the hundred dollars. To 
 which Mr. Hammersmith returned a cold answer in a few 
 lines, to the effect that he thanked him for the paper ; 
 that the paltry sum of a hundred dollars was not of suffi 
 cient account to be mentioned ; that he had better forget 
 it, and every thing connected with this affair, except that 
 he, Hammersmith, could see a little farther through a 
 millstone than most sub-managers might think possible ; 
 and that, if occasion arose at any time in the future, he 
 might feel called upon to make known to the world (in 
 cluding the Boston) which patronized the theatrical pro 
 fession, exactly what he had discovered on the other side 
 of that grindstone recently manipulated by himself and a 
 certain Tufton. 
 
 If the old gentleman was amused at the boy s sprawl 
 ing signature at the bottom of the note surrendered, he 
 was sad, in his way, at the thought of what the young 
 man must have gone through in all these weeks of doubt 
 and fear. But then he caught sight of the "value 
 received" in the note, and went off into a merry fit of 
 solitary laughter, which would have thrown my Lord Tuf 
 ton (judicious smiler !) into convulsions, had he seen its 
 uncontrolled length. 
 
 He brought the note post-haste to Tom next day, and 
 delivered it with a speech of mock gravity, as if he were 
 presenting his credentials to the Emperor of China, or 
 handing Tom a death-warrant or a marriage-certificate, 
 
234 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 or any thing else portentous, and twitted him on the 
 phrase which had caught his eye. But Tom assured him, 
 on the word of a Hammersmith, that Ms honor was clear, 
 that the family name had received no blot from him ; and 
 his uncle quickly changed the subject by congratulating 
 him on the happy termination of the Boggle imbroglio. 
 
 "Halloo! what s this?" said Tom, on receiving the 
 awful document. " Tufton s handwriting, by all that s 
 holy! " And, opening a letter-case, he took from it the 
 small paper covering the fountain slander, and laid the 
 two side by side. I never noticed it when I signed it. 
 The very same ! No one ever crossed a t like Tufton ; 
 and there are the same old cursed flourishes ! 
 
 The two men examined the papers ; no mistaking it ; 
 Tufton s ear-marks in both. 
 
 "Funny I didn t notice it that night," said Tom. 
 "Thought Boggle wrote it right before my eyes. Ke- 
 mcmber now he turned his back to me. Hang him ! He 
 had this in his pocket all the time ! Tufton must have 
 written it in Cambridge, the wretch ! Or could he have 
 written it in Miss Boggle s \cry rooms ! " Good Heavens, 
 the tom-cat ! The noise he had heard that night ! The 
 excitement of the girl, when he had approached her dress 
 ing-room, and several lesser incidents that had occurred 
 before and since ! Could it be that Tufton had a habit of 
 secreting himself in that adjoining room, listening to all 
 his twaddle and vows, while pretending that he hardly 
 dared speak to the Boggle, much less go near her rooms 
 for fear of her father ! 
 
 But these last reflections were to himself; and he saw 
 no need of imparting this wretched phase of the business 
 to his uncle, who would have been perhaps dangerously 
 amused, to the verge of apoplexy, l)y the drollery of the 
 tom-cat episode. So Tom shook these too persistent 
 thoughts from him, and reiterated for the hundredth time 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 235 
 
 the great, the unspeakable gratitude which he bore his 
 uncle for all his kindness. 
 
 The old gentleman said, "Pooh, pooh! It s nothing! 
 Only look after yourself in the future, Tom, or I disown 
 you ! " and rattled off to his club, happy in the 3 r oungster, 
 and revolving plans for his vacation. 
 
 For despite the uncle s jolly manner, which he thought 
 the best way of receiving Tom s pitiful tale, he was not a 
 little disturbed at the young man s saddened look, and 
 general air of dejection and despair ; and he was planning 
 what radical change of scenes and associations, for at 
 least a part of Tom s summer vacation, would be best 
 calculated to restore him to himself, before he should 
 return to his mother s too watchful eyes. Thus cogitating, 
 he drew up at his club, met Shaw going up the steps, and 
 the two old classmates joined forces, and soon agreed 
 upon a summer s lark, in which Tom, and perhaps some 
 of his friends, should accompany them. 
 
 Penhallow, then, had been suspended, and Tom was 
 again alone, lonely in that deeper sense in which 
 widowhood is lonelier than celibacy, as Winthrop says. 
 The faculty had sent a not altogether unwelcome letter to 
 Penhallow s family, regretting the occurrence which had 
 compelled his departure, testifying to Pen s general excel 
 lence of deportment, and favorable influence in Cambridge, 
 but intimating that this particular offence was of so aggra 
 vated a nature that it could not, in justice to good disci 
 pline, be passed over lightly. 
 
 " Good-by, old fellow!" said Penhallow, bursting in 
 upon Tom, several days after his departure from Cam 
 bridge. Tom was busy on a letter to his mother, to whom 
 his thoughts turned more often now, as he was freed more 
 and more from his entanglement. " Good-b} 7 : I m not 
 coming back, as I had proposed. Going to California 
 next week.* 
 
236 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 "Nonsense, Pen: you must come back! What am I 
 going to do without you? " said Tom. 
 
 "O Lord Harry, you ll survive! I m not such a 
 heart-breaker as that. Never knew it before, at any rate ! 
 Fact is, this life is too slow for me. I can t screw all 
 this Greek and Latin into my head ; and what should I do 
 with it, if I could ? I m too fond of horses and out-door 
 life, old fellow ; and I think you are too. An old friend of 
 mine, Bob Simmons, you ve heard me speak of him, 
 has a big ranch out near Santa Barbara, or Los Angeles, 
 or some place there, no end of horses and cattle ; and 
 I m going out to join him. Governor s going to set me 
 up, if I like it ; and you see if I don t have you out there 
 too, some day, or I am vastly mistaken in you, Tom ! It s 
 a glorious wild life, in the saddle most of the time, and 
 a little scrimmage with the natives now and then, a sort of 
 half-breed Mexican and Indian, Simmons writes Perkins. 
 Just the kind of life you and I have often talked of, 
 shut up in these old walls. Hur-rah ! By the way, I m 
 going to leave Baldy for you, Tom, if you want him, 
 the horse you liked so much last year. He s been out to 
 pasture for some weeks ; but I had him up yesterday, and 
 he s a stunner, I tell you ! You ll take him, and think of 
 me when you ride, Tom? Old Windgall will take good 
 care of him for you : Freemantle says they re very par 
 ticular with his mare, and I m sure she always looks like 
 a piece of satin. Say you ll take him, Tom, and I ll have 
 him brought over at once, when he s shod, or keep him up 
 till next term ; just as you say. Saddle, bridle, every 
 thing, of course, my dear fellow. Simmons says our rig 
 is of no use out there, with their Mexican horses. They 
 have some peculiar saddles and bits of their own, very 
 cruel bits, I hear." 
 
 And with some protestation and very many thanks, 
 Tom at last accepted the present of the very beautiful 
 
HIS HARVAED DAYS. 237 
 
 bay that he had ridden several times with great satisfac 
 tion ; and Penhallow, with much characteristic enthusiasm 
 0ver his new career, and many hopes that Tom might join 
 him in the Far West some day, took up his " connections " 
 with the university, and was soon embarking from New- 
 York, via Panama, for the ranch-life of which he knew so 
 little, and expected so much ; not before he had sat down 
 to a farewell dinner in his honor, however, and had been 
 toasted, and sung over, and wept over, by a dozen or 
 more of his friends, whom Hammersmith and Goldie, 
 masters of the feast, had invited to bid their popular 
 classmate farewell, and wish him good voyage. 
 
2o8 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A SUMMER CRUISE. 
 
 " Sad or sinful is the life of that man who finds not the heavens bluer and the 
 waves more musical in maturity than in childhood." HIGGINSON. 
 
 " Weary and sick of our hooks, we come to repose in your eyelight, 
 
 As to the woodland and water, the freshness and heauty of Nature." CLOUGH. 
 
 HOW Hammersmith lived through the humiliation of 
 leaving the university crew in this enforced manner ; 
 how he received a measure of consolation in the tremen 
 dous reputation which the greater publicity of his previous 
 entanglements brought him ; how magnanimous he was, on 
 hand every evening at the boat-houses to help the crew off, 
 following them again and again in a single-scull or pair 
 oar, coaching them, and getting them in form for the 
 coming struggle ; how he called on Professor Darb} r , and 
 thanked him effusively for his kind intercession with the 
 faculty in his behalf (Goldie having advised him of the 
 professor s intervention, though saying nothing of a cer 
 tain other more gentle pleader, whose words had affected 
 the parental heart still more than Goldie s classmate 
 appeal) ; and how, at length, the great race came off at 
 Worcester, and Harvard was beaten by a couple of 
 lengths, though pulling a plucky race, with two men on 
 the sick-list, lapping Yale several times in its course, all 
 this is well known to college-men of the day, but must be 
 passed over lightly here. 
 
 Tom is not especially proud of referring to this period 
 of the world s history and his own. He cannot help feel- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 239 
 
 ing that if he had been in the crew that fatal day, instead 
 of yelling himself hoarse on the banks, among his univer 
 sity men, the order of the boats at the finish might have 
 been quite reversed. Men were saying so freely about 
 him, why should he not feel as they did, conscious as 
 he was of a tingling strength in his muscles that would 
 have rejoiced to be displaying itself in the old place be 
 hind Goldie, and sure as he was that he would have had 
 the staying-power to carry him through the race, and not 
 be a dead- weight half the way, as Albertson had been? 
 lie was beside himself when he saw the boats come leap 
 ing down the lake, Yale perceptibly in advance : he could 
 have brained a knot of Yale men at his elbow, who were 
 cheering like madmen, and throwing their blue-ribboned 
 hats in the air. Why will men be such fools, he thought? 
 But he could have cried when Goldie, that evening, sit 
 ting in his room at the Bay State House, said sorrow 
 fully, 
 
 "Ah, Tom! if you had only been there! It was the 
 one thing I thought of through the whole race ; and I put 
 on ever3 T pound of weight I could, for your sake and my 
 own. Albertson didn t so much as pull his own weight, all 
 the way from the turning-stake down." 
 
 " I know it, I know it ! " said Tom. " But don t let s 
 speak of it, George. I could see it perfectly from the 
 bank ; and I was so blind with rage at nryself and my 
 beastly folly, that I could have shot myself. I shall never 
 row again." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you will ! " said Goldie. " You ll pull next 
 year, and senior year too ; and we shall beat old Yale as 
 she was never beaten before, for the defeat this year ! " 
 And the dear old warrior, who was to be stroke of the 
 Varsity himself next year, God willing, grew quite elo 
 quent over the prospect of having Tom behind him, as he 
 had hoped to have him in tins race. 
 
HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 But Tom insisted and declared, and insisted over again, 
 that he should never pull again, never, unless to paddle 
 for his own amusement, as Pinckney did, and as Breese 
 was beginning to do ; but as for racing, no, he should 
 never pull another race. Vows of youth are often broken, 
 however more s the pity ! as this chronicle shows, and 
 as j^our own heart will tell you, unfortunate reader, if, 
 perad venture, you have a beard. If not, far be it from 
 me to hint that broken troth and forgotten promises are 
 scattered in your wake a bas the thought ! 
 
 Mr. Gay ton, his friend Shaw, and numbers of other 
 Harvard men, were on hand at Worcester, grieving in the 
 defeat, to be sure, but hardly taking the matter so much 
 to heart as the interested youngsters, for whom it meant 
 world-wide disgrace and another up-hill year of training 
 and subscription-raising in Cambridge. Mr. Gayton, for 
 his part, as we might expect, knowing him even so little 
 as we do, took the whole matter in so merry a mood, that 
 the crew whom he entertained sumptuously the follow 
 ing evening, with many other college-men were quite 
 carried away by his genial manner and cordial bonhomie, 
 voting him a " brick " when they separated that night, as 
 their predecessors, and some few of themselves, had done 
 once before, so long ago, at Parker ^. 
 
 It was with the same bustling merriment that he bade 
 Tom write from Worcester to his mother, to say that he 
 would not be home till towards the end of vacation, as 
 uncle Gayton was to take him on a little cruise ; and to 
 beg her not to worry, for he was " all right." And then 
 he said impulsively, "Give me the pen, my boy!" and 
 added this postscript to Tom s letter : 
 
 MY DEAR EMILY, Shaw and I are going off for a month s 
 yachting along the coast, and have kidnapped Tom and his friend 
 Goldie. Do not get into a fret about him, or dwell on the sad 
 sea waves and " sich" too often: it s a briny subject. The fact 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 241 
 
 is, the fellow has had a pretty hard year, with his chemistry and 
 anthropology, and some private studies that he has been taking; 
 and I thought it would do him good to have a breath of salt air 
 for a few weeks. He s as handsome as ever, and as fine a young 
 Hammersmith as any of the line, excepting always two, my dear 
 Emily. My love to Mabel and Dick. Tell Dick he may appropri 
 ate the cane that I left the other day, against the time of need : 
 I have a room full of them ; useless to send it on. 
 
 With sentiments of distinguished consideration, as the diplo- 
 inates say, I am, my dear Emily, 
 
 Always yours, 
 
 GAYTON. 
 
 " No, no, you rascal ! you needn t read that," said the 
 uncle. " Seal it up, and drop it in the post. Gad, sir! 
 would you rob the mail? " And Tom laughed, and posted 
 the letter to his mother. 
 
 She, dear soul, read it sadly -but hopefully, trusting 
 that her dear boy had not been ruining his health by too 
 close application to his studies, of which she had heard 
 such mournful examples. Anthropology and private 
 studies ! Why was not the dear boy content with the 
 regular course, instead of taking more work upon himself? 
 Ah, Gayton, ingenious Gayton ! matching diplomacy with 
 diplomacy, the wiles of Tufton with the pardonable sub 
 terfuge of a fond uncle. If all deception were as innocent 
 and well-meant as yours ! 
 
 So these four stalwart gentlemen coursed up and down 
 the bold-dropping New-England coast that summer now 
 long past, continuing their cruise as far as Mount Desert, 
 and bringing back so full reports of its exceeding attrac 
 tiveness, that they consider themselves in no small meas 
 ure responsible for the vast patronage which that pretty 
 bit of Eastern wilderness has since received, a bit 
 indeed, O Philippus ! on your grand Occidental standard. 
 
 To Tom, at least, who had never been on the ocean 
 before, or felt its great heart throbbing under him, but 
 
242 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 had only watched the pulses in its beautiful arms, the 
 Hudson and the Charles, this freer excursion, this breezy 
 liberty of sailing, was a novelty very refreshing to the 
 spirits. How far off and unreal his bitter experience, his 
 close life in Cambridge, seemed to him ! And how he 
 braced himself to new resolves under the influence of the 
 genial compan} 7 , the mighty ocean-breaths which blew 
 upon them, the removal from the scene of his late esca 
 pades ! 
 
 Let me not seem to exaggerate the effect of his un 
 happy sophomore experience on the youth Hammersmith. 
 Everybody, I fear, is bound to discover, sooner or later, 
 that the fair round world is honeycombed with deceit and 
 treachery. Whether the head be gray, or the cheeks still 
 ruddy, when the discovery is made, the shock is sure to 
 come, and something very tender and valuable is sure to 
 be lost. But a comprehensive plot, a personal warfare, 
 against an unsuspecting youth, whose eyes have only just 
 opened upon real life among his fellows, does it not bring 
 a staggering revelation and a blinding sense of malignity 
 quite foreign to slower and later discoveries ? 
 
 Happy the youth who at such a time can have some 
 such cheering presence as Mr. Gayton Hammersmith to 
 break in upon the murky doubts with which he is sur 
 rounded ! God bless the dear old Gayton and his cheer 
 ful philosophy ! Bless him for his quick intuition that 
 what his nephew needed was not sanctimonious reproof, 
 but wholesome sympathy and vigorous affection ! In the 
 broad-shouldered young student pacing the deck of the 
 "Moll Pitcher," knitting his brow over the problem which 
 life had set him, and taking a fresh grip upon resolution 
 (even as the old skipper at the helm is grasping afresh the 
 straining tiller) , you would hardly recognize the younger 
 Hammersmith of the time of Mr. Andrew Pipon, the 
 graceful young rider of those thoughtless da} s. Life was 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 243 
 
 so honest, so straightforward, so filled with rainbows then, 
 in those happy days when he chased the merry hours along 
 the banks of the Hudson, free-hearted as a centaur ! 
 What were calm evenings and gorgeous sunsets, purple 
 mountain-outline, and fair, fleeting seasons, to him then? 
 And now they were working an influence of which he had 
 never dreamed before, and were quieting the troubled 
 spirit of Hammersmith as he had never expected it to be 
 quieted again, on that bitter day when he sat in his Mas 
 sachusetts window-seat, and heard his uncle s volley of 
 " Gad, sirs ! " in the quadrangle below. 
 
 " How far away and unreal the Cambridge life seems ! " 
 said Hammersmith to Goldie, as they were scudding 
 through the waters of Frenchman s Bay one gusty mid- 
 afternoon. The young men were lying on the leeward 
 side of the yacht, enveloped in pea-jackets, smoking and 
 talking intermittently as they skirted the picturesque 
 shores. u It seems j r ears since that cursed evening when 
 we were hauled up before the faculty. And as for Tufton, 
 bah ! I should imagine it was in some bygone century 
 that the villain left Cambridge that rainy da} , like a thief 
 in the night." 
 
 " May I trouble you for a light? Thanks ! " said Gol- 
 dic. " So it does. And I can hardly decide which I like 
 better, grinding awa}^ in Cambridge, or skimming along 
 this glorious coast with you and } our jolly uncle, old boy." 
 
 " I know perfectly well which / like best," answered 
 Tom. And then, after a pause, he asked, " George, what 
 did you think of me all those long months when I was 
 making such a condemned fool of m} r self ? What did the 
 fellows think?" 
 
 " Well, I don t know. There are always plenty of fel 
 lows to be glad when another fellow s going to the devil, 
 as they think. But I think a good many men were mighty 
 sorry to see the way that Tufton seemed to be getting an 
 
244 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 influence over you ; and yet they knew you too well to 
 dare to say a word to you about it. Breese, I know, for 
 one, was deusedly wrought up about it, and came to see 
 me several times about the matter. But you know I was 
 bound to stand it out as long as you would ; and I gave 
 him to understand that you could paddle your own canoe, 
 for all I cared." 
 
 " Yes, yes. But we ve talked that all up, George ; and 
 I am sure you were justified in keeping away from me. 
 But what will everybody think of me? your cousin, and 
 the Fayerweathers, and others. Do you suppose they 
 hear all the college-gossip ? 
 
 "Well, I hardly know," answered Goldie, smiling. 
 " I m afraid the college-halls don t keep their secrets as 
 well as they might, old fellow. But what if they do 
 know of your troubles? There s nothing to be ashamed 
 of, as far as I have heard them." 
 
 " Oh, but I was such a donkey, George! Come, tell 
 me ; how much, for instance, of my Boggle affair did you 
 ever hear ? 
 
 " Nothing very definite ; only that you were considera 
 bly smashed with that little Lee girl to whom Tufton 
 introduced you, and that the cruel parient popped in on 
 you, per order of Tufton, just in time to extort that note 
 from you. Of course there were all sorts of wild rumors 
 of duels and encounters, and so forth. But freshmen 
 are easily excited at a little scandal, and I am sure no 
 body ever really believed there was any harm in the affair : 
 they mostly knew that it was a put-up job of Tufton s, 
 and a very neat one too." 
 
 " Did you never hear any particulars of my meeting 
 with old Boggle, and how the girl behaved? " 
 
 " Never, except, as I say, through these vague rumors." 
 
 " Let me tell you, then, and about how the little minx 
 led me on from week to week. Gad, what a blind idiot I 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 245 
 
 was ! " And Hammersmith went on to detail to Goldie 
 all the miserable history which we have seen him enacting 
 in the Joy-street court ; and the unburdening himself 
 seemed an infinite relief, after all these weeks of solitary 
 brooding. 
 
 Goldie was intensely amused ; so Tom rattled on, inter 
 spersing his story with much bitter self-reproach, and yet 
 much relieved to find that the clear-headed Goldie, whom 
 he had taken for such a straight-laced Puritan, did not 
 look upon his escapades as damning him forever in the 
 eyes of his friends. When Tom came to the tom-cat 
 insinuation, and intimated that my Lord Tufton was 
 undoubtedly the animal in question, with his ear at the 
 keyhole on the other side of the dressing-room door, and 
 that all Tom s tender vows and boyish twaddle had been 
 poured forth merely to amuse that back-stairs diplomate, 
 Goldie was vastly tickled. He threw his cigar into the 
 sea, and roared with delight at the farcical situation ; Tom 
 joining in his merriment with no ill grace, now that he was 
 well out of the scrape, but stopping suddenly, and saying 
 sternly, 
 
 Hang the rascal ! Let me run across him again some 
 day, and we ll see if he puts his ear to keyholes again ! 
 By the way, I gave Pen carte-blanche to murder him, and 
 charge the affair to my account, if he ever met him in 
 his travels. I give you the same commission, George ; 
 and between the three of us I hope the scoundrel will get 
 a good square pounding, to say the least, before he dies." 
 
 A sleepy head, ornamented with a jaunty Oriental cap, 
 appeared up the gangway as they were laughing ; and a 
 voice said, gaping the while, 
 
 "Gad, sir! I thought we had run into a shoal of por 
 poises, or taken aboard a mermaid with a comb and a 
 glass in her hand, hand, hand ! What s the row? Skip 
 per, the hours between two and four are sacredly set apart 
 
246 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 for slumber on this craft ; and I beg you will enforce the 
 order to the utmost, and pitch these young reprobates into 
 the sea, if they persist in roaring like sea-calves at im 
 proper moments. Do you hear ? And scowling fearfully, 
 in mock gravity of manner, at the culprits, Mr. Gay ton 
 disappeared. The skipper shouted, "Ay, ay, sir!" and, 
 shaking his head at the young men, put the yacht about, 
 and made a rapid run back to their moorings at Bar 
 Harbor. 
 
 Four weeks, then, of lazy cruising along the grandest of 
 their country s coasts, four weeks of the genial Shaw, the 
 11 Duke," and large-hearted Goldie, and Tom was bowling 
 home to the small family on the Hudson, bowling home 
 with a kit of clothing densely odorous of brine, and with a 
 feeling that his world was pushed a little farther into sun 
 shine by his summer s merry outing, and that Mr. Ga} r ton 
 Hammersmith was about the most satisfactory uncle that 
 could be imagined. 
 
 To the mother and the rest he was a man full grown 
 as he burst in upon their quiet life in latter August. He 
 was a man, because he had passed through an educating 
 experience that had aged him, and opened his eyes, and 
 given strength to the outlines of his character. He was a 
 man, because he had conquered himself and the ogre Cir 
 cumstance, with whom he had to battle (conquered through 
 the aid of kind allies, to be sure) , and showed in his very 
 air that he was not afraid to join issue again with the same 
 odds. But he was the same warm-hearted son and broth 
 er as before, with more gentleness and less bumptiousness, 
 in fact. Yet the fond mother, not content with his manly 
 growth and his safe return, now began to harass her mind 
 by looking forward to that nearing time when he would be 
 through his college-course, and be ready to take his man s 
 part in the world ; for then, she felt sure, would come 
 the separation which would be only next to final for her, 
 
HIS HAKVAKD DAYS. 247 
 
 when other interests the busy world, perhaps an early 
 home of his own would claim him, and she would have 
 no right to resist. 
 
 Ah ! "the life of a parent is the life of a gambler," as 
 Sydney Smith has said. This too anxious little mother of 
 the nineteenth century was no exception to the long line 
 that have watched every turn of the game, every flutter of 
 change in their venturous offspring, with awful interest, 
 since time began. If some gentle power could only assure 
 them when all is well, and anxiety needless ! But the 
 Fates seem to order otherwise ; and the tender souls go 
 on watching and praying, and wearing their lives out with 
 bitter doubt, while their sons prance through the world 
 regardless, meeting their solicitude with " the light scoff 
 of commerce." Would that the solicitude were appreci 
 ated ! But youth is confident and brave, sufficient for its 
 own hearty times ; and who shall tell them that these will 
 not always last? 
 
 So the good mother wavered between joy and apprehen 
 sion, joy at her handsome boy returned, filling the home 
 with sunshine ; tremulous apprehension of the shadowy 
 future. For the Past alone is secure ; the Present slips 
 ever with closing eyes into its dark chambers, and the 
 three Sisters spin in silence, unobserved of men. 
 
248 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 JUNIOR YEAR, WITH A SECOND PHILIPPIC FROM BREESE. 
 
 " As to [people in] society, . . . eternal and tedious botheration is their notion 
 of happiness, sensible pursuits their ennui ! " CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 
 
 " All honeste hartes ought to prosecute their good attemptes and contempue 
 the ballynge of dogged curres." ROBERT RECORDE, Whetstone of Wit, 1557. 
 
 " Let the Songs be Loud, and Cheerefull, and not Chirpings, or Pulings." 
 
 BACON. 
 
 succeeds better than success/ says the 
 French proverb. Applause is so easy, when genius 
 stirs itself, and provokes the attention of the rabble ! 
 Jones is so anxious to have jou to dine when your book 
 or your gold-mine pays, or your speech in Congress has 
 electrified the nation (for a brief hour) : " My dear fellow, 
 I always said you had it in you ; you were only biding 
 your time. There has been nothing like it for years!" 
 Beauty smiles so* sweetly when the hero of the hour ducks 
 before her, bright with honors. The streets echo, the world 
 hums, and weak men are carried off their feet, when the 
 popular current seizes on the happy result of their labori 
 ous days, and dubs it a wonderful thing. A man needs 
 to stand modestly at the centre of things, with his eyes 
 to tl.e ground, before the cheers of the mob. So much 
 more difficult to bear is success than defeat. 
 
 Breese, self-centred, complacent, heroic, was in little 
 danger of being moved by the fame and prominence 
 which his scholarly habits had brought him. He had 
 come up to Cambridge with tolerably defined ideas of 
 what he was seeking, and what course of life he proposed 
 
HIS HAKVARD DAYS. 249 
 
 to live. He had been fairly successful in his first year, 
 and made his mark already as a hard-working student of 
 more than ordinary talent. If his kangaroo race in the 
 football game, and his solitary floating coat-tail, have 
 seemed to define him as an eccentric specimen of the 
 student class, the implication is wide of the truth. Eccen 
 tric he was, in a certain sense, as being original and non- 
 conforming, and magnificently strong in his convictions : 
 otherwise he was in no especial way to be distinguished 
 from a hundred stalwart Harvard men of his day and 
 generation, clear-eyed, muscular, thoughtful, scorning 
 delights, and living laborious days, and by his second and 
 third year so far assimilated in dress and manner to the 
 men about him as to pass for a Harvard man, or at least 
 a Bostonian, on the most distant prairies of the West ; 
 so generalizing is the dress-power and the deportment of 
 the university, and so unconsciously had Breese slipped 
 from the rather uncouth manners and garments of his 
 early freshman year into conformity with the average mass 
 about Mm. A scholarship which he had secured at the 
 end of his first year had enabled him to dress with a more 
 comfortable plainness, and supply his rooms with several 
 things sadly needed before. His association with Goldie 
 and Albemarle, Pinckney and Hammersmith, in "The 
 Forum," his relation to Hammersmith in the Tufton cZe- 
 noument (which was soon noised about), and a hearty 
 interest in college sports and victories, which separated 
 him widely from the race of u digs " pure and simple, 
 conspired to render him a far from obscure man in his 
 class ; although his original way of looking at things, and 
 a certain unexpectedness, which never allowed you to 
 know exactly how he stood on anj matter till he had de 
 clared himself, prevented him making those ardent friend 
 ships, and gaining that quick popularity, which men of 
 more fluent natures were apt to meet. 
 
250 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 Of all the phases of college-life, its successes, its 
 failures, its fiery ambitions, its rivalries, its strongly- 
 cemented friendships, there is none which calls foi 
 more admiration (although not always gaining it) than the 
 spectacle of a patient worker like Breese, coming up 
 unknown, unheralded by fame from the great schools, and 
 steadily advancing to the front by dint of native force and 
 indomitable nerve. Popularity, social pleasures, extrava 
 gant dressing, fine living, are nothing to him ; nor are the 
 slights and eloquent silence of men who think themselves 
 above him, who look askant, or with withering directness, 
 at his coarse clothes, and think themselves very clever 
 in deciding his position in life, present and to come, by 
 the cut of his coat. How the tables are often turned on 
 the gilded critics of those early times ! How successful 
 scholars and " digs," risen to eminence, might gloat over 
 their former detractors, if the spectacle of failure were not 
 too miserable for self-pluming ! But perhaps the sweet 
 est thing in all college-life is that class feeling, which, 
 after years of graduation, reduces all honors and dignities 
 to the common plane of youthful equality, or seeming 
 equality ; when judges and ministers, envoys-extraor 
 dinary, and gentlemen who are plenipotentiary in more 
 humble stations, merchants, doctors, pedagogues, artists, 
 poets, take off their mantles, and appear again, on com 
 mencements and at re-unions of classes, as the plain Bobs 
 and Joes of a less discriminating era ; when men who 
 have undershot their mark are met as though they had 
 made a } r early bull s-eye, and rivalries are forgot, and 
 small men feel themselves great, and great men see no 
 especial good in their greatness, and the world s work is 
 taken up again with lighter heart and a sense of better 
 appreciation. Heaven be praised for this cheering com 
 munity of feeling J 
 
 When, then, the lists of his second year came out, and 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 251 
 
 Brcese was found to lead his class by an easy first, his 
 reception among his fellows and his professors was quite 
 different from that accorded him at his entrance on the 
 college-field. He was a power now : he was booked for 
 first place in the Phi Beta Kappa ; his chances for a summa 
 cum laude at graduation were freely canvassed ; and a less 
 self-poised man might have been prone to forget his high 
 ideals in the babble of praise which his high rank pro 
 voked, to mistake shadow for substance, and think him 
 self an earth-shaking power for gaining what he really 
 considered empty college-honors, bawbles of no possible 
 use in the man s work which he had set for himself after 
 graduation. He little knew what fate awaited him, and 
 how his resolution to fit himself for his country s service, 
 and to interest himself primarily in affairs of government 
 and national politics, was destined to be turned into quite 
 another and more turbulent channel foaming redly. But 
 who knows his own fate a year, or an hour, in advance ? 
 And who shall say that all previous living and resolving 
 are vain, if they lead up to one grand deed, however 
 postponed ? 
 
 Differing widely from him in tastes and temperament, 
 and yet akin in a certain zest and heartiness, infusing 
 every thing which he undertook, Hammersmith now that 
 he had turned his back on his old life, with its bitter mem 
 ories, never to be quite lost was drawn singularly to 
 this heroic man working out his own problem so sturdily. 
 By a natural impulse common to vigorous natures, Tom 
 inclined, without knowing it, from one extreme to another ; 
 and, having escaped from the purple lanes where my Lord 
 Tufton would have delighted to lead him, he was drawn 
 irresistibly to the philosopher Breese, pacing the hilltops, 
 and lifting his brow to the skies, Breese, who had done 
 him a kind office in the Boggle imbroglio, and into whose 
 scholarly, solitary life, he had had occasional glimpses in 
 the past two years. 
 
252 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 It was a temporary enthusiasm of Tom s. It could 
 hardly last. But for a while, at least, he had thoughts of 
 becoming a mighty scholar, giving up society completely, 
 never rowing again of course, as he had made a vow 
 to that effect, and cultivating Breese and men of his 
 sort. Some such idea of the evanescent nature of Ham 
 mersmith s moods may have entered Breese s mind ; but 
 he said nothing about it. And when Tom, several weeks 
 after the luxurious junior year had begun, came to beg 
 that Breese would coach him in his chemistry for a few 
 weeks (as he declared he was lamentably behind-hand) , 
 Breese could not refuse his request, though begrudging 
 the time sadly. 
 
 " I tell you what it is, Breese," said Tom, one day not 
 long after this. "I m going to make you change your 
 life ! Do you want to know how ? 
 
 "I have no objection to considering it, merely in the 
 abstract. But I doubt your success. I m a pretty 
 crooked stick to deal with," answered Breese. 
 
 "It s nothing very tremendous," said Tom. "I m 
 simply going to make you go out into society with me. 
 It isn t right for you to shut yourself up here all the 
 time." 
 
 "Heavens, do I? I have at least a five-mile wall?: 
 every day, or a row equally long, and plenty of dumb 
 bells and clubs in wet weather." 
 
 " That s all well enough ! But I don t mean that you 
 need exercise or outing especially. Everybody knows 
 you re about the strongest man in the class, except Cleg- 
 horn ; and he s so lubberly, that he s no use in a boat or 
 cricket. But you ll grow morbid if you don t go out 
 among people more." 
 
 " Grow what ! " shouted Breese, standing up, and look 
 ing comically at Hammersmith. "Morbid! Bless you, I 
 don t know what the word means ! " And the stern-facecj 
 
HIS HAEVAED DAYS. 253 
 
 scholar laughed heartily, and caught up a huge dumb-bell 
 from the corner of his room, and twirled it over his head. 
 Tom certainly thought, as he looked at the healthy fellow, 
 with colorless cheeks to be sure (but then he had never 
 had much color in his face) , eyes as clear as a horse s, 
 firm flesh, and every indication of perfect ph}^sique, that 
 he had chosen an ill word to express himself withal. 
 
 "Well, you know what I mean/ continued Tom. 
 " Digging away in your room here is all very well : no 
 body knows it better than I, though you may smile at 
 my saying so. Leading the class is very well : it s a 
 mighty big honor, such a class as we have, by Jove ! But 
 don t you think a fellow grows a little rusty and cobwebby, 
 if he don t brush himself about among people a little? " 
 
 "Hold on a minute: let s see what you mean. You 
 say society at one time, people at another. Society and 
 people are quite different matters." 
 
 "What in the world do you mean? Put down that 
 dumb-bell ! I m afraid of you, Breese," said Tom. 
 
 " Society, so called, is a machine : people are men and 
 women with heads on, and the ability to use them. That s 
 all." 
 
 " Pon my word," said Tom. " Then you mean that 
 I ana in the habit of promenading with mowing-machines, 
 and taking tea occasionally with a very charming and 
 domestic sewing-machine, and so on ! Come, Breese, 
 3 ou re too severe! " 
 
 "You ve chosen your own kind of machines," said 
 Breese ; " though some men do find that they have been 
 frisking and capering with mowing-machines most de 
 cidedly ! I mean simply, that in society such as } ou are 
 thinking of, every thing is cut and dried, everybody is 
 like everybody else; and,. as Emerson says, Society 
 everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every 
 one of its members. There is no play for individuality, 
 
254 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 A man might as well whistle to the sea as try to get any 
 benefit from the fashionable powwows that are in vogue." 
 
 "But don t you consider that light-heartedness and 
 free movement, yes, and a hearty exchange of merest 
 small-talk, are good for a man?" asked Hammersmith. 
 
 Most decidedly. But is there no danger of its all 
 relapsing into light-heartedness and merest tittle-tattle, 
 and nothing else ? the society that you fellows frequent, 
 I mean, of course. Heavens ! I believe, if I had only 
 a bit of Albertus Magnus s skill, I could make a brazen 
 man like his, that would answer all the purposes of ordi 
 nary flummery. He should have an adjustable dorsal 
 spring to admit of the most elaborate bowing and scrap 
 ing, a right arm capable of describing circles of various 
 diameters (for obvious convenience at your dances) , and 
 the most tireless of brass feet. Then with an evening- 
 suit, a pair of gloves, and a few short phrases, such as 
 4 Yes, it s very warm, c May I have a turn? Thanks, 
 you re very kind, How can you say so, my dear Miss 
 Blank ! my man, I venture to say, would make as pre 
 sentable an appearance as the average of your young 
 bucks, eh? " 
 
 "By Jove!" said Tom, laughing heartily, "you ve 
 mistaken your calling, Breese. You should try a society- 
 novel, or run a tilt at evening parties in general." 
 
 "No, but seriousty, Hammersmith: I m more than 
 half in earnest. People, men and women with something 
 to say ; a dinner, if you will, to provoke conversation, and 
 warm cold natures ; a musical party, with really good 
 music, well, I ll throw in a dancing party or two for a 
 season, that will do very well, show me such a society 
 as that, and if you have the entree, and can smuggle me 
 in, I will join you with all m^ heart. But your intermi 
 nable whirling and gossiping and namby-pambyism, bah ! 
 Young ladies at home, in the bosom of their families, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 255 
 
 where they can meet a man tranquilly and talk a half- 
 minute, without distraction by music, or by some per 
 fumed teetotum begging permission to whirl them about 
 the room, they are in their place, they are rational. On 
 horseback, too, as I have seen Miss Darby several times 
 this year, or rowing even, or taking care of the sick, 
 or doing any thing else that they can in a sensible, wo-" 
 manly way, I can respect them, and worship them (at a 
 distance) , and confess that every thing else in the world 
 seems clumsy and unlovely in comparison." 
 
 " Good for you ! Go on ! " said Hammersmith. 
 
 "But Miss What-do-ye-call-em at an evening-party," 
 continued Breese, not apparently hearing Tom, " hopping 
 through a waltz with some extremely miserable specimen 
 of our own sex, or screeching at the piano, with a young 
 swell twiddling the leaves of her song, and turning in the 
 wrong place invariably, both looking very warm and uncom 
 fortable is there stronger evidence of insanity ? And 
 a pair of }^oung spoons playing at love-making, and mak 
 ing fools of" 
 
 "By Jove, Breese! put on the brakes, if you - 
 please," said Tom. "Let me have a word ! You can 
 beat me in stating your case, any day ; but I protest against 
 3 our giving this as a correct version of Cambridge society. 
 It sounds mightily like Thackeray s style of looking at 
 things." 
 
 " I confess that I may have had his tirade in Men and 
 Coats in mind ; for I am fond of it : and I think he hit 
 the nail on the head, in exclaiming against the absurd 
 entertainments going under the name of evening-parties." 
 
 " Yes ; but he was thinking of great London, metropoli 
 tan scrimmages of the most mixed character, no end 
 of officers leaning in the door-ways, ogling and criticising 
 the crowd, and all that sort of thing." 
 
 " It s a difference in quality, not in kind certainly," 
 said Breese. 
 
256 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 " No : it s a difference in both. It has no more to do 
 with Cambridge parties than the man in the moon. I 
 don t pretend that we talk philosophy, or read Hebrew 
 without the points, or discuss thorough-bass, by way of 
 amusement ; but I do say that there is no flummery, 01 
 nonsense, or extravagant folly of any kind whatever. And 
 as for hopping through a waltz, my dear fellow, you will 
 excuse me, but you are extremely wide of the mark. The 
 waltz is the most graceful and smooth of dances ; and the 
 way they dance it here, gliding through it with the evenest 
 possible motion, is the most beautiful thing I ever saw of 
 the kind." 
 
 " I do not stop at technicalities," said Breese, with a 
 wave of his hand. "Flummery, sugar-plums, gabble- 
 gabble, hoppity-skip, screeching, idiocy, it s all the same. 
 When you tell me that I shall be rusty and cobwebby, 
 if I do not what did you say ? rub myself up in such 
 a mess of twaddle, Heavens, I have a private notion that 
 rust and cobwebs are better than vacuity ! And I must 
 say, give me these meaty old worthies between covers 
 here," waving his hand towards his row of favorite books, 
 " give me these and my walking-stick, and let who will 
 take care of society. Society ! " 
 
 " Now, see here, Breese, I ll convict you out of your 
 own mouth. Wasn t your whole argument, in that speech 
 of yours in The Forum last year, in favor of keeping 
 cm courant with the times, and cutting loose from the past? 
 And here you are, arguing in favor of shutting yourself up 
 with your books and your thoughts, and not coming out to 
 mingle with the people of your own times at all ! " 
 
 Gracious heavens ! People of your own time ! My 
 dear Hammersmith, did it ever occur to you in your wild 
 est moment of festive happiness, that you were keeping 
 abreast of the times, and deserving well of the republic, 
 when you were prancing, or gliding about, as you say, or 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 257 
 
 talking nonsense to a young butterfly, in the parlors here 
 abouts? That s precisely the trouble. The people of oui 
 times are about quite other business ; and the danger is, 
 that you become so infatuated with this thin splendor as 
 never to appreciate any thing more solid. But I beg par 
 don for appearing to be personal. When I say you, I 
 mean those who think like you, of course." 
 
 "Oh! that s all right," answered Tom. "I ve no 
 doubt that much you say is true, Breese ; only I am so 
 constituted that I must see people (mowing-machines I 
 should say) , and cannot be contented to mew myself up 
 all the time, as you seem able to do." 
 
 Certainly ; and it is right that you should follow your 
 inclinations, if you arc sure that they are genuine and cor 
 rect," answered Breese. "God knows I crave society, 
 society in the sense of companionship," he paused a 
 moment, " as much as anybody ; but I cannot sacrifice 
 myself or my time in the society such as my observation 
 tells me exists round about us. Cambridge circles, I 
 make no doubt, are as improving and enjoyable as most 
 others, no more, no less. My life is so different from 
 yours, Hammersmith ! You have money and friends, and 
 a certain position, no, no, don t deny it! lam not 
 blind, and I am not complaining, you know that well 
 enough. My greatest aim in college now I will confess 
 to you, since we have had such a frank talk is to unite 
 studious habits with a genuine, thorough interest in every 
 thing going on about us, in national matters as well as 
 in the smaller area of college-affairs. Believe me, it is 
 not easy to keep an even keel amidst distracting interests, 
 doing your work squarely, and not wrapping yourself in 
 conceit on that account, sharing the interest of you boat 
 ing-men, no? you are not a boating-man? well, shar 
 ing the boating-excitement, and not giving way to it. 
 But now I am ashamed of having tallied so much of my 
 self. You ll excuse me ? " 
 
258 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 4 Don t speak of it," said Tom. " What should a 
 man speak of, to be sure ! among friends, at any rate? 
 I m sure you have vastly more friends than you think you 
 have, Breese," Breese shrugged his shoulders, " and 
 I do not despair of tempting you out into the field of 
 twaddle some day. You certainly will allow that you 
 would be an improvement on your patent brass man, 
 eh?" 
 
 "Perhaps so, perhaps so," said Breese. " Not a bad 
 material for the fellow, though, brass. You know, 
 Rochefoucauld says, Confidence goes farther in society" 
 than wit. My man would be an immense success, I feel 
 convinced, A howling swell, as I heard one of your 
 young society-buds say in the horse-cars the other day. 
 Well, good-by, if you must go. To-morrow evening, 
 then, seven o clock sharp. I have an extra chemistry : 
 you n_eed not bring yours. Better fetch over your note 
 books, however." 
 
 How could Hammersmith hope to convert so tough a 
 disputant, with his ingrained opinions so stubbornly main 
 tained? How could he expect to persuade a man like 
 Breese to come down from his high hilltops, and join the 
 company of merrymakers in the Happy Valley? Was a 
 man whose aim and plan in life had been so strenuously 
 lived up to hitherto, whose favorite books, constantly 
 thumbed, were his Emerson and Marcus Aurelius, and the 
 others above-mentioned, to leave them all for the thin gos 
 sip and aimless capering such as he supposed passed for 
 society about him ? He was unjust, most assuredly. He 
 was severe, without doubt, as Hammersmith had inti 
 mated. His " flummeries, gabble-gabble, hoppity-skip," 
 was an unfair verdict on the juvenile Cambridge world 
 in which Hammersmith and his friends were happy to min 
 gle, and on the cordial hospitality which Cambridge houses 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 259 
 
 extended to the young gentlemen annually thronging up 
 to the university. Let Hammersmith and his biographer 
 take this place to record their indebtedness and their trib 
 ute to the genial hosts and the kindly matrons who make 
 the homeless students welcome in their parlors, and do 
 what they may to add a little cheer to their young bachelor 
 exile. Breese would have blushed to speak as he did, if 
 he had known from personal knowledge their friendly re 
 ception and frank entertainment of young men whose only 
 passport was their college-papers and their gentlemanly 
 bearing. "Flummery, idiocy," indeed! 
 
 But if Hammersmith had known how heavily ballasted 
 all reformers and specialists and nonconformists are 
 obliged to be in order to keep an even keel, as Breese 
 had said, among the conflicting interests about them, he 
 would have understood better Breese s strong exaggera 
 tion. If he had reflected how many a man of this kind 
 has to whistle to keep his courage up, and overstate his 
 case for fear of forgetting his own points, he would not 
 have wondered at Breese s animadversion on society and 
 harmless amusement generally. He did not know all 
 this, however ; and he went away from this first of many 
 discussions with Breese, feeling that he was ridiculously 
 severe. And }^et he saw sufficient grains of truth in what 
 Breese had said to cause him to reflect seriously on the 
 attitude of mind which could allow such speech. Ham 
 mersmith was no flippant reveller to enjoy senseless flum 
 mery and things which Breese held idiotic, if they were 
 really senseless and idiotic ; and so he carried into all his 
 subsequent harmless pleasures and societ}^ life a memory 
 of this strongly-expressed opinion of Breese s, provocative 
 of frequent thought. 
 
 It was but the beginning of a long series of animated 
 debates between the two classmates. Hammersmith was 
 younger, vastly less experienced, more imprcssional, than 
 
"2(j HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 Breese. He had seen less of his own country. He 
 looked at affairs with a narrower sweep. Breese, to be 
 sure, often held back, and would refuse to be drawn out on 
 various subjects, particularly if relating to his individual 
 experience. He often shook his head and said, "No, I 
 have no opinion on the subject, Hammersmith : I know 
 nothing whatever about it, I assure you." But, if Tom 
 were persistent, he would find that it was but a mock 
 modesty, assumed he knew not why. He would find, that 
 on any and all the matters which troubled his own young 
 soul in these budding days, be they politics or religion, 
 social life, slavery, the labor question, Breese had not 
 only read and thought for himself, but had almost invari 
 ably a definite personal view of his own, which he ad 
 vanced with diffidence or emphasis, as the mood moved 
 him. So it came to pass that Hammersmith acquired a 
 habit of appealing frequently to Breese for his views on 
 this or that, breaking a lance with him when he could pro 
 duce one from his armory, always coming out of a dis 
 cussion with an increased respect for his manly friend s 
 ability, and not infrequently carrying away food for 
 thought that would last him many days. 
 
 That Breese was an orphan having lost his father in 
 the Mexican war, when he was a mere lad, and his 
 mother soon afterwards Hammersmith soon learned in 
 their open-hearted talks. That he had roved over most 
 of the United States, in various ways and for various 
 reasons, since then, and had largely prepared himself for 
 college by his own unaided exertions, with the exception 
 of a 3 r ear at a popular school in Cincinnati (for which his 
 map-selling tour of the States had procured him the 
 means) , Tom knew before. 
 
 On all else connected with his life, Breese was singu 
 larly reticent. Tom had shown a natural interest, on hear 
 ing that he had lost his father in the Mexican war, and 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 261 
 
 told of his own uncle Rupert, who had distinguished 
 himself at Buena Vista ; but Breese had forgotten even 
 the branch of service in which his father had fought, and 
 it was not a theme that he cared to dwell on long. He 
 made no secret, however, of the fact that he intended to 
 devote his life to the service of his county, in any capa 
 city which he might find possible. His enthusiasm on the 
 subject, and a hearty Roman love of country which he dis 
 played on many occasions, when they were upon the 
 discussion of republican institutions and the place of 
 educated men in politics, marked him as an exception 
 among university men of the day. And not only that, 
 but they drew towards him the interested devotion of 
 Hammersmith, his like in many respects, but needing a 
 good generous blaze of conflict, of war, of disaster, to 
 fire the cumbering stubble which threatened to choke his 
 actual underlying life and principles. Who among all 
 the young men of the day could prophesy the blaze that 
 was to fire them all, and burn itself deep into the lives of 
 many? 
 
 Breese s life, as he had said, was essentially different 
 from Hammersmith s. Poverty, orphanage, self-reliance, 
 a deep-seated ambition, drawn from he knew not what 
 source, had placed his career before him in the guise of a 
 battle, a race, a rugged tussle with Fate. He accepted 
 the issue : he was ready for the conflict. He made his life 
 a daily battle, a daily renovation, a daily looking in the 
 cold eyes of Fact. He had learned earlier than most of 
 his mates, that every man must look within, and not with 
 out, for strength, for power to conquer Destiny. He 
 hated mere dilettante culture. He quoted to Hammer 
 smith from Richter, "Merely to learn languages is to 
 throw away one s money in buying beautiful purses." 
 He did not aim at being a great scholar, but a good citi 
 zen, a great citizen if you will. He loathed and despised 
 
262 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 the nonchalance and idleness which he saw so common 
 about him. He appreciated that scholarship, literature, 
 all gentle pursuits, lose by a thinness of sympatlry with 
 the world and the people ; and so he kept up an active 
 interest in sports and college-affairs generally, as far as 
 possible, without giving himself up to them ; looking 
 to them as a means, not an end. He felt that rowing, 
 cricket, riding, dancing, all were good for hardening and 
 strengthening the body, the shield and breast-plate of 
 the soul. But, as many of his talks with Hammersmith 
 showed, he knew how difficult it was to keep the just bal 
 ance between them all ; and he was not surprised, though 
 filled with regret, at the extravagance to which each, in 
 turn, was carried in the university. Above alii he made 
 that hardest attempt that man can make, to unite gen 
 tleness and strength of character, to be strong without 
 being brutal, to be tender in spirit without being weak. 
 
 The ordinary college verdict was, "A consummate 
 prig," " A dig of the most emphatic kind." Men who 
 knew him better than these light critics, who had learned 
 even cursority his history and his scope of plan, resented 
 the verdict, and declared him a sterling good fellow at 
 bottom, but as original as sin itself. 
 
 How could a man escape misconstruction, avoid ac 
 quiring a reputation for a certain asperity and selfishness, 
 who was seen to be setting up so lofty a standard for 
 himself, looking down at the gay and vigorous life of less 
 studious men as something quite beneath him, something 
 to be studied and regarded in a mere historical light, as 
 he might investigate the laws of the Medes and Persians, 
 but something in which he did not deign to take an ac 
 tive interest? 
 
 Ah, Breese, Breese, you may be largely right ! There 
 doubtless is much levity and shifting purpose, and ill- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 263 
 
 considered extravagance about you, in the class of merry, 
 luxurious juniors to which you belong, if not in all the 
 classes ; and you, perhaps, would include in your sweep 
 ing cry of " screeching " the innocent recreations of the 
 Glee Club, the Pierian, and kindred musical societies. 
 But do not press the point too hard in your scholastic 
 severity of mood. Go to ! Shall all the tender memories 
 that cluster about the old college glees and serenades, 
 rehearsals, and enthusiastic concerts, be set down as so 
 much idiotic sentiment to be torn up root and branch? 
 What old Glee Club man would give them up at the price 
 of much added glory in the field of scholarship or of 
 sports ! How across the intervening years of war, of 
 change, of success, defeat, grief, and joy, come trooping 
 the notes of that earlier music, which sang itself so into 
 our young bo} T ish lives, that its tones can never be quite 
 drowned out ! 
 
 You remember, Philippus. You remember the first 
 timid piping up of your basso profundo at your initiation 
 into the club-room, where Hammersmith has just made his 
 entrance ; the careful iteration of rehearsal and drill under 
 the eyes and far too acute ears of Barnwell, the famous 
 leader ; then the first crowded concert in Lyceum Hall, 
 with your sisters and cousins, and the sisters and cousins 
 of somebody else, ranged in bewildering nearness to the 
 low stage on which you stood ; the echoing rounds" of ap 
 plause ; the intermission, during which you sauntered 
 about among the audience, which seemed more like a cosey 
 family-party than a critical concourse, and graduates and 
 ex-members of the club congratulated you on the even 
 ing s success, and somebody looked up at } T OU with 
 bright eyes that were extremely eloquent, and put out a 
 small gloved hand for your brown boating-man s paw to 
 close upon ; and the pot-pourri of comic and jolly college- 
 songs at the close, when Pickman of the Pierians came 
 
264 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 up with his banjo, and there was a call of " Barnwell, 
 Barn well!" "Fay, Fay!" and one favorite song after 
 another was given in great rattling chorus, the audience 
 shaken to convulsive merriment by the comical medley, 
 till " Fair Harvard " came to add a quieting finale to it 
 all, what later scene of musical splendor, centennial 
 outburst, or triumph of Wagner, can compare with the 
 simpler pleasures and easier ovations of those early days ? 
 Then, too, there were the trips to Worcester and New- 
 buryport, and hospitable New- Bedford; the serenades, 
 when you and your friends packed yourselves into coaches, 
 and went singing your way to Brookline, or Jamaica Plain, 
 or Watertown, gathering there noiselessly on the lawn, 
 below some sleeping beauty s window, and waking her 
 with the mighty concerted sneeze (" Hish, hash, hosh ! " 
 in triple unison) which is the night-alarum of the club. 
 A light is struck in a room above ; the blinds are cautiously 
 opened ; there is a slamming of doors ; and, as you are 
 ending your first melting serenade, paterfamilias, with 
 evidences of hasty toilet, and a rather forced frankness 
 of welcome, throws the hall-doors wide open, and appears 
 in a flood of light, saying, " Will you walk in, gentle 
 men?" You file in from the darkness, somebody intro 
 ducing you as you pass the host, and find a neat little 
 spread in the dining-room. You fall to for a while, and 
 pledge each other and paterfamilias, who is very glad to 
 see you, gentlemen ; and won t you sing something in 
 side? And you give him a great booming chorus or two, 
 the noise of which reaches to the stables, and startles the 
 horses of your comfortable host ; or you adjourn to the 
 parlor, hastily lighted, and Keyes sits down at the piano, 
 and accompanies himself in a solo, singing with a particu 
 lar distinctness, as he knows, from experience, that there 
 is probably a pretty little figure at the head of the stairs, 
 " all in white like a saint," listening to the music below. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 265 
 
 There is more glee-singing, another toast as you leave, 
 and, shaking hands, you pass out upon the lawn again, 
 turning, perhaps quite unconsciously, and glancing up the 
 stairs, as you go. And with a new energy, feeling fully 
 the romance of the situation, you break into another sere 
 nade : possibly the blinds are opened suddenly, and a 
 bouquet is thrown out for which you scramble excitedly 
 in the darkness, leaving your song to sing itself as it may ; 
 and then you close with a tender parting, the Eisen- 
 hofer Serenade perhaps : 
 
 " Slumber sweetly, dearest, close thy weary eyes ; 
 Guardian angels round thee hover till the morning s rise: 
 
 Then, my love, on airy pinions, 
 Bear thy heart, in transport bound, 
 
 To its own dominions, 
 Where no earthly care is found, 
 Where no earthly care is found. 
 Maiden, sleep, sleep, in peace." 
 
 With such romantic words, and a rosebud in your button 
 hole, you move off over the grounds, and regain your 
 coach, drawn up at the lodge. 
 
 Yes, and the moonlight evenings, when the Glee Club 
 adjourns to the quadrangle, and the windows are crowded 
 with applauding listeners, and the student returning from 
 Boston hears the great swelling chorus long before he has 
 entered the elm-shadowed grounds. Class-day evening, 
 too, with the songs from the band-stand, the club largely 
 increased by graduate members, and yet, perhaps in a 
 spirit of envy, stopping its music to shout, "One, two, 
 three, Maitland ! " " One, two, three, Bowditch ! " as it 
 misses a prominent singer, and spies him in some cur 
 tained window, enjoying a tete-a-tete, unusual, save on 
 these occasions of privilege. Well, it may be all non 
 sense, all levity, vanity, and vexation of spirit, to a man 
 of Breese s temperament, more s the pity ! It may not 
 
266 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 tend to the especial training of philosophers and states 
 men ; it may not advance a man on the rank-list : but who 
 would banish music from the college walks and halls, or 
 say that the authorities should imitate the grim old Puritan 
 fathers, and put their taboo on the Glee Club, and many 
 another of like character? the Harvard Glee Club, 
 which Hammersmith and some of his friends had entered 
 at the beginning of junior year, graduating with due 
 honors from their class club, which had led a decidedly 
 wheezy existence for some months. 
 
 No, no : those were joyous episodes in cloister life ; and 
 whether he soared mightily, and reaped abundant ap 
 plause as a great tenor of his day, or pounded and rumbled 
 away in unappreciated bass, many a man looks back upon 
 his membership of the Glee Club, with its rehearsals, its 
 merry concerts and serenades, as yielding him more solid 
 pleasure and more rational amusement than any society 
 in all the university roll. 
 
HIS HARVAED DAYS. 2G7 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A DANGEROUS SIDE-SADDLE. 
 
 " El mal que de tu boca sale, en tu seno se cae." FROM THE SPANISH. 
 "Every one is the eon of his own works." CERVANTES. 
 
 I DON T see why a man wants to be such a fool, to 
 refuse to row when the crew needs him so wofully ! " 
 said Albemarle, returning from the boat-houses, with a 
 number of men who had been down to see the last row of 
 the season. 
 
 " Especially as there is not the least occasion for his 
 refusing," continued Freemantle. " He spends twice as 
 much time with his horse, and that howling glee-club, and 
 at cricket, as he need give to the boat. It s a rattling 
 fine nag of his, though ; and I don t blame him for wish 
 ing to get astride of him whenever he can." 
 
 "Well, now, I tell you what it is," said Pinckney, 
 unwinding a blue silk handkerchief from his throat, " I 
 don t blame Tom in the least. He had a mighty rough 
 deal last term, fellows, with that infernal Tufton scrape 
 and his faculty row ! And I don t think it strange that 
 he should feel considerably cut up about it, and wish to 
 forget that he ever saw an oar." 
 
 " But what s the use of venting his spite on the uni 
 versity boat and the pride we all feel in it, simply because 
 he s had a rough time with Tufton? " 
 
 " Oh ! I don t pretend to know what s going on in his 
 mind," said Pinckney. "He may have reasons that we 
 don t know any thing about. But the faculty forbade 
 
26 8 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 his rowing last term, you know ; and I don t wonder he 
 feels sore about it. I think any of us would have felt the 
 same. 
 
 " Twas mighty funny about that faculty trouble, by 
 the way," said Albemarle. " Did he ever find out who 
 played him that low trick of informing on him? " 
 
 " Not as far as I know," answered Pinckney. " That s 
 another thing too ! I ve heard him and Goldie speak of 
 it several times ; and they are both pop-sure that some 
 fellow here in Cambridge must have been at the bottom 
 of it: who it is, and how he could have communicated so 
 quickly with Tufton, they can t make out. There s no 
 doubt about the note being written by Tufton, none 
 whatever. I ve seen it ; and you know Tufton had a 
 way of crossing his t s that nobody could possibly imi 
 tate. Goldie and Hammersmith are perfectly certain that 
 the note, which was signed simply X, was written by 
 him." 
 
 " Mighty curious, any way ! " said Freemantle. 
 
 " So you can t wonder that Tom feels a good deal 
 wounded at the idea of any fellow s going back on him 
 in this way, stabbing him in the dark, as he says. By 
 Jove, I should like to see any man attack him openly ! 
 that s all I have to say." And the high-spirited Pinckney 
 snapped his blue handkerchief viciously in the face of a 
 small freshman whom they met, and in dangerous near 
 ness to the eyes of the young fellow. 
 
 "He must be a mighty low-lived fellow, whoever he 
 is ! " said Albemarle. " I ve no great friendship for Ham 
 mersmith, especially now that he s so thick with that 
 reformer Breese ; but I like to see a man treated like a 
 gentleman. And you re right, Pinck : a man as high- 
 strung as Hammersmith is not to be blamed for feeling 
 cut by such treatment. I didn t know before, that he 
 suspected anybody out here of being in league with 
 
HIS HABVAED DAYS. 2G9 
 
 Tufton. What a blight that man was, by the way, 
 fellows!" 
 
 "Halloo, George," said PinckiK^, as Goldie, swinging 
 along at a great stride with McGregor, was passing them 
 on the way to the quadrangle. "What s your hurry? 
 We want to speak to you." 
 
 "Speak quick, then! Dinner in five minutes! Must 
 change to the buff before then." And the two slowed 
 down, and walked with the rest. 
 
 "We want to know candidly how the crew s getting 
 on," said Pinckney. 
 
 "Oh! is that all? Come along, Mac." And they 
 started ahead. 
 
 " No ; but hold on ! " said Pinckney. And he pounced 
 upon his stalwart chum, still breathing rapidly from his 
 last severe row of the fall, and detained him, with an 
 arm about his neck. "Now I ve got you, old fellow. 
 Tell us truly. How is Ladbroke getting on? " 
 
 " Mac, are you going to see me throttled in this way, 
 and by such a devil of a giant ? And he made a pre 
 tence of trying to get away. "How s he getting on? 
 Well, if I must tell, he s getting on his coat about 
 now as near as I can calculate." 
 
 Come, come, tell a fellow ! How is he going to pull ? " 
 
 "With his hands and arms, I imagine: some leg- 
 muscle too. Eh, Mac? " said Goldie, with a twinkle. 
 
 " But has he any science? " asked Pinckney. 
 
 "Best boxer in college by all odds, I should say, 
 present company out of the ring, of course." 
 
 " But how does he do in the boat? " 
 
 " Obeys orders, like the rest of us ; doesn t he, Mac? " 
 
 "Well, has he any staying-power, you reprobate?" 
 pleaded Pinckney in despair. 
 
 "He stays about as long as the rest of us, and then 
 he runs away," answered Goldie ; and, suiting the action 
 
270 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 to the word, he dropped his head suddenly, broke away 
 from his chum, and, running off with McGregor, vaulted 
 the college fence lightly, and made for the quadrangle. 
 
 u By Jove ! you can t make much out of a boating-man 
 when he don t want to tell you," said Freemantle. 
 "Goldie s in a merry mood to-night. It s all right, I 
 think, or he d hardly be so jolly." 
 
 " Not a bit of it ! " said Pinckney. " You can t tell 
 a thing by his manner : George is too old a fox for that. 
 Heavens ! he told me after Worcester, last year, tLat he 
 knew, three days before the race, that we were going to 
 lose it; but you know how cheerful he looked all the 
 time. He s the best stuff for a boating-man that I ever 
 laid eyes on : by Jove, he is ! " 
 
 " Is Albertson really injured by the Worcester race? " 
 asked Albemarle. 
 
 4 Afraid he is," answered Pinckney. " Doctor s for 
 bidden his rowing any more, at any rate ; and he looks 
 pretty slim, doesn t he? " 
 
 Yes ; but who ever thought that Ladbroke would suc 
 ceed in getting a seat in the Varshty ! Who was it that 
 brought him out? " 
 
 "Oh! Mac, as usual," answered Pinckney. " He has 
 his eyes on every fellow in Cambridge, I believe, ready 
 to pounce on anybody in case of emergency. And Lad- 
 broke is not such a bad oar, either. He rowed to the 
 Isle of Shoals in vacation, with Clifford, you know ; and 
 his boxing has kept him in pretty fair condition all along." 
 
 The young men talked on thus till they reached the 
 quadrangle, discussing the boating prospects, wondering 
 if Ladbroke could be made to work, and inquiring of 
 each other concerning the progress on a new shell which 
 had just been ordered. 
 
 For Ladbroke, heavy and lethargic though he was, given 
 to boxing, horse-racing, card-playing, and carousing with 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 271 
 
 the wildest spirits of the university, had, nevertheless, 
 a tremendous amount of muscle, which the Argus-eyed 
 McGregor, purveyor of mighty oarsmen for the Varsity, 
 had made up his mind could just as well be captured, and 
 made to work for the glory of the university, as allowed 
 to waste itself in riotous living and idleness. Ham 
 mersmith had dropped from the crew ; and Albertson, 
 taking his place only a few days before the Worcester 
 race, had been so far injured by the great strain of that 
 struggle, as to be forbidden to row b}^ his physician. Mc 
 Gregor, ever alert, had at once seized upon Ladbroke ; 
 and, by various wheedling processes best known to cap 
 tains of boat-crews, had persuaded him that undying 
 fame, and a paradise of pleasure, awaited him, if he would 
 only consent to lend his valuable aid in the Varsity. 
 And although his attendance at chapel did not show that 
 regularity of worship which Alma Mater demands of her 
 children ; and a fondness for the neighboring race-track 
 at Brighton, with various other dubious influences, ren 
 dered it not unlikely that his university career might come 
 to an abrupt termination some fine day, he was, neverthe 
 less, McGregor s only hope ; and the croakers were si 
 lenced. McGregor stuck to his man as a ward-politician 
 hangs to the newly-made voter on election day, or as the 
 trainer (in those stables which Ladbroke was fond of fre 
 quenting) stays by the racer under his charge, watching 
 him day and night, looking after his exercise, his diet, his 
 out-goings and his in-comings. Already Ladbroke, like 
 many another man of his nature and tendencies who has 
 gone through the same hard training, was beginning to 
 show the good results of the new order of things ; and 
 Goldie s manner this afternoon proceeded from a real 
 satisfaction, which he and McGregor had just been dis 
 cussing, at the good prospects for next year s races. 
 4 Come up, fellows, won t you?" asked Albemarle. 
 
272 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 " The crew dines before the rest of us, you know. We ve 
 a half-hour jet." And the three sauntered up to Albe- 
 marle s quarters, just outside the quadrangle. 
 
 " We were talking about Hammersmith and Breese," 
 
 (said Albemarle. " Hang me, if I can understand the 
 fascination about that man Breese ! He s about the only 
 man in the class that I can t make out. The way that 
 lie sailed into everybody and every thing in that speech 
 of his in The Forum, two years ago, was enough to 
 disgust a fellow. You gave him a mighty good reply, 
 Pinckney, a mighty good reply ! " 
 
 " Thank you," said Pinckney. " I didn t think much 
 of what I was saying : I only remember that I was con 
 foundedly mad at his manner, and his way of talking 
 down at us." 
 
 "He s an infernal reformer!" chimed in Freemantle. 
 " He wants to take the world all to pieces, and try to fix 
 it up a little better than before, with l J. Breese, fecit, in 
 one corner." 
 
 " That s what takes me ! " said Pinckney. " By Jove ! 
 the world has got on pretty well for a few thousand years, 
 without going to smash ! What s the need of bothering 
 your head about notions and isms, and beggarly reforms ! 
 Give me a horse and a gun, and a good square meal twice 
 a day, and I ll let the Devil take your theories and crotch 
 ets !" 
 
 "It s all very well to talk of having your horse and your 
 gun, and good square meals, Pinck ; but there you are 
 hitting on one of the very problems of the age, how af 
 fairs may be so arranged that everybody may have enough 
 to live on, perhaps not a horse and a gun to every man, 
 but a fowl in every peasant s pot at least once a week," 
 said Albemarle. 
 
 "Oh, that s no problem!" said the wealthy young 
 Southerner, who had a stable full of horses in South Caro- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 273 
 
 lina, waiting for him to come and ride them. " Let every 
 man do his work, by Jove ! squarely and honestly, and 
 there ll be an end to that question. It s the fearful idle 
 ness of people, that makes that problem, as you call it, 
 take rank at all." 
 
 "That s so!" said Freemantle, rolling a cigarette. 
 " And when you say, work, Pinck, you don t mean that 
 everybody should get to work with his own hands, of 
 course, but should organize and direct others if he can ; 
 that is, if he has others that he can direct." 
 
 " Precisely, by Jove ! " said Pinckney. " Look at our 
 negroes ! They are happy, they are contented, they have 
 a fowl in their pots whenever they want. And } r ou can 
 be pretty sure that I don t work, or intend to work, ex 
 cept in directing these negroes, and making two cotton- 
 bolls grow where one grew before. I shall be a benefactor 
 to the human race, eh, on the old definition? " 
 
 " Well, I don t intend to discuss the slavery question 
 with you, Pinckney," said Albemarle. " You know where 
 I stand on that question. We ve had enough talks, 
 you and Trimble and I. I only hope to Heaven } T OU 
 may never find slavery a white elephant on your hands ; 
 that s all!" 
 
 " You needn t be afraid of that, my dear fellow. We 
 know which side of our bread is buttered. But that s 
 neither here nor there. What I object to is tae way that 
 a man like Breese goes about trying to find flaws in every 
 thing, and tr}ing to patch up a new religion and a new 
 style of government, a new societ} and a new university." 
 
 "Yes, there s a deusecl too much of a what-do-ye- 
 call-it, in the world ; a " said Freemantle. 
 
 "Exactly! it only depends upon what you call it," 
 said Albemarle. 
 
 " Why, introspection," said Freemantle, " too much in 
 trospection, you know, and all that sort of thing." 
 
274 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 " I ve no doubt of it," answered Pinckney, " though I 
 don t the least know what you mean. But, by Jove ! just 
 look at it ! What is there that people are not pottering 
 with, from religion down to the thickness of a fellow s 
 shoes ? Your old Boston here is the hotbed of half the 
 troubles too." 
 
 " Of course," began Albemarle, " there are some very 
 extravagant schemes started ; but 
 
 "Extravagant! I should say there were. Abolition, 
 cracked- wheat, mesmerism, come-outers, animal-magnet 
 ism, non-resistance, woman s rights," continued Pinck 
 ney, droning out the words in sing-song, camp-meeting 
 fashion. "Good Lord! Will they let nothing rest? 
 What do you think happened to me only yesterday, no, 
 day before? I was rushing out of the quadrangle, in a 
 great hurry to get to Boston, when I ran almost plump 
 into a tall, gaunt specimen of the genus femina, looking 
 at the buildings through a ferocious pair of spectacles, and 
 grasping an umbrella. I beg pardon, madam, said I. 
 Young man, said she in a tremendous voice, do 
 you know where you are going? Certainty, said I. 
 4 I m going to Boston. c No, you re not. You re going 
 to the bottomless pit ! she shouted : and handing me 
 a little book, which I have never dared open, she said, 
 Read that : and I ran off like a shot. Gad ! I ve 
 dreamed of my grandmother ever since." 
 
 " How did she find out so much about you, Pinck? " 
 asked Freemantle. 
 
 " Oh, gammon ! I remember now : she asked me if 
 my name was Freemantle," said Pinckney. 
 
 " What did you tell her? " asked Freemantle, laughing. 
 
 " I said it was not ; Freemantle had just been expelled. 
 But I promised to see that you received the book." And, 
 diving into a pocket, he pulled out a small folded pam 
 phlet, and handed it to Freemantle. 
 
HIS HARVAKD DAYS. 275 
 
 "I think you fellows each deserve a separate copy," 
 said Albemarle. " Come, let s go to dinner." 
 
 44 Are you going to the Fa3 r erweathers to-morrow even 
 ing? " asked Freemantle, as they went down stairs. 
 
 "I don t know. Why, it s A.4. night, isn t it?" 
 asked Albemarle. 
 
 44 No : supper is postponed till Monday night, so Ham 
 mersmith sa3^s." 
 
 44 What is it at the Fayerweathers ? I forget what they 
 do at these Cambridge toots," said Albemarle. 
 
 44 German at eleven, I believe," answered Freemantle. 
 "Big time, I hear: Jack Fayerweather s freedom birth 
 day, 3*ou know ! " 
 
 44 Well, perhaps I ll toddle up for a while. But no Ger 
 man for me, if I know myself," said Albemarle ; and the 
 young men went in to dinner. 
 
 Meanwhile, the two men so roundly abused in the above 
 conversation Breese and Hammersmith were indul 
 ging in exercise quite common to the two in these crisp 
 autumn da3 r s. Breese was swinging along the county 
 roads back of Cambridge in a rapid constitutional, brand 
 ishing his well-worn oak stick the while ; Hammersmith, 
 cantering gloriously through grassy lanes flaming with 
 changing foliage, on the back of the noble bay horse left 
 him by Penhallow, which was kept polished to the sheen 
 of satin by the expectant grooms of Windgall, the stable 
 man. 
 
 Wh3 should Tom go cantering off b3 7 himself, like a 
 miserable old bachelor, when he might have a fair com 
 panion, on a side-saddle, riding at his elbow, and dou 
 bling the zest of this grandest of pastimes ? Why, if Miss 
 Darby were so fond of riding, and had been in the habit 
 of scouring the country, for a whole year now, with a 
 groom in her train, why should not Tom relieve the 
 prim menial, and himself act as squire, now that he had a 
 good mount? 
 
276 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 Hammersmith had not asked himself these questions 
 many times, you may be sure, before he had decided 
 unanimously that knight-errantry in the nineteenth cen 
 tury was an anachronism, a humbug, and the office of 
 squire and groom-in-waiting infinitely preferable in every 
 way ; so that many a sunny afternoon, when he was not 
 practising for a cricket-match, or otherwise detained, he 
 had despatched a brief note to Miss Darby by the omni 
 present youngster Glue, runner of errands, and mender 
 of broken furniture by aid of effective glue-pot, and 
 shortly afterwards followed his note on the back of high- 
 stepping Baldy. 
 
 If Miss Darby could accept his invitation, well and 
 good : he joined her, and they were galloping away in 
 remarkably quick metre. If not, well and good also : he 
 sprang into saddle again, and went for a spin by himself, 
 consoling himself for her absence by putting his horse 
 through a whole series of movements and tricks to which 
 he had been training him, and hoping for better luck next 
 time. 
 
 This afternoon she could go. Tom met Glue, on his 
 return from Miss Darby s, whistling a street-boy s air as 
 he drummed the casual fence. He- stepped to the curb 
 stone as Tom was cantering by, and swung his battered 
 cap. 
 
 "All right, Mr. Ham-smith! She s a-going, I guess. 
 My eye, but her horse be a-stepping about lively ! " And 
 Hammersmith, without pulling rein for the small messen 
 ger, nodded, and dashed past. Baldy is feeling his oats 
 to-day. 
 
 Miss Darby was just about starting off by herself when 
 the young glueman arrived with Tom s note. She was 
 already mounted, and walking her horse along the semi- 
 rural street, when Hammersmith came up. 
 
 "Which way to-day, Miss Darby?" he asked, after 
 lifting his hat, and glancing at her saddle-girths. 
 
HIS IIAEVAED DAYS. 277 
 
 " Where you will. I think the Belmont road will be 
 pretty to-day, the woods are so fine ! " And they turned 
 their horses heads westward, and were soon past Mount 
 Auburn, giving their animals a looser rein as they left the 
 thickly settled parts of the town. 
 
 We have no intention of following them along their 
 winding way this lovely afternoon, or of setting down all 
 the idle speeches and enthusiastic enjoyment of the two 
 lovers of horses, lovers of horses like yourself, dear 
 Philippus. 
 
 It is a dangerous pastime, this of riding, none more 
 dangerous ; not in the earthly sense of a spill, or of 
 broken bones, my dear madam, rolling in your coupe 
 elaborately padded, but in the view of far more subtle, 
 invisible dangers that delight to pounce on bounding 
 youth and beaut}", torturing them with exquisite pleasure. 
 Perhaps under the critic e} T es of the public, ogling in 
 Rotten Row, Central Park, Beacon Street, these dangers 
 may not show their heads, or let the whirring of their 
 light wings be heard. There is an evil-eye which blights 
 many such a tender creature, frowns originality and joy- 
 ousness into dull conformity, and would look upon such 
 riding as this of Tom s and Miss Darby s more in the 
 light of a pageant and a spectacle than as a bit of romance 
 bright with risk. But riding in country lanes, with the 
 freshness of youth on the cheek, and all the picturesque- 
 ness of Nature starting the ready flood of young feelings 
 in rosy-rippling currents, tell me, all ye mediaeval men 
 and women who remember your youth, and who ever 
 mounted a horse, did the roguish little god with the 
 blinded eyes, who shoots regardless of aim, ever find you 
 more vulnerable than when thus riding? No matter where 
 it may be, along the hedgerows and velvet turf of Eng 
 land, trim vine-edged lanes of France, a rough New- 
 England pike flanked with golden woods, or dear brown 
 
278 HAMMEESMTTH : 
 
 hills of California looking seaward, or down a royal purple 
 valley, tell me if it is not true. Tell me, Philippus 
 but no ! I will not ask you to open that page again. 
 
 They were mounting a hill in Belmont, and Mr. Tom 
 was just beginning to say something, in his enthusiastic 
 way, about wishing that he were a groom or a jockey, he 
 was so fond of horses, when he exclaimed suddenly, 
 
 " Halloo, here s Breese ! " as they came unexpectedly 
 upon the great scholar, turning into their road from a side- 
 lane. 
 
 Tom involuntarily drew in his horse a bit ; but, seeing 
 Miss Darby cantering ahead, he let him out, and they 
 bowed to Breese as they passed. 
 
 " Why, do you know him? " asked Hammersmith. 
 
 " Oh, I ve met him ! " she answered. " He is reading 
 some Latin pla} r s with my father, you know ; and he was 
 introduced to me one evening by father. Isn t this a 
 superb view?" she added quickly. "There is Somer- 
 ville, and Boston, and Bunker-Hill Monument, and " 
 
 "Breese is a mighty queer fellow, Miss Darby, ex 
 cuse my interrupting you, he s the fellow I was telling 
 you about the other day, that wouldn t go into society, 
 and thinks it s all flummery and nonsense, and spoke 
 about inventing the brass man that I told you of." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said she. 
 
 " I didn t tell you his name, as I didn t know you had 
 ever met him. Did you know that he was at Fresh Pond 
 that horrid day in freshman year? " 
 
 " I heard afterwards that he was." 
 
 " That was an awful day, wasn t it? " said Tom, tak 
 ing his left foot out of the stirrup, and turning towards 
 her. " Miss Darby, you can t imagine how a fellow 
 feels, I suppose, when he s been so near drowning a 
 young lady as that ? 
 
 " No, I don t suppose I can. But here s a lovely piece 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 279 
 
 of road : I challenge you to race as far as that oak-tree ; * 
 and, without further ado, they were rattling over the hard, 
 rocky road, till Tom, quite ungallantly, came out a length 
 or so ahead at the tree. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Miss Darby, drawing a long breath, and 
 putting a hand to her beaver. "That was grand! I 
 yield the palm. Beppo and I are not equal to you. But 
 we don t care, do we, Beppo? " 
 
 "Your saddle is loose. Let me tighten the girths; 
 there ! And she was off, and quickly mounted again ; 
 and they headed for home. 
 
 " If I could only live in the saddle, Miss Darby!" 
 Tom exclaimed impulsively, on the way home. "I m 
 never so happy as when on horseback, are you? " 
 
 " N-no : I m very, very fond of it. But you would 
 grow tired of it, if you had to ride," said Miss Darby. 
 
 " I don t think so. Why are the middle ages dead ! " 
 he exclaimed, with many a philippic young man before 
 him. " How jolly it must have been to go riding about, 
 with a squire or two, and a sturdy old horse under you, 
 living off the fat of the land, tilting with any fellow you 
 came across, and succoring unhappy } T oung parties right 
 and left!" 
 
 "It must be nice to try to succor unhappy young 
 parties, as you say," Miss Darby added quietly. But he 
 was stooping to turn a stirrup, and did not see the look 
 that she gave him. 
 
 Every thing is so cut and dried nowadaj^s ! Tom 
 continued. "That s the very expression that Breese 
 used, by the way, in speaking of society." 
 
 " There s a good deal of truth in it," said Miss Darby. 
 " But I don t think, for that reason, that one should rush 
 to the opposite extreme, and make a monk of one s self." 
 
 " So I told Breese. But there s no convincing him. 
 I ve been at him a dozen times already ; but he s as firm 
 
280 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 as a rock. Jack Fayerweather has asked him up there 
 fo-morrow evening, by the wa} 7 , and I m going to do 
 what I can to get him to go. I doubt very much if I 
 shall succeed, though. I ll tell you what I wish you 
 might do for me, Miss Darby, if it isn t asking too 
 much." 
 
 "Well?" said she. 
 
 " If I get him to go, and it comes convenient, couldn t 
 you pitch into him a little on the subject of societ} 7 , 
 show him how mistaken he is, and that sort of thing? 
 You see, my pride is aroused now ; and I m bound to 
 carry my point with him, even if I only induce him to go 
 out with me once or twice." 
 
 " And you want me to act as ally and counsellor? " 
 
 4 Exactly," said Hammersmith, "if you will. I 
 
 don t suppose it s exactly the thing to ask of you ; but 
 j " 
 
 " Oh ! I ve no objections, I assure you, if it shall be 
 possible, without appearing to be meddling," said Miss 
 Darby. "I should like immensely to hear what he has 
 to say. Father says he is remarkably clever, and remark 
 ably original." 
 
 "That he is, our head scholar now, you know. You 
 ought to hear him pitch into sports and idleness, and so 
 o n, at college. I suppose, when he saw us just now, he 
 said to himself that I was wasting my time riding about 
 the country, and had better be at home studying, or tak 
 ing a quiet walk like himself." 
 
 Miss Darby started just a bit at this speech of Ham 
 mersmith s, which was, indeed, frank and ill-considered, 
 and not over-complimentary to the young woman at his 
 side ; but she presently went on, 
 
 " I ve no sympathy with men who can be so severe as 
 that. I don t think I shall like him a bit ; and I do not 
 promise that I will ever talk to him, unless he is very 
 gracious." 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 281 
 
 " Another spin? " asked Tom ; and they cantered rap 
 idly homeward a mile or more, the horses feeling the 
 freshness of approaching twilight, as well as the potent 
 influence of nearing domestic fodder, and plunging and 
 pulling hard at the reins, as they dashed through the 
 lengthening shadows, and over the brilliant fallen mantle 
 of autumn. 
 
 "How the old Roman could ever have spoken of 
 c Black Care that sits behind the horseman, I never 
 could quite see, " said Tom, as they drew near Miss 
 Darby s. " If there is ever a time when Care is shaken 
 off, and thoroughly driven away, it is when you are on 
 horseback ; don t you think so ? He must be a pretty 
 plucky rider, if he could stick on behind a fellow when 
 he s going like that last spin of ours, eh? Then you 
 will dance the German with me tOTinorrow evening?" 
 said Tom, as he was taking her off her horse. 
 
 " Certainly, if you wish." 
 
 " And you will be my ally in bringing Brcese out of his 
 retirement, if it can be managed? " 
 
 " Yes, if I can help you at all." 
 
 " Thank 3 T ou very much, and for a very pleasant 
 ride. Good-evening." 
 
 " Good-evening." 
 
 Hammersmith tore back to the stable, riding half the 
 time without stirrups, as he had ridden on the banks of 
 the Hudson when a boy, and adding a fleeting element 
 of movement and brightness to the pedestrian student 
 world steering for its evening meal. 
 
 How little he foresaw the effect of his light compact 
 with Miss Darby, half in jest as it was made ! How little 
 he knew the cause of the suddenness with which Breese 
 answered him that evening, when he entered his room, 
 and said, without prelude, 
 
 " Now, Breese, I m going to make you go with me to 
 
282 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 the Fa3^erweathers* to-morrow evening, or die in the 
 attempt! " 
 
 " I m going," said Breese quietly. 
 
 4 What ! Ye gods ! what have we now ? Why this 
 sudden lapsing into the gabble-gabble and hoppity-skip ? 
 
 But he received no satisfactory explanation then, or 
 ever, in fact ; and only long afterwards was he able, as 
 we may be, to fathom by conjecture, and joining of fact 
 with fact, the cause of Breese s sudden change of man 
 ner. 
 
 Was he going into the halls of flummery once for all, to 
 see for himself just what it all meant ? Was he meaning 
 to act the spy on Tom himself for any especial reason? 
 Was he really converted to Hammersmith s way of think 
 ing? Was he attracted by any particular young butterfly, 
 such as he had spoken of? Was he really beginning to 
 reflect that there was something else in the world besides 
 hard work, and self-abnegation, and a life of cheerless 
 isolation ? 
 
 All these queries popped into Tom s mind after leaving 
 Breese that evening with his curiosity ungratified ; but he 
 was compelled to allow them to remain unanswered and 
 bristling for many long weeks, during which the shifting 
 scenes of their college-life went on about them, themselves 
 prominent actors therein. 
 
 It was an auspicious time for Breese to make his debut 
 in Cambridge society. Not only was he the head scholar 
 in his class, and already known by reputation as a man of 
 unusual genius, as well as the friend of many men of his 
 class who were favorites in Cambridge circles, but, on this 
 day of the Fayerweather party, the junior exhibition had 
 come off (preceded several days by the students comical 
 episode of Junior Mock Parts) , and Breese had delivered 
 an oration which instantly made him famous in the univer- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 283 
 
 sity, by the force and originality, and singular maturity, 
 of its arguments. 
 
 He had been assigned a part which did not fall in with 
 his line of thought, or suit his tastes especially, a heavy 
 Roman theme, with no possibility of a modern application ; 
 but at his personal request, made effective and proper 
 by his high rank in the class, he had succeeded in substi 
 tuting for it an oration on a subject of his own selection. 
 The faculty had hemmed and hawed over the novel sug 
 gestion, and turned the matter over in their learned heads 
 for a day or more, seeking pretexts for refusal. But as 
 his subject did not threaten the life or existing institutions 
 of the university, and no fair excuse for refusal could be 
 devised, consent had been given ; and, in his proper place 
 on the lists that day, Breese advanced to the platform, and 
 delivered his part amidst intensest interest. 
 
 It was an English oration on The Influence of Re 
 publics on the Individual." And, without going into his 
 arguments in this place, we may say, that by its breadth 
 of treatment, ripeness of thought, and a certain throbbing 
 sensitiveness of language, which was the mature growth 
 from the downright fierceness of his freshman st} T le, he 
 did more than bear off the laurels of the day. He made 
 himself an instant name with the authorities and the 
 scholarly Cambridge audience, as a man of far more than 
 ordinary ability, a name which his future college-career 
 was destined to add to, not mar. 
 
 Albcmarle was put down for a Greek oration, which he 
 delivered with his well-known grace of manner, a cold, 
 heavy, classical manner, suiting his theme. Hammer 
 smith and Trimble were joined in a Latin dialogue. Tot- 
 man, the " Sculpiu," outdid himself in an English disqui 
 sition on the chronic subject of The Present Aspect of 
 the Eastern Question ; and a dozen more youngsters 
 stood up in solemn black gowns, and aired their young 
 thoughts on various ponderous world-matters. 
 
284 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 What mingling -of sense and nonsense, and skilful 
 plagiarism from books, those boyish efforts showed ! With 
 what " faces, smug and round as pearls," they stood up 
 before their audience of mammas and cousins, awful uni 
 versity dignitaries, and half- attentive fellow- students, and 
 hurled their carefulty-balanced sentences, confident of 
 aim ! What invective there was ! what sonorous round 
 ing of periods ! what laborious copying of ancient mod 
 els ! And the wise smile which spread over scholarly 
 faces when the Latin orator made an intelligible hit ; the 
 honor andi and spectatissimi appropriating their titles with 
 a sweet humility, and the vos, qui auditis showing here 
 and there a remarkable attention, as though they said, 
 u Oh, j es ! we understand you. Macte virtute, my boy ! 
 You see, we speak the vernacular." Ah, what ambitious 
 little literary festivals they were ! And how can the eye 
 of criticism look back at them with any thing but kind 
 ness, any thing but admiration for their charming gravity, 
 and wonderful profundity of discussion ! Away with the 
 man who shall say that they were vain, or join with Breese 
 in declaring them a species of mouthing and mimicking 
 of classic ages, bearing no relation to the present ! 
 
 Breese s oration, then, with its salient points, well given 
 in intelligible English, and its originality, in such striking 
 contrast with the majority of the day s exercises, pro 
 cured him no small fame with the university and the 
 quite considerable audience from outside the college-walls. 
 Graduates discussed him as they made off to their homes 
 after the close of the exhibition ; professors nodded their 
 heads approvingly at him ; mammas and young daughters 
 were immensely struck with his earnest, thoughtful man 
 ners, and spoke of him as, "Oh, such a clever man! " 
 His own classmates, of course, joined in the general 
 murmur of applause, and were not sorry that they had 
 among them the most original and brilliant man of the 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 285 
 
 university, each man feeling a peculiar pride in the 
 possession, as though he were especially responsible, and 
 especially kind in allowing Breese to speak. And Brcese, 
 for his part, smiled to himself, to think how easy a thing 
 could change the whole attitude of his fellows towards 
 him ; and yet was not displeased at the happy change. 
 
286 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MISS DARBY LEADS A " GERMAN," AND BREESE LOOKS ON. 
 
 " Still, as before (and as now), balls, dances, and evening parties, 
 Shooting with bows, going shopping together, and hearing them singing, 
 Dangling beside them, and turning the leaves on the dreary piano, 
 Offering unneeded arms, performing dull farces of escort, 
 Seemed like a sort of unnatural up-in-the-air balloon-work, 
 (Or, what to me is as hateful, a riding about in a carriage) , 
 Utter removal from work, mother-earth, and the objects of living." 
 
 CLOUGH. 
 
 THE gayest party of the season was at its height the 
 following evening, when Breese and Hammersmith 
 advanced to make their bows in Mrs. Fayerweather s par 
 lors, Breese, the literary hero of the hour, whose ora 
 tion even the severe Dummer had pronounced the best- 
 sustained effort for many years ; " Hammersmith, his 
 handsome friend, the rescuer of Miss Darby in his first 
 year at Cambridge, the champion of beleaguered young 
 actresses, the proud-spirited young fellow who had even 
 given the faculty a piece of his Hammersmith mind, the 
 oarsman who had been so sadly missed in the Varsity at 
 Worcester, and the man who was now distinguishing him 
 self in almost as marked a manner as in the former 
 unhappy episodes by his creditable performance in the 
 classrooms, newly proven by his part in the exhibition of 
 to-day. And with what a lordly air the young gentleman 
 bore himself, looking you in the eye as though he had 
 never known an actress, or a Tufton, or any but the most 
 placid experience in the world ! 
 
 A half-hour later Breese was standing talking earnestly 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 287 
 
 with Miss Pinckney, sister of the fiery chum of Goldie s, 
 a radiant beauty, with a certain elan and impulsiveness 
 quite disconcerting to the circumspect young women of 
 Boston, among whom she was spending the winter for the 
 sake of certain musical privileges. 
 
 " Why are you scowling so at your sister, Mr. Pinck- 
 ney?" asked Miss Sumnierdale, as she came out from 
 the dancing-room on Pinckney s arm. 
 
 "Confound her!" said Pinckney. " She s talking 
 with that fellow Breese, a regular old reforming humbug, 
 dyed in the wool ! Who can have introduced her? " 
 
 "Why, what is the matter with him?" asked Miss 
 Summerdale, looking up at him interestedly, ready to 
 hear gossip, or take his part, as the case might be. 
 
 " Nothing. But, as I say, he s a regular out-and-out 
 demolisher of every thing under the sun, the sort of a 
 fellow that we should give a good thick coat of tar and 
 feathers, if we caught him down South, with an old mule 
 to carry him north of Mason and Dixon s Line." 
 
 "Gracious, I didn t think he was so fierce as that! 
 He s certainly remarkably clever." 
 
 "Of course he is! Those fellows generally are. 
 Anybody can be clever, if he sticks to one thing long 
 enough," said Pinckney. And the handsome young 
 Southerner paced the halls with his fair partner, cooling 
 themselves from their dance, and looking forward anxiously 
 to the German, which was to come off an hour hence, and 
 which they were to dance together. 
 
 " I hear you are such a great scholar, Mr. Breese ! " 
 Miss Pinckney said, continuing her conversation with the 
 young society-hater. " I shall be really afraid to say 
 any thing to you." 
 
 " I hope not," said Breese, smiling a severe sort of 
 smile, why will not people let his scholarship alone, and 
 treat him like anybody else ! "I should be sorry to think 
 
288 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 myself such an ogre as to prevent Miss Pinckney from 
 saying whatever came into her mind, for that would be a 
 cruelty to her friends." This, by way of his first compli 
 mentary sally, surprised Mm not a little, as he found him 
 self making it. 
 
 "Oh, thank you! But I am always afraid of you 
 great New-England scholars, I m so ignorant myself. I 
 do assure you, I don t know any thing ! nothing but a 
 little music, and history, and French, of course ; and, oh ! 
 I m awfully fond of horses. I do nothing but ride and 
 sing at home. And really, Mr. Breese, I don t see any 
 good in studying so awfully hard. What does it all 
 amount to ? " And she beamed upon the poor fellow with 
 such a frank and thoroughly captivating smile, that I 
 wonder he didn t then and there abjure study, and hard 
 work, and his solitary mode of life, altogether, and con 
 fess that he had made a mistake. 
 
 4 It s hard to see what any thing amounts to, as you 
 say. Miss Pinckney," he remarked. " But I ve set my 
 self certain work to do here in Cambridge ; and I think 
 every man ought to stick to whatever he undertakes, if it 
 kills him." 
 
 " Of course he ought," said Miss Pinckney; " and I 
 admire you for keeping to what you have planned. But 
 I should think it would be such hard work and so lonely ! 
 I hear you do nothing but study, and go to lectures, all 
 the time. Oh ! I forgot to say but I won t tell you, for 
 you will laugh at me yes, I will, though: I m very 
 fond of one kind of books, though I don t suppose you 
 would approve of my taste. I dote on poetry ! " 
 
 "Yes?" he said. "Some poetry is certainly worth 
 reading. But why do you talk of me as though I were a 
 college professor, or some awful literary demon? What 
 poems are } r ou so fond of ? " 
 
 " Oh, I hardly dare tell you ! Lalla Rookh, and some 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 289 
 
 of " But she was exceedingly happy to be relieved from 
 what she feared would be a severe catechism, perhaps a 
 crushing condemnation, of her literary powers, on seeing 
 our friend Freemantle, wearing the semi-ennuye air that 
 lie was beginning to assume as life began to pall on him, 
 approach them from the ball-room, and say, with his 
 head slightly on one side, and thumbs in his waistcoat 
 pockets, 
 
 "May I have the pleasure of this galop. Miss Pinck- 
 ney? " with the manner of a man who thought, " Well, I 
 might as well dance as do any thing else." 
 
 " Certainly," said Miss Pinckney, beaming on him in 
 turn, 4 if Mr. Breese will excuse me. " And Breese bowed 
 gravely at her, and then at Freemantle, turning on his heel 
 with noticeable impatience at something as the two passed 
 into the ball-room, and presently began gliding briskly 
 about in the crush of dancers. 
 
 " How can you stand that Breese? " asked Freemantle 
 under his breath, as they danced. 
 
 "Stand him! You wicked man! What do you 
 mean ? He s very nice and very manly-looking, she 
 answered, in a broken sort of way, as they darted here and 
 there, and young novitiates in the art of dancing pranced 
 wildly about, regardless of collisions, and all Freemantle s 
 practised skill was required in steering his partner safely 
 through the maze. 
 
 Breese, turning, was advancing to the reception-room, 
 to find somebod} who would not be in danger of being 
 whisked away from him in the midst of a conversation, 
 when he came upon Hammersmith and Miss Darby, sit 
 ting in a passage-way, and talking earnestly. He was 
 bowing and passing them, when Hammersmith called 
 out, 
 
 " Sec here, Breese ! come and be umpire. Miss Darby 
 and I were discussing a a the question of Mock 
 
200 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 Parts. She doesn t approve of them ; thinks them too 
 personal, ungentlemanly, and that sort of thing ; and of 
 course I was standing up for them as a good old custom. 
 What do you think?" And while Miss Darby put on a 
 look of perfect mystification and wonder (and their low, 
 earnest dialogue before Breese came up did not have the 
 appearance, by any means, of a simple discussion of a 
 college-custom) , Breese began quite innocently to give his 
 opinion, siding, as Tom knew he would, with Miss Darby, 
 and against the custom of Mock Parts, a burlesque per 
 formance allowing great license in the way of pasquinade 
 and travesty of classmate by classmate. 
 
 Miss Darby looked so unutterably surprised, and Breese 
 was proceeding with such gravity to lay down the law in 
 support of his view of the case, that Tom feared he might 
 be caught in his little fib, and, suddenly looking at his 
 watch, said, 
 
 "You will excuse me, Miss Darb} 7 , and Breese. It s 
 nearly time for supper ; and I must go and see about the 
 favors for the German, which begins right after. Dipton 
 was to have led," said Tom to Breese, u but has just sent 
 word that he is called home suddenly ; and Jack has asked 
 Miss Darby and me to lead in his place. You think a 
 favor figure had better be the first ? " to Miss Darby. 
 
 " Yes, it s better, I think. The bouquets, before they 
 are wilted. And please have our seats somewhere away 
 from the music: it is so deafening!" Hammersmith 
 bowed, and walked off. 
 
 " I m very fond of that man, Miss Darby. He s a fine 
 fellow," said Breese ; " the only man in the class that I 
 feel I can talk freely with, without fear of offending him, 
 or of being misunderstood." 
 
 "You ve proved your liking for him by what you did 
 for him last year," said Miss Darby, crossing her hands 
 in her lap, and turning her face partly towards him. " Has 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 201 
 
 he ever found out that you came to me about his faculty 
 trouble ? I hope not . 
 
 "Not from me, on my word, Miss Darby! I don t 
 think he quite understands yet exactly how he came to 
 be saved from being sent off; but I think, from things he 
 has let drop, that he supposes Goldie and your father were 
 the cause. I do not believe he suspects either you or 
 me." 
 
 " I am very glad. It would place us all in an extremely 
 ridiculous light," she said, smiling. " He is so high- 
 spirited ! But let me congratulate you on your success 
 to-day, Mr. Breese. Papa and I listened to every word 
 of it ; and, though I couldn t understand more than half 
 you said, I know it was very clever, for everybody says so. 
 But you must be tired of being congratulated on it, are 
 you not?" 
 
 " Almost," he said. " It is always pleasant to be com 
 plimented by one s friends, however: Tom, Dick, and 
 Harry is another matter." 
 
 "How is it that you happen to be here, though, this 
 evening? The Fayerweathers are more successful than 
 we in drawing you out of your shell den I believe col 
 lege-men call it." 
 
 "I don t know," said Breese, examining the pattern 
 of some tiles at his feet, near which a little white slipper 
 showed its dainty tip. "I suppose, being such a great 
 man as you say I am, I came out to receive the homage 
 of my admirers ; " and he tried to smile unconcernedly, and 
 failed. 
 
 " But I thought society and the hoppity-skip were wick 
 edness and abomination in your eyes," she said with equal 
 unconcern. 
 
 He turned suddenly, but checked himself, and said, 
 
 "Oh, no! I think a man, or anybody for that matter, 
 can waste a great deal of time at parties. But they are 
 undoubtedly good in moderation, like most else in life." 
 
292 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 u Don t j ou think it s all flummerj 7 and gabble-gabble ? " 
 she asked drowsily, lifting her fl aeon. 
 
 4 Miss Darby, pardon me," he said in some alarm, 
 * but where did you get those words ? Has Hammer- 
 m smith been peaching on me? " 
 
 " I don t know what you mean by peaching on you," 
 she answered, with an air of mischief. "Mr. Hammer 
 smith certainly told me of a droll man in his class who 
 used those words in speaking of the society of his fellow 
 men and women ; but he did not tell me who he was. It 
 cannot be } T OU, Mr. Breese ! You cannot have dreamed 
 of sending a brass man to represent you at such a place 
 as this!" 
 
 " Don t make fun of me, Miss Darby ! " he said, losing 
 what pique at Hammersmith s treachery he may have had, 
 as he saw the merry mood in which she treated it. "I 
 ma}? have expressed myself very strongly with Hammer 
 smith, and used a very bold metaphor ; but I must cry 
 Peccavi. I certainly used those words, though I did not 
 imagine how ridiculous they would sound when quoted 
 against me." 
 
 "Seriously, though, is that the way you think about 
 people in general? If so, you must be a very unhappy 
 man," she said. 
 
 "No," said he slowly : " I am not more so than most 
 men who have their eyes open as they go through life. 
 But let us go into the library : it is too noisy here." And, 
 rising, he gave his arm to her, and they went in, finding 
 seats near a chiffbnniere. 
 
 " All I meant to imply," he continued, " when I tallied 
 to Hammersmith, I ll pay him up for retailing my pet 
 opinions in this way ! " 
 
 "No, promise me you ll say nothing about it, Mr. 
 Breese ! It was entirely uncalled for ; and I am very 
 sorry if I have offended in repeating the words, for, to 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 293 
 
 be honest, he did afterwards tell me that it was you who 
 had used them, though not till yesterday, when we met 
 you at Belmont." 
 
 "Of course I ll not mention it, if you so order," he 
 said. " But what I meant was, that the pla} 7 is not worth 
 the candle ; that there is an immense amount of time and 
 energy wasted, look at those men struggling in the 
 galop, for example ! and no appreciable gain." 
 
 " I ve no doubt what you say and think is true, in part, 
 Mr. Brcese. But really it would be such a sombre world, 
 and we should be such long-faced, lugubrious people, 
 without just such meny-makings as this, for example, that 
 I cannot help thinking it is better not to try to stem the 
 current, but take things about as you find them, and be 
 cheerful. Serve God and be cheerful/ as the old bishop s 
 motto was." 
 
 "But I m cheerful enough," said Breese earnestly. 
 "At least, I hope I am!" 
 
 "Oh! don t let us be personal," said Miss Darby. 
 " Let us talk of a third person, if you will. I don t like 
 to prophesy, and I don t like to be rude ; but I cannot 
 help thinking that a man or a woman who deliberately, 
 for no special reason but a pet theory, goes to work to 
 shut himself off from the rest of the world, must inevita 
 bly, sooner or later, repent of it, and cry out for sympathy 
 and re-admission, when it is too late ; when he has be 
 come so set in his ways, that he can no longer appreciate 
 sympathy, or find the comfortable niche in the world that 
 he might have had." 
 
 "You think so?" asked Breese, who had listened 
 carefully to every word of this long opinion. "Must a 
 man give up a great deal of time which he may hold 
 precious, and a great many ideals for which he is living, 
 merely to get this sympathy, as you call it? " 
 
 "Merely to get sympathy!" she said. "It shows 
 
204 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 that you must be very heroic and very self-contained, Mr. 
 Breese, that you can talk in this way of merely getting 
 sympathy. But I forget : we are not to be personal. A 
 man or woman, then, must be very heroic and very self- 
 centred, who can go on, year in and year out, and not feel 
 the need of just such careless merriment as this." 
 
 " But I do not see the connection between this careless 
 merriment and the sympathy of which you speak ; of 
 course you use sympathy in its large Greek sense ? 
 
 "Of course," she said. "No? You do not see it? 
 Pray, if it is not by keeping the heart warm, the temper 
 cheerful, and the feelings receptive, how can sympathy 
 ever come ? And what else would you expect of these 
 young people ? You can hardly expect them as yet to be 
 capable of a larger, deeper sympathy, with the world 
 at large, let us say ; to be capable of kindling with tender 
 feeling over abstractions and lofty ideas solely ? No, Mr. 
 Breese, I beg pardon for being such an orator, it is a 
 difficult task ; but it is every one s duty, I think, to mingle 
 with his fellow men and women, even if at apparent sacri 
 fice. Anybody can be a saint in a closet, shut up by 
 himself, away from the things which try him, and against 
 which he prays for strength : the hard thing is to come 
 out with tolerance and dignity, and show one s strength 
 in the crowd." 
 
 " I have never thought of it in that light, Miss Darby, 
 or known anybody who cared to put it to me so kindly," 
 Breese said slowly, after a pause ; and then he felt sorry 
 almost to have said it, it seemed so to bare his feelings. 
 
 Hammersmith returned at this point to announce the 
 German favors ready, and the supper-room opened. But 
 Miss Darby said she did not care to try the chances of the 
 crowd ; and Tom went off to forage for her. " Oh ! an 
 ice, or something," she said: " I don t care for much." 
 "Better have some bouillon," said Tom, "German, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 295 
 
 you know ; " and she said, " Very well," while Breese sat 
 near her, turning over some large Roman and Grecian 
 photographs absent-mindedly. 
 
 " Here is my position in a nutshell," he said suddenly, 
 as an idea struck him ; and he held up several ancient 
 heads, of emperors, philosophers, gods, with their calm 
 majesty and sturdy strength. "This is what I mean: 
 our American society will never produce such men as 
 these, or even men who can chisel them or imagine them, 
 so long as it is founded on such a set of teetotums as now, 
 and everybody is rushing and tearing through life as 
 Americans generally are." 
 
 "Oh! that is another question," said Miss Darby. 
 " We cannot discuss such big themes as that at a party." 
 
 "Exactly, exactty! " said Breese almost gleefully. 
 " There you side with me, by agreeing that parties are 
 only fit for whirling and inane talking. I think I shall 
 stick to my old flummery and i hoppity-skip doctrine. 
 Do you know, Miss Darby, if I were to name this century, 
 what I should call it? " 
 
 "I ve not the slightest idea," she answered. " The 
 Age of the Hoppity-skip/ or A Hundred Years of Gabble- 
 gabble ?" 
 
 " No : that migh{ be as well ; but I should dub it The 
 Century of Hubbub. And America I should call The 
 Paradise of Hubbub. " 
 
 " Well, I m glad you have not the naming of the cen 
 tury and the country, then," she added merrily. "They 
 would be fine names to go down in history ! O Mr. 
 Hammersmith ! we have been having such a wordy war ! 
 Mr. Breese will never want to hear me speak again," 
 Breese was bowing deprecatingly, " he s such a severe 
 critic ! It s really quite awful ! " And she played with her 
 ice, and ate it daintily ; while Breese, whose whole soul 
 went into every slightest discussion, wondered at the 
 
296 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 remarkable adaptability of humankind, who can slip from 
 grave to gay, from matters of moment to badinage, sc 
 easily, and asked himself why he felt a certain jar in 
 the consciousness of the fact. Not an adaptable man, 
 not a man of a fluent nature, evidently. A man whose 
 thoughts, as his actions, ran in straight lines, and could 
 not accommodate themselves to the quick turns common 
 to nimbler minds. A downright man, who could not see 
 how a fair young woman, that could sit for a half- hour 
 talking seriously to a man, as Miss Darby had just done, 
 could be whirling through the gay German the next hour, 
 and not one only, but many hours, sparkling with enjoy 
 ment. Where was the discrepancy? Where was the 
 fault? In him, or in existing affairs? in John Breese, a 
 junior, or Miss Ellen Darby, the beautiful daughter of the 
 beloved professor? 
 
 Beautiful daughter, did I say ? I do not know that I 
 have proved it, and I do not know that I intend to do so. 
 In fact, I have never been able sufficiently to wonder at 
 the boldness of biographers or romancers in naming the 
 attractions of a young woman who may come under their 
 hands, describing her in a clumsy, mascuh ne fashion per 
 haps, and expecting you instantly to fall in love with her, 
 and proclaim her lovely beyond compare. How can I 
 describe the indescribable ? How may this blunt pen and 
 these flat words set forth the charms, which if I were a 
 novelist, and not a plain biographer, I should say, in the 
 most emphatic kind of language, with all manner of rosy 
 adjectives, neither the painter s nor the sculptor s art 
 could comprehend and fitly portray ? 
 
 Who can expect to please everybody, moreover ? Who 
 can expect that some would not say this, and some say 
 that, and many a careful young reader, of the softer and 
 the sterner sex alike, exclaim at last, "Why, I don t think 
 she s pretty at ah 1 ! or he doesn t describe her so, at any 
 
HIS HAftVAED DAYS. 207 
 
 rate ! " how could I undertake such tremendous respon 
 sibility, or endure such terrible criticism ! And don t I 
 know that her own contemporaries even have their little 
 flings at her, finding fault with this or that feature, this 
 or that mode of dressing her hair, with her manner of 
 smiling, even? but what beautiful girl is free from this? 
 And still it is enough to make a poor masculine chronicler 
 pause, or turn pale, and at last take refuge in the safe 
 generalization, "beautiful." 
 
 For if Mrs. Lacethroat thinks her eyes of too dark a 
 blue, and Miss Dovecot thinks them too light ; and Miss 
 Trimmersale says her smile is as haughty as a queen s, 
 and Miss Liltypop declares that she smiles too much, and 
 not only that, but too markedly in certain directions ; if 
 the Bantam girls of Roxbury say she is too tall, and Miss 
 Tallcut (who swoops down upon Cambridge society once 
 or twice in a winter, carrying off a student heart or two 
 at her girdle after every foray) insists with emphasis 
 that she is much too short ; if Mrs. Sticklewaite of Med- 
 ford, aunt of the youthful Malachite, thinks her hair too 
 light for her eyes, and Mrs. Dandelion, who has had a 
 pair of corn-colored daughters on the carpet for some 
 years now, (and the market so very, very dull!) declares 
 the same hair far too dark, and that the way it shades off 
 into a lighter color at the ends is very suspicious, yes, 
 very suspicious, as are also the lovely rippling waves 
 that cover her head, how, I say, how, under Heaven, can 
 I hope to reconcile these conflicting witnesses ! How 
 can I dare even approach that mysterious shrine, where 
 the awful feminine toilet-rites arc performed, and at which 
 Mrs. Dandelion is evidently so devout a worshipper ! How 
 can I, a poor male merely, do any thing but fall down afar 
 off, with my face to the ground, and exclaim simply, 
 "Beautiful, beautiful!" as the radiant young devotee 
 comes forth ! 
 
208 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 No, no ! of whatever else I may be guilty, I cannot 
 attempt sacrilege, or dare so much as to touch the crown 
 of her fair head with the patter of my poor words. I 
 withdraw, I throw down the pen, I seek an asylum in the 
 above-named generalization, and in the verdict of the 
 Fa} crweathers, the Summerdales, and a host of others, by 
 whom the adjective in question is freely applied to Miss 
 Darby. I refuse to attempt the impossible. I can do 
 nothing but admire, and give thanks before the sweet vir 
 ginal charms that the old Cambridge elms have seen bud 
 ding beneath them for some eighteen years now (save the 
 year and a half that she spent in Europe) , and wonder 
 again how the young university men can have allowed her 
 all this time to remain but this is dangerous ground for 
 an old gentleman with an eye for beauty to attempt, and 
 again he draws back. 
 
 I can at least, however, refer to these young students 
 so far as to say that their verdict, if asked, would be the 
 same as that of the Summerdales, the Fayerweathers, and 
 that of all sensible people. For I know from undoubted 
 authority, (as well as from a fact which I will never divulge, 
 no, never !) that they thought her most lovely and charm 
 ing ; that the sky seemed brighter, and brave deeds more 
 easy, when they passed her in the Cambridge streets ; 
 (happy the man who could lift his hat to her !) that dan 
 cing-parties seemed more dignified and stately when she 
 entered the rooms ; and that, at this particular party of the 
 Fayerweathers, many a man, and young woman too for 
 that matter, exclaimed, "What a remarkably handsome 
 couple they make ! " as Mr. Tom and she led out in the 
 pretty figures of the dance that came on later. 
 
 For all these reasons I refuse to do more than repeat 
 the slight hints of blue eyes and fair hair given above, and 
 maintain that I am justified in declaring her beautiful, as 
 you, and you, and you, would declare, if you knew what 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 299 
 
 I know, and if you had sat, as I have, at her hospitable 
 table many years, ah, how many ! after this gay evening. 
 
 Every one s own imagination is the best painter in fill 
 ing in the details of his heroine ; and, with the few bits of 
 color which my words and the gossips have supplied 
 above, everybody may imagine the blue-eyed, rather 
 haughty, young beauty, who has set Breese speculating 
 so thoroughly this evening, and with whom we have lin 
 gered rather too long, as she sits chipping the little ice 
 that Hammersmith has brought her. 
 
 Supper being over, and while various scurrying students 
 were emerging from quiet retreats in which they had been 
 enjoying cosey tete-a-tetes, from under the stairs, from 
 off the several landings of the broad stairway, from the 
 reception-room, rich in easy-chairs, Hammersmith ad 
 vanced to Mrs. Summerdale, only less beautiful than her 
 fair daughter, and said, 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Summerdale, will you be so good? 
 will you honor us by taking charge of the favors at the 
 head of the German ? 
 
 " I shall be delighted, Mr. Hammersmith, if you really 
 want me," she said. Hammersmith assuring her that it 
 would give him the greatest pleasure in the world, she 
 assented ; and Tom went off to the ball-room to see that 
 every thing was in order. 
 
 Men are now rushing about for their German-partners, 
 escorting them to their seats, which are ranged about the 
 wall, and removing their handkerchiefs from the chairs, 
 where they had tied them by way of pre-emption. The 
 musicians file off to the supper-room ; there is a buzz 
 and a murmur of voices ; the non-dancers are warned out 
 of the dancing-room, and gather mournfully about the 
 doorways, conscious that they are to be no part of the 
 approaching gayety ; and Hammersmith and young Fayer- 
 weather are rushing here and there, arranging seats, set 
 tling disputed claims, and clearing the field for action. 
 
300 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 The musicians come in merry and rosy, the cornet- 
 player twirling his blonde mustache, and surveying the 
 beauties about the room. While the pianist is striking a 
 chord or two, and the violinist is tuning up with that pre 
 liminary instrumentation which young Partington thought 
 the finest part of the concert, Hammersmith advances over 
 the crash-covered floor, with Mrs. Summerdale on his arm, 
 carrying in his left hand a sort of May-pole, hung with a 
 number of long fluttering ribbons, together with a mass 
 of tarlatan, in strips of various colors, which hang from 
 his arm, and trail on the floor, as he walks. A servant 
 follows, bearing a huge pyramid of bouquets, arrayed on 
 a frame ; another, with a large white- wood box, filled 
 with favors of every sort. 
 
 Hammersmith deposits Mrs. Summerdale by the side 
 of the pier-glass : the flowers, ribbons, and other belong 
 ings of her pretty office, are arranged about her ; while 
 Miss Pinckney, and other young women with an eye for 
 color, exclaim, " How beautiful! I never saw any thing 
 half so pretty ! " Hammersmith returns with Miss Darby, 
 whom he seats next Mrs. Summerdale. He glances about 
 to see that all are in place, lifts his hand to the musicians ; 
 and, as they sweep into the first swinging measures of a 
 glorious Strauss waltz, the first four couples, headed by 
 Miss Darby and Hammersmith, start from their places, 
 and glide smoothly and gracefully about the room. 
 
 " A very pretty sight," said Professor Darby to Mr. 
 Gayton Hammersmith, as the two stood in a doorway, 
 looking in. " Your nephew is a generalissimo of the first 
 order." 
 
 "That he is," chuckled Mr. Hammersmith. "Gad, 
 though ! but his mother would be amused, I may say 
 horrified, to see her hopeful leading off in a rout like 
 this. The lines were drawn rather tight in my brother s 
 family. Your daughter is looking uncommonly well to- 
 
HIS HABVAED DAYS. 801 
 
 night, professor, ell? Yes, Mrs. Darby, I was just say 
 ing to the professor, that Miss Darby was the belle of 
 the ball to-night." 
 
 " You re very kind, I m sure, Mr. Hammersmith," be 
 gan Mrs. Darby ; when the professor tapped Mr. Gayton 
 on the shoulder, and he turned. 
 
 Tom had clapped his hands ; the couples had stopped 
 dancing, and advanced to Mrs. Summerdale for bouquets 
 and favors. Mr. Gayton turned, and found Miss Fayer- 
 weather, standing within the ring of chairs, holding up a 
 bit of red ribbon to him, and saying, as she bent her head, 
 " Mr. Hammersmith ! " 
 
 " For me?" said the surprised "Duke." "Thank 
 you very much ; but I haven t danced for five hundred 
 years, my dear Miss Fayerweather ! I " 
 
 " No, no, you must ! " she said, shaking the ribbon. 
 
 " But I can t ! I m an old fossil ! I m of the age of 
 trilobites ! This modern step 
 
 "Come, come, uncle Gayton! " said Tom, who was 
 handing a bouquet to Miss Barlow, near b} r ; and the 
 young gentleman in front of Mr. Gayton, rising politely, 
 and lifting his chair out of the way, Mr. Gayton passed 
 through, and, with some considerable trepidation, essayed 
 the steps of the trilobite age. The young gentleman 
 who had risen so politely resumed his seat, saying to his 
 partner, 
 
 "Why, in the world, won t these old fellows keep out 
 of the way ! 
 
 Miss Pinckney exclaimed, 
 
 " Isn t he fun, though ! What a dear old gentleman ! 
 Is he Mr. Hammersmith s uncle?" And Breese looked 
 on from another doorway, wondering how a man could 
 make such a fool of himself. 
 
 A fool of himself ! He was glorious ! He was superbly 
 in earnest ! He was as gallant as a beau of the last cen- 
 
302 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 tury ! He was working like a Trojan ! He was a dear 
 old gentleman ! " But when Mr. Tom, gliding beautifully 
 with Miss Barlow, saw the old gentleman struggling in the 
 crowd, and beheld the agile grace of five hundred years 
 ago, he whispered to Miss Barlow, Miss Barlow whispered 
 to him, and it was the longest, most unaccountably long 
 time, before Hammersmith stopped dancing, clapped his 
 hands, and stood watching the uncle, with difficulty avoid 
 ing collisions right and left. 
 
 "What do I do now?" asked the " Duke," as he 
 stopped, seeing the rest had come to a halt. 
 
 " Take me to my seat, please, near the pier-glass," 
 said Miss Fayerweather ; and he offered his arm as he 
 might offer it to a duchess ; and, bowing profusely as she 
 seated herself, he said, 
 
 " You know Napoleon was an awkward dancer, like all 
 great geniuses. The fact is, beautiful countess, said 
 Napoleon, leading an unhappy partner to her seat, i my 
 part is not so much to dance myself as to make others 
 dance. Now, I can t say exactly the same thing of 
 my"- 
 
 "See here, uncle, you re in the way here, Duke 
 Hammersmith s carriage blocks the way!" said Mr. 
 Tom, coming up as a new set of dancers went whirling 
 over the floor. 
 
 "Ah, pardon Tom! I was thanking Miss Fayer 
 weather for the pleasure of my dance," and, bowing low, 
 he turned, and was almost floored by young Malachite, 
 wildest of prancers. But he recovered himself, looked a 
 dagger or two at the young bumper, and made his way 
 out of the room, exceedingly warm and rosy, with the 
 cut on his forehead almost as red as the knot of ribbon 
 that now ornamented his coat. 
 
 Meanwhile, Breese was looking in at the doorway on 
 his first German, his first real party-life in Cambridge. It 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 303 
 
 was a pretty sight, it was an innocent scene. There was 
 an abundance of youth and beauty, and sparkling life, 
 that the most confirmed cynic could hardly withstand. I 
 know one man, at least, who hopes he may never arrive at 
 that age or condition of life when the sight of such joy 
 ous merriment shall be other than pleasant and kindling. 
 If he shall ever arrive at such a gloomy period, he will 
 surely feel that something is wrong with him, as he 
 would feel now, my dear Philippus, if he found that he 
 could not do his thirty miles a day on foot, or his fifty on 
 horseback, without wincing. 
 
 Breese was not the man, however, to admit a fault 
 within himself, if it could be saddled on somebody or 
 something else. Looking, in a half-sad, half- contemptu 
 ous way, at this gay scene, so different from his ordinary 
 evening s sights, he fell to observing the different couples 
 as they sat within view, or moved about through the 
 rooms. Above all, he noted the men, largely from his 
 own class, and tried to discover the especial pleasure 
 which attracted each to such a scene as this. A man, you 
 see, that could not take an evening like this as a simple 
 enjoyment, a mere pleasant episode, but must needs turn 
 it over, and examine it, and ask what it is, what it amounts 
 to, not an especially pleasant man for an idle moment, 
 laz} r country-house life, or a merry dancing-party, you 
 may imagine, and correctly. 
 
 Hammersmith, for instance, flying about in every 
 direction, clapping his hands till his gloves had burst, 
 capturing privateers, arranging figures, what pleasure 
 could there be in it for him? Miss Darby, to be sure, 
 seemed happy and tranquil (tranquillity being an essential 
 item in Breese s estimate of the perfect condition), and 
 was the picture of beaut}^ and refinement as she sat talk 
 ing with Mrs. Summerdale, or rose and danced off now 
 and then, when she was taken out. But there was Free- 
 
304 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 mantle, looking by this time quite bored to death, almost 
 lying down in an unusually easy chair in the corner of 
 the room, evidently making satirical remarks to his part 
 ner, and patronizing the whole affair most emphatically, 
 w T hat good was he getting out of it all, Brcese asked 
 himself. And Malachite the bumptious, and Fennex the 
 bold, and Goldie, sitting statuesquely with his arms 
 folded, Breese was glancing at them all in a casual 
 way, when Miss Pinckney stopped before him, holding up 
 a little bell, which tinkled as she shook its ribbon. lie 
 looked behind him to see for whom she meant it ; but she 
 said, 
 
 " Mr. Breese, Mr. Breese! will you not dance? You 
 shall not stand idle here any longer ! 
 
 "Thanks, very much; but I don t dance/ he said, 
 feeh ng confused, as he saw the whole room watching to 
 see whom the gay Southern beauty would take out. 
 
 "No, really? I m very sorry," she said. " Are you 
 joking?" she asked, turning back as she started to go 
 away. 
 
 " I assure you no," he said ; and as he held up a nega 
 tive hand, and seemed truly uncomfortable at being made 
 conspicuous, Miss Pinckney sailed away with her tinkling 
 bell. 
 
 Breese shortly turned on his heel, made his respects to 
 Miss Fayerweather, had a few words with Professor and 
 Mrs. Darby in passing, and was going up stairs for his 
 coat, when Mr. Gay ton turned to him, and said, 
 
 " Going down to the square, Mr. Breese? I will give 
 you a lift, if you like. Time for such a gay young bud as 
 I to be shutting up for the night, eh, professor? Good 
 night, good-night, Mrs. Darby. Mrs. Fayerweather, a 
 great party, a magnifique party ! I congratulate you ; 
 congratulate Jack for me ; many happy returns all round ! 
 Did you see me on the floor? Great swell, eh? Don t 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 305 
 
 let my youngster dance till prayer-time ! that s all I have 
 to say. By-by, Charlie, by-by. Come and see a fellow 
 when you can ! Ah ! thanks, I don t care if I do ; I ll 
 smoke it, going in." And with such garrulous talk, 
 which had been kept up the entire evening, only we had 
 not the chance of hearing him, the old philosopher bowed 
 himself away, and was soon muffled up for his ride to 
 town. 
 
 " Going to walk down? " asked Albemarle of Brcese, 
 in the dressing-room. 
 
 "Hammersmith s uncle is going to give me a lift, I 
 believe," said Breese. 
 
 " Conceited idiot ! " thought Albemarle. " Getting to 
 be such a swell, that he ll have nothing to do with the rest 
 of us soon ! Commend me to a parvenu for airs." 
 
 "Eh, Albemarle," said the "Duke," coming up, 
 "3~ou leaving too? Go with us! Gad, I think we can 
 all squeeze in ! I m a light weight, you know ! And 
 donning a great-coat, whose dimensions gave the lie to his 
 joke, he led the way down stairs. The three were soon 
 bowling towards town over the frosty ground, at a spank 
 ing gait, the eldest rattling on about the party, Albe 
 marle thinking him a good deal of an old humbug, and 
 Breese listening with somewhat alarmed amusement to 
 the " Duke s " rather free criticism of different people at 
 the party. 
 
 The bonbon figure was in progress as the three had 
 come down stairs ; its light explosions and small cannon 
 ades filling the rooms with a pretty tumult of noise and 
 sham fear. It was as nothing, however, to the tumult and 
 doubt which were filling Breese s mind, and upsetting the 
 tranquil pose of his old opinions, as the " Duke " stopped 
 his coupe in Harvard Square, and Breese and Albemarle 
 separated to go to their rooms. 
 
 But Gen. Hammersmith and his party went skirmish- 
 
306 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 ing far into the morning, with all the bright allies that 
 fresh hearts and spirits, happy faces, and the joyous time 
 of life, can give. Those who will ma}^ follow them in 
 imagination, winding their pretty ribbons through the 
 night, and flashing defiance in the face of grief and care, 
 sickness and failure. Ah, that all this freshness must fade, 
 and this gay life put on its weeds ! Those who would 
 rather may follow Breese, the successful scholar of the 
 day, the strong, self-centred man, as he had been called 
 this evening, and imagine, if they may, the rack on which 
 his cherished ideals are stretched. 
 
 Was she right? Was there danger of his becoming 
 selfish and narrow, cold and unlovable, if he kept to his 
 lonely career? Was it all a failure, this strenuous re 
 solve to which he had lived thus far? Or were these 
 frisky mates of his in the right, and he all wrong ? Poor 
 simple questioner, as many simple questioners before him 
 have lived, and racked their brains with doubt, and yet 
 lived on! Is no questioning good, then? "What docs 
 it all amount to, this studying so awfully hard? " as Miss 
 Pinckney had asked him. Was he to be separated for 
 ever from his fellow men and women by some hard barrier 
 of his own making? And why did everybody labor to 
 convince him that all his pet doctrines were founded in 
 sand ? 
 
 You miserably correct, who have had no temptations to 
 wander, and so shall have no praise, in this place at 
 least ; you drivelling dandies, who have had no heroic 
 longings, and so cannot so much as imagine a man in 
 Breese s frame of mind ; } ou tape-and-yard-stick men, 
 trained to conformity, and never daring even to try the 
 strength of your chains ; all you who are satisfied with 
 the " mush of concession, instead of a little manly resist 
 ance," as Breese s Emerson says, may pass Breese by, 
 or call him a most uncomfortable fellow to have around, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 307 
 
 as you probably will. Let it be so! At the corner 
 bookshop you shall buy for a dime much prim heroic 
 monotony. Go buy ! I am not to blame that Hammer 
 smith s life touched, for a certain arc of its circle, upon 
 this bizarre man Breese ; I am not to blame that he hap 
 pened in Hammersmith s class. If there be any who 
 feel that a young man s doubts and longings, trials and 
 juvenile struggles, are the making of a stalwart man 
 hood, let them come with us a while, and see what the 
 outcome of this case shall be. And if Breese makes an 
 anthropological study of an innocent merry-making, and 
 would apply the lens of science to everybody about him, 
 let us, too, however cursorily, follow his lead, and study 
 the student. 
 
 One youngster at the party, paired for the evening with 
 the younger Miss Barlow, and radiant, as his own name 
 implied, deserves mention, if only out of that respect 
 which we owe an old friend met after a lapse of time. 
 
 When Breese s eye roamed around the parlors, scan 
 ning the company, it saw, but instantly left (as the man 
 of the lens might discard an imperfect beetle, let us say), 
 the glowing features of Ruddiman, Bob, he of the 
 green jacket and youthful bibulous habit, now a Harvard 
 junior, and basking in florid happiness. 
 
 A ruse of Ruddiman the father was this ; for when 
 that pathetic affair of the donkey had taken place, and 
 the Yale authorities had decided that it was best for all of 
 that stripe to be sent beyond their borders, the parental 
 Ruddiman, banker and broker, No. 51 Wall Street, was no 
 little exercised in mind as to the career of his young 
 hopeful. Bob s mind had not shown that fine edge, or 
 that penetrating point, which might enable him to plough 
 his way in a learned profession, so called ; nor were his 
 mathematics of that accurate character that he might 
 
308 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 safely be intrusted with a counter in his father s jingling 
 office, and with access to the parental money-bags in the 
 big vault under the stairs. Reports reaching the Ruddi- 
 mans, however, of Hammersmith s success and creditable 
 progress at Cambridge, there came the query, Why should 
 not Bob be despatched to that ancient seat of learning, 
 with ample largess from the money-bags before mentioned, 
 and orders to engage the most expensive tutor that the 
 place could furnish, as coach? 
 
 The youthful Ruddiman was not of that eclectic nature 
 that he must needs stand on the name or location of his 
 Alma Mater, so long as his rather erratic disposition could 
 be borne with, and his vast yearning for knowledge of 
 every abstruse description could be gratified. And al 
 though the college from which his donkey experience had 
 driven him forth commuted his sentence of expulsion to 
 one of a year s suspension, for golden reasons best 
 known to managers of such institutions, Ruddiman 
 pere was disposed to try fresh fields and different enclos 
 ures for his capering scion. 
 
 So it came about, that Tutor Philpot of Cambridge was 
 enabled to bleed the young Ruddiman, and tap the pater 
 nal money-bags, for a too brief period ; that sundry 
 haberdashers and stable-men in and around the university 
 town had a small rill from the same golden source tric 
 kling into their money-drawers for a much longer space of 
 time ; and that at last, with much tribulation, and by the 
 aid of the Fates, Bob was through his fresh-junior exami 
 nations, and (losing a year in course, to be sure) was 
 admitted a member of Hammersmith s class. 
 
 Whether Hammersmith was pleased, or not, at this sud 
 den re-union with his old neighbor Ruddiman I have never 
 heard him say. But as the youth in question had retained 
 a commendable admiration for Mr. Tom, since the day 
 when he had thrashed young Mangul Wiirzcl, and that 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 309 
 
 later summer, when they and poor Penhallow had beaten 
 the little hamlet into such a froth of excitement, an 
 admiration which Tom s late career had tended to increase 
 rather than diminish, there was considerable genuine 
 heartiness in Hammersmith s welcome of the young fellow. 
 And Ruddiman, to say truth, was much altered for the 
 better since the earlier days when we saw him before, 
 though the permeating effect of the donkey intimacy was 
 destined never to be quite outgrown. Hammersmith, 
 then, took him kindly by the hand when he came up to 
 Cambridge, a classmate (as he honestly and frankly took 
 everybody by the hand who deserved his friendship) ; 
 inducted him into many of the mysteries, and some of 
 the societies, of the place ; and was particularly careful to 
 range him well in the matter of Cambridge families, 
 divining that their influence would be peculiarly benefi 
 cial to the young man at this period in his life. 
 
 Ruddiman, indeed, was vastly grateful for all this kind 
 ness on Hammersmith s part ; wrote home the most glow 
 ing accounts of Tom s position and fame at the university 
 (retailing many things which Hammersmith would much 
 have preferred should be omitted, if he had had the vise 
 of his letters) ; and in a thousand ways developed a facile 
 devotion and enthusiasm for Tom, which showed him to 
 be a feUow capable of a certain ardent friendship, if he 
 was not a commanding genius. 
 
 He had fallen back a year, to be sure ; but what was 
 that to a youth hungering and thirsting after knowledge ! 
 He had " gained immensely by the rest from his severe 
 studies at New Haven/ as his mother was accustomed to 
 remark to sympathizing friends and neighbors ; and who 
 shall dispute a mother s verdict on her offspring? We 
 shall be considerably disappointed, then, if we do not see 
 him soon climbing to the very top of the rank-list, and 
 adding still more golden lustre to the Ruddiman name by 
 
310 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 virtue of that intellectual rest of which his mother speaks. 
 But disappointment is one of the disguised blessings of 
 life, which take us quite unawares ; and we shall do well 
 to be prepared for it in Ruddiman s case, as always. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 311 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 % AN OLD FRIEND ON THE WESTERN HORIZON. 
 " He that is down can fall no lower." BUTLEB, Hudibras. 
 
 IT was well for Hammersmith that the Fayerweather 
 party came off just as it did : it was well for him, if 
 he wished to enjoy it, as he continued to, dancing far 
 into the morning, and returning to his rooms plastered 
 with stars and ribbons, and other bedizenment, like a 
 field-marshal just as a very dissipated old moon, with a 
 fearful leer on its twisted face, was rising over the house 
 tops. 
 
 For, on the Monday morning following, he received 
 from the hand of an important senior a solemn missive, 
 much bedaubed with reddest of sealing-wax. By noon 
 he had carried a number of books, papers, and ink-bottles 
 to the rooms of McGregor, in Holworthy ; and by mid- 
 afternoon he was busily engaged on those grim, remorseless 
 rites which lead up to the stately ceremonies, on an ulti 
 mate Friday evening, of the Hasty Pudding Club, of 
 sweetest memory in more than metaphorical sense. 
 
 It is an elaborate, satisfying initiation, over which the 
 present chronicler would gladly linger, were he not stared 
 in the face by the unhappy fate of some who have dared, 
 in times gone by, to reveal to outer barbarians the secrets 
 and inner machinery of the dear old societ} r . Suffice it, 
 that, before nightfall, it was known throughout the length 
 and breadth of the university, that Freemantle, Hammer 
 smith, and Pinckney were initiating for the Pudding ; that 
 
312 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 these young gentlemen appeared running excitedly to and 
 from meals and recitations for the space of five days, 
 making painfully perfect recitations and painfully hasty, 
 silent sojourns at their boarding-houses, chaffed the while 
 by expectant classmates ; that on Friday evening they 
 appeared going to the club-rooms in elaborate evening- 
 dress ; that varied bursts of applause and the noise of 
 a curious metallic rapping were heard issuing from the 
 windows of the old hall during the evening ; arid that on 
 the following day appeared ;n Mr. Tom s room, over his 
 door, a mysterious strip of black cambric, with " T. Ham 
 mersmith in white letters upon it, a badge which has 
 been cherished fondly by that reminiscent youngster, and 
 has travelled with him many a mile in various countries 
 since the night that it first greeted him returning to his 
 room. But more than enough has been said ; and the 
 chronicler already begins to quake in his distant exile. 
 
 So Hammersmith came to be received into the ancient 
 brotherhood, hobnobbed with the upper- classmen even 
 more familiarly than before in the other societies to which 
 he belonged, and wrote off an ecstatic letter to his uncle 
 Gayton, declaring it the greatest affair that he had ever 
 heard of, " nothing like it in all the world," and calling it 
 by many other enthusiastic boy s names. In succeeding 
 weeks the rest of the first ten from his class were initiated, 
 Goldie the first of the lot. In due time, the management 
 of the club was transferred to Hammersmith and the 
 others ; " Senior Farewell " took place ; and Tom s class 
 was fairly installed in the first great organization which 
 tied them with their senior year, and caused them to turn 
 their eyes more anxiously than ever to that final period of 
 their academic career. 
 
 And Tom s regular college-work all this time? Lord- 
 Chancellor Thurlow had a division of his labors, which may 
 apply tolerably well to this period of Tom s life, as to that 
 
HIS HAHVAED DAYS. 313 
 
 of man} T another young fellow of his temperament in the 
 full tide of university enjoyment. " A part of my work I 
 do, a part does itself, and a part I leave undone," he used 
 to say. If Hammersmith never again duplicated that 
 famous examination of his freshman year; if he never 
 again carried home a set of prize books, as at the end of 
 his first year, which his mother and sister certainly 
 thought the very finest and most honorable testimonial 
 that the college had ever bestowed, his success thus far in 
 his university life had been as creditable as most of the 
 men with whom he, as a young man, naturally compared 
 himself. Breese, Albemarle, Totman, he didn t care a 
 fig for their high rank and academic honors ! Were not 
 head scholars proverbially left behind in the race of life ? 
 And why should he not follow his natural inclinations, so 
 long as he was sure that they were innocent and natural 
 (to use Breese s own words), and enjoy the fresh and 
 pulsing life about him? Was there a prospect that he 
 should ever be called on to use all the rubbish of Greek 
 and Latin, mathematic formulas and chemical signs, with 
 which the first men of the class were loading their heads ? 
 How fondly we cherish our pet indulgences, and excuse 
 ourselves withal ! And Mr. Tom, pursuing his own course 
 pretty selfishly, president of the cosey little A. 4., vice- 
 president of the Pudding, second-bass in the Glee Club 
 and chapel choir, round-arm bowler for the Cricket Club, 
 and general favorite in Cambridge society besides, was 
 neither better nor worse than hundreds who have gone 
 before him and shall follow. He did his work as squarely 
 as the average, obtained the respect and often the admira 
 tion of the professors and tutors with whom he came in 
 contact, and disarmed much criticism and many " effas- 
 cinating opticks of envy," to use the words of old Cliari- 
 ton, by a manly bearing and generous temper, coupled 
 with a high spirit, and an impulsiveness common to his 
 
314 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 race. We are not presenting him to you as a paragon, or 
 as a pattern even for ingenuous youth to imitate, but 
 rather as a young gentleman who has been singularly 
 thrown on his own resources, who has never turned his 
 back upon a friend, or courted a mean popularity, and 
 who, in the midst of a thousand perplexities and trials, 
 has never lost sight of the sturdy manhood with which he 
 had started, and which will yet carry him through, please 
 God. 
 
 It may be hard to confess, too, but yet it is undoubt 
 edly true, that his uncle Gayton was right when he said 
 that his unlucky Boggle experience, and his intimacy 
 with my Lord Tufton, would not operate against him, if 
 the true facts in these two episodes were once known. 
 Shall I say that all the exaggerated stories which the fer 
 tile freshman brain had brought forth only piqued the 
 curiosity and the admiration which followed Hammer 
 smith for along time afterwards? Shut up the page, and 
 call it a slander, my gentle miss, living on in a calm 
 and sinless peace most delightful to behold, or you, my 
 equally gentle reverend sir, filling the world with your 
 little theorems of men, but reflect if it be not so, and 
 if a dash of the devil, and a reputation for tremendous 
 powers of iniquity (even if it be an unfounded reputa 
 tion), are not a wofully strong attraction in a man 
 otherwise not much unlike the ordinary Tom, Dick, and 
 Harry of the world. And while I have once and again 
 declared that Hammersmith has been grossly maligned 
 in the matters above mentioned, that while he may 
 have been infinitely silly, and a dupe of the most vulgar 
 coquetry and a remarkably well-laid plot, his declaration 
 to his uncle was honest, and his honor and good name as 
 clear as sunlight, I have also declared, and do here 
 again maintain, that, however much may be said to the 
 contrary, all this bitter slander and foolish report only 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 315 
 
 added to the piquancy of his reputation, and to the num 
 ber of times that he was proclaimed a dear, delightful 
 fellow by various young creatures, to impugn whose 
 motives would be to slander angels. There was a pro 
 found fact, if a bitter acknowledgment, in the reply of 
 M. de Montrond, when reproached with his attachment 
 to Talleyrand: "Heavens! How could one help liking 
 him? He is so wicked ! " 
 
 When Hammersmith and the rest of the Pudding ten 
 were proceeding to elect other members from their own 
 class, there had suddenly occurred one of those dead 
 locks to which congresses of men are subject, and which 
 seemed likely to block their wheels for an indefinite 
 period. Hammersmith and four of his friends had set 
 their hearts on securing the election of Breese into their 
 society : the other five would have none of him. High 
 words followed, excited sessions of the Council of Ten, 
 heated canvassings outside and inside the club, frequent 
 rumors throughout the college of this and that settlement 
 and issue from the entanglement. Everybody soon learned 
 the reason why no elections followed. Breese himself 
 was kept posted by the tragic Ruddiman on all the wild 
 gossip in circulation. The dead-lock seemed likely to 
 last forever, till the name of Ladbroke was presented by 
 the opponents of Breese ; when Hammersmith and his 
 party seized upon this name, to which they were equally 
 opposed, as a means of effecting a compromise. 
 
 More excited canvassing, many days more of club- 
 meetings, the result of which was, that a compromise 
 ticket of some twenty or more, including both Breese and 
 Ladbroke, was carried through late one night. Immedi 
 ately afterwards Hammersmith rushed triumphantly to 
 the rooms of Breese, to whom he had been careful to say 
 nothing thus far of the negotiations, though fearful that 
 the news of their progress might reach him otherwise. 
 
816 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 "Hurrah, old boy! Let me congratulate you," he 
 shouted. "Pudding man, by Jove! though I m run 
 ning a dreadful risk in sa}dng any thing to you about it 
 before you are officially notified." 
 
 " Humph ! " said Breese. "Missouri Compromise car 
 ried through at last ? 
 
 "What in thunder do you mean by Missouri Com 
 promise? asked Tom, checking his enthusiasm a bit as 
 he saw Breese s cold reception of the news. 
 
 " I mean to inquire if the estimable Ladbroke and I 
 have been put in the scales together, and found to balance 
 each other." 
 
 " O gammon, Breese !" said Tom excitedly. "Don t 
 look at it in that light ! I tell you the best fellows in the 
 ten were anxious to have you in from the start ; and we 
 had to swallow Ladbroke, because his party was so stub 
 born, that s all." 
 
 "I don t see that that alters the fact that one objec 
 tionable man has been let in to offset another equally 
 distasteful. Isn t that about it? " asked Breese. 
 
 " But confound it ! Forget all that ! Why, you don t 
 mean to say that you are not glad you re in, after all ! " 
 
 "In what?" 
 
 "In the Pudding, of course! Didn t I say that you 
 have been elected? " 
 
 But a man isn t a member till he has signified his 
 willingness to join, is he?" 
 
 " Look here, Breese, what under Heaven is the row? 
 I propose your name willingly, gladly. Some fellow who 
 doesn t happen to like you as well as I (and we all have 
 enemies) objects. My friends stand up for you ; the other 
 crowd gets its back up. We fight away for several days, 
 and at last succeed in putting the thing through by ac 
 cepting an insignificant fellow that we do not like. You 
 don t say that you are going to repay me for all this work 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 317 
 
 Dy refusing to join ? It would be putting me in a pretty 
 box!" 
 
 " I m sure I am as grateful to you, Hammersmith, as 
 though ever} T thing had gone smoothly from the start. 
 Your kindness in the matter is the only thing that makes 
 me feel like saying, Yes. But I should despise myself, 
 I should not enjoy my membership, I should feel that half 
 the men in the club regarded me as an interloper, I " 
 
 "But you re not an interloper," said Tom. "You 
 are elected squarely and honestly. Every one of the 
 twenty might feel exactly the same as you do, with equal 
 propriety. And I m sure you d find it hard work to make 
 any of them call themselves interlopers." 
 
 "I can t help that," said Breese. " I am not respon 
 sible for another man s view of the matter. I only know 
 how it strikes me." 
 
 "But if you only knew how unanimous the election 
 was ! " pleaded Tom. 
 
 " Unanimous on Ladbroke and me ! " said Breese. 
 
 " Yes, and the whole ticket ! And if I could only tell 
 you what we do up there, and what a grand old society it 
 is!" 
 
 " You re very kind, Hammersmith. Don t think I m 
 speaking against you, my dear fellow, or meaning to be 
 ungrateful for what you meant as the greatest kindness, 
 I ve no doubt. If you had said a word to me before, 
 about this, I might have told you then, as now, that I 
 can t think of joining." 
 
 " But the rules of the society," began Hammersmith. 
 
 "Yes, 3 7 es, I know," said Breese. "I know it was 
 not possible for you to speak to me of it beforehand ; 
 neither is it possible for me to do what my own club- 
 rules a little society of one, that I ve had charge of 
 for about twenty-two years now will not allow. It s 
 no use trying to make oil and water unite, Hammersmith. 
 
818 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 There s a set here that never would have any thing to dc 
 with me, if their own salvation depended upon me and 
 Heaven be praised that it does not ! Perhaps I ve been a 
 fool in tr}dng to keep up an interest in their life and their 
 sports, and in going out at all from the quiet seclusion 
 in which I used to live. I had an idea that a man was 
 better for joining, as far as possible, in the interests about 
 him ; and now I begin to see that it is all a waste of time. 
 I might as well go back into my shell, and give up the 
 attempt to unite a studious life with things that have no 
 possible natural relation to it. If I had a little more 
 money, and were a little more of a swell, I might have a 
 different feeling in the matter." 
 
 So they argued on ; Hammersmith doing his best to 
 convince Breese that he was wrong, that he was slander 
 ing many very good fellows, who would be glad, mighty 
 glad, to see him in the club, Breese insisting that he 
 could not alter his decision, until at last Hammersmith 
 gave it all up, and rose to go, not in the best of moods. 
 
 "For Heaven s sake, Hammersmith," said Breese 
 warmly, coming forward, and holding out his hand, 
 "don t let us be separated for this small matter! 
 You ll shake hands?" 
 
 " Of course I will," said Tom, grasping and wringing 
 the great hand of Breese. But I m disappointed, Breese, 
 I m bitterly disappointed. I had anticipated so much 
 pleasure in seeing you up there among us ! " 
 
 "Believe me, I m infinitely more sorry than you can 
 possibly be," said Breese. "But you are the last man 
 to wish me to do a thing that I think would belittle me in 
 my own eyes, Hammersmith." 
 
 "Certainly: }^ou re right, I ve no doubt, from your 
 stand-point at least ; only I m sorry that you have such 
 a stand-point." 
 
 " But I have," said Breese, " and it cannot be helped. 
 
HIS HAKVAED DAYS. 319 
 
 Thank you again, Hammersmith, for all you ve done for 
 me, not only in this matter, but since we have met here in 
 Cambridge. No, don t say you have done nothing! I 
 know better ; and I know, that, if you were to turn your 
 back on me, I should be lonely and miserable indeed." 
 
 " O Lord ! " said Tom. " No danger of that, old fel 
 low ! " And, pressing his hand again warmly, he went 
 out, more perplexed than ever at the enigma Breese, not 
 daring to think of the ridiculous position in which he him 
 self would be left, after all these weeks of struggle and 
 this laborious compromise, and not reflecting, that, if he 
 had been in Breese s place, he would have been as stub 
 born and set in his view as Breese, if not more so. It is 
 impossible to project one s self completely into another s 
 position and frame of mind. Tom could not conceive of 
 a man with so delicate a sense of the proprieties and his 
 own dignity as to allow them to interfere with his personal 
 pleasure and his membership of the Hasty Pudding Club. 
 But then, Hammersmith, with his eager appetite for enjoy 
 ment, was not Breese, with his equally keen pursuit of 
 quite other objects, and his delicate balancing of every 
 slight matter in the sensitive scales of his ideal nature ; 
 and the two could never, by the slightest chance, be 
 brought to weigh their actions in exactly the same poise 
 of mind. What two men can? 
 
 The wonder, excitement, perplexity, aroused by this 
 ultimatum of Brcese s, not only among the Pudding 
 members, but throughout the undergraduates, were some 
 thing unprecedented. " What a fool ! " " Catch Lad- 
 broke following suit ! " "I should think Hammersmith 
 would throw him over now." "Oh, hang him! he only 
 does it to be odd ! " such was the reception that he had 
 among the men about him, for the most part. More cal 
 culating heads saw in him a man to lead the opposition to 
 the Pudding in the coming class- elections of next year ; 
 
320 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 and the anti-Pudding element, always strong, and waging 
 usually a Guelph-and-Ghibelline war, took him up at 
 once. Rival societies applied to him. But no, he would 
 join no society. He was very much obliged ; but he had 
 no intention of joining any more college societies. The 
 Institute of 1770 had been enough to show him that they 
 were u mostly a farce," he said. " And I am very much 
 obliged to } T OU, gentlemen ; but I cannot join you." 
 
 " What a fool to think of refusing to go into the Pud 
 ding ! " said Wonnlcy, in his senior window-seat. 
 
 "Yes, by Jove! You wouldn t have been troubled 
 that way, if they had asked you, would you, Wormle} ? " 
 asked his chum Rubbadub, smoking a pipe just too long 
 to be lighted by himself. " Here, old boy, please be 
 good enough to light me, will } 7 ou?" giving him a match. 
 
 So Hammersmith failed in his well-meant wish to have 
 Breese with him in the Pudding, and, despite his efforts 
 to the contrary, found himself slipping into the general 
 quadrangle verdict, that Breese was immensely silly to 
 split hairs on such a trifle, and cut himself aloof from 
 what might have been an extremely diverting and useful 
 association for him in many ways. But the world sur 
 vived the shock of this startling event, which had shaken 
 the smaller college sphere to its centre ; and the nine- 
 days wonder gave place to others equally extraordinary. 
 Breese, who had been the least disturbed of any con 
 cerned, settled down into the even tenor of his way, be 
 guiled only by occasional excursions into Cambridge 
 society, to which the Fajwweather party had been the 
 prelude. 
 
 "Mr. Hammersmith," said Miss Pinckney archly, at 
 one of the small routs of the latter part of winter, a 
 mixture of feminine working for the poor, music, dancing, 
 and other diversions which easily suggest themselves to 
 inventive young minds, " Mr. Hammersmith, you must 
 be an awfully wicked man." 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 321 
 
 " I beg your pardon/ said Mr. Tom, putting down a 
 piece of music which he was fingering by the piano, and 
 looking inquiring. 
 
 " You must be a very wicked man, I say. I have 
 heard such a funny story about you ! Did you really run 
 away with somebody last year? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, indeed ! " said Tom. 
 
 And did her father catch you just as you were going 
 into somebody s office to get married? " 
 
 "Certainly," said Tom, "true as gospel." 
 
 "And did you have a duel with him ? What fun it must 
 have been ! 
 
 " Oh, yes ! I had a duel with him, on the common, 
 parade-ground, you know. Invited the governor and 
 suite, mayor and aldermen, and the whole college, to wit 
 ness the fun ! Old party wcfuldn t stand his ground. I 
 chased him up Beacon Street, up the State-house steps, 
 straight up the State-house dome ; and, just as I was catch 
 ing his coat-tail on the very top, he gave a jump from a 
 window, and has never been heard from since. I believe 
 he landed somewhere in South Carolina." 
 
 " Now you re making fun of me ! " she said. " But 
 you are only trying to cover it up. You are very wicked, 
 I know you are ! " 
 
 How do you know it ? " asked Tom. 
 
 "Oh! I shall not tell you, I shall not tell you. But, 
 del ! I don t mind it. Most men are such tiresome crea 
 tures ! " 
 
 " Yes, and life is such a bore ! " said Tom, imitating 
 her languid manner. 
 
 " They do nothing but dance and flirt in such a silly 
 way!" 
 
 " In which they have such silly, silly company ! " added 
 Tom. 
 
 " Mr. Hammersmith, you are very queer. Why do 
 you mimic me so ? " 
 
322 HAMMEESMITH: 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Tom. " I was only trying 
 to agree with you. Everybody seems to know my own 
 affairs so much better than I myself that I thought I 
 w T ould give up my private opinion, and side with them 
 and with you." 
 
 " But I thought you would contradict me," she said. 
 
 " I supposed so ; consequently I agreed with you." 
 
 "Well, I think you are very extraordinar}^" she said. 
 And the young girl, who was used to having men bow 
 down before her, and meet her half way in her juvenile flir 
 tations, was quite at her wits end to comprehend this new 
 species of mankind, who treated her light advances as so 
 much chaff. 
 
 Miss Fayerweather came forward to sing ; and Miss 
 Pinckney and Mr. Tom sat down on a sofa at hand, the 
 brilliant beauty not a little nettled at Hammersmith s 
 obstinate severity. Hadn t half of his class already con 
 fessed themselves her slaves ? Wasn t Ruddiman, in fact, 
 at this moment, allowing his young heart to burst in 
 yonder embrasure, whence he saw the dangerous Hammer 
 smith talking so earnestly with the young woman whom 
 he worshipped ? Collect yourself, my Ruddiman ; for Ham 
 mersmith has no thought of trespassing on your preserves, 
 but rather is infinitely amused with the small deer at his 
 side, watching her artless gambolling ! 
 
 " Do you hear ever from your friend Mr. Penhallow? " 
 she asked, when the murmurs of applause that followed 
 Miss Fayerweather s song were dying out. She turned 
 towards him with an almost haughty air, which made Tom 
 smile, and sa} T to himself, "Aha! piqued, by Jove! 
 Didn t bring me down as she meant, eh?" But he 
 answered coolty, 
 
 "No, I ve not heard a word from him yet; expecting 
 letters every day. His sister tells me that he wrote from 
 the isthmus, oh! several months ago; and I am quite 
 anxious to hear from him. Did you know him? " 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 323 
 
 "No. But my brother used to write very often of him 
 and of others among his friends," she added, after a 
 pause. "He said he was such a nice * fellow !" this 
 with a slight nuance of meaning, as though she would 
 imply that some other men, whom she knew and might 
 mention, were not " such nice fellows," but were exceed 
 ingly disagreeable and obstinate, and thoroughly extraor 
 dinary. Hammersmith smiled to himself; and Ruddiman, 
 who thought that this thing had lasted about long enough, 
 marched boldly across the room, bowed before Miss 
 Pinckney, asked her for the dance that was just beginning, 
 and was soon deep in bliss, whirling about the room. 
 
 "What a very droll fellow your friend Mr. Hammer 
 smith is, Mr. Ruddiman!", the slighted beauty whis 
 pered as they danced. " I have never met so peculiar 
 a man." 
 
 " I wouldn t trust him too much," said Ruddiman the 
 flashy, who really thought Hammersmith a most trust 
 worthy fellow. " Dangerous man ! " 
 
 " I like people that I can trust, Mr. Ruddiman, don t 
 you? " she said. And he looked up at her with a happy 
 smile, and, oh, such a satisfied air ! And she asked him if 
 he were never coming for that horseback-ride of which 
 he had spoken ; and he declared to dance-music that 
 he should come the very next day, if she would allow him. 
 She said, ; I shall be so happy ! and what a beautiful 
 horse she had seen him riding. And the little man 
 twinkled with pleasure, and continued to dance faster and 
 faster, and kick out his little legs in a manner wonderful 
 to behold. We can leave him and the rest in this pleas 
 ant pastime, beguiling the long-drawn evening. 
 
 Something in his evening s mood, and perhaps the 
 sight of Miss Darby refusing to dance, and talking long 
 with Brccse at the other end of the room, made Hammer 
 smith leave before supper was announced, paying his 
 
824 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 respects to the hostess as unobserved as possible, and 
 making excuses to her for going early. 
 
 He was very glad to receive, not many days after his 
 brief crossing of swords with Miss Pinckne}^, the follow 
 ing merry letter from his old chum, Penhallow : 
 
 SIMI RANCHO, VENTURA Co., CAL., Feb. 23, 1SG-. 
 
 MY DEAR OLD FELLOW, Peccam^ peccavi. What shall I 
 say for myself for letting all these months slip by with never a 
 word to you, my dear Tom ? My only excuse is, that I have been 
 in the saddle for weeks together now, pegging over the country in 
 every direction, with Simmons and without him, and that I have 
 hardly touched pen to paper since I struck this glorious country, 
 except, of course, to scratch off a dutiful line now and then to 
 my people in Milton. I shall hope that you have seen some of my 
 letters home, describing my trip out, the wonderful ride across the 
 isthmus, my landing at San Diego, with a man named Harrison, 
 from Philadelphia, the account of my "bucking" horse Diablo, 
 which I bought at San Diego, after he had nearly killed me on the 
 beach, and my overland trip to this place. I have not time to 
 write about all these things now, at any rate ; for I have a piece of 
 news for you. 
 
 Whom, of all people in the world, as the young women say, do 
 you think I met in Los Angeles ? We had come into the place 
 from the south, through its lowest and most un-American quarter, 
 and were walking our horses through the streets, lined with white 
 adobe houses, and were reading the odd Spanish signs, Panade- 
 ria\ Ayuila cTOro, Botica Espanola, and so on, when I heard my 
 name called, " Penhallow, Penhallow!" I looked around, and 
 saw at the door of a saloon (the most frequent institution in the 
 country) a fellow with a close-cropped head, and long blonde 
 mustache, wearing the little white apron of a bar-tender. He was 
 beckoning to me; and, as I had not heard my name called so 
 unmistakably for weeks, I turned my horse, and went up to the 
 side: walk. 
 
 " You don t know me ? " he asked. 
 
 " You have the advantage of me, sir, I m afraid," said I. But 
 he smiled ; and who that has ever seen that wily smile could forget 
 it? It was Tuft on, our old pal, our old arch-fiend, Tufton! My 
 first impulse, remembering the roving commission that you had 
 given me, was to dismount, and thrash the fellow on the spot. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 325 
 
 But there was something so inexpressibly silly in seeing the old 
 swell standing there, with his shaved head, and spotless bib on, 
 that I could hardly associate him with any thought of revenge. I 
 thought that he had sunk low enough, in Heaven s name, and that 
 you would forgive me if I did not fulfil the letter of my contract. 
 You would have laughed to see the fellow ! 
 
 He was, of course, immensely surprised to see me out here, 
 asked where I was going, and so on, arid insisted that Harrison 
 and I should dismount, and partake of his hospitality. Imagine 
 it, Tom, if you can! and don t think I am drawing on my own 
 imagination, which this country is apt to stimulate I will allow, 
 
 imagine me going in, and seeing this quondam dainty swell 
 presiding behind a bar (better by far than most about him, as I 
 could see at a glance ; and, to do the fellow justice, he had every 
 thing as neat as wax). But imagine him standing there, and deal 
 ing out fire-water and aguardiente to rakish-looking Mexicans, 
 and squeezing the lemon of the country for the more elaborate 
 decoctions of Americans ! By Jove I it was as good as a play, and I 
 think I had my revenge, Tom, then and there. But, confound the 
 rascal ! he seemed to carry it off as though it were the most natural 
 thing in the world, laughing and joking with us about our trip, 
 and showing the same imperturbable sang-froid as of yore, when 
 he entertained you and me, arid other young fools, in his swell 
 rooms in Cambridge, and ordered about old What s-his-name, his 
 man. Do you know, Tom, seeing him as I did in Los Angeles, 
 and the easy and natural way in which he went through his work, 
 I am more than half convinced that Goldie (dear old Goldie, how 
 I should like to see him again !) was right in thinking that the 
 fellow was an impostor and a fraud from the very start, and had 
 been at this glorious profession of bar-keeping before. 
 
 But when he asked if I would not step in and see his wife, and 
 I went into a small, low room in the rear of his place, and was in 
 troduced to Mrs. Tufton, "Mr. Penhallow from Cambridge," 
 
 Tom, my boy, you might have knocked me down with a 
 feather. Tufton, in fact, saw my surprise and confusion, and 
 considerately added, "You hardly expected to see us out here, 
 eh ? " for on my word, Tom, sitting at a low table and working 
 at some feminine work or other, looking as pretty as a peach, and 
 blushing as she rose to offer her hand, was the Boggle, by all that s 
 holy! I couldn t do any thing but shake hands with her, I sup 
 pose you know how that feels, you old rascal! and stammer out 
 something about being very much surprised, and so on (a lot of 
 
3 26 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 rubbish, I dare say), and made tracks mighty soon, you can de 
 pend on it, under pretext that I had a friend outside, Harrison 
 having gone back to have an eye on our horses. 
 
 What is that for news ? as the Germans say. I made a fool of 
 myself, talking to her, I know I did! But I hadn t spoken to a 
 woman for weeks, and I never could carry off such an affair as 
 you could, Tom: I m not up to it. I was so mightily afraid, too, 
 that something would be said about Cambridge, or you, Tom, 
 when I know I should have lost my temper, and done something 
 foolish ; so that beyond telling you that she looked as pretty and 
 trim as ever on the boards in Boston, and that she smiled on me 
 most bewitchingly when I left, and begged that I would come 
 again and see her if I had time, I can tell you nothing. You can 
 form your own conjecture, as I do, about her relation to Tufton, 
 past, present, and future. One thing I do not believe, that she is 
 the daughter of old Boggle of the theatre ; but I have no reason 
 especially to give for my doubt. I simply feel that she is not, and 
 that she was merely palmed off as his daughter for the money- 
 extracting purpose, which some people know more about than I. 
 
 Isn t this a pretty go ? to come out here friendless and alone, 
 as I did, and run across two such delightful old friends of yours 
 and mine ! I assure you, if it seems odd to you, reading it here 
 in black and white, it seemed queerer still to me actually to see 
 and press the hand (how she does shake hands, Tom!) of the 
 woman that did so much to make your sophomore life miserable. 
 I could hardly believe my own eyes. 
 
 Tufton, I must own, behaved as well as was possible under the 
 circumstances. He never opened his head about the past, having 
 calculated correctly, as he always did calculate, that the less said 
 the better; and, when I was setting off the next morning from 
 the hotel, he actually appeared, on a mighty fine mount, by the 
 way, and insisted that I should allow him to accompany me 
 part way on my journey. But this was a little too much, and I 
 snubbed him roundly for his pains, you may be sure, as I did 
 also, when he had the additional effrontery to press my acceptance 
 of a huge Colt s revolver that he carried. I was not going to be 
 under obligations to the fellow ; and, after receiving directions as 
 to my route, I sprang into saddle and was away, leaving him talk 
 ing with Harrison, who remained at Los Angeles. 
 
 Now I have not obeyed orders, Tom, as I know quite well. I 
 will gallop back to Los Angeles and despatch him out of hand, if 
 you say so ! But I always did like a free translation, you know, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 327 
 
 and so I have not interpreted your instructions verbatim et litera 
 tim. You would have had your revenge, as I had, if you could 
 have seen him. 
 
 Simmons is a magnificent, dashing fellow: Goldie or McGregor 
 would kidnap him at once for the crew, if they could lay eyes on 
 him; and yet, with all this wild life and danger, he s as gentle as 
 a woman, and a perfect gentleman. He has had some unhappy 
 experience with somebody in the East, some young woman, I 
 believe, and that s the reason he has exiled himself out here; 
 I don t know any thing about it, though, and do not know him 
 well enough to inquire; but I m sorry for the young woman 
 that could have the heart, or the heartlessness, to throw over such 
 a stunning fellow. He never mentions a woman s name I ve no 
 ticed. How you susceptible fellows are all, sooner or later, tripped 
 up in the same old way ! while as for me, and such as me, a fig 
 for a whole caravansary of the treacherous sex ! 
 
 I thought that / knew how to ride, my dear Tom, and that, 
 when you and I used to scour the fields about Milton (remember 
 our taking old Freeman s fence, and riding down his brood-mare 
 that day?) we were doing some pretty fair riding. But you should 
 see Simmons, and the fellows out here generally ! He never thinks 
 of using the stirrup to mount! One hand in the horse s mane, and 
 he vaults, without apparent effort, into the saddle, and is plunging 
 the spurs into his horse s flanks long before he can catch his stir 
 rups. And then the way he tears across country, and up and 
 down hills where we would probably dismount, or go at a snail s 
 pace! It s fearful on horses, though. 
 
 You know how you used to rave about an out-door life, mid 
 dle ages, tilting up and down the world, and living with your 
 horse and your gun. Well, my dear fellow, here s your chance, 
 and here s your man for squire, Sancho Panza, or whatever you 
 will dub me. Only come, and I will promise to do any thing, be 
 any thing, except to be any thing other than your most devoted 
 old chum and partner as of yore. 
 
 You would find us in a comfortable old adobe in the Amidst of 
 a pretty oak-glade; a little brook behind the house, a hammock 
 slung under the trees, the "Boston Advertiser" and "Tran 
 script," with most of the new books, scattered about, a corral full 
 of horses for Hammersmith, surnamed Celer, to mount, and no 
 end of pipes and tobacco for my lord to console himself withal, 
 when the Machado Senorita shall not smile. 
 
328 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 Write me as fully as you can, and tell me all the news. How 
 is Goldie, and Pinck, and your original friend Breese? And are 
 you still holding out about your rowing ? They must miss you 
 like sin in the old boat, old hoy ; and I do not see how you can he 
 so firm. The Pudding elections must have come off long before 
 this, and I am very curious to hear of them. I shall be much sur 
 prised if you are not in the first ten, you old rascal ! 
 
 Tell me, too, who is the successor of the Boggle, and what 
 other rosy and more respectable little affairs you have on hand ; 
 for you can no more keep out of them than my old Diablo yon 
 der can help stuffing himself with alfilerilla when he gets a good 
 chance, and you know it ! Remember me to all the fellows, particu 
 larly to Pinckney and Goldie, yes, and Freemantle, and, when 
 ever you can find nothing better to do, just scratch off a line to 
 Your devoted old chum, 
 
 PEN. 
 
 How is Baldy? Does he carry you as well as he used to, or 
 do you overweight him a bit now? I would give a good deal if I 
 might pop in upon you some fine day on my little mustang, with 
 my silver spurs as big as a saucer, and my heavily-leathered sad 
 dle ! It would make a jolly sensation in Harvard Square, I can 
 assure you ! But, as I have hinted above, I should be afraid of 
 asking you to join me in a little canter across country, " three s 
 a crowd," you know; and I fear that Baldy has learned to accom 
 modate his step to some other gentle stepper by his side, long 
 before this, and might tell strange stories of the afternoon pastimes 
 that he has been made a party to, if the old fellow could have his 
 say. Shun em, shun em, Tom, my boy! or you ll burn your 
 fingers again, without a doubt; and then, w r hen you come out 
 here, I shall have a couple of broken-hearted fellows on my hands, 
 and I shall be the only sensible one in the crowd. 
 
 Simmons sends his kindest regards to you, and says, "Tell 
 him we ll present him with the freedom of the city and the ranch, 
 if he ll come out, as many horses as he wants to ride, and a fine 
 sunset for supper every evening of his life." So you ll have to 
 come and take him at his word, though I can promise you that 
 sunsets will not be all that you can have for supper, unless we 
 become immensely more esthetic than we are at present. By- 
 by, old fellow. 
 
 Yours, PEN. 
 
HIS HAHVAKD DAYS. 329 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A VARSITY ACCIDENT AND MORE REVELATIONS. 
 
 "Mordre wol out, that see we day by day." CHAUCER. 
 " Ilectora quis nosset, felix si Troja fuissct? " OVID. 
 
 T ADBROKE had been kept to his winter work in prep- 
 J-J aration for the Varsity even more successfully than 
 Goldie and McGregor had dared hope. The most severe 
 of bow-oars, as McGregor was universally acknowledged 
 to be, could not have desired more faithful labor at the 
 dumb-bells and clubs, and a more careful attention to the 
 rules for the crew, than Ladbroke had given. The most 
 expectant and patient of strokes, as Goldie unquestionably 
 was, could hardly have wished for better form and more 
 vicious pulling, as the phrase goes, than Ladbroke dis 
 played at their first row of the following season, when 
 crowds gathered every evening at the boat-houses, every 
 man in the crew was carefully criticised, and, above all, 
 their general working as a crew became a matter of the 
 most eager interest. 
 
 Succeed at Worcester ? Of course they would ! There 
 had been no crew like this, for years, in either college. 
 Men felt sure of it. Professor Darby, looking on every 
 evening from one of the lower bridges as the}^ shot under, 
 had declared it as his opinion ; and the university spirits, 
 none too cheerful after the defeat at Worcester last year, 
 were rising day by day as the fresh spring evenings came 
 round, and the crew day by day took on a better style, 
 and pulled together more as one man. Goldie was glori- 
 
330 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 ous, as always ; Loring, pulling at No. 2, was only infe 
 rior to Goldie as a finished, powerful oar ; Ladbroke was 
 regarded as the great man in the waist of the boat ; and 
 from Goldie to McGregor, chief of bow-oars, every man 
 was equal to his position. 
 
 "They re taking a mighty long pull to-night!" said 
 Freemantle in a crowd of men at the boat-houses, one 
 evening. " Can any thing have happened? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " said somebody. " Mac is only coaching 
 them ; that s all. He likes to get them up above there, 
 where he can have them to himself, and give them a 
 piece of his mind." 
 
 " By Jove ! I m glad he hasn t me to give a piece of 
 the aforesaid mind to," piped up a senior, young Rub- 
 badub, the long-stemmed smoker. 
 
 " Coals to Newcastle? " asked Freemantle, turning to 
 Rubbadub. "By Jove! who s that?" he said, looking 
 up the river. 
 
 Two men in ordinary dress, and two in the thin rig of 
 boating-men, with bare arms and necks, handkerchiefs 
 about their heads, were seen running towards Cambridge, 
 across the upper bridge, at a rapid dog- trot. 
 
 "Lord, it s Hammersmith and Breese ! And is it 
 Goldie ? And Ladbroke ? 
 
 " No, it s Goldie. But that s not Lad : it s Loring ! " 
 
 "No, yes, it is: it s Loring and Goldie. Come 
 along, Pinck : something has happened ! " And our luxu 
 rious Freemantle, roused hy unusual excitement, and in 
 terest in the Varsity, started off with Pinckney to meet 
 the runners, settling into a steady trot themselves, a 
 crowd following at their heels. 
 
 What is it ? What is it ? Has any thing happened ? 
 they asked, as the runners were met on their way to the 
 square. 
 
 "Upset!" said Goldie, continuing to run; "shell 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 381 
 
 smashed to smithereens ! Ladbroke nearly drowned ! 
 That s all." 
 
 How did it happen ? Somebody run into you ? asked 
 Rubbadub, puffing after them wheezily. 
 
 " Go to thunder ! " roared Goldie. " Who asked such 
 an asinine question? Think I m going to stop here, and 
 catch my death of cold? " And the two crowds of run 
 ners, narrowed down now to the original four, with Free- 
 mantle, Pinckney, and a few others, came tearing into 
 Harvard Square, to the vast wonder of everybody whom 
 they met. 
 
 Two more men in boating-costume soon came jogging 
 across the bridge. A milk-cart followed them at a dis 
 tance, emptied of its fragrant cans, and bringing Mc 
 Gregor and Ladbroke, the latter tying half prone in a 
 layer of straw, propped up on McGregor s knees. Lad- 
 broke was driven to his rooms outside the quadrangle. 
 The milkman would listen to no offer of reward for his 
 services. " Well, then, old man, I ll see you again some 
 day," said McGregor. " Thank you very much for your 
 kindness." And the news spread like wildfire through 
 out the university, that the crew had had a bad upset at 
 one of the upper bridges, and Ladbroke had been nearly 
 drowned, only saved by Breese and Hammersmith dash 
 ing in after him as the two were taking a constitutional 
 in that direction. 
 
 "Well, how was it George?" asked Pinckney, as the 
 old hero was dressing in his rooms. A great splashing 
 of water in a tin hat-tub was heard from an inner room ; 
 and out of the midst of the noise came Goldie s voice to 
 the few men in waiting in the outer room : 
 
 " Simple enough. That confounded bridge with the 
 crooked draw ! I wish some friend of the college would 
 have the blamed thing made straight ! We were shooting 
 it all right, with considerable headway, when Mac turned 
 
832 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 his head and saw one of those beastly, low coal-barges 
 sticking its nose right across the draw on the other side. 
 For God s sake, hold her hard all ! he shouted. And 
 we held her as well as we could ; but it was too late, 
 though Mac put the rudder hard port, and repeated his 
 command to back her. We struck the old barge with a 
 tremendous crash. As much as ten feet of our bow must 
 have been smashed to splinters ; and, before we knew 
 where we were, one of those whirling eddies had caught 
 us, we were thrown back on the piles, and ever} 7 man of 
 us was struggling in the water. By Jove I don t believe 
 in these toe-straps ! at least, in having them so tight. I 
 thought I should be drowned myself, at first ; couldn t get 
 my feet clear of the straps for a terribly long time after 
 the boat was on its side. I did so finally, however, and 
 struck out as well as I could. 
 
 " The fellows were all about me, Loring astride of the 
 boat, Mac treading water amidships, holding on to the 
 shell, and the oars bumping a,bout in every direction. 
 We could all swim but Ladbroke, you see ; and each fel 
 low had so much difficulty in looking after himself, that 
 what with the swift current, which pulls through there 
 like a mill-race, the boat and oars bumping into us, and 
 the stretcher-straps (which bothered Loring and me, at 
 any rate, a good deal) , we had as much as we could do to 
 look after ourselves. But when I came up and looked 
 about me, I sung out, Where s Lad? and Loring, sitting 
 on the shell, was looking about him on every side. There 
 he is ! he shouted, pointing to the lower end of the 
 bridge ; and, plunging from the shell, he joined me, and 
 we struck out down stream. We could see his arms thrown 
 up in the air, and then disappearing, good God, how 
 it makes me shiver to think of it ! and the current was 
 hurrying him along so, as he struggled, that we feared we 
 might not reach him in time. 
 
HIS HAKVAKD DAYS. 383 
 
 "We hadn t taken a dozen strokes, however, much 
 less time than it takes to tell it, when we saw somebody 
 run out on a long plank projecting from the bridge, give a 
 tremendous spring, and take the most magnificent header 
 that I ever saw in my life, Pinck, coming down within five 
 feet of where we had last seen Ladbroke s arms disappear. 
 It was Breese ! And if that man isn t a glorious fellow 
 in the water, my dear boy, I never saw one that s all! 
 Hammersmith jumped in after him ; and, before we had 
 reached Breese, he had come up with Ladbroke, who must 
 have gone down for the last time. Hammersmith and we 
 swam about him ; and it took us but a moment to land him 
 on the marsh, and set to work on him. The other men 
 were out by this time. The bargemen helped us out with 
 the shell ; and, by the time Mac had captured a wagon of 
 some sort, Breese and some of us (by Jove ! he seemed 
 to know exactly what to do, and was worth all the rest of 
 us put together) we had brought Lad to sufficiently to 
 risk bringing him back to Cambridge ; and we put him in,, 
 and started off." 
 
 " Think there s any danger for him? " asked Free- 
 mantle. 
 
 The old stroke, beaming and fresh from his exercise 
 and his bath, here came out in a loose shooting-jacket, 
 and, ramming his hands into its pockets, strode about the 
 room as he continued to discuss the accident. 
 
 " That s more than I can say. I hope not, I hope to 
 Heaven not ! He has a magnificent physique ; but he 
 looked almighty bad when we had him out on the marsh." 
 
 " Can t he swim at all? " 
 
 44 Not a stroke," said Goldie. "Great shame! It 
 ought to be a sine qua non on a man s entering a crew ; 
 and I m surprised the thing is not insisted on." 
 
 " Shell a perfect wreck? " 
 
 " I fear so. I looked at the old thing on the bank, and 
 
334 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 don t see how it can possibly be fixed up. We ll have a 
 pretty time raising subscriptions for a new one, eh? " 
 
 " I m afraid so," one of the men said. 
 
 " Freemantle, let s go round and see if we can be of 
 any sendee at Ladbroke s," said Goldie. "Fellows, 
 make yourselves at home : we ll be back presently." 
 
 It was no light matter, this severe ducking that Lad- 
 broke had received. He seemed quite himself that even 
 ing, to be sure, when he had had a little food. He saw 
 many men who called, talked with them freely on the 
 accident, thanked everybody for his kindness in the mat 
 ter, though all insisted that Breese and Hammersmith 
 alone deserved his gratitude, and the doctor prophesied 
 a little fever, possibly a week s illness, and a speedy 
 recovery. 
 
 "Will it be safe for him to row again, doctor?" 
 McGregor had ventured to ask after a day or so. 
 . " That depends. I think so, if you men will allow him 
 perfect rest and quiet, and not let him attempt too much 
 after he s first up." The medical opinion was immedi 
 ately made known ; and McGregor became almost as good 
 as a lackey in the hall of Mrs. Ripraps, Ladbroke s land 
 lady, so anxious was he that men should be kept away 
 from him to give him the perfect rest. 
 
 The second day, as the doctor had prophesied, fever set 
 in. It became much worse on the third ; and his mother 
 was sent for from Providence, and came posting, full of 
 anxious solicitude, to her boy s bedside. 
 
 Ladbroke, unconscious at first of the danger that he 
 was running, lulled, perhaps, by the treatment which he 
 received, lay for some days in a state of semi-stupor, only 
 rousing himself at intervals to inquire if his mother were 
 near him, and appearing resignedly happy if she were. 
 When the fever seemed breaking, he sent often for one 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 335 
 
 man after another, Goldie, McGregor, Breese, Ham 
 mersmith, anxious only to see them, and feel the touch 
 of their great brawny hands. 
 
 His mother s watchful tenderness and careful minister 
 ing, too, ah, how it comforted him, after his life of 
 excesses and selfish pleasures, only lately interrupted by 
 this renovating boating experience ! He seemed entirely 
 content to follow her with his eyes as she busied herself 
 with one tender duty after another ; and you may be sure 
 that all his past wild life came crowding its bitter memories 
 into his mind as he lay and watched this loving presence 
 moving about him noiselessly, anticipating his wants. 
 He talked with her about his Cambridge friends, his pro 
 fessors, his duties, (Heaven knows his letters home had 
 been infrequent enough !) and he was filled with pleasure 
 when she shared his interest, and spoke approvingly of 
 this or that manly young fellow who had just left his bed 
 side. 
 
 Hammersmith had been as frequent a caller as many 
 another, no more, no less. When Ladbroke s fever had 
 been apparently broken with effect, however, and he was 
 allowed to see people more freely, it was Hammersmith, 
 Hammersmith, for whom he continually asked, till his 
 mother suggested, with timid emphasis, that she feared 
 Mr. Hammersmith might be interrupted in his work, or 
 feel that he was giving too much time to her boy. But 
 no, he must see Hammersmith again and again. And 
 Tom, for his part, looked upon it as exceedingly odd, and 
 almost an indication that Ladbroke s old wandering fit 
 had come upon him again, that he, who had been on 
 barely speaking-terms with Ladbroke for months now, 
 should be so frequently summoned to his side. 
 
 But could he refuse if he would? So, day after day, 
 evening after evening, he came and sat by the feverish 
 young man, bringing him news of the outside world, 
 
336 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 how the Cricket Eleven was just about plajdng a match 
 with the " Aristonicans ; " how the crew was practising 
 only every other day now, with Albertson temporarily in 
 Ladbroke s place ; how everybody was anxious for his 
 getting out again ; and how Goldie had declared that they 
 were just as sure to beat Yale at Worcester, with Lad- 
 broke, as they were of the sun s rising on the day of the 
 race. The poor fellow was delighted and refreshed by all 
 this breezy intelligence, coupled with such praise of his 
 own powers. His eyes would brighten, and he would ask 
 Tom to tell him again of Farley s famous drive for six on 
 the Boston s cricket-grounds, and what changes Yale had 
 made in her crew, and so on ; but Tom could see that his 
 mind was working at something, planning something, 
 what he could not imagine. 
 
 Hammersmith was not surprised, therefore, one even 
 ing after Ladbroke s fever had returned rather alarmingly, 
 to receive a note from his mother, saying that her son 
 wished particularly to see him, and would he come round 
 at once ? 
 
 "Mother, will you step into the next room for a few 
 moments, please? I have something special that I wish 
 to say to Hammersmith," he said when Tom entered. 
 
 " Certainly, my son. But you will promise not to ex 
 cite yourself? He is a little feverish to-night, Mr. Ham 
 mersmith : you will not allow him to talk too much? " 
 
 " No, indeed, madam ! Hadn t I better come to-mor 
 row instead, Ladbroke?" asked Tom. 
 
 "No, no, I want you now ! " and he pointed to a chair 
 near him. His mother went out ; and Hammersmith sat 
 down. 
 
 "Hammersmith, I ve been wanting to tell you some 
 thing for a long time," he began, talking hurriedly, and 
 then waiting for breath, as in all his conversation of the 
 evening. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 337 
 
 " Well, my dear fellow? " 
 
 " And now I must tell you, because I m going to die. 
 Yes, yes, I am : you do not know as well as I do. I m 
 never going to walk out at that door again ; I know it, 
 and I am trying to be prepared for it. I have been 
 such a fool, Hammersmith, such a worthless fellow ! I 
 wonder anybody has ever thought me worth speaking to ! 
 But the kindness of you men these last days has been 
 almost too much for me to bear. I should not dare say 
 how I have thought over it all, and all my past follies, 
 and prayed, in my poor way, that the Lord might spare 
 me a little life, just enough to show that I can live a 
 good life, if I have a few friends to keep me up to it." 
 
 " Of course you can, Ladbroke ; of course, you can! 
 Come, don t run on in this way, old fellow. I know 
 you re going to get well. You must get well. Every 
 body says you are picking up wonderfully, and you ll be 
 out yet to give old Yale the biggest kind of a defeat." 
 
 But the hot hand which Ladbroke laid now and then on 
 Hammersmith s, and his unnaturally high color and bright 
 eyes, belied the cheerful augury ; and poor Tom felt strange 
 ly uncomfortable. 
 
 " No, no ! You re very kind, Tom, let me call you 
 Tom to-night : I hear all the men calling you so, but I 
 have never dared to ; you know why, you re very kind ; 
 but I know it can never be. I am going to die ; but I 
 must first tell you, I must tell you what has been on my 
 mind so long that it has almost driven me wild, especially 
 since you have been so kind to me, coaching me in the 
 boat with the rest, and saving my poor life just now in 
 the river. Yes, of course, Breese too, and the rest ; but 
 you with them. Tom, it s about Tufton." 
 
 " Oh, no, no ! don t mind about him, my dear fellow ! 
 That s passed and gone long ago," said Tom. 
 
 " Yes ; but it has not passed out of my mind," said 
 
338 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 Ladbroke ; " and it is not what you think, perhaps. You 
 know that we had some words once in a freshman s room 
 last year, you and I " 
 
 "But that s all passed too, Ladbroke. I m sure I ve 
 forgotten all about it long ago," pleaded Hammersmith. 
 
 "But I ve not forgotten it," answered Ladbroke. 
 "And, first, I want to beg your pardon for what I did and 
 said that night, Tom. Yes, I do ; and I insist that it was 
 beggarly mean and disgraceful in me ! There, I feel better 
 already, though I would never have been able to sa} T it, 
 probably, if it had not been for all that has happened 
 in these last few days, thank God for them! That 
 evening, and the words that we had, seemed to put me 
 on the wrong track, somehow ; and I pass over ah 1 those 
 miserable weeks and months when I was such a wretched 
 fool, and you and I never spoke. I am sorry for it now ; 
 but I thought I was all right then, and only standing on 
 my dignity. 
 
 " Then Tufton and you were so thick, and I was pretty 
 intimate with him too, the infernal scoundrel ! (God for 
 give me for calling any man such a name ! ) Then you and 
 he fell out. But, for some reason or other, the fellow 
 seemed to make a good deal of me, and I suppose I was 
 flattered, and so stood by him. 
 
 " Your Boggle affair came to a head at the same time, 
 I suppose ; and, when Tufton left Cambridge, he talked to 
 me about you, and at last made me promise to do any 
 thing that I could to injure you. I was a fool and a vil 
 lain, I own, Tom, and I beg your pardon for what I did ; 
 but I promised him and swore to him (we were together 
 in town at the time) that I would do what I could. And 
 he told me all his plans, how he was going to leave 
 Cambridge the first rainy day, have his friend Crosby go 
 off to New York with that Boggle girl (well, you know 
 what she is) , and he himself wait about in town a week 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 339 
 
 or more for some money that old Boggle owed him. Can 
 you forgive me for knowing all about your affairs in this 
 way, Hammersmith, and making such a dirty promise to 
 injure you? " 
 
 "Certainly, I can, Lad! Here s my hand on it ! I 
 know, to my cost, how insidious that old Tufton was, my 
 dear fellow ! I ve some news of him himself that I ll 
 tell you when you are through, from Penhallow, my old 
 chum." 
 
 "Well, then that Bradstreet scrape came on, and the 
 faculty order threatening to decimate the class if the per 
 petrators did not come forward. It was a miserably thin 
 trick, I own, Hammersmith ; but I said to myself, Here s 
 my chance ! and rushed in to tell Tufton, who got up that 
 note to the faculty, saying that you and Goldie were at 
 the bottom of the affair : you ve seen it,- of course ? Yes ; 
 and, to make it seem as if it came from somebody out 
 here, I, fool that I was ! brought the note out with me, and 
 dropped it in the mail Sunday evening, when there was 
 nobody in the post-office. And Tom, I felt like a thief, 
 or a murderer, or anybody else that s low and mean ; but 
 I had promised to do it, and so I mailed it, and felt that 
 everybody I met on the way to my rooms must see by 
 my face that I had been doing a dirty trick. Can you 
 forgive me, Tom? Thank Heaven that your friends, some 
 of them, were successful in saving you, at any rate ! " 
 
 " Come, come, don t get excited! We ll have a jolly 
 old laugh some day over the whole thing, and break a 
 bottle of champagne on it yet," said Hammersmith ; and 
 he seized one of Ladbroke s hot, wasted hands in both his 
 own brown hands, and added, " Of course I forgive you, 
 old boy ! You ll get well, and have a great time at 
 Worcester ; and next year you will be such a swell in 
 Cambridge, that " 
 
 "Aren t you talking too long, Harry dear? Excuse 
 
340 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 me, Mr. Hammersmith," said Ladbroke s mother, putting 
 her head in at the door. 
 
 " No, mother ; but we re just about through now. I do 
 feel a little tired, though. Are you going? " 
 
 " I d better go, I think," said Tom. " I ll be around 
 here in the morning again ; and I know I shall find you 
 immensely better, and already calling out for your boxing- 
 gloves, or perhaps even for your seat in the boat, who 
 knows?" 
 
 " Oh ! by the way, Tom, I want to leave I want to 
 give you something. I haven t much up here to give you ; 
 but I wish, I really wish, that you would let me make 3^ou 
 a present of my boxing-gloves. They re a very fair set, a 
 particularly good set old Molineaux says ; and I m sure 
 I shall not be I m sure I m never going to use them 
 again " (Mrs. Ladbroke was looking down anxiously and 
 inquiringly at him). "I m such a great boating-man 
 now, you know, mother, that I shall never have time to 
 box any more, I mean. You ll take them, Tom? " 
 
 " Not a bit of it, not a bit of it ! " said Hammersmith. 
 "What, put my unskilful fists into the gloves that you 
 have made famous, my dear fellow ! Can t think of it, 
 Lad : I should be afraid of disgracing them." 
 
 "Ah, Tom, but you will ! " But Tom would not, though 
 he continued to banter and chaff the invalid in a pleasant 
 way about his famous gloves ; and at last, catching up his 
 thin hands in his own, he said to him, " Well, old fellow, 
 I ll see you in the morning, and we ll have another bout 
 with the gloves, eh? " and went out suddenly, waving his 
 hand to him in a cheerful way as he opened the door, and 
 bowed to Mrs. Ladbroke. 
 
 Two nights later Ladbroke died. All the awe and 
 mystery which wait on death came to impress with sudden 
 power the young and cheerful circles where Ladbroke had 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 341 
 
 so recently moved, as fresh, as sturdy, as full of vitality, 
 as any. It was the first time that pale thoughts of death 
 had entered the class of Hammersmith ; the first time that 
 one had gone out from their number never to return alive. 
 At the class-meeting which was held the next day in the 
 " Institute " rooms, where the usual resolutions of respect 
 and condolence were passed, the hushed silence, the 
 young men sitting and moving as with a sense of some 
 awful surrounding power whose presence they had never 
 fully realized till now, every thing, testified to the sudden 
 emphasis with which the mystery of life and death had 
 been brought home to them. 
 
 A deeper meaning, an unexplained tenderness of grace, 
 seemed to fill all the old familiar scenes where Ladbroke 
 had lived and moved, rejoicing in his strength. The very 
 elms appeared to rustle above them in more solemn whis 
 pers. Could it be the same quadrangle as before, the 
 same sunny society, the same groups of confident youth 
 appearing to defy dissolution ? Men spoke in low tones of 
 poor Ladbroke : it was so sudden, so unexpected ! they 
 could not believe it. Only yesterday, as it were, hearty, 
 active, stronger limbed than almost any of his mates ; to 
 day, dead, the life gone out of his glorious muscles, his 
 classmates asking themselves whither had fled the inform 
 ing spirit which yesterday made a man, to-day leaves him 
 clay. What sage, what philosophy, what preacher, can 
 entirely answer them ? 
 
 At the services held in the chapel the following day, Dr. 
 Brimblecom made no labored attempt, no learned treat 
 ment of the awful mystery of life and death, no threaten 
 ing deductions from the present event which had come to 
 startle them with its suddenness. His sermon was simple, 
 impressive, homely. What were we to learn from the 
 lesson of youthful health and strength and confidence 
 snatched away in the fulness of its power ? What was 
 
342 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 the reason of the wider vision, the greater longing, the 
 deeper purpose, which the preacher felt sure had come to 
 each one among his young hearers under the influence of 
 this removal of their classmate by the hand of God ? We 
 were to learn that at all times, everywhere, we were to be 
 prepared for his quick summons ; that the young man only 
 just polishing his shield, and hardening his muscles for 
 the battle of life which awaits us all ; those in the thick 
 of the fray, dealing stout blows for the causes which they 
 hold just ; the aged, weighty with wisdom and experience, 
 or bending with infirmities ; the merry schoolgirl, the anx 
 ious mother, the innocent child, all were liable at any 
 moment to hear the mildly stern voice of God, and to be 
 called away from their earthly careers. Yes ; and the idle 
 reveller, the scoffer, the fool who would see no nobler end 
 in life than personal gratification and luxurious idleness, 
 the false at heart, the mean in spirit, sooner or later 
 they must be confronted, as were the preacher s hearers 
 to-day, with the great questions, How have I labored with 
 the powers which I have had given me ? Have I done all 
 that I could to make my own life pure, simple, aspiring, 
 effective ? Have I done what I could to make the life of 
 those about me more cheerful, more comfortable, happier? 
 Why am I here ? For what am I laboring ? Am I labor 
 ing for any thing ? 
 
 Simple, straightforward questions, which the preacher 
 proceeded to answer for his hearers, arousing all that was 
 manly in them by the warm sympath} of his manner and 
 the plain directness of his language, showing them that 
 life was merely lent to us, not given ; that the earth was 
 a battle-ground, where only cowards refused to take their 
 part, and only weaklings cried out that there was no bat 
 tle ; . and that the 3 r oung men within his hearing were 
 doing their duty, and worthity preparing themselves for the 
 greater struggles awaiting them in the world, if they were 
 
HIS HARVAKD DAYS. 343 
 
 doing their work squarely, living purely, giving a hand to 
 their brothers who needed it, fearing God, and leaving the 
 result to him. 
 
 And, approaching the event of Ladbroke s accident ano 
 death more nearly, he went on to say, that much as he 
 had thought, and read, and discussed the matter, on one 
 side and the other, he could not bring himself to believe 
 that the sports which flourished among them, through one 
 of which Ladbroke had met his death, were harmful, if 
 properly conducted. On the contrary, he believed that 
 what the world needed as much as any thing else was a 
 stalwart manhood, a strong-limbed Christianity, which 
 could make its way against turbulent opposition, and 
 which early muscular training was calculated particularly 
 to foster, if it were only regarded as a means, a divine 
 means, not an end. In conclusion, he begged the young 
 men, with all the authority of his sacred office, to heed 
 his words, to go on to make their sports and exercises all 
 serve the end of a sturdy, God-fearing life, and not allow 
 them to lapse into excesses, and mere animal pastime. 
 And he urged that Ladbroke s death would have taught 
 its lesson, and served the purpose of the Most High, if it 
 should make his young hearers more thoughtful, more 
 careful of life, more strenuously earnest. 
 
 Not a young man present but felt that he was better for 
 the dear doctor s sermon, and made bravest of resolutions 
 to stand by the good words of the preacher, who had 
 spoken to them as a father, and seemed to know so well 
 what their young thoughts and trials were, and to sympa 
 thize with them so keenly. 
 
 A sweet anthem was sung by the Glee Club in the organ- 
 loft ; a benediction full of tenderness was pronounced by 
 the beloved preacher ; and many a man went out from the 
 chapel that day, filled, as he never had been before, with 
 a sense of the beauty of correct living, and the manliness 
 of stout endeavor. 
 
344 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE GREAT QUINSIGAMOND RACE. 
 
 " Put your hand upon the oar," says Charon, in the old play to Bacchus, 
 " and you shall hear the sweetest songs." HIGGINSON. 
 
 " But what good came of it at last? 
 
 Quoth little Peterkin. 
 1 Why, that I cannot tell, said he; 
 
 1 But twas a famous victory. " SoUTHET. 
 
 JOY, joy unbounded, in the rooms of Goldie, where a 
 meeting of the Harvard Boat Club was in progress. 
 Before that meeting, called -to devise ways and means 
 of replacing the three-hundred dollar shell destroyed in 
 the late accident on the river, Goldie the glorious, 
 Goldie the never-despondent, Goldie, the mighty oars 
 man, produced a letter, and it ran as follows : 
 
 BOSTON, June 2, 186 -. 
 To Mr. GEORGE GOLDIE, 
 
 President Harvard University Boat Club. 
 
 Dear Sir, Word has reached me that the shell of the Var 
 sity was rendered unfit for use by the unhappy accident on the 
 river several weeks since. Knowing as I do, from some slight ex 
 perience in boating matters at Cambridge in the small days of the 
 sport, that the subscription-list is by no means a popular or re 
 markably successful document among undergraduates, I desire to 
 say that a number of gentlemen, mostly alumni of the university, 
 take this means of offering to the Harvard Boat Club a shell of 
 such pattern and equipment as shall be decided upon, and from 
 whatever maker may be desired. 
 
 Trusting that the sad loss of Mr. Ladbroke may not be irrepara 
 ble, and that, if the club shall decide to accept this offer of a boat, 
 I may have word to that effect as soon as is convenient, 
 I am, my dear sir, very respectfully yours, 
 
 GAYTON HAMMEESMITH, 
 For a number of friends of the University. 
 
HIS HAEVAED DAYS. 845 
 
 A second letter laid before the meeting, which had been 
 received two days before from Yale, read as follows : 
 
 NEW HAVEN, May 29, 186-. 
 ROBERT MCGBEGOR, Esq., 
 
 Secretary Harvard University Boat Club. 
 
 Sir, At a meeting of the Yale Navy held this day, it was 
 unanimously resolved, that the sympathy of the navy and the 
 college be extended to the Harvard University Boat Club for the 
 loss of Mr. Ladbroke of the university crew, and an expression 
 given to the hope that it may not result in the abandonment of 
 the race at Worcester in July. If any accommodation in the mat 
 ter of time or boats is desired, I am instructed to state that the 
 Yale navy places its fleet of boats at your disposal, and will agree 
 to any change in the date of the university race that may be found 
 convenient for both crews. 
 
 Renewing the expressions of condolence for the loss of so valu 
 able a member of your crew, and requesting to be informed at 
 as early a day as possible if any change or accommodation is de 
 sired, as stated above, I am, with much personal regard, 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 F. P. TEEBY, 
 Secretary Yale Navy. 
 
 No wonder that there was vast joy on the reading of 
 the first of the two letters, and that the motion was im 
 mediately put, and carried viva voce. No difficulty, evi- 
 dentty, in replying to the friendly offer of the "Duke" 
 and his friends. 
 
 But what should be said to Yale ? And what possible 
 prospect w r as there of replacing Ladbroke ? A crowd of 
 a dozen or more men, bound together ~by a loose organi 
 zation called the Harvard University Boat Club, was 
 gathered in Goldie s rooms at this suddenly-called meet 
 ing, debating these two immensely important questions. 
 A boat was ready to their hands so soon as the builder 
 could put it together ; and McKay was noted for his de 
 spatch in turning out work for the university. Five men, 
 as splendidly trained as ever men were trained so long 
 
840 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 before a race, were ready to step into it and take theii 
 seats, the moment it arrived in Cambridge waters. But 
 who could be found to take up that mighty oar at No. 3, 
 and fill at all worthily the place of poor Ladbroke, whose 
 superb strength and ever-improving form of rowing had 
 given the crew such power and the whole university such 
 hope ? 
 
 What answer, then, was made to the polite note of 
 Yale, and who it was that took up that oar at No. 3, to 
 the delight of the crew, the university, and Harvard men 
 generally, may be inferred from later developments, which 
 we are permitted to witness, together with whomsoever is 
 interested in athletic rivalry and the success of the old 
 Varsity. 
 
 Red, red, red, blue, blue, blue. 
 
 Red at the throat of beautiful girls, blue in the hats of 
 beautiful girls. Red on dainty parasols, blue on the whips 
 of Jehus. Red on the heads of horses, blue on the canes 
 of dapper young students. Red and blue, the colors of 
 Harvard, the colors of Yale, everywhere about the shores 
 of Quinsigamond, a pretty wooded lake in the neighbor 
 hood of Worcester. 
 
 All the ruddy pigment of flaming sunsets, all the blue 
 ether of mid-summer heavens, seemed to have been bor 
 rowed for this gala-day by the merry } r oung people on the 
 borders of the lake, and to be adding a flowery fringe to the 
 woodland, in whose afternoon shadows they were waiting 
 for the great Harvard- Yale race of the year. If the sun, 
 looking down, mistook all this radiance for a sudden 
 efflorescence under its July warmth, and wondered at the 
 gay petals blown here and there along the banks, he was 
 not far from right. For it was a great red rose from the 
 Cambridge hot-houses that had burst upon the still town 
 and quiet rural pond that afternoon; and the abundant 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 347 
 
 blue, that outshone the blue of the waters, was an exotic 
 growth from the direction of the tropics, where it flourishes 
 vigor ousty on the borders of the sea, and whence it yearly 
 comes to match its colors with those of its bright-ribboned 
 sister of the north. 
 
 To a group of students chatting with the Darbys, Miss 
 Hammersmith, and Miss Fayerweather in their landau, 
 come Breese and Pinckney, walking rapidly up from the 
 direction of the boat-houses. 
 
 44 How are they? how are they?" asks Freemantle, 
 from the box. 
 
 " All right," answers Pinckney. " Loring was a bit 
 under the weather yesterday ; but he s feeling tip-top 
 now. Oh, they re in beautiful condition ! " 
 
 " Mr. Pinckney, how is my cousin? " asks Miss Darby. 
 
 " Goldie ! Did you ever know him when he wasn t in 
 training to row a race! He s as fine as silk! " said 
 Pinckney. 
 
 " I m very glad," she began but Breese was saying 
 to Miss Hammersmith, on the other side of the carriage, 
 " Oh, your brother is in magnificent form, Miss Hammer 
 smith ! He ll do his share of the work to-day, you may 
 depend." And Miss Darby turned towards him to hear 
 what he said. Her eyes brightened with pleasure as she 
 heard his words, and as Breese went on praising Mr. Tom 
 and the rest. How was Breese to know if their bright 
 ness meant pleasure that he was there talking to her, or 
 pleasure that the news he brought was good news of Ham 
 mersmith ? 
 
 " You re sure Tom is well and strong, Mr. Breese? " 
 asked Miss Hammersmith, looking earnestly at him. 
 
 "I assure you yes," he answered. "I never saw a 
 man in better form in my life, pon my word ! You ll 
 see, you ll see." And Ruddiman approached, and made 
 his bow, bedaubed with red from head to foot, and 
 
348 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 chaperoning a small dog, copiously provided with the 
 same color. 
 
 " Miss Mabel, what do you think of it? " he asked. 
 
 4 Of what, Mr. Ruddiman? " she returned. "The 
 dog?" 
 
 " Oh, no ! But he s a beauty, isn t he? Here, Spot ! 
 Down, I say ! What do you think of the lake, and 
 every thing? " 
 
 "It s very pretty, very pretty indeed ! But I m so 
 anxious for the race to begin ! And I m so afraid Tom 
 will work too hard ! " 
 
 " Oh, nonsense ! He ll take care of himself. By the 
 waj r , I came near forgetting it, here s something he 
 sent up to you. I ve just seen him at the boat-house." 
 And holding on to his six-inch dog with one hand, with 
 the other he fished into a side-pocket, and brought up a 
 couple of little wild rose-buds, sadly withered, and some 
 what odorous of Ruddiman tobacco. 
 
 " For me? " asked Miss Mabel. 
 
 " I suppose so," he said. " Tom didn t say. Oh, yes ! 
 he said, 4 Take these up to show em I m still alive. 
 Down with you, you beggar you ! Stop your snuzzling ! " 
 
 Miss Mabel took the buds, and handed one to Miss 
 Darby, who was arranging it at her throat when Brecse 
 turned from talking with Professor Darby, and saw the 
 little adornment : the merest shade passed over his face, 
 for he knew the famous wild rose-bush by the boat-house, 
 which the crew tended so carefully. But every thing 
 else was forgotten when Freemantle suddenly shouted, 
 "Here she is! Here s Yale!" as a blue-topped crew 
 came swinging under the bridge, and shot past the crowds 
 on shore, spurting a bit, to warm themselves up. 
 
 "Oh, isn t it beautiful!" said Miss Hammersmith. 
 " How perfectly they row ! " 
 
 "You just wait!" said Ruddiman. "You ll see 
 something finer than that yet ! 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 349 
 
 " By the way, Mr. Ruddiman, what a traitor you must 
 feel like to-day, to be talking against your old college ! " 
 said Miss Hammersmith, "and wearing your new love s 
 colors!" 
 
 " Wearing what? Oh, yes, exactly! " he said, blush 
 ing a shade more, if discrimination were possible, and 
 withdrawing his eyes from a neighboring carriage in 
 which were Miss Summerdale and Miss Pinckney, with 
 Mrs. Summerdale and her sister from Worcester. " Ah ! 
 4 red is the color of life, you know," he added. 
 "And blue is for hope, is it not? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes. But hope without life isn t good for much ; is 
 it, Miss Mabel?" 
 
 "Is life without hope any better?" she asked, glan 
 cing, as if casualty, towards the carriage of Miss Pinckney. 
 She was a quick-witted young woman, this Miss Mabel, 
 if this was her first introduction to college-scenes, or col 
 lege-men rather ; and she had not needed Miss Darby s 
 information to be aware that the heir of all the Ruddi- 
 mans had a vulnerable spot in his armor, which the 
 utmost ingenuity of the lad could not conceal. Nay, I 
 doubt not he had a secret pleasure in letting all the world 
 see the havoc that a certain young Southern beauty was 
 alread} 7 making with his coy affections, and felt that it 
 was a noble spectacle, the sight of Ruddiman wasting 
 away in the fires of a grand passion. 
 
 "Well, life and hope each seem to need the other 
 pretty badly, Miss Mabel," he said. " Halloo, there s 
 Harvard ! Now you ll see some rowing, Miss Mabel ! 
 Hooray! " 
 
 " Rah, rah, rah ! " came from a multitude of throats, 
 as the old Varsity, pulling leisurely, with beautiful rhythm 
 of stroke, glided out from under the causeway, and took a 
 turn, as Yale had done, up the lake. 
 
 Goldie heard the well-known cry, arid quickened his 
 
350 HAMMEESM1TH : 
 
 stroke a trifle ; the six bodies rose and fell as regularly aa 
 a trip-hammer ; the six crimson- covered heads went for 
 ward and backward in perfect time, with absolutely equal 
 sweep. 
 
 " Isn t it wonderful? " said Miss Darby. 
 
 * I never saw any thing like it ! exclaimed Miss 
 Mabel. "It s like a machine! Which is Tom, Mr. 
 Ruddiman?" But she turned to find Ruddiman gone, 
 fled to the Summerdales carriage ; and Breese answered 
 her question. 
 
 " That is your brother, three from the rear, Goldie, 
 Loring, your brother." 
 
 " Good old Tom! " she said, riveting her eyes on the 
 crew, and scarcely breathing as she watched the perfect 
 motion with which they sped over the lake. 
 
 Two guns, boom ! over the lake ; signal for the boats 
 to come into line. 
 
 Yale and Harvard paddle slowly down to the judges 
 boat, and draw for place. They move off to their posi 
 tions ; and the rudder of each boat is held in line* by a 
 friend in a skiff. 
 
 4 By Jove! Yale has the inside!" said Freemantle, 
 surveying the boats from the box of the landau. 
 
 "What do you mean by that, Mr. Freemantle? " asked 
 Miss Hammersmith. 
 
 " It s a mile and a half up to the turning-stake, a 
 mile and a half down, of course. They turn from right 
 to left around the stake ; and the boat on the inside, you 
 can see, has the greatest advantage, that is, if the boats 
 are abreast all the way. If the boat on the outside can 
 put clear water between its stern and the bows of the 
 inside crew, they are allowed to draw ahead, and turn 
 first, besides giving the rear crew its wash, and otherwise 
 impeding it." 
 
 "But can Harvard put what do you call it? clear 
 water between itself and Yale ? asked Miss Darby. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 351 
 
 " Trust Goldie for that ! " said Freemantle. " A Har 
 vard crew s strong forte is a quick start, and a spurt for a 
 little distance, till it is clear of the other boat. If noth 
 ing happens, Goldie will be in the lead almost before they 
 pass us here : see if I am not correct ! But there they 
 are: they re off ! " 
 
 The report of a pistol, a quick flashing of oars by the 
 two boats, just a little spray thrown into the air, and the 
 great race is begun. 
 
 The crowd grows quiet ; the young ladies stand up in 
 their carriage, and look eager-eyed at the straining crews ; 
 and suddenly Harvard men break into prolonged cheer 
 ing, as Freemantle s prediction seems being fulfilled, and 
 the old Varsity, fairly leaping through the water under 
 the powerful stroke of its six young oarsmen, creeps up, 
 up, and is almost clear of Yale as they pass Regatta 
 Point. 
 
 44 Rah, rah, rah!" "Oh, well rowed, Goldie!" 
 "Well rowed, three!" "Clear water already, by 
 Jove!" "Yes, but look at Yale!" "It s nobody s 
 race yet, I tell you! " "What a magnificent spurt of 
 Harvard s! " and a thousand other cries are raised as 
 the crews fly past. 
 
 A crowd of men on foot, yelling, cheering, waving 
 hats, shouting vainly to the crews, dash by the carriages, 
 following the boats from the start, and skirting the lake 
 for a distance, till the nature of the shores prevents prog 
 ress. The Darb} T s horses plunge, the 3 oung ladies give 
 pretty little screams of fright, and Freemantle an 
 nounces, 
 
 " Yes, by Jove, Yale is picking up most tremendously ! 
 Will you look through my glass, Miss Hammersmith? " 
 
 "Thanks! Oh, she is, she is! Do you think Yale 
 will beat, Mr. Freemantle?" 
 
 " Hard to say," answered Freomantle. " They ve the 
 
352 HAMMEESMITH: 
 
 finest crew that they ve turned out for years ; but so have 
 we, thanks to Goldie and your brother, and I think 
 it will be a mighty close race." 
 
 And a mighty close race it seemed to the excited groups 
 looking on from shore, from boats along the banks, from 
 the little steamer which punted and screeched along in 
 their wake. Yale was most emphatically crawling up, 
 slowly but surely. Was Goldie allowing it, merely to 
 shake her off again, and spurt once more for the lead 
 before reaching the turning- stake ? Or was his crew 
 already exhausted by the powerful work at the quick 
 start, and already out-rowed by Yale ? 
 
 We may trust Goldie, as Freemantle had said. He 
 has not set his grand stroke for this crew for months now, 
 and tried every exhausting trick of quick start, repeated 
 spurt, long, many-miled pull, and final burst of speed, all 
 to no purpose. He will pull a glorious race to-day ; and, 
 if he is beaten, he will be fairly and squarely beaten by a 
 superior crew. It will be a crew with a head to ii, too, 
 that will beat him ; for Goldie s work is as much of the 
 head as of the muscles, and you may be pretty sure that 
 he has gauged the capacities of Yale, as well as his own 
 crew, long before this, and knows perfectly what he is 
 about when Yale seems to be out-rowing him, and fighting 
 for the lead. 
 
 But the crowds on shore are in a fearful excitement : 
 the betting fraternity rush about wildly to " hedge " their 
 bets ; Yale stock is perceptibly advancing ; and a buzz of 
 wonder, inquiry, excited talking, runs through the mass 
 of people straining their eyes up the still lake. 
 
 Meanwhile the crews are thrashing the water far up on 
 their course, spurting alternately for the lead. The sur 
 face of the water is as quiet as a mill-pond. Nature 
 seems holding her breath, like the interested young women 
 on shore, and looking on in anxious suspense at the two 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 853 
 
 crews of her young heroes, striving in friendly rivalry. 
 And surely the light ripples seen on the upper borders of 
 the lake are but the result of the quick breathing of water- 
 nymphs and startled deities of the woody neighborhood, 
 peering out from leafy retreats upon the manly } T oung 
 invaders. 
 
 Five minutes, eight minutes, ten minutes, pass, short 
 enough periods to careless spectators, if any such there 
 are, but amply long for the tense oarsmen, bending to 
 their work like the athletes that they are, putting in prac 
 tice all the skill and muscle, and dogged plucky persever 
 ance, that they can command. Only McGregor glances 
 now and then out of the boat to mark their course, and 
 note the progress of Yale : the rest, with clinched teeth, 
 and eyes glued to the backs of the men in front of them, 
 give all their care to the strength and unison of their 
 stroke, which Goldie the glorious, most perfect of oars 
 men, is setting them. 
 
 Ten minutes, twelve minutes, pass. The crews have 
 been many minutes out of sight, a wooded point cutting off 
 the upper end of the course from view, and increasing the 
 anxiety and wonder of the crowds below. Field-glasses 
 are levelled at the woody headland, the band stops play 
 ing its bucolic misery, and at last a shout is raised, 
 
 44 Yale, Yale ! " " No, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard ! " 
 as a boat appears far out in the middle of the lake, pull 
 ing powerfully on the return. 
 
 44 What is the color of their handkerchiefs? " 
 
 " Crimson, crimson ! " 
 
 " No, blue, blue ! Yale, Yale, Yale ! " and the Yale 
 crowd grows frantic with excitement. 
 
 "Is it blue?" asked Miss Hammersmith. " Is it 
 blue, Mr. Freemantle? Please tell me quick ! " 
 
 44 It looks very much like it," he answered. " But I 
 can t see very well, the reflection, or something. Will 
 you take the glass? " 
 
354 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 " It is blue, it is blue, Ellen," she said mournfully, 
 putting down the glass. " Why did I ever come here? 
 And where is Harvard ? Poor Tom ! Can any thing 
 have happened, Mr. Breese? O Mr. Breese ! can they 
 have been upset?" 
 
 Breese shook his head dejectedly. " I don t know," 
 said he. " Something has surely occurred." The young 
 ladies looked, oh, so pretty and interested as they stood 
 gazing up the lake, breathing quickly ! Ruddiman sung 
 out to Freemantle, " I say, Free, will you take my dog up 
 there? I m afraid he ll get stepped on." To which Free- 
 mantle returned answer, " Go long with your pup ! Take 
 care of your own live-stock, can t you? " And Harvard 
 men generally were a good deal of Freemantle s petulant 
 frame of mind, when the very air seemed to split with a 
 tremendous shout from five hundred throats, 
 
 "Harvard, Harvard, Harvard! There she is! Har 
 vard!" as the Varsity suddenly appeared hugging the 
 very shores of the headland, and so concealed, until now, 
 from the sight of the crowds below. Yale was in the 
 centre of the lake, pulling beautifully. 
 
 "She s ahead! " 
 
 "Who s ahead?" 
 
 "Harvard!" 
 
 "No, Yale." 
 
 " Yes no ! Jove, but it is close ! " And the two crews, 
 almost exactly abreast, and apparently putting every pound 
 of weight on their strokes, came gliding and leaping down 
 the course, heading for the line, somewhat below Regatta 
 Point. 
 
 "I thought Goldie knew what he was up to," said 
 Freemantle. " Rah, rah, rah ! " 
 
 "It isn t over yet," said Breese. "But I think we 
 have them." And the cool philosopher climbed on the 
 box with Freemantle, and looked down upon the strug 
 gling crews now nearing the point. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 355 
 
 " Yale, Yale, Yale ! Yale has them ! Beautifully rowed, 
 Yale ! " was now the shout, as the two boats were nearly 
 opposite the point ; and Yale, though a length in the rear, 
 her bows lapping the rudder of Harvard, was gradually 
 but visibly leaping to the front, and lapping more and 
 more the Varsity boat. 
 
 Can it be that Harvard s men are out-rowed and out 
 generaled? Have their repeated spurts, and that tremen 
 dous struggle to turn the stake first (in which they were 
 successful) , used up all their magnificent reserve of power ? 
 It was cruel ; it hardly seemed possible : but anybod} T , 
 looking on from the shore, could see that another minute 
 of such rapid gaining, and Yale would be in the front, 
 crossing the line, the victor. 
 
 But what is this ? 
 
 If an inquisitive water-god had pricked up his sub 
 aqueous ear somewhere near the ever-watchful McGregor, 
 in the Varsity boat, he would have heard him say quietly 
 and slowly, " Now, George, hit her up ! " He would have 
 heard Hammersmith pass along the word, "Hit her up, 
 George ! And the next instant the old chieftain had 
 quickened his stroke three or four to the minute, laying 
 his broad back down to the oar, and feeling his fine crew 
 answer his effort with increased vim. 
 
 " Ah, well rowed, Goldie!" "Superbly rowed, Lor- 
 ing ! " " Harvard, Harvard ! " " Now for a spurt such 
 as you read of!" "Hammersmith, Hammersmith!" 
 " O glorious ! were some of the shouts about the young 
 ladies, as the Varsity picked up the quickened stroke of 
 Goldie, and jumped away from Yale almost immediately, 
 showing clear water between them. 
 
 "Dear old Tom!" said Miss Mabel, seizing Miss 
 Darby s hand. "How he s working away! Isn t he? 
 Isn t he a dear fellow?" And Miss Darby, hardly no 
 ticing the double question, turned and beamed on her. 
 
356 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 Breese smiled down from the box. Pinckney, returning 
 on a run from the headland with a crowd of excited men, 
 passed them, shouting, " How s that ! Isn t that glorious, 
 Miss Ellen ? " Ruddiman extricated his crimson pup from 
 a fearful combat with a blue-ribboned terrier fired to ven 
 geance by defeat ; and with a crash of music from the 
 band, and a rain of cheers and shouts from the mass of 
 their friends, Harvard crossed the line a couple of lengths 
 in the lead, after one of the closest races on record. 
 
 Men were still screaming, cheering, hugging each other, 
 throwing their hats in the air, when Ruddiman cried out, 
 " Can t stand this any longer ! Must go and hug some 
 body ! " and dashed off, with his pup in his arms, to find 
 consolation in the embrace of some hilarious classmate 
 longing for the same relief to his feelings. 
 
 The young ladies laughed as the little red man rushed 
 off. The two crews were shaking hands over the sides 
 of their boats, down at the finish ; and presently Harvard 
 came rowing slowly and beautifully to the point, carrying 
 the champion flags. 
 
 The band has been playing, " Lo, the conquering hero 
 comes!" It stops. Somebody calls out, "What time, 
 fellows ? " " Eighteen fifty-three ! shouts McGregor. 
 And a line of six bronze-backed young fellows turn their 
 faces shoreward, and grin with delight, grin like a row 
 of Roman soothsayers, while the air is filled again with 
 shouts and cheers and the dear old name of Harvard. 
 
 The great race is over ; and yet it is not over. An 
 almost severer trial is on hand for the young heroes, when 
 they enter the Bay State House in the evening, coming 
 up from the boat-houses, and find a surging, boisterous 
 crowd of men, from all the colleges within easy reach of 
 Worcester, talking, shouting, prophesying already for next 
 year s races. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 357 
 
 Goldie is seized, Loring is seized, Hammersmith, 
 McGregor, each member of the crew, is seized, and 
 mounted on the shoulders of enthusiastic students, who 
 parade them up and down the halls, cheering each in turn 
 and calling vainly, " Speech, speech ! " But nobody will 
 speak. McGregor says emphatically, " No, I ll be hanged 
 if 1*11 make a speech ! What ! pull like a demon in the 
 boat, and then come up here to be made to speak a piece ! 
 Not if I know myself! " But he laughed while delivering 
 his truculent words. The crowd shouted, "McGregor, 
 McGregor ! Three cheers for Mac ! and felt that they 
 might well afford to excuse him from speaking, if he 
 would always give as good account of himself in the boat 
 as to-day, and when had a McGregor of the line ever 
 done otherwise ? 
 
 But presently "Speech, speech! Goldie, Goldie!" 
 was called ; and the old warrior, mounted on the shoulders 
 of Breese, Pinckney, and others, was cheered and invoked, 
 and cheered again, till he had to stop bowing and grinning 
 at the crowd, and in self-defence attempt to say some 
 thing. 
 
 4 Well, fellows , I don t know what I can say. " ( " Oh, 
 any thing, any thing ! Three cheers for Goldie ! " Rah, 
 rah, J rah ! ) "I can t say I thank you for the honor con 
 ferred," ("Three cheers for the honor conferred !" 
 Rah, rah, rah !) " because I feel that every man in the 
 crew is as much entitled to the credit of to-day s victory 
 as I." (" Three cheers for to-day s victory, fellows ! 
 Now ! " Rah, rah, rah !) "But I can say one thing, fel 
 lows, and that is this," ("Three cheers for c one thing ! " 
 Rah, rah, rah!) "that, after the loss of Ladbroke two 
 months ago, there was only one man in all the college that 
 could fill his place, and help us win the victory that we ve 
 won to-da} T ; and you know who that is as well as I do." 
 ( Rah, rah, rah! "Now, fellows, three times three for 
 
358 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 Hammersmith!" Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah! 
 Rah, rah, rah ! " And three cheers for his uncle ! " Rah, 
 rah, rah ! ) " And I know that every man in the crew feels 
 the same about it that I do," (" Three cheers for every 
 man in the crew ! " Rah, rah, rah !) " or I should not 
 dare to speak of it. Now you ve done a lot of cheering," 
 (" Three cheers for a lot of cheering ! " Rah, rah, 
 rah ! ) " and I want to propose a cheer. It s a great thing, 
 fellows, to hare a good square race, isn t it? " (" Yes, 
 yes ! " Rah, rah, rah !) "And we ve had a good square 
 race, and we haven t a single word to say against Yale ; I 
 hope Yale hasn t a word to say against us." ("Three 
 cheers " ) " Hold on ! " said Goldie. " I say, I hope 
 the} 7 haven t a word to say against us. Every man in their 
 crew has behaved like a gentleman towards us, from the 
 first day that we met on the lake ; and I believe every 
 man in their crew believes that they were fairly and 
 squarely out-rowed to-day, and is ready to acknowledge it, 
 as I m sure we should have been ready to do, if we had 
 been beaten." ("Three cheers for " ) "Hold on, I 
 say ! It s a good thing to have a fair and square race, 
 no fouls, no tampering with boats, no hard feeling on either 
 side. We ve had such a race this year, I think I can say ; 
 and I want all you fellows that are coming up to take our 
 places to remember what I say, and see to it that you 
 have just such downright, straightforward, out-and-out 
 honest races as we ve had to-day. Everybody feels better 
 after it ; and the University need not feel ashamed of us, 
 and try to put a stop to boating among us, if we only 
 behave as we ought, and conduct every thing on the 
 square. 
 
 " Now, fellows, I ve made a long speech for me " ("No, 
 no! Go on, go on!") "but I can t help thinking a 
 good deal on the subject, because I believe in these things 
 most emphatically. I want to see boating, and every thing 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 359 
 
 else that s manly, flourishing among us ; and I think it s 
 a downright shame to let it be broken up or degenerate, 
 because two crews cannot meet and have a perfectly fair 
 trial of strength and skill, as we ve had to-day. Now, 
 we couldn t have had this kind of a race, if Yale had not 
 met us half way, and treated us exactly as well as we 
 treated them. So what I want to propose is three times 
 three for Yale, her crew and her men generally. Let 
 them be regular top-lifters ! " And the old stroke waved 
 his hat ; and I query if ever the broad corridors and halls 
 of the Bay State House had listened to such hearty, rever 
 berating cheers as the whole concourse Harvard, Yale, 
 Williams, Amherst, Brown gave in response to Goldie s 
 call. 
 
 The Yale stroke was called on for a speech, which he 
 gave most gracefully, after the manner of Yale men, 
 among whom off-hand speaking receives more attention 
 than it used to receive in Cambridge in Hammersmith s 
 clay, and returned the compliment of Goldie by leading 
 off in an answering chorus of cheers for Harvard. 
 
 Then another attempt was made at Harvard oratory ; 
 and Hammersmith, blushing profusel} 7 , was hoisted aloft, 
 and the halls rang again with cheers ; for the handsome 
 young fellow with the brown eyes and the broad shoul 
 ders, that had done such execution to-day, did not need 
 Goldie s praise to arouse the ample enthusiasm with which 
 he was received. Why he had not rowed the year before, 
 when Harvard was so unhappily beaten ; how he had for 
 sworn rowing most persistently, and given in only when 
 Ladbroke had died, and Goldie s personal intercession 
 had been added to his own growing conviction that he 
 was called on to make good Ladbroke s place, after the 
 peculiar relation of Ladbroke and himself to the Varsity 
 crew in these two different years, all this was known 
 to Yale almost as well as to Harvard men. When the 
 
360 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 stalwart young fellow was lifted up, therefore, and both 
 colleges looked on the man who had had so peculiar a his 
 tory, and had done such sturdy work in the boat to-day, 
 no wonder there were excitement and enthusiasm. 
 
 He was not expected to say much, and he did not dis 
 appoint the expectation : 
 
 " Thank you very much, fellows, for your cheers ; but 
 I can t take any great credit to myself for the day s 
 victory." (" Oh, yes, you can ! Three cheers for Ham 
 mersmith !" Rah, rah, rah!) "You see, I had to 
 make up for last year, and " (" You ve done it, you ve 
 done it! " Rah, rah, rah!) " and so I confess I put 
 every pound of muscle I had on my oar to-day," (" Three 
 cheers for his oar to-day, fellows ! " Rah, rah, rah !) 
 " and I intend to be on hand in future, whenever I m 
 wanted." (" We ll always want you, shall we not, fel 
 lows?" Rah, rah, rah!) "Now, I don t know that 
 I ve any thing more to say. Put me down, won t you, 
 Breese?" ("No, no! Give us a sentiment, give us a 
 sentiment ! ") "A sentiment? I don t know any senti 
 ment ! Well, I think we ve cheered about every thing 
 to-night, fellows ; but there s one thing that we have not 
 cheered." ("Out with it, out with it! Give us a 
 rouser.") " I propose three times three for Boating, 
 fellows, Boating with a big B, and for everybody 
 that is fond of pulling an oar." And great manly cheers 
 were given for the favorite sport of the day, cheers 
 which filled the house with echoes from cellar to attic, 
 and went whirling out of doors and windows into the 
 night air, till they must have reached the God of Boating 
 himself, resting on his oars in the neighboring lake ; and 
 I wonder that he did not come up with all his rosy-muscled 
 crew to return thanks in person for the young fellow s 
 sentiment. 
 
 Hammersmith, then, was put down, and Loriug and 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 361 
 
 others were swung up, and made to say a word, whether 
 they would or not. The cheers, the merriment, the bois 
 terous noise, were kept up till everybody was tired, and 
 everybody had exhibited his exceeding joy over the day s 
 victory. 
 
 Gradually the crowd melted away. A few hilarious 
 notes were still heard issuing from upper windows of the 
 hotel, where convivial celebrations were in progress. 
 A few attempts were made to utilize the chandeliers as 
 gymnastic apparatus by jolly acrobats fond of swinging. 
 A few hastily-organized companies of infantry paraded 
 the corridors, with monotonous tramp, and strenuous effort 
 at melodious music. But the speeches, the toasts, the 
 celebration proper, were over ; and most of the men, with 
 hoarse voices, and faces red from cheering, left the hotel, 
 and appeared later at the grand ball given by the citizens 
 of Worcester in honor of the sports. 
 
 If Miss Mabel had been excited by the race and her 
 dear Tom s achievements on the lake, she was dazzled by 
 the ball in the evening. The merry dances, the champion 
 flags set up on the stage, the music, the fair women and 
 fairer girls ; the bevy of young squires hovering about her, 
 attracted by the star-like radiance of her beauty, and a 
 certain girlish frankness such as might be expected in a 
 Hammersmith maiden ; yes, even the blithe Ruddiman, 
 released now from canine care, but still flamboyant with 
 his 4 new love s colors;" and the severe Breese, taking 
 another lesson in microscopic analysis, all went to make 
 up a pageant quite bewildering to the young girl from the 
 banks of the Hudson. 
 
 But when, late in the evening, the two crews entered, 
 with a number of friends, and the hall rang with cheers 
 (as the whole town had been ringing for half a day now) , 
 and Tom and Goldie came up, and received the congratu 
 lations of the Darby group, blushing ever so becomingly 
 
362 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 through their brown cheeks, and looking so immense and 
 strong among the pale dancers and non-boating men, Miss 
 Mabel s cup was more than full. 
 
 "Dear Tom, I m so very, very glad for you! " she 
 said as Tom was shaking hands : he had not seen them 
 since the race. 
 
 " Oh, it s nothing ! " answered the young hero, smiling. 
 How white his teeth looked, in contrast with the deep 
 brown of his face and neck ! And what a destructive 
 grasp he gave with his great hand, only squeezed into 
 gloves this evening with the utmost difficulty ! 
 
 " Aren t you almost tired to death, Tom? " she asked. 
 
 " Pooh ! " said Hammersmith. " Not a bit of it ! 
 Miss Darby, can you allow this beautiful waltz to go un 
 improved ? Will you dance ? 
 
 "With pleasure," she answered, " if you aren t too 
 great a hero to condescend to frivolities." But Ham 
 mersmith exhibited a remarkable condescension. Breese 
 looked on, and wished to Heaven that he were a boat 
 ing-man. Puny men envied Mr. Tom his magnificent 
 strength ; and Ruddiman the flashy confided to Miss Mabel 
 that Tom was a "most confounded lucky dog!" Miss 
 Mabel didn t like the expression in the least, but thought 
 him the handsomest and strongest and best of brothers. 
 
 They brought her word, also, of the great demonstra 
 tion in the hotel halls, the speech that Goldie had made, 
 complimentary to Tom ; and how Tom had been lifted 
 upon the shoulders of his friends, and had made a speech 
 himself, and been cheered and cheered by both colleges. 
 Later in the evening Mr. Tom was made to take his place 
 in the Glee Club, on the stage (he had been greatly 
 missed at their concert the evening before), and was 
 cheered again as he stepped on the platform. So that the 
 young girl was quite bewildered by it all, the race, the 
 dazzling ball, the ovation to her dear Tom, and the whirl 
 
HIS HARVAKD DAYS. 363 
 
 of excitement in which he was caught up and carried 
 along, while he seemed all the time to keep his head, and 
 look about him as though it were the most ordinary matter 
 in the world. "What a cool old Tom he is ! " she thought 
 to herself. 
 
 And when it was all over, and Tom and Breese had 
 escorted the ladies to their hotel, Miss Darby thanking 
 Breese for his kindness, with an excess of earnestness 
 which was quite feminine, but quite incomprehensible to 
 Breese, who was not aware that anj^body but himself had 
 regarded the secondary position in which, as a non-boat 
 ing man, he had been placed during the day and evening, 
 when it was all over, and Tom and Breese had walked off 
 together, the young women, you may be sure, sat a long 
 while, after the manner of young women, talking it over, 
 and crooning, as is their fashion, over this " bright, bright 
 day." 
 
 " I never had such a pleasant time,? said Miss Ham 
 mersmith at last. "And I m so happy that you asked 
 me to come with you, Ellen dear. I had no idea that 
 Tom was such a great man in his college, though ! Why 
 hadn t you told me? Ellen, what are you thinking of ? " 
 she asked, as she saw Miss Darby sitting, with her hands 
 folded in her usual manner, looking before her into 
 vacancy. 
 
 "Oh, nothing!" she answered, rousing herself, and 
 giving Miss Hammersmith one of those looks which are 
 said to be common with young women, and are believed 
 to mean a great deal. " I was thinking that you must 
 promise me you ll come on to Class Day next year, dear 
 Mabel. You will enjoy it so much; and he will your 
 brother will be so glad to have you ! You shall stay with 
 me, and your mother too ; and come as long as possible 
 before Class Day: it s so delightful in Cambridge in 
 June ! I shall admire to have you." 
 
364 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 " You re very, very kind, Ellen ; and I shall be only too 
 happy to do so if mamma will consent. * 
 
 And so the two young people sat talking far into the 
 night, and" cementing a friendship which had existed only 
 in a spasmodic correspondence since the days of Miss 
 Darby s Fresh Pond accident, and in a few days inti 
 macy before the Quinsigamond race. And I envy the 
 little rosebud, sadly withered and faded to be . sure, 
 which Miss Darby took from her hair, and placed in a 
 glass on the mantel, whence it looked down upon the two, 
 talking themselves to sleep in ever briefer and more lan 
 guid speech, for it must have been a pretty sight. 
 
HIS HAEVAKD DAYS. 365 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A MOUNT DESERT EPISODE. 
 
 " Nature will not be stared at." MARGARET FULLER. 
 
 " Likewise Glorious Followers, who make themselves as Trumpets, of the 
 Commendation of those they Follow, are full of Inconvenience ; For they taint 
 Businesse through want of Secrecie." BACON. 
 
 DID Mr. Gay ton Hammersmith ever forgive his coer 
 cive nephew and the too urgent Darbys for luring 
 him to spend two mortal weeks at Mount Desert during 
 this junior vacation of Mr. Tom s? Mr. Gayton, who 
 might have been taking his comfort at his club, or been 
 made much of by those dear, delightful Minturns at 
 Nahant, or been gadding about from one grand country- 
 house after another, ever welcome, ever garrulous, and 
 ever well fed. And here he was at Mount Desert, which 
 then as now, to be sure, was glorious in mountain gorges, 
 grand towering precipices, and wave-beaten cliffs, but 
 which recalled too closely that Swedish inscription of 
 Thoreau s, "You will find at Trolhate excellent bread, 
 meat, and wine provided you bring them with you." 
 How the old Duke thanked his stars on the day when 
 he escaped from the thin banquets of mine host Higgins, 
 and came in sight, on the following day, of the yellow 
 dome of the State House, and was sure of a good dinner 
 at his club, with Antoine God bless Antoine ! to wait 
 on him ! 
 
 I know that it is all changed now. I know that cock- 
 neyism and civilization have carried their manners and 
 
366 HAMMEESMITH: 
 
 customs to the lovely island, into its every nook and cor 
 ner ; that huge caravansaries have supplanted the primi 
 tive rookeries of the days of Hammersmith the discov 
 erer ; and that the abundant Robertses, Rodicks, and 
 Higginses have retired on the profits from corner-lots, on 
 man} of which Mr. Gayton s nabob friends have erected 
 comfortable cottages for their summer life. Ah, what 
 serenades and glees we have sung on their broad piazzas 
 and in their ample parlors, when the Glee Club was pres 
 ent in force, and the picnic party from Schooner Head 
 had returned, and the moon was full ! But this was some 
 years after the martyrdom of the " Duke." I know, too, 
 that acres of Harvard men have since that date explored 
 every cranny of the wild little island, from South-west 
 Harbor to Bar Harbor, paradise of Higginses, and 
 have talked breezy nonsense with many a short-kilted 
 j r oung creature, rosy as to her cheeks, startling as to her 
 trig mountain-dress, on every peak, through every glen, of 
 the place. Have I not heard since then, in every drawing- 
 room from Boston to San Francisco, these same young 
 women raving in a sane, feminine way, over the glories 
 of the many-featured island, and the "wonderful combi 
 nation of sea and land attractions " ? No wonder that a 
 clever Bostonian recently concluded that the artesian flow 
 of adjectives was about exhausted, and that a fresh word 
 should be employed to describe the charms of the place, 
 as well as to rebuke extravagant praise of nature by 
 bursting youth. "Yes," said he, "it is neat: Mount 
 Desert is very neat." 
 
 It was essentially a new land, with a primitive popula 
 tion, a primitive mode of life, and a primitive style of 
 feast, in the year when the Darbys, the Summerdales, 
 " Duke " Hammersmith and his nephew, Breese and Rud- 
 climan, with a few others, the Flamingoes and Scurrys 
 of New York, the Bludsoes from Boston, and several 
 
HlES HARVARD DAYS. 367 
 
 blistered youth who rowed thither in wherries, came to 
 molest the ancient solitary reign of the natives, agog with 
 wonder at the invasion. 
 
 The "Duke" and Mr. Tom had come and gone, the 
 "Duke" thanking his stars, as has been said, at the 
 termination of his martyrdom, Mr. Tom not quite so 
 eager as he to leave the hearty life of the island ; and the 
 name of Mount Desert might not have appeared at all 
 at this stage of the chronicle, had it not been for a cer 
 tain excursion, made a day or two after Mr. Tom s de 
 parture, which indirectly exerted quite a decided influence 
 on the young fellow s subsequent history. 
 
 The Darbys, the Flamingoes, the Summerdales, the 
 Scurrys, gorgeous in petticoat and jaunty hat, and numer 
 ously escorted by the 3 oung men of the party, were climb 
 ing and exclaiming, and running pleasant little dangers 
 up among the slippery rocks and the shadowing firs of the 
 glen, a fine bit of a steep canon between Green and Dry 
 Mountains. Ruddiman was on hand, elaborate in knicker 
 bockers and costly walking-shoes, many colored as to his 
 raiment, a striking chromo-lithograph, as he marched 
 ahead boldly, grasping an alpen-stock, and offering super 
 fluous aid to the } ounger Flamingo, also bright of hue. 
 Young Pynetop, from Bangor, and his friend Bricker- 
 brack, the elder Albertson, who had just arrived, Breese, 
 stoutly shod and soberly dressed for the scramble, and 
 Professor Darby, were ajso there. The latter was in 
 charge of a numerous caravan, consisting of Mrs. Darby, 
 Mrs. Summerdale, a spinster Scurry of remarkable ambi 
 tion, but very short breath, and pretty Miss Edith Sum- 
 meidale, by no means a mighty pedestrian, but fired with 
 emulation to keep up with the stronger-footed, and going 
 off into merry little screams as she was helped over a 
 fallen tree, or had to jump the brook, clamber up a mossy 
 rock, or perform other brave deeds on their way up the 
 
3G8 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 ravine. Miss Darby, in trimmest of blue walking-suits and 
 stout shoes, with a simple knot of garnet-colored ribbon 
 at her throat, which shone fair and white, set off by her 
 dark blue collar, and with a sensible, broad-rimmed hat 
 of commonest straw, trudged quietly among the foremost, 
 helping herself over difficulties by means of a long walk 
 ing-stick, and seeming not to need the aid of Breese, who 
 yet hovered near, and was ready to offer it when he 
 thought fit. 
 
 " What a chattering lot those Flamingoes and Scurrys 
 are ! " said Breese, with some spirit, as they were nearing 
 the head of the glen. 
 
 "They are. But I suppose they enjoy themselves in 
 their way; and that s what they came for, I imagine, * 
 said Miss Darby, balancing herself, with outstretched 
 arms, on a wet log by which she was crossing the stream. 
 
 " Be careful there, Miss Darby ! But they seem such 
 an incongruous element in a place like this ! added 
 Breese. "They might as well come out in their ball- 
 dresses to coquet with old dame Nature, for any good 
 they ll get out of a tramp like this ! Look at Miss Fla 
 mingo, la plus jeune! " 
 
 " Chacun a son gout," said Miss Darby, looking back at 
 the party some distance below them, and at the Flamingo 
 in question, who was receiving a wild flower, captured at 
 great risk to his precious neck by the nimble Ruddiman, 
 and was going off into a series of extravagant exclama 
 tions, 
 
 "I never saw any thing half so sweet! I never saw 
 any thing so pretty ! Look, Sue ! N*est-ce pas? Merci! 
 Mr. Ruddiman, you are too kind ! How very brave you 
 are!" And Ruddiman the brave, sweeping a magnifi 
 cent salute with his hat (and disclosing sundry suspicious 
 green spots in his light-colored trousers, as he climbs 
 ahead), mounts a prominent rock, and accomplishes a 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 369 
 
 terrific jodel, a peculiar war-whoop of his own inven 
 tion, which he has raised several times during the after 
 noon, when his pent-up feelings were likely to smother 
 him unless allowed escape. 
 
 " What a fool that Ruddiman makes of himself! " ex 
 claimed Breese, as tliejodel went echoing up through the 
 glen. 
 
 " How severe you are, Mr. Breese! " answered Miss 
 Darby. 
 
 "But doesn t he?" 
 
 " He is a funny little man most assuredly, tres drole, 
 I heard Miss Flamingo call him last evening. But he s 
 a harmless creature ; and I really think he s quite a pic 
 turesque addition to the landscape." 
 
 " So would a red cow be, or a donkey, for that matter," 
 said Breese. " I can t see what business such people 
 have, what right they have, in a place like this." 
 
 "But you wouldn t chain them up at home ! " 
 
 c I would lock everybody like the Flamingoes and the 
 S curry s, and our young judeller here, into some place, 
 New York, we will say, and not let them see a forest, 
 or a mountain-peak, till they would promise to look at 
 them in a decent way, and to leave their simpering city 
 airs behind them." 
 
 " But who is to decide what the decent way is, as you 
 say?" asked she. 
 
 " You or I, or anj^body who knows that Nature is not 
 meant to be patronized, returned Breese quickly. Any 
 body who feels that Nature is a great mystery, to be looked 
 upon with awe, in silence." 
 
 " Oh, gracious ! " said Miss Darby. " Where do } ou 
 get such gloomy ideas, Mr. Breese? Shut everybody up 
 in prison till they can promise to sit down, and never 
 smile in the face of Nature, or look upon her as any thing 
 but awful and fearfully mysterious! That s worse than 
 
870 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 jour Ceutuiy of Hubbub doctrine. I am afraid you are 
 a very sombre man at heart, Mr. Breese." 
 
 "No, I m not; no, I m not," answered he almost 
 sharply. " But tell me truly, doesn t it grate on you to 
 see a crowd like that flirting and chaffing and coquetting 
 in such a lovely spot as this ? 
 
 " Of course I think that s all very silly," she answered. 
 " But, if you will excuse me, I think your great mistake 
 in looking at the world in general, is in thinking that it s 
 made only for the choice spirits and those with lofty 
 ideals of every sort, leaving no room (in your world) for 
 us poor creatures who mean well enough, perhaps, but 
 don t exactly know how to set to work." 
 
 " Please not class yourself with the poor creatures, 
 Miss Darby," he said. 
 
 " I don t know why not," she answered. " I may not 
 like that crowd, as you call it, or approve of much that 
 they seem to enjoy ; but I can t pretend that I have 
 fathomed the secrets of Nature, or have an}^ right to lock 
 my fellow-creatures up among brick walls till they come 
 to my way of thinking, I m very sure ! " 
 
 " Oh ! that s only my way of putting it," said Breese. 
 And she continued to call him a very severe critic, and he 
 objected that he thought he was only looking at the mat 
 ter as any impartial man would view it. But the waning 
 sunlight warned them that they must make haste to de 
 scend through the glen homeward. 
 
 Ruddiman s jodel was already sounding the retreat ; 
 and that jocund individual was to be seen perched on a 
 bowlder, waving his hat to those in the van. Albertson 
 and others were ahead of Breese as they were going up. 
 Breese passed the word along, and the} T all began descend 
 ing ; Breese and Miss Darby soon being left quite in the 
 rear, as they continued more intent on their wordy war 
 than on making haste out of the ravine. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 371 
 
 4 Imagine a party of Greeks of the best era going out 
 for an afternoon in a beautiful Attic ravine, with such a 
 flock of Flamingoes and Ruddimans in their wake ! " said 
 Breese, laughing, as they were descending. 
 
 44 There, again, you are thinking of only the select 
 spirits, Mr. Breese. Of course, we only hear of the great 
 men, the illustrious, among the Greeks, or the Romans, or 
 any people. But you cannot mean to say that there were 
 not simple, silly, frivolous people, of the Ruddiman type, 
 if I may be so severe, among the Greeks, as well as 
 among us, Mr. Breese? " 
 
 44 Certainly not," he answered. " But which are we 
 to follow, the silly, or the illustrious? Or don t you 
 believe in an ideal of any kind ? 
 
 4 4 You are very unkind ! I shall not answer that ques 
 tion ; for you know that I do, if I can only be sure that my 
 ideal is correct. Of course we should copy the illustri 
 ous, if possible," she continued, "but not give the silly 
 and the weak over to outer darkness because they are 
 silly and weak. I don t believe you have a particle of 
 sympathy in your composition," she added, forgetting 
 herself for a moment, and rather nettled by his severe 
 manner of regarding every thing. 
 
 44 I assure you, Miss Darby, you are overstating the 
 case," he was beginning, when Miss Darby suddenly 
 slipped from a smooth, moist rock on which she was step 
 ping, and came down in a little heap at its base, with a 
 sharp cry of pain. 
 
 44 For Heaven s sake, Miss Darby ! " exclaimed Breese, 
 jumping to her side in an instant. 44 Are you hurt? " 
 
 44 Oh, no ! I think not," she answered. 44 If you will 
 get my stick thanks ! Yes : I can walk all right. But 
 how silty I was to make a mis-step ! I am a silly Greek, 
 don t you see? " and she took up her stick, and continued 
 descending carefully, Breese keeping a sharp eye on her, 
 unobserved, and at last saying, 
 
372 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 u You are in pain, Miss Darby. Are you sure you are 
 not hurt ? Shall I go for help ? 
 
 "Oh, no, indeed!" .she answered. "I should be 
 ashamed of myself to put any one to trouble ! But I 
 think I ll sit down here a moment," and she sat down in 
 a patch of sunlight, and winced just a bit when she 
 moved one of her feet. Breese looked a moment at the 
 fair figure sitting there, dazzling fair in the sunbeams, and 
 then said, 
 
 " Hadn t I better call for somebody? " 
 
 " No, no ! " she answered. " But if you do not mind 
 looking to see where they are? " And he went ahead a 
 bit, and had a view down the glen, while she loosened her 
 boot, and began to feel better. He reported nobody in 
 sight. She was sure that she could walk perfectly well 
 now ; and they made their way slowly out of the ravine, 
 into the thick wood at its base. 
 
 " I m very sorry," she said, as they emerged into the 
 footpath among the trees ; " but I must sit down again. 
 I shall be all right in a minute." 
 
 " If it is your ankle," said Breese boldly, " the shorter 
 you stop, the better : it s always best to keep moving, if 
 you can." 
 
 Presently she started again, and kept up pluckily, 
 darkness coming on apace, and Breese looking a bit 
 anxious. Again, however, she was obliged to sit down, 
 and again she went on, till Breese saw that they could 
 not make much further headway at that rate ; and Miss 
 Darby consented that he should call for help. 
 
 He ran quickly to a turn in the path, shouted as vigor 
 ously as a robust young American can shout ; waited a 
 moment, no answer ; hallooed again, no sound but the 
 light breath of the trees in the air above him ; and he 
 came running back. 
 
 " Too bad ! " said he. " Couldn t raise a reply to save 
 my life ! How do you feel ? 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 373 
 
 " Nicely, thanks ; perhaps I can walk a little more 
 now." But five steps convinced her of her error; and 
 Breese, with some alarm, saw her sitting down again on a 
 leaf-covered mound. 
 
 "If you could lean on me," Breese began. 
 
 " How far is it to the nearest house? " she asked. 
 
 " Over a mile to the mill; but there s nobody living 
 there now, you know. It must be a mile farther to the 
 next house." 
 
 " Were the carriages to meet us? " she asked. 
 
 "No: your father sent them back after the lunch. 
 Shall I run to the first inhabited house ? 
 
 She looked up at the darkening heavens. A rising wind 
 swept through the tree-tops ; a night-bird screeched over 
 head ; and she answered, 
 
 "No: I shouldn t like to be left here alone. What a 
 bother I am ! 
 
 Breese whistled under his breath to himself a moment, 
 and struck the ground several times with his walking- 
 stick. 
 
 i Well ? said he finally. < Could I " 
 
 " I don t see," she began. 
 
 "I might" he continued. "Miss Darby, I don t 
 see but that I shall have to carry you," he announced 
 decisively. 
 
 " But I should kill you ! You don t know how heavy I 
 am ! she answered ; and she laughed at the dreary per 
 plexity of the situation. The laugh re-assuring Breese, he 
 caught her up in his arms, after more expostulation on her 
 part, and started to carry her down the woody pathway, 
 a novel role surely, for a man who had been accused 
 of having not a particle of sympathy in his composition ; 
 who had so little a while ago been forming brave resolu 
 tions not to be drawn into making the acquaintance of 
 distracting young women in Cambridge ; and who a month 
 
374 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 ago, a day ago, would have thought it as likely that he 
 would be dining with the Czar of all the Russias, or 
 flirting with an empress, as that he would be carrying a 
 young woman in his arms through leafy woods like these, 
 and that young woman Miss Darby. 
 
 "You mustn t carry me so far without resting, Mr. 
 Breese ! Aren t you almost dead? " she asked, as Breese 
 put her down for a moment, and drew a long breath, 
 making it as short as he could. 
 
 " Oh, no!" said he, "you re as light as a feather." 
 She laughed at the idea (you might have seen a pretty 
 blush on her brown cheeks if there had been light 
 enough) ; and presently Breese was carrying her again 
 down the hill towards the mill, glad now that he had 
 kept himself in such splendid training, but feeling that it 
 would take him about all night to carry this plump young 
 woman to the nearest house, and yet not appearing to 
 dislike the strenuous labor. 
 
 Not an easy task this, one would say who knows what 
 it is to be carrying a hearty young American girl in his 
 arms for a mile or two in the dark ; though you do relate, 
 my beloved scholar of Old England, how you transported 
 in like fashion a disabled pedestrian countrywoman of 
 yours, rising ten stone and a half, for Heaven knows 
 how many miles across your green island fields ! 
 
 So, with rests and expostulation, slight expressions of 
 pain from Miss Darby, and commiseration from Breese, 
 who strode onward as fast as ever his legs would carry 
 him with his fair load, they reached the old mill. They 
 sat a while listening to the night-sounds, the water run 
 ning idly past the old building, the moaning of the wind 
 through the trees about them, and watching the clear 
 stars flowing in under a black tide of clouds that was 
 rolling up from the east. Fully a couple of hours must 
 have elapsed since the accident in the glen. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 375 
 
 " I am so sorry for you, Mr. Breese ! " said Miss Dar 
 by. I shall never go on a picnic or excursion again as 
 long as I live ! I think I had better be chained up at 
 home, as } T OU were suggesting, and not allowed to come 
 out till I can take care of myself. I am a perfect Jonah 
 always, I do declare! What time is it? Wouldn t you 
 suppose my father should be coming out by this time ? 
 
 "It is only a little after eight," he answered. "Oh, 
 we re safe enough here ! I feel sure that somebody will 
 come soon ; and, if not, I can easily run down to the near 
 est house and get a team. How is your foot now? " 
 
 " Nicely, thanks ; but I can t bear a particle of weight 
 on it," and, putting it to the ground, she winced again 
 with the pain. 
 
 Nobody appearing, the clouds rolling up blacker and 
 more threatening, and Miss Darby still objecting to be left 
 in the lonely woodland spot, Breese caught her up again in 
 his arms, and was crossing a field near by, when ihcjodel 
 of Ruddiman was heard in the distance, and lights soon 
 appeared bobbing towards them. An ancient vehicle, 
 creaking and wheezing through the night, presently drew 
 up alongside of them, and the professor jumped out in 
 great excitement. 
 
 " Heavens, Ellen, what a fright you gave us ! What is 
 it ? And how did you get lost ? 
 
 " We ve not been lost, papa dear. I sprained my ankle 
 in the glen. Mr. Breese shouted and called for you, but 
 all in vain ; and he we ve just succeeded in getting as 
 far as here," she said. " Mr. Breese has been as kind as 
 he could be," she added. 
 
 "Whoa, back, you beasts!" Ruddiman was shouting 
 to his alarmed animals, which had never dreamed of 
 such a pace as that to which the} r had just been put ; 
 and the asthmatic conveyance was turned, Miss Darby 
 was lifted carefully upon the cushions, and the four drove 
 
876 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 home slowly, to the relief of the startled horses, and the 
 far- greater joy of the party gathered on the steps of the 
 Iliggins establishment, and consumed with anxiety. 
 
 It was not a dangerous sprain. A few days of grace 
 ful invalidism, a few days of smothering attention and 
 Flamingo gorgeousness of sympathy, and Miss Darby was 
 quite herself again, and equal to almost any thing but 
 hard pedestrian work. 
 
 Some idea may be had of the extreme sensitiveness of 
 Breese s nature, however, when it is said, that, long before 
 Miss Darby was able to join the various excursions which 
 went on day after day, he had left the place, and returned 
 to Boston ; to coach a freshman who was coming up to 
 fall examinations, he said, but really to avoid the pointed 
 allusions, the good-natured chaff, and the semi-sentimen 
 tal innuendoes which his connection with the glen mis 
 hap brought upon him. 
 
 Miss Darby was kindness itself in her reference to the 
 affair, thanking him ever so gratefully for his ready aid ; 
 and Breese could not admire sufficiently the womanly tact 
 she showed in never allowing the matter to be discussed 
 when he was present. Nor could he sufficiently applaud 
 her great good sense in never alluding in the slightest 
 way to the precise manner of her conve3^ance from the 
 glen to the old mill, of which everybody soon knew, 
 of course, thanks to Ruddiman, and the natural love of 
 gossip common to such resorts, and which became the 
 basis of most of the chaff and nonsense aimed at Breese. 
 It was strong and womanly in her not to make prudish, 
 absurd objections when he had proposed to carry her, and 
 she saw there was no other way of leaving the woods ; it 
 was kind and thoughtful to make light of it, and pass 
 it off with a joke, while he was trudging along with her, 
 and feeling so pleasantly uncomfortable in her behalf; 
 but it was the height of strength and thoughtfulness, and 
 
HIS IIAHVAED DAYS. 377 
 
 all that is sweetly womanly, never afterwards to allude to 
 it in the most indirect way, though by no means chary of 
 her thanks, spoken and unspoken. 
 
 But the others, or many others of the part} , bah ! And 
 Ruddhnan ! Brcesc could not endure it all. If he had 
 not entertained the slightest sentimental regard for Miss 
 Darby, if she had been no more to him than the most 
 exclamatory of the Flamingoes, he would have had the 
 same loathing of the underbred way in which his name 
 and Miss Darby s were associated, and in which people 
 made merry at her expense and his. 
 
 It would have been vastly better if Breese could have 
 carried Ruddiman awa} 7 with him, or muzzled him effectu 
 ally before he left, better for Breese, better for the absent 
 Hammersmith. For as every slight affair of Ruddiman s 
 own soon grew to most abnormal proportions by virtue of 
 the young fellow s quickening imagination, and love of an 
 audience, so the .most harmless events transpiring about 
 him were fanned into greatness by his abundant gossip 
 and inflating spirit. Men stood aghast at their own histo 
 ries as they heard them noised about the Cambridge halls, 
 until they were traced to Ruddiman the romancer, when 
 they lifted their eyebrows, and said quietly, " Oh, Ruddi 
 man !" 
 
 So the brilliant historical romancer was busy now with 
 this last episode in Breese s life. Hadn t he had an im 
 portant part to play in it himself? And was a charming 
 bit of biography to be lost to the world, merely because 
 of the trouble of composition? Hadn t he had the dis 
 tinguished honor of rescuing the young couple in question ? 
 Hadn t he heard the young woman tell her father in the 
 carriage, on the way home (sotto voce, to be sure, but 
 what lightest whisper can history disregard, else what 
 were history?), hadn t he heard her inform her father 
 that Breese had carried her down from the glen in his 
 
378 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 arms ? And what more inviting topic could that Ruddiman 
 intellect, of which his mother had spoken so rapturously, 
 find anywhere to amplify into credible history, than this 
 same fact? 
 
 Before, and long after, Breese had left the Darby party 
 on the island, therefore, the nimble Ruddiman intellect 
 and the rosy Ruddiman imagination were at work upon 
 this theme, ornamenting it with all manner of flowery 
 addition, driving Breese into exile, then drawing fertile 
 inferences from the very fact of his going away so sud 
 denly, and, altogether, preparing quite a spicy little ro 
 mance for the edification of the college-world during the 
 coming solemn senior year. 
 
 The first thing that met Hammersmith, then, when he 
 returned to Cambridge in the fall, was this delightful 
 bantling of Ruddiman s, which had waxed and grown 
 remarkably lusty during the few weeks of the young 
 man s tendance, a romantic bantling^ which was cal 
 culated to raise quite a different interest in Breese, the 
 severe scholar and self-sufficient philosopher, now thought 
 to be going the way of all men, after all. 
 
 What regard Hammersmith paid to this latest romance 
 of Ruddiman s, what was the moving cause of Breese s 
 abrupt withdrawal from the Darby party, and what fur 
 ther effect the meddlesome Ruddiraan had upon the 
 fortunes of the two friends Hammersmith and Breese, 
 the course of this history will tend in some slight way to 
 exhibit. 
 
 Happy Ruddiman, prancing gayly through life, tram 
 pling down every thing that comes in his way ! Unhappy 
 those on whose tender fields, and into whose careful pre 
 serves, his destructive tread shall come ! 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 379 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 SENIOR YEAH, AND ANOTHER PLUNGE BY BREESE. 
 
 One who em-passes his fellow-citizens in virtue is no longer a part of the 
 city. Their law is not for him, since he is a law to himself." ARISTOTLE. 
 
 " Scaliger said of Erasmus, Si minor esse voluit, major fuisset. " SELDEN. 
 
 "Everybody knows what whippings are; but nobody has as yet found out 
 what love is." HEINE. 
 
 SENIOR year, the last brief resting-place, under the 
 shadow of Alma Mater s protecting elms, before the 
 youth puts on his harness, and plunges into the whirling 
 fight without. Ah, me ! the great plans, the close friend 
 ships, the profound gravity, of that final year ! 
 
 The verdancy, the simplicity, the ardent spirit of frolic, 
 of his earlier days are passed ; and the young man stands 
 clothed with the mantle of dignity and maturity, counting 
 himself already as one of the great company engaged 
 in the world s warfare outside the college-gates. How 
 eagerly he listens now to the shouts and the clang of that 
 warfare, viewing it from his sheltered niche ! How easy 
 to win seem its victories, its rich spoils, its comfortable 
 places, to the youth untrained in its bitter reverses, its 
 sad irony of reward, its unequal conditions of battle ! 
 The world ! what is it but a second college campus, 
 where the youth has but to march forth high-hearted, reso 
 lute, and, lo ! all its honors and prizes, and satisfying 
 applause, arc his again ! 
 
 So the peaceful hum went on in the old quadrangle, 
 throughout the time-honored halls of the university ; and 
 all the country roundabout listened to the high resolves 
 
380 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 and friendly vows of the youth as they paced its walks 
 and lanes, its distant hills and woods. Could there be 
 any doubt of the future, when this man at your side, and 
 many another like him, on whose friendship you could rely, 
 was joined to you by indissoluble bonds, and had declared, 
 if not by words, yet by eloquent devotion, that he would 
 stand by you, whatever came? And the arm that was 
 linked in yours as you paced the fair college-walks, or 
 the river-bank at sunset to see the crews come in, or saun 
 tered on moonlit evenings by the houses of your friends, 
 and talked in a princely and sentimental way of this or 
 that fair inmate, dreaming happily, let us hope, could 
 this arm ever fail you? Would it ever be withdrawn 
 entirely, or forget to return the generous pressure of those 
 steadfast days? Ah, happy, happy augury! Confident 
 hope and artless trust of young manhood s time ! What 
 of later, more suspicious confidence can equal your un- 
 doubting sincerity and buoyant strength? 
 
 And Breese, all this time, while his name was being 
 connected so industriously with Miss Darby s? thanks to 
 Ruddiman and kindred gossips. How shall I express the 
 change, sudden, and yet not sudden, that had come over 
 the severe student, the aspiring philosopher, the man 
 strongly intrenched against the light attacks of contempo 
 rary men and women? How, in the short space that can 
 be allotted to it in this biography, may I indicate the 
 effect of the long acquaintance, the frequent interviews, 
 the many meetings with Miss Darby in the social world of 
 Cambridge, which have been not so much mentioned as 
 hinted at in these pages? Or shall I say at once, what 
 you have long ago surmised, that Breese had dropped 
 his shield, and lowered his lance, confessing himself con 
 quered by Love, the all-conqueror ? 
 
 Yes, Breese the all-powerful, Breese, the crusader 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 381 
 
 against society, Breese, the man " without a particle of 
 sj inpathy in his composition," had fallen victim to the 
 same wide-shooting urchin that brings us all down sooner 
 or later. He was burning with the same light fever 
 which shall fasten upon you, my pretty miss, please 
 God, and set your little heart ablaze for a certain dear 
 object, let us hope, to be faithful and steadfast, and 
 finally to find a little answering blaze lighting up the dear 
 object for whom you are consuming yourself: else what 
 a sacrifice and a wasteful conflagration we shall have ! 
 
 Stern warrior as he was, accustomed to dispute every 
 inch that he gave an invader, he had many a stout 
 tussle with himself, many a flag-of-truce and parley with 
 the freebooter Love. It was of no use. Tell me, you who 
 have fought against it, and cried it down, anfl would have 
 none of it, is it an easy victory that you have sought? 
 And you who have fled to the uttermost parts of the earth, 
 forswearing its very existence, a vessel touches on 
 your coast, a queen from out the East steps grandly 
 ashore, you look into her eyes, and down go your vows 
 and yourself at her feet : is it not so ? 
 
 No, you can no more escape it than ducks can keep out 
 of the water, or the pretty birds help twittering and mat 
 ing in the spring-time. It is a law of nature ; and, for 
 one, I am infinitely amused at the awful profundity of 
 youth, with their " curly, gold locks," who are so fond of 
 declaring their superiority to the tender passion. It is 
 vastly diverting as a spectacle ; but, lo ! a turn of the 
 kaleidoscope, a little change in bits of color and lace, a 
 droop of the eyelids, and the interesting sceptic dis 
 covers new beauty in life, and sighs and ogles, and mo 
 mently expires, with the weakest and most eager of us. 
 
 And if you are a young woman, a very young woman, 
 of course you do not assert your superiority to this tender 
 influence : what young woman ever did ? You may be 
 
382 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 dying from it ; but, oh, how carefully and gracefully yon 
 conceal its terrible effects on you ! How religiously you 
 cherish every slightest word that the dear object has 
 spoken to you ! And that little box, always locked, on 
 your bureau, how full it is of light souvenirs ! bits of 
 ribbon associated with him, rosebuds and posies of every 
 color under heaven, perhaps a curl or two of his beloved 
 hair. Yes ; but you are so modest and sweet, and en 
 tirely correct with it all ! And you might go on and die, 
 with your pretty secret wrapped about 3 r our heart, before 
 you would tell a soul of your consuming trouble. But let 
 us hope that the dear object may spare the world so sad 
 a spectacle, and you so lingering a death, and may dash 
 up on his fiery charger (of course he keeps a noble charger, 
 and rides most beautifully, like a like a what would 
 you call it? like a centaur), and whisk you away, 
 scarcely listening to your remonstrances. For that is as 
 it should be, unless we wish that the faithful female heart 
 should continue to yearn and burn, and at last sigh itself 
 out in tender sobs, that is as it should be, I say; for 
 certainly we men would not wish it otherwise : nor, what 
 ever views we may have about your " rights " (of which 
 you will hear enough later in life) , would we wish you, in 
 these matters, to be other than the modest, secretive, and 
 thoroughly charming creatures that you are, loyal to your- 
 selves, and suffering the shears of the Fates rather than 
 to attempt a bold or forward thing. 
 
 But Breese was not a gallant young fellow, prancing 
 about the country on a charger, seeking lively adventure ; 
 nor had he overmuch knowledge of young women in real 
 life, their w&ys of thinking, their unconscious duplicity, 
 their equally unconscious habit of destruction. His ac 
 quaintance with "the ladies," as my Lord Tufton was 
 wont to call them, was largely drawn from history and 
 literature, most dangerous sources of instruction on 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 383 
 
 this head, and his experience in Cambridge life had 
 been with singularly straightforward and ingenuous young 
 women, who certainly had not tried their wiles on him, 
 and might have failed most disastrously if they had 
 attempted to throw their pretty lassos over the head of 
 the grave scholar. 
 
 Every thing with Breese was subjected to analysis. We 
 have seen him standing in the Fayerweather party, trying 
 to probe the motives of the gay crowd, analyzing the 
 effect and the proper use of natural scenery (if I may use 
 such an expression) in his Mount Desert tall? with Miss 
 Darby, dissecting his own feelings so nicely in the matter 
 of the Hasty Pudding election ; and so on, in many other 
 cases that I might instance. Every thing was subjected 
 to analysis ; every thing was weighed in the delicate scales 
 of his sensibilities. Many a man, indeed, had been known 
 to shun him, for fear that Breese might bring his pitiless 
 lens to bear upon him. It is all very well for. a man to be 
 aiming at an absolutely correct life, an absolutely correct 
 estimate of every thing and everybody about him ; but a 
 personified conscience continually at your elbow, remarka 
 bly clear-eyed, remarkably relentless, is hardly an agreea 
 ble companion for any of us, much less so for a body of 
 impetuous youngsters rather fond of having their own 
 heads, and doing their own analysis when the time 
 comes. 
 
 The first question, then, naturally, with so sensitive a 
 man, was always, "What is right in the present emer 
 gency? What should I do if I were absolute master of 
 myself, and not afraid in the slightest measure of tho 
 opinions of men?" That double question he tried to 
 answer fearlessly ; and all the world could not alter the 
 action which was sure to follow, swift, decisive. 
 
 What, then, was the present emergency? And what 
 was his duty to Miss Darby, as much as to himself, 
 
384 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 when lie thought of the many-tongued rumors that came 
 to him now and then, every time louder, linking his name 
 so bewilderingly with Miss Darby s? 
 
 His duty to Miss Darby, as much as to himself, urged 
 him to see her, to give her an opportunity of saying if 
 this gossip should continue or not, and if he should have 
 the authority to silence the busy tongue of rumor one way 
 or the other. Only a coward, he felt, would sit down 
 quietly, and let the rumors fly. How could he know what 
 their effect might be on Miss Darby ? How could he know 
 any thing, except a certain very precious fact, which he 
 hardly dared name to himself until he had seen her on 
 whom every thing depended ? 
 
 We do not need to follow the tiresome, analytical man 
 further in this juncture, therefore, or insist that this was 
 an emergency greater than any in which he had been 
 called upon to act : that goes without saying. We do not 
 need to accompany him to all the Cambridge gatherings, 
 of one kind and another, where he and Miss Darby were 
 brought together again in the fall after their Mount 
 Desert experience. We do not need to say that it was 
 only after long debate, and many changing answers to the 
 double question above mentioned, that he decided upon 
 seeing Miss Darby, and settling his fate one way or the 
 other. We can imagine the quandary. We can imagine 
 the embarrassed attitude which Miss Darby and he were 
 forced to maintain towards each other. We can imagine 
 how this embarrassment was increased greatly when Mr. 
 Tom happened to be present, as was frequently the case ; 
 and how it became more awkward still, as the gossip, 
 growing by what it fed on, buzzed more and more about 
 their ears, and made capital out of every casual meeting 
 and most commonplace tete-a-tete of the two. 
 
 We only need to know that somewhere in the latter 
 part of the fall, when the mottled leaves were falling in 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 385 
 
 showers from the college elms, and the fingers of crick 
 eters were numb and tingled as they caught the hard 
 bah 1 in their games, and the crews on the river were tak 
 ing shorter pulls, and meeting white- caps oftener in the 
 basin below, Breese left his rooms one quiet evening, 
 and walked briskly to Miss Darby s, slackening his pace 
 as he neared the house. 
 
 He entered. She thanked him for a beautiful basket of 
 flowers that stood on the centre-table ; and an interview 
 took place whose sanctity preserves it from explicit men 
 tion in this place : its nature we shall learn when Ham 
 mersmith is first allowed to learn it. Then, too, we may 
 be permitted to know why it was, whether from over 
 powering joy or tumultuous grief, that Breese was seen, a 
 couple of hours later, by the casual policeman, running 
 fiercely down to Harvard Square, his hat on the back of 
 his head, seen, as well, by another person, soon to be 
 mentioned. 
 
 He was leaning out of his window late that night, look 
 ing up at the tracery of the elms against the sky, when 
 a number of men passed down Church Street, singing a 
 great chorus on their way home from a society meeting. 
 
 " Halloo, Breese ! " shouted somebody from the street ; 
 and Breese stepped back, drew his red curtains hastily, 
 and stretched himself before his light coal-fire, refuge 
 of the student alike in contemplative pleasure and gloomy 
 grief, inspiration of his sentiment, kindler of much of his 
 literary work. 
 
386 HAMMEESMITH: 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 IN WHICH A GREAT MANY PEOPLE ARE BOWLED OVER. 
 
 41 The charming Robert has no mind, they say; 
 I prove he has : it changes every day." LADY BLESSINGTON. 
 
 " Quale caput, sed cerebrum non habet." SUIDAS. 
 
 " Will you not, when you have me, throw stocks at my head, and cry, Would 
 my eyes had been beaten out of my head with a cricket-ball the day before I saw 
 thee ! " EDWARD I HILLIPS, Mysteries of Love and Eloquence. 
 
 THE gallant Ruddiman, whose last active operations 
 we have seen in the memorable glen excursion at 
 Mount Desert, many weeks ago, has been by no means 
 idle since that day bright with gay Flamingoes and rapid 
 S curry s. 
 
 Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine that ardent and 
 interesting young gentleman in any other state than one 
 of the most bustling activity, so feverish and excited did 
 his successive all-absorbing passions render him. Only at 
 night could he be said to enjoy the quiet which such rest 
 less natures need. And yet it were hard to call that quiet, 
 which was broken by the youth s troubled dreams of this 
 or that fair face, and this or that pair of distracting eyes 
 (whose color changed with every moon) , and which often 
 left him in the early morning sitting, propped up in his 
 pretty bed, smoking gloomily, and ogling a small photo 
 graph hung up in a little shrine not far from his couch, 
 a photograph which also went into eclipse with every 
 moon, and was followed shortly by another, by a different 
 artist perhaps, and of quite different style, which waxed 
 and waned, and disappeared utterly, like the rest. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 387 
 
 If I were to give a list, in fact, of the various Mauds 
 and Marians, Belles and Belindas, Lucys and Leonoras, 
 which came and went in that pretty shrine set up in the 
 midst of flashy sporting-pictures, spirited views of French 
 life in colors, favorite actresses, and disconsolate females 
 by the score, it would make a Leporello s roll, most 
 bewildering to behold, only less so than the dazzling 
 sirens themselves, if they could all be marshalled at once, 
 and come to upbraid the false but funny Ruddiman in his 
 den. What an array they would make, to be sure, with 
 their blue, black, hazel, and nondescript eyes ! And how 
 the bold Ruddiman even would be forced to tremble before 
 their united beams, to each of which, in turn, he had con 
 secrated himself, and vowed eternal devotion ! or else 
 death. 
 
 But, bless you ! he was no abandoned rake or hardened 
 villain, like many a man whose elbows he brushed *as he 
 jostled his way through life. He was a harmless, funny, 
 egotistic young gentleman of fashion, convinced that every 
 young woman that smiled upon him was already far gone 
 with the Ruddiman fever, and gratifying his tastes and 
 his desire of amusement in as innocent ways as an} body 
 could well wish. If the pile of opera-checks on his man 
 tel, or the rows of the same stuck into the edges of his 
 mirror, with the files of theatre-bills suspended alongside 
 his fireplace, showed that much of his time was spent in 
 the pleasure-halls of the neighboring capital, was it not 
 well ? Was it not meant that these two years of his at 
 Cambridge should give room for him to inform his mind 
 on the noble tragedy and the frisky farce, the tender 
 vaudeville and tfie inspiring opera, only to be enjoyed in 
 the theatres of Boston? And why not preserve, as he and 
 many others like him did, the programmes and the checks, 
 and the books for the opera, as diplomas, as evidence of 
 graduation in this Thespian College ? 
 
388 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 Let us not be too severe on him, but rather be glad, 
 that, in the halls that sheltered a melancholy, sober- 
 minded Breese, and so many more that were making life 
 a sombre and a serious thing, there could be a place for 
 this funny gentleman of the jodel (which, by the way, he 
 had taken to shouting fiercely in the quadrangle, of nights, 
 since its success at Mount Desert, to the no small dismay 
 of proctors and tutors) ; and let us be thankful that his 
 interesting existence was not entirely crushed out, or 
 frowned into dismal silence, by all the learned gentlemen 
 and habits about him. For Ruddiman, when he was 
 silent, and other than his own merry self, was the most 
 dismal and utterly mournful sight in the world, after the 
 manner of his type. 
 
 It was often, then, of a morning, after a night passed 
 in dreaming of the particular fair face enshrined for the 
 montl^ that these sombre fits caught him. Just about 
 wiien Breese, or Hammersmith, or any sensible fellow, 
 was springing from his bed, and dashing into his bath with 
 a shout, preparing for his day s hearty work, this love 
 sick young gentleman was yawning on his couch, stretch 
 ing out his hand for a pipe or a cigar, and continuing to 
 puff away most dejectedly. 
 
 It was often, too, when thus propped up among his 
 pillows, enveloped in smoke, and casting piteous glances 
 towards his place of worship (perhaps, in order to be sure 
 who was the saint enshrined for the time) , that his man 
 Waddle, opening the door softly to summon his lord for 
 prayers, and to varnish the little rows of shoes in his 
 closet, spied him smoking there in gloomy grandeur, and 
 trembled ; for the number of pillows an<f shoes, books, 
 canes, bags of tobacco, and other . missiles that the un 
 happy Waddle was made to dodge, when his master was 
 in a morose mood, was something beyond counting. 
 Much matutinal dodging had given the squat Waddle a 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 389 
 
 commendable agility, however, which he proceeded to put 
 in practice so soon as the door was opened and the dismal 
 smoker was discovered ; the labor of evasion being only 
 varied by the reflection as to what the especial style of 
 missile was to be for the morning in question. 
 
 So the proctor in his entry continued to remonstrate, as 
 the bang, or the thud, or the rattle of Ruddiman s morn 
 ing salute, was heard in the great man s room in the 
 corner ; and Ruddiman continued to be dejected, and to 
 take it out upon Waddle, who dodged and ducked, and 
 came up smiling, and } T ct returned morning after morning 
 to repeat the performance ; for Ruddiman was best of 
 paymasters, withal, and Waddle was not free from a share 
 of menial pride in serving so wealthy a young buck, "no 
 end of a swell," as Waddle confided to the gentry of his 
 station in life outside the college-walls. What fragments 
 of book-learning Waddle had appropriated, moreover, 
 were pleasantly, let us hope profitably, employed many a 
 time, when his young lord was away at prayers or else 
 where, in deciphering the elegant little notes, in all 
 shades of ink, with every manner of tremulous flourish, 
 that lay about upon the tables and shelves. Waddle s 
 artistic eye, too, in no wise satisfied with the sight of 
 the inexpugnable "goodies" against whom he stumbled 
 as they went their rounds, was delighted to roam over the 
 chaste gallery of art that ornamented his master s bower, 
 and especially to scrutinize the little faces which appeared 
 successively in the velvet shrine of his devastating lord 
 and paymaster. Many was the knowing leer that he gave 
 to the pretty pasteboards (which would have blushed fear 
 fully, if it had been possible) , and many the time that he 
 remarked to hiniself, "My eye, but she s a stunner! 
 He s a-going it, bless me if he ain t!" with other such 
 complimentary criticisms. 
 
 Now, we might suppose that a young gentleman so 
 
390 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 tender, so sensitive, so given to fits of gloom and despond 
 ency, would be wofully torn and maimed by the havoc that 
 all these eyes, and smiling faces, and deep passions, had 
 wrought in him. But, bless you, no ! There is no more 
 pathetic fact in natural history than the ease with which 
 healthy youngsters like Ruddiman survive, wounds like 
 his, and, directly they hear the old familiar call of the 
 bird, are up and off for the enchanted woods again. And 
 the sport is by no means confined to youth of Ruddiman s 
 age or experience, indeed : it is apt to be carried on by 
 elderly sportsmen, who have to be dragged to the woods 
 in coaches, and strapped on their horses, and almost to 
 have a bell rung for them when the game comes in sight, 
 like the blind hunter mentioned by Saunders. 
 
 The Waddle warfare over, and our noble Ruddiman 
 arrayed for the day, his gloom seems to slip away as 
 easily as what shall I say ? as easily as the memory 
 of his last flirtation. You shall see him presently issuing 
 forth in all the splendor of youth, patronizing mighty 
 boating-men and cricketers, and now and then an unappre 
 ciated scholar whom he cannot avoid, and only toward 
 nightfall, as the pensive twilight comes on, and he reflects 
 how he shall pass the evening, beginning to relapse into 
 moodiness, and give way to changing visions of loveliness. 
 
 How one small frame could endure all this carnage, and 
 one small heart unduly tested could carry all its weighty 
 cares, forever changing their object of anxiety, is hard to 
 say. I am convinced that the little man would have been 
 too small for the emergency, that he would have exploded 
 some fine day, and perished miserably from off the earth, 
 with his hand on his heart, had it not been for one fact, 
 which connects him, indeed, with Hammersmith, and is 
 the main reason for his association in this biography. 
 
 For it is incomprehensible, with all his crowding affairs 
 of the heart during these two years at Cambridge, that he 
 
HIS HAEVAKD DAYS. 391 
 
 would ever have found room for half of them in his small 
 frame, if he had not made use of poor Tom, and poured 
 off into his ears many and many a harrowing history and 
 stifling fact which he could no longer hold. There was 
 Miss Pinckney, enslaver of men, at whose belt Ruddiman 
 had dangled picturesquely for a brief while ; Miss Gordon, 
 Letitia Gordon, Letitia, the joy-bringer, whom he had 
 rescued from a ferocious drove of cattle in Harvard 
 Square, and from whom he allowed himself to receive joy 
 for a second brief season, with the approbation of her 
 mamma, who had just brought her pretty daughter to the 
 Cambridge market, and whom nobody knew. Then there 
 was Miss Axlehurst, the daughter of a local wheelwright, 
 about whom he was simply wild, only prevented from a 
 summary elopement by counsellor Hammersmith, who had 
 a poor opinion of runaways of such a character. Next 
 the Flamingo had burst upon him in all her glory ; and, if 
 you wish to know the sighs and vows that that gay chirp- 
 er called out from young Ruddiman, you must go to Mount 
 Desert, and ask the groves and cliffs and favorite haunts 
 of the two. I have no doubt, I may say in passing, that 
 he is largely to blame for the long line of his successors 
 in the deadly pastime on that ecstatic island ; the example 
 is so infectious ! Then the Flamingo had disappeared on 
 the western horizon, waving a graceful " au revoir, my 
 funny little man," to him as she sailed away ; and Waddle 
 had gazed fascinated at several other round little faces in 
 the cherished shrine, before the present occupant of the 
 velvet frame had appeared, Miss Dora Malachite, second 
 sister of our old friend Samuel. 
 
 44 This time there s no use talking, Tom ! " Ruddiman 
 had exclaimed, when his passion was a few hours old. 
 44 I m gone up completely. Can t sleep, can t eat, can t 
 think of any thing else ! 
 
 44 Who is it this month!" asked Hammersmith 
 blandly. 
 
392 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 44 What! Who O gammon, Tom! You re making 
 fun of me. Don t! " urged the young fellow. 44 I tell 
 you it s no laughing matter. You think I m joking too, 
 perhaps. But I tell you, Tom, a thing like this doesn t 
 strike a man but once in his life, and " 
 
 44 You re sure of that? You ought to know," said 
 Tom. 
 
 44 Don t, I tell you ! " pleaded Ruddiman. 44 Tom, you 
 are getting to have a most confounded sarcastic and cyni 
 cal mood of late ; and I I don t like it. You think 
 I m a little beggar that doesn t know his own mind, I 
 suppose, just because I have chosen to have a good time 
 when I could, and amuse myself. But I swear to you 
 that every girl I ever met before in my life might be sunk 
 in the middle of the sea, and I wouldn t mind ! " 
 
 44 You re very ferocious," said Tom. 44 Every girl yon 
 ever met! That s very comprehensive." 
 
 44 Well, I mean my my those oh, yon know 
 what I mean, Tom ! You can go on laughing, and mak 
 ing sport of me ; but some day j^ou ll hear that I ve per 
 ished, Tom, perished miserably. You 11 come round 
 to my rooms, perhaps, and find a few charred remains 
 of a once happy existence, and you ll wonder who it is ; 
 and at last you ll say, 4 Ah, it s Ruddiman, poor Ruddi 
 man ! I didn t suppose he had taken it so to heart. 
 For I tell you, I m wild, simply wild, my dear Tom ; and 
 I think I shall certainly die, if I don t well, if she 
 doesn t smile on me." 
 
 44 That s what you said about the Axlehurst," inter 
 posed Hammersmith quietly, as he was busy at the fire 
 place, brewing a favorite decoction. 
 
 44 Oh, hang it ! " said Ruddiman. 44 Let b} r gones be by 
 gones, eh, Tom? Shall I keep reminding } r ou of the 
 Boggle affair, my dear fellow, that everybody has heard 
 so much of?" 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 393 
 
 "Yes," said Hammersmith, facing about, "when I 
 come to you, and take on about a new girl every month, 
 you rascal ! 
 
 " Well, Tom, I m a bore, I know it. You must excuse 
 me, though. I should burst if I didn t tell somebody 
 my troubles. And who can I go to but you? Free- 
 mantle is too high and mighty for anybody nowadays ; 
 Goldie never looks at a woman, though they do say he 
 was uncommon sweet on Miss Pinckney for a day or two ; 
 and Breese, ugh ! he d give me a Greek play to read, I 
 suppose, or one of his everlasting .books of philosophy 
 that you speak of." 
 
 " Ugh ! You needn t be afraid of that ! " said Ham 
 mersmith. " I don t think he would ! " 
 
 " Why, what do you mean by that? I never can more 
 than half understand you of late, Tom. Oh ! by the way, 
 did you know Breese was engaged ? 
 
 " Now, see here," said Tom, walking up to him with 
 a pair of lemon-squeezers in his hand, " talk about your 
 self as much as you please. If it saves you from explo 
 sion, why, come here and fire away, whether I m here or 
 not : 3 r ou re quite welcome to my rooms. But don t let 
 me hear another word of a man like Breese, or anybody 
 else. He is quite able to look after himself. And I m 
 afraid, Ruddiman, you re a most confounded gossip and 
 gadabout." 
 
 " Ever}~body knows it," put in Ruddiman. " Every 
 body s talking about it. I thought you might like to hear 
 it, that s all. I was down at the florist s 3 T esterday, and saw 
 a most tremendous basket of flowers, nothing but roses and 
 heliotrope. Going to Miss Darby, the boy said when I 
 asked him ; and there was Breese s card stuck in the top 
 of it : For Miss Darby, compliments John Breese. " 
 
 " Well," said Hammersmith, " what of that? Can t a 
 man send a } oung lady a basket of flowers without being 
 engaged to her? Haven t } T OU ever done it yourself ? " 
 
394 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 "Yes; but that s different. Breese " 
 
 44 Yes, I know it s different, devilish different!" an 
 swered Hammersmith harshly. " Ruddiman, I advise 
 you to let other men alone a little more, or you ll get your 
 self into trouble. What right have you to go about pry 
 ing into Breese s affairs, asking whose basket of flowers 
 that was, and so on? " 
 
 " I don t go prying about," said Ruddiman. " I 
 couldn t help seeing the flowers. I had a perfect right 
 to ask whose they were : if the fellow didn t want to tell 
 me, it was his business, not mine. I didn t go prying 
 about last evening, either, when Breese passed me on a 
 dead-run on Brattle Street, with his hat on the back of 
 his head, and jumping posts as he ran. A man doesn t 
 run tearing through the streets at night, jumping horse- 
 posts, for nothing, I tell you ! " 
 
 " Jumping posts ! Breese ! Did }*ou see him jumping 
 posts?" 
 
 " "Well, I saw him jump one, a low one ! " returned 
 Ruddiman. 
 
 " Yes, one : perhaps he didn t jump that ! And that s 
 the way your stories grow," said Tom. " I ve no doubt 
 that story will be coming back to me from New York soon ; 
 and the next edition of 4 College Words and Customs 
 will mention as a peculiar and edifying fact the habit that 
 engaged men at Harvard have of running out, and jumping 
 posts and fences in the dark by way of celebrating their 
 engagements. Did you ever jump a post, Rud? " 
 
 " I don t I don t think I ever did." 
 
 "No, I thought not! Ergo you are not engaged: 
 ergo you never will be." 
 
 "Come, Tom; don t make such a row about it! I 
 meant no offence ; and I assure you it looked deused queer 
 to see Breese pegging ahead in that way, after ten yes, 
 nearly eleven o clock, coming from the Darbys direction. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 395 
 
 Wouldn t have thought any thing of it, if I hadn t seen 
 his basket of tea-roses and heliotrope, and if it wasn t the 
 common report." 
 
 " Starting from we know whom," said Hammersmith. 
 1 Well, never mind ; drink that, and forget you said any 
 thing at all. And Ruddiman accepted the grateful punch, 
 and probably had a fervent secret toast of his own as he 
 drained it ; for he suddenly relapsed into the most pro 
 nounced Ruddiman gloom, and hugged the arm of the sofa 
 in the most dejected way imaginable. 
 
 Tom, meanwhile, had taken down a pipe, and was fill 
 ing the room with fragrant fumes of Latakia, as he sat 
 before the fire, thinking of what Ruddiman had told him ; 
 for, behind the fellow s extravagance and gossip, there 
 was unmistakably a truthful fact or two that did not tend 
 to his tranquillity of mind. 
 
 When, therefore, after much hugging of the sofa-arm, 
 and many piteous looks for sympathy from the impassive 
 Tom, Ruddiman broke out again about his own troubled 
 affairs, " Tom, old fellow, I tell you I m in a bad way, 
 I don t know what to do," Hammersmith, recalled with a 
 jar to the trivial world of Ruddiman, blurted out, 
 
 " Oh, hang it ! Go home, and go to bed." 
 
 But Ruddiman put on so dolorous a face, and looked so 
 unutterably miserable, as he lay coiled up on the sofa, 
 that Hammersmith, bursting into a loud laugh, and com 
 ing over to him, felt of his pulse, and went through many 
 other mockeries of medical anxiety, all which the 3~oung 
 swain received with the gravest possible air, convinced 
 that he was really in a bad way, in a bad way with the 
 same pleasant tortures that had shaken him many times 
 before, and shake us all once or twice in our lives, but 
 which we manage to survive with remarkable success, as 
 is well, and as Heaven has wisel} ordained. 
 
 The unhappy patient, cheered by this apparently genu- 
 
39G HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 ine sympathy, imparted many interesting facts concern 
 ing his attack, and amused Hammersmith not a little. 
 All his talk was of Miss Malachite s incomprehensible 
 behavior. He told how he had taken her out to dinner 
 at the Minturns a few days since, and she had deliber 
 ately set herself to entertaining Freemantle, who was on 
 her other side, so that he, Ruddiman, could hardly have 
 a word with her through the whole dinner ; what misery 
 he had endured at the Glee Club concert, three evenings 
 ago, when she had come out with a party from town, 
 with Witherspoon, McGregor, and a lot of graduates, in 
 attendance, and he had only been able to stand staring 
 at her from a side-aisle as she talked with the men of 
 her party, out of his reach ; how he had rushed wildly to 
 the door to have at least a bow from her as she went out, 
 but she had passed him on the arm of Witherspoon, with 
 out even noticing him ; and, later, he had seen that famous 
 boating-man handing her into her carriage, looking entire 
 ly bewitching in her little pink hood, " and I standing 
 in a crowd of fellows, ready to choke with disgust," he 
 had added. "I could have touched her as she passed, 
 Tom. But I don t wonder she didn t look at me : I m a 
 poor devil, who hasn t a thing to recommend him but his 
 money, more s the pity ! And I m going to die, and put 
 an end to it all. If I was only clever, or a boating-man 
 like you, or could do any thing but smoke and dance, and 
 play billiards, I might have a better show. How does a 
 man get to be clever, Tom? It must be jolly to be clever, 
 and be able to say things." 
 
 "I don t know, Ilud, I m sure; never had any expe 
 rience : but I can tell you one thing, it isn t by dropping 
 into the dumps, and swearing you re going to die whether 
 or no. All the women in the world aren t worth that ; 
 at least, no such girl as you and I are thinking of, that 
 can play a fellow on a hook and line just to see him 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 397 
 
 squirm. Let me give you another piece of advice," he 
 said, as Ruddiman at last was leaving. " I don t ask 
 any thing for it, you know : you can take it or not, as 
 you please. But why don t you go into cricket, or a 
 double-scull, or walking, or any thing except this infernal 
 hanging about parties, and dawdling after girls? It would 
 set you up wonderfully, my dear fellow ; and you would 
 learn to snap }^our fingers at the whole female sex." 
 
 Ruddiman showed a feeble glow as Hammersmith went 
 on in his enthusiasm ; but the idea of ever being able to 
 snap his fingers so comprehensively was too much for him, 
 and he shook his head dolefully. He felt cheered by 
 Hammersmith s talk, however ; and although protesting 
 that he was good for nothing, " only a deused little fool 
 of a gold-bug," as he expressed it, he promised to think 
 of it, and try to do something to ward off his frequent 
 blues. 
 
 " Old Waddle will be as glad as anybody, if I succeed," 
 he said rather ruefully, as he was opening the door to go. 
 
 " I should think so," answered Tom, " if the old bird 
 is bombarded so frightfully every morning as you say. 
 I say, come down to the Bostons ground to-morrow, and 
 see our match with the Eleven. You might as well pick 
 up a little knowledge of the game. You would make a 
 tiptop fellow for point or slip, if you could learn not to 
 shut your eyes when a hot ball comes. I ll lend you 
 The Cricket Field, if you wish : best book on the game 
 that s out. Say you ll come." 
 
 " I ll try. We have a few games of the billiard tourna 
 ment that we were intending to play out to-morrow after 
 noon ; but I think they can be postponed. Good-night, 
 old fellow. Will you excuse my boring you, and taking 
 on so? " 
 
 " Don t speak of it," answered Tom. " Good-night." 
 And Ruddiman marched off, feeling already as if he were 
 
398 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 a famous cricketer, who had carried his bat out in num 
 bers of closely-contested matches. Tom sat a while with 
 his waning fire ; and at last, as he arose, and drew the 
 curtains, said to himself, "Well, old Hammersmith, this 
 will never do. You must find out about this matter pretty 
 soon, and take a decisive step one way or the other. 
 Which way will it be, I wonder? " 
 
 The close-clipped turf of the Boston Cricket Club s 
 grounds in East Cambridge, kept rolled between wickets 
 as smooth as a parlor-floor ; the simple club-house of the 
 day, surmounted by the club-flags, and swarming with 
 cricketers, tough, brown-cheeked fellows, forever trying 
 on pads and gloves and wonderful cricket-shoes, and 
 handling their favorite bats with a fondness which only a 
 cricketer can appreciate ; the groups of partisans ranged 
 about the field ; the quiet and methodical progress of the 
 game, broken only by the cries of the umpire, "Play," 
 or " Over," or " Stumped," or " Not out," as the case 
 may be ; and the applause of the spectators as a hit is 
 made, and the ball goes flying over the field, while rapid 
 movement takes the place of watchful repose on the part 
 of the players, how can justice be done in these already 
 too numerous pages to the beauty of such a scene, such a 
 well-ordered cricket-ground on the day of a great match ? 
 
 Old cricketers of the " Aristonicans," the " Harvards," 
 the " Nonantums," who may now be standing up to quite 
 different bowling, and making quite different hits from 
 those of your spryer days, grant an ex-member this indul 
 gence, and pardon him if he lingers a while over the 
 attractive features of the game which we played together 
 in the days before the flood, when base-ball was round 
 ers, still in its round jackets, and the senior s dignity, 
 even, did not prevent his joining in the most graceful 
 of field-games. And you who never fingered a springy 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 399 
 
 cricket-bat, or stood up before the bowling of the New- 
 halls ? well, I m sorry for you ; and I hope you have 
 some other happ}^ sport of your youth to play over again 
 in fancy, recalling the hearty zest of those earlier times, 
 when you were slighter in build than now, but with, oh, 
 such an inordinate capacity for enjoyment ! 
 
 It was after a very close game on these grounds of the 
 Bostons, in which the Harvards were beaten by a half- 
 dozen runs, and Mr. Tom had nearly succeeded in " carry 
 ing out his bat ; " after the ride home in the coach, when 
 they sang their way up to the Square, causing many a 
 curtain to be drawn, and many a face to appear at the 
 windows, as the familiar college-choruses were heard ; 
 and after a rather uproarious supper at Kent s, bespoken 
 by Freemantle and Ruddiman, who had ridden ahead on 
 finding that the Eleven were to be too late for their own 
 dinners, it was after all this merry afternoon and even 
 ing of sport and conviviality, that Hammersmith, flushed 
 with his success and the "warm rain of punch" at 
 Kent s, came, still in his cricket-uniform and in a mood 
 to defy anybody and everybody, to look in upon Breese. 
 To look in upon Breese, and see if any thing could be 
 made out of that severe and scholarly old party: this 
 was about the way that the thought ran in the mind of 
 Mr. Tom at this rather nebulous stage of the evening. 
 It might have been much better for all concerned, had he 
 waited until some clearer moment, when he might have 
 shaped both his thoughts and his speech in somewhat 
 more distinct form. 
 
 Halloo, old boy ! " he shouted, bursting in upon Breese, 
 and slapping him familiarly on the back. 
 
 How are you, Hammersmith ? answered Breese, gath 
 ering hastily some small manuscript on which he was busy. 
 
 " Come to get your congratulations ! I m cock of the 
 walk to-day, old boy : give us your hand ! " 
 
400 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 " So I hear," answered Breese. " I m sure I m ver} 
 glad. I should have gone down myself to see your 
 famous batting, but I had a cub to attend to. So you 
 made the score of the day, eh? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, by Jove ! " said Tom, as his eyes flashed ; 
 "batted em all over the field. Nobody could bowl me 
 down till they put on an infernal old corkscrew bowler ; 
 and he took me first pop. Talking of pop, have you got 
 any thing on tap, Breese? " 
 
 "I believe my ale is not out," said Breese; and he 
 fetched a couple of glasses and a plate of biscuit ; and the 
 two fell to talking of the day s sport and the play of 
 the different members of the Eleven. 
 
 Tom relapsed into rather gloomy quiet after a bit, 
 gazing into the fire, and chewing at a cigar that had 
 gone out. But when Breese proposed the health of the 
 Eleven, and filled up Tom s glass, it seemed to give him 
 an idea ; and he shouted out, 
 
 "Oh, hang the Eleven ! I know a toast that s worth 
 two of that, old cove. Here s to Her! " he said, with a 
 wink at Breese which made him start, and change color 
 like a girl. 
 
 "I don t know what you mean ! What do you mean, 
 sir? " he asked abruptly, putting down his glass. 
 
 "Oh, come now! we understand each other. Here s 
 to Her with a big H ! Here s to you ! Here s " 
 
 "Hammersmith, stop where you are! I suppose we 
 do understand each other, as you say; and I suppose 
 there are other people that understand each other. But 
 I don t think that this is the way to refer to young ladies 
 of our acquaintance, even if they were most casual ac 
 quaintances ; and I don t think you are in the condition 
 to talk of this matter as calmly as it deserves. It is par- 
 ticularty disagreeable to me at this time, and I forbid your 
 saying another syllable about it ! " 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 401 
 
 u Who says I m not in a condition to speak calmly of 
 this matter? what matter? Who mentioned an} 7 names? " 
 shouted Hammersmith, sober in an instant. "What au 
 thority have you to forbid my talking of what I please ? 
 
 " No matter what authority," said Breese calmly, ris 
 ing, and folding his arms. " I forbid you : that s all." 
 
 "What if I prefer not to mind your command! " ex 
 claimed Hammersmith, flinging his cigar into the fire, 
 rising, and facing Breese under the gaslight, his eyes 
 snapping with excitement, and the two making a startling 
 picture of impetuous rage and calm indignation. Heav 
 ens, what a tussle it would be, if these two friends the 
 great boating-man, with his nerves tingling like electric 
 cords under the effects of his fury ; and the athletic schol 
 ar, every muscle hardened like a whip-cord by three years, 
 yes, a young lifetime, of hardy exercise were to lay 
 hands on each other, here in the dead of night, in 
 Breese s isolated room ! But one at least is too cool and 
 sensible for that. Submitting to Hammersmith s glaring 
 gaze for a moment, Breese turned on his heel, threw the 
 entry-door wide open, and, stepping back, answered with 
 cutting politeness, 
 
 "In that case I can only assert the authority that 
 every man has over his own rooms ; and I know that you 
 are too much of a gentleman to deny that." 
 
 Hammersmith s face darkened: he looked as if he 
 would spring on him, as he would have done if Breese 
 had said another word. Breese was probably conscious 
 of this certainty, as he said not another word, but> stood 
 leaning against the table, his hands at his coat-collar, 
 looking placidly at his book-shelves. Hammersmith took 
 out a fresh cigar, lighted it slowly with a taper at the fire 
 place, puffed once or twice, took up his hat, and, without a 
 word, went out at the door, and so home. Breese stood 
 a moment, listening to him as he whistled an operatic air 
 on his way down the entry, and then closed the door. 
 
402 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 You may be sure that there was some very elaborate 
 analysis in that room before Breese closed his eyes in 
 sleep, and a very rapid verdict pronounced in the room of 
 Hammersmith, as Mr. Tom made up his mind, in a hazy 
 sort of way, that it was all true, Ruddiman had only 
 announced correctly, and Breese was not presumptuous in 
 claiming authority to speak for Miss Darby, and forbid her 
 name to be lightly referred to. 
 
 Both young men were, of course, quite settled in their 
 own minds that they were right, each for himself, in the 
 evening s actions, and had only behaved as they should 
 have behaved under the circumstances. But one of them 
 sat up long, analyzing his own thoughts, and endeavoring 
 to imagine some way by which the bad effect of their mu 
 tual words might be remedied. The other fell off quickly 
 into deep sleep, trying to believe that there was not a 
 woman in the world worth thinking about, and yet prov 
 ing how difficult it was, by hating and envying Breese 
 most emphatically at the same time. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 403 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 A WORLDLING S ADVICE, WITH A SPEECH FROM MR. TOM. 
 
 " It is an oldc proverbe, that, if one dwell the next doore to a creplc, he will 
 learn to hault : if one bee conversant with an hipocrit, he wil soone endevour to 
 dissemble." JOHN LYLY, Euphues. 
 
 , then, was the result of Breese s plunging into 
 -L the social life against which he had set himself so 
 steadfastly at the beginning of his college- course. This 
 was the result of that light compact between Tom and 
 Miss Darby before that fatal night at the Fayerweathers , 
 a compact entered upon in a spirit of fun and curiosity 
 and friendliness combined. This was the outcome of all 
 Hammersmith s friendship with Breese, which had been 
 much more close than these pages have been able to indi 
 cate, and of Hammersmith s long intimacy with Miss 
 Darby. 
 
 As the gossipy stones which had driven Breese on to 
 propose to Miss Darby, giving her an opportunity to 
 accept or reject him, had been the first thing to reveal 
 to Breese the depth and strength of the feeling that he 
 had for her ; so this midnight quarrel, and the rather im 
 perious way in which Breese had carried himself, and pre 
 sumed to speak for Miss Darby, first opened Tom s eyes 
 to facts which had been but dimly seen before. Mr. Tom 
 now appreciated, though with different intensity from 
 Breese perhaps, that this girl, with whom he had danced 
 and sung and ridden, skated and walked and talked, with 
 never a thought of what was to come of it all, had made 
 
404 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 for herself such a place in his heart, that he felt singu 
 larly alone and cheerless when he awoke to the sudden 
 consciousness that she had been taken away. 
 
 Why, then, did he not go boldtyin, and attempt to wrest 
 her from the conqueror Breese ? "Why did he remain con 
 tented with the somewhat slight evidence that he had of 
 their engagement, and not rather plunge in, and ascertain 
 the truth for himself, like a true Hammersmith ? Like a 
 true Hammersmith, do you say? Out upon it ! You are 
 ill acquainted with the Hammersmith character, if you 
 hold this an emergenc}^ calling for recklessness and im 
 petuosity, headstrong daring, and all the other sturdy 
 qualities of the tribe. What, try to wrest from a man a 
 prize fairly obtained ! Try to persuade a young woman 
 to break her word, change her mind, and transfer her affec 
 tions to a Hammersmith ! It is ridiculous ! A fair field 
 and no favor, a race just begun, an up-hill game, any 
 equal or vastly unequal conditions of rivalry, and our 
 young Hammersmith would be found fighting and con 
 tending with a spirit worthy of his name ; and let the 
 best man win, as he would say. But the race already 
 run, the game already pla} r ed, and the prize taken away 
 from before his very eyes, before he fully realized that 
 there was a rivalry or a contest, even before he had made 
 up his mind that he was to enter the lists at all, why, that 
 was a very different matter. If stubborn tooth- and-nail 
 perseverance and emulation are marks of the old Ham 
 mersmith stock, none the less so are a cheerful acquies 
 cence and a calm looking in the eyes of Fate, when once 
 the struggle is over, and the day has gone against them. 
 I am sure that Hammersmith (Mr. Tom) was in no whit 
 behind his most punctilious ancestors in matters of cour 
 age and honor alike. And I am happy to think that he 
 had too much regard for himself, if for nobody else, to 
 descend to intrigue, or underhanded means, to deprive 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 405 
 
 Brecse of the fruits of his victory when once they were 
 his. 
 
 It was very odd for Hammersmith to reflect, as he did 
 not a few times after his quarrel with Breese, that he had 
 been preparing a text for himself when he coined that 
 advice for Ruddiman about snapping his fingers at the 
 whole race of young women. It was very odd for many 
 who chose to watch his course, to see the gradual change 
 from the enthusiastic, impetuous Hammersmith of several 
 months ago, to the young man of increasing cynicism and 
 indifferentism, who was taking his place. 
 
 It might not be uninteresting, if space sufficed, and if 
 the scrutiny were an agreeable one, to follow the young 
 fellow on this new path of his. It might not be uninter 
 esting to follow him as he was trying to accustom him 
 self to the idea that he, Hammersmith, with such an 
 opinion of himself as the Hammersmiths were apt to have 
 of themselves, had been supplanted by Breese ; a man, 
 well, we will not divulge Hammersmith s private opinion 
 of him in this time of their troubled relations ; a man, at 
 any rate, whom he had not looked upon, until now, as 
 likely by any possibility to deserve well in the eyes of 
 young women, much less to capture the most conspicuous 
 of them all, in Mr. Tom s mind, from out the midst of the 
 Cambridge world. 
 
 We might follow Hammersmith as well in the lordly 
 disdain which he suddenly acquired for the quiet little 
 Cambridge world in question, that had been so kind to 
 him since he had chosen to enter its parlors. We might 
 show how the spirit of worldliness and a comfortable 
 cynicism got possession of him, about this time, in the per 
 son of his uncle the "Duke," under whose tutelage he 
 began more and more to frequent the grand houses and 
 larger area of the metropolis Boston ; how he was trained 
 by that master s hand in many of the maturer mysteries 
 
406 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 of life ; what crushing mobs of parties he frequented ; 
 what delightful little theatre-parties, with an after-supper 
 and a dance perhaps ; what solemn heavy dinners ; what 
 dazzling Germans at Papanti s, or assemblies at Horticul 
 tural Hall, where his uncle was a patronizing figure 
 head of the most elaborate type ; what a round of calls 
 and charming evening visits he made now and then, with 
 his beloved Mentor; and how, gradually, he came to 
 regard the lesser university town and its smaller routs, its 
 less cosmopolitan belles, in a complacent, de haut en bas 
 manner most interesting to behold in a youngster of his 
 remarkable experience. His mirror was quite surrounded 
 * now with cards of invitation, and summonses to this or that 
 grand entertainment, where the pleasure of his company 
 was requested. His uncle s coupe, a most delightful little 
 equipage, wherein the old gentleman was wont to take 
 his ease while rattling from one gay meeting to another, 
 often whirled out to Cambridge late at night, with our 
 young swell in a semi-doze on its comfortable cushions, 
 smiling benignly over the thought of this or that ravishing 
 beauty whom the evening s festivities had consigned to 
 his attentions, and picking up his hat and gloves with a 
 start, as he found himself in Harvard Square, before his 
 rooms, the driver opening the door, and calling to his 
 horses. 
 
 It was so different an experience, so vastly pleasanter a 
 mode of life, from any he had tried before ! What a start 
 it gave him, though, one evening, almost the first time 
 that his uncle had sent him bowling out thus in his coupe, 
 as he suddenly remembered that it was only two years 
 ago (yet how crowded they were with life !) that he had 
 been rolling over the same roads in my Lord Tufton s drag, 
 that ingenious diplomate at his side, bound for those earlier 
 diversions in town, of which we have had a glimpse ! 
 Bah ! what a 3 T oung fool he had been ! and what a 
 
HIS HAEVAKD DAYS. 407 
 
 deal of the world he flattered himself he had seen since 
 then! From the very reflection, therefore, that caused 
 him this twinge of memory, he drew consolation for him 
 self, and fresh food for the sneering habit that was taking 
 possession of him about this time. "By Jove!" he 
 would have been likely to say, in a rather languid way for 
 a Hammersmith, "I should like to see him try his wiles 
 on me now, the scoundrel ! I ve learned a thing or two 
 since those greenhorn days ; and I flatter myself that I 
 could give him points in a few things where he thought 
 himself most uncommonly clever. Bah! what a silly 
 episode that was, though ! it makes me sick of life to 
 think of it! " 
 
 An impressive cynicism in a healthy youngster who 
 has been but a year or two from the maternal roof is 
 always a charming sight. Your faded gentlemen in club- 
 windows, sucking the ends of their canes, and ogling the 
 too anxious, bustling world without ; your veterans from 
 many a well-fought social field, coddling themselves in 
 domestic hospitals ; those who have made a miss of it in 
 life ; the hopelessly repressed ; the suddenly blighted ; 
 lights that have forgotten to shine ; wits and beauties that 
 have lost their homage, one may pardon the spirit in 
 them that would say, " Go to ! I ve tried you all, and you 
 are nothing but a delusion and a snare, all you bright 
 allurements of life ! I ll none of you ! " But a youth of 
 one and twenty, hearty, health}^, attractive, intelligent (as 
 our Hammersmith assuredly was) , such a spirit in him 
 would have been a pitiable spectacle, if we were not con 
 vinced that it would be short lived. It would be too mis 
 erable a theme to dwell upon, if we did not believe that 
 sooner or later he would rouse himself, and confess that 
 this was the very silliest period of his life, and this 
 cynic s mask the most unbecoming that a Hammersmith 
 youth can put on. 
 
408 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 Why, however, such a listless, indifferent manner as 
 Hammersmith took pains to assume for some weeks after 
 his Breese quarrel, should find favor with the young of 
 both sexes, is hard, very hard to say. I am not preach 
 ing sermons, but attempting a biography, as I have sever 
 al times declared ; but I set down here the plain fact, 
 which an}~body can have noticed, that your young fellow 
 who saunters through life as Mr. Tom was now doing, 
 walking into your party as if he were a bit doubtful 
 whether it was all worth while, taking every thing as a 
 matter of course, and repressing as far as possible the 
 enthusiasm of which everybody can see that he is capa 
 ble, that such a young fellow meets with an unbounded 
 popularity and reputation for wisdom, which make a live 
 lier, a less blase man open his eyes in wonder. Certain 
 it is, at any rate, that this new phase of Hammersmith s 
 character provoked much comment, and brought him no 
 small share of fame, linked, as it was, with his known 
 ability, and his equally known excursions into the gay 
 world of Boston with his uncle. His reputation as a 
 man of the world, a dangerous man, a perfect enslaver of 
 women, if he chose to exert himself, became prodigious 
 among undergraduates ; and the records of his prowess 
 were even more ample, more visionary, and more flatter 
 ing, than those earlier legends during the Tufton regime. 
 
 You may be pretty sure, too, that the matter was quite 
 fully discussed in the outer Cambridge world, and that 
 exclusively feminine gatherings seized upon it as a deli 
 cious bit of contemporary history. And those little sew 
 ing-bees and reading- clubs, four-hand musical seances, 
 and water-color mornings, were made lively and interest 
 ing beyond technical limits by the pros and cons of the 
 great question, whether Hammersmith was more delight 
 ful and thoroughly charming now or then ; now as a 
 rather listless sauntcrer ; then as the enthusiastic Ham- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 409 
 
 mersmith of his junior year, this, of course, along with 
 other great questions of the day, which kept abreast of 
 the literary, or musical, or artistic frenzy of the moment. 
 
 "Tom, my boy," said his uncle one evening, as they 
 were sitting in the " Duke s " grand apartments in town, 
 " this is all very well, this feasting and dancing, and 
 so on. I had my own idea in drawing you into it ; and 
 I m happy to see that you enjoy it, and are yourself a suc 
 cess, yes, yes, you are ! Don t deny it. I m happy to 
 think you re making such good friends, I say. Gad, sir, 
 why shouldn t a man have a plenty of stanch friends, 
 .with good balances at their bankers, on whom he may call 
 in the time of need ? 
 
 " But I never should," urged Tom the innocent. 
 
 " No, no, of course not. Let us hope not, at any rate. 
 But it s a deused comfortable thing to think of, to have 
 such a list of nabobs at your command as Minturn and 
 Tappington, Lambrekin and Bludsoe, though Blud- 
 soe, bah ! I hear he s going under, poor fellow ! Too 
 much splurge, too many horses, silly wife driving him 
 crazy, girls that must have Worth trumpery, the same 
 old story, my boy. And I ve been thinking, I ve been 
 thinking a great deal about you, my young man, and 
 I ve made up my mind you ought to settle down as soon 
 as 3 ou leave college. You Cjight to settle, sir, and get to 
 work at once, and well, I might as well put it as it has 
 occurred to me, Tom ; I m a blunt old fellow, you know 
 you ought to be looking about for a you ought 
 to be thinking of getting married." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense ! " said Tom. " Excuse me ; but I beg 
 to differ from you. I shall never marry." 
 
 "What, my boy! Never marry! Come, come! A 
 youngster has a notion of that sort once or twice in his 
 life, I know quite well ; but it passes away when spring 
 comes round, as a rule, unless you don t mean to say 
 
410 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 3 ou know the French judge, whenever a criminal was 
 brought before him, invariably asked, 4 Who is she? 
 you haven t been hit, Tom ? Boggle affair left its mark ? 
 
 " Not at all, not at all," said Tom. " That was too 
 silly to affect anybody, too unutterably silly ! But I 
 never shall, uncle, I never shall. I don t think it pays." 
 
 u Well, I m glad you ve no more serious objection. I 
 wag afraid some of your Cambridge sirens had been sing 
 ing to you from the off shore ; " and the uncle eyed Tom 
 narrowly. 
 
 "Oh, bless you, no! " returned Tom, putting his chin 
 in air. 
 
 " Gad, sir, but I shouldn t have blamed you! Most 
 uncommon nice girls yon have out there, most uncommon 
 clever as well. There was a time Miss Darby, you 
 know. Well, I didn t know but that } T OU and she had an 
 understanding of some sort." 
 
 " Miss Darby ! Jove, no ! " answered Tom. " Didn t 
 you know she was engaged to Breese? " 
 
 "Breese! Miss Darby! Good gad, no ! Vraiment? 
 Perhaps he s cut you out, you 3 r oung rascal ! No? Well, 
 a good thing, a good thing for Breese. Uncommon clever 
 fellow, make his mark some day, and deused sweet, charm 
 ing girl, but Darby exchequer a trifle low, eh? a trifle 
 low. Gad, sir ! why shouldn t a fellow capture a young 
 woman that can bring him a good pot of money, eh? 
 Gad ! it s no more trouble to fall in love with a rich girl 
 than a poor one." 
 
 " But, good gracious, uncle ! you seem to consider that 
 a man can regulate the matter for himself, fall in love, 
 as you say, at command. So much money, so much love. 
 That s not my idea of the matter, I assure you, uncle. 
 If I ever do marry, which I greatly doubt, it will be 
 from no such consideration as that you suggest, you can 
 depend upon it! " 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 411 
 
 " Oh ! well, love and a cottage is all very sweet to think 
 about; cosey little tune, snug little rooms, deused 
 snug ! and all that. But I tell you that it s no more 
 trouble to run a fine establishment than a little box of a 
 hut in the suburbs, if } r ou ve only the sinews of war ; and 
 it s a deused sight more comfortable ! Gad, man, why 
 shouldn t you have the sinews of war?" And the old 
 gentleman, in evening-dress, smoothed a pair of white 
 gloves upon the centre-table, and threw himself back in 
 an arm-chair. " Why shouldn t you have a fine establish 
 ment some day, and keep up the old Hammersmith name ? 
 We ve been a wandering set for the last generation or so ; 
 and, gad ! I d like to see the old family taking its place 
 again, and making its mark in the world. You ll have a 
 pretty little fortune of your own in a few months, no 
 thanks to } T OU ! and with care and economy, and such 
 an arrangement as I propose, there s no limit to the ambi 
 tion that you might set for yourself : you could do any 
 thing }ou chose, my boy." 
 
 "What arrangement do you speak of?" asked Tom 
 carelessly, yet not averse, in his present frame of mind, 
 to see what plan his fond uncle might have been devising 
 in his worldly old brain. 
 
 " What do you say to Miss you must have found 
 charming girl, such sweet manners ! what do you say to 
 Miss Malachite? " asked the uncle. 
 
 " Charming enough, but a most confounded little flirt ! 
 that s all," answered Tom. 
 
 " Ah, but that will wear off, that will wear off," said 
 the uncle, " like the radicalism of your friend Breese, or 
 the various penchants of certain very estimable } T oung 
 gentlemen that I might mention," he added, with a 
 knowing look at Tom. " Gad, but }*ou young fellows are 
 not fond of being put in strait-jackets, I believe ! You 
 must have your fling out before you settle down. Would 
 
41 2 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 you deny a clever, lively young woman the right to the 
 homage and the devotion, yes, dammy, and the destruc 
 tion (it s no more than fair), that follow in her train? It 
 always takes two to make a foolish bargain, you must have 
 observed." And the uncle many times reverted to this 
 rather mercenary subject of his, impressing his views with 
 all manner of worldly arguments, that were quite novel to 
 Mr. Tom. 
 
 On one occasion, indeed, Mr. Gayton broke out, in a 
 wild, sad sort of way, with an account of his own cheer 
 less condition in his old age. " A worthless old beggar, 
 Tom, a worthless old beggar ! " he said, " whom nobody 
 cares about, nobody loves ; shunted about from one cor 
 ner of the world to another ; feasted and toasted now and 
 then by some reminiscent friend, to be sure, who is happy 
 with his wife and his youngsters, but no account, no 
 account, Tom ! Gad, how lonely I am, how lonely ! 
 Take warning from me, a miserable old fellow who 
 might have had quite a different life, if I d had somebody 
 to talk to me at your age." And instinctively his hand 
 travelled to his forehead, in the neighborhood of the scar, 
 which was growing fainter with age ; and Tom felt again 
 like asking him for its history. But his uncle looked such 
 a picture of dejection, as he lay sunk back in his chair, 
 gazing into the fire, that Tom dared not allude to what 
 he felt must be a tender subject, and, instead, did what he 
 could, in a young man s way, to comfort and cheer the old 
 worldling. 
 
 Many such conversations made no appreciable impres 
 sion on Mr. Tom, except, perhaps, to draw his mind more 
 away from Cambridge, and to plant a few worldly weeds 
 within it. Mr. Gayton, though he was a bit chagrined 
 that his nephew did not readily fall into his plans and 
 mode of thinking, was not displeased, withal, to find that 
 \Q was an orthodox Hammersmith youngster, bound to 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 413 
 
 have his own way, and fight his battles unaided, even if 
 they left him covered with scars such as marked his own 
 aged forehead. 
 
 Such blunt references as the uncle s, however, could not 
 fail to pique Tom s curiosity keenly as to the attractions 
 of the Miss Malachite alluded to, as well as to make him 
 weigh more carefully than he had ever weighed before the 
 comparative and distinctive pleasure that the society of a 
 girl like Miss Malachite, and a girl like Miss Darby, gave 
 him. We are not concerned in watching the balances in 
 this rather Breesian operation. We may know, however, 
 that one result of the inquiry was a most turbulent state 
 of mind in our fluctuating Ruddiman, somewhere near 
 the middle of the winter, when he beheld Mr. Tom 
 devoting himself with unusual perseverance to Miss Mala 
 chite on the evening of a great dinner at the Lambrekins ; 
 taking her in to dinner (not that he was to blame for 
 that), sitting in absorbed tete-a-tete with her afterwards, 
 while the music was going on, and, as Ruddiman very 
 much feared, making fun at somebody s expense. At 
 whose expense he did not trust himself to think ; but he 
 was painfully aware that several mischievous glances were 
 directed to his quarter as he sat dumb with a Miss May 
 flower in a corner ; and he was quite sure that he had 
 heard his own name mentioned just before a light burst 
 of laughter from Mr. Tom and Miss Malachite. 
 
 Ruddiman had strong thoughts of calling Hammersmith 
 to account for it, in fact, and did actually summon cour 
 age, several days afterwards, to suggest to him, with con 
 siderable emphasis of sarcasm, that he thought, for a man 
 that professed to ignore the whole female sex, Hammer 
 smith was making himself "most doused devoted" to a 
 certain 3 oung lacty whom he need not mention. Tom had 
 laughed it off, and pooh-poohed the idea of Mips Mala 
 chite s taking his devotion for any thing serious. But 
 
414 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 Ruddiman didn t know : Tom was a most dangerous 
 fellow to have about one s young lady friends. And this 
 aspect of the Ruddiman-Hammersmith-Malachite question 
 was not slow in finding its way to Cambridge and its 
 numerous gatherings, you may rest assured. The partic 
 ular medium by which this gossip reached Cambridge, no 
 one can doubt ; only, as Hammersmith was now a party 
 to the case, it chanced that poor Goldie, u working like a 
 horse," as he expressed it, for a commencement part, was 
 selected for the repository of the overflowing Ruddiman s 
 secrets and griefs. This was a relief, an infinite relief, to 
 Hammersmith, and yet eventually a cause of trouble ; for 
 Goldie, best of fellows to be sure, was yet extremely 
 friendly and gossipy with his cousin Miss Darby ; and 
 Ruddiman s desperation was too unprecedented and 
 laughable for Goldie to keep altogether to himself. 
 
 Many weeks had passed since the quarrel of Breese and 
 Hammersmith ; during which the two had not spoken, and 
 had but rarely met, in class lectures occasionally, and at 
 the Cambridge parties at which Mr. Tom condescended 
 now and then to look in. There was nothing in the attitude 
 of Miss Darby and Breese, so far as Tom could discover, 
 to confute the report of their engagement that had gained 
 currency. If Breese did not have as monopolizing and 
 devoted a manner as several weeks ago, what of that? 
 Once a man is engaged, who expects him to be fluttering 
 and hovering as eagerly as though he were not sure of his 
 prize? If Breese s class- work was not quite so accurate 
 as before, and his articles in " The Harvard Magazine," of 
 which he was an editor, were not quite so numerous, why, 
 how could you expect it of a man in love? Ruddiman 
 could have explained it to your satisfaction, Ruddiman, 
 who&e literary work was of quite another character, as we 
 shall see. 
 
 Several weeks had passed. Goldie was working like a 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 415 
 
 Trojan,- as has been said. Hammersmith, in spite of the 
 languishing air, quite new to him, was doing better work 
 than ever since his freshman yesu\ Breese and Albemarle 
 and the rest, who were certain of their commencement parts, 
 were working well, to be sure, but by no means so hard 
 as a body of men, not mentioned in these pages, who were 
 fired by the new order allowing commencement parts .to 
 be obtained on senior work alone. These men were work 
 ing with all the vim which comes of long rest and athletic 
 lives ; and their example was so infectious, that there was 
 hardly a man in the class who did not feel its force, and 
 rouse himself to make his senior work more creditable 
 than any that had gone before. 
 
 Ruddiman continued to hurl, and Waddle to dodge, as 
 of yore. But the squat menial now and then stole a march 
 on his lord, and crept quietly in and out with a pair of 
 shoes, without so much as being observed, while the little 
 man sat gloomily in his bed, a pipe in his mouth, but now 
 often with paper and pencil in his lap doing what ? If 
 you are remarkably curious to know, and will look into the 
 numbers of " The Harvard Magazine " that were current 
 at the time, you will see various slender poems, mostly of 
 an erotic or a settled mclanchoty style, with the simple sig 
 nature " R." They are not pretentious : they are merely 
 spontaneous gushings, unavoidable overflows, from the 
 great Ruddiman heart, "The False Fair One," " Ad 
 Ministram," . The Heart that is always True " (this of 
 his own organ), " To a Flirt," and many others, which 
 appeared month after month in the proper place, alongside 
 of trenchant leaders by Breese, heavy disquisitions by 
 Albemarle, and lively epics by Trimble, who had the light 
 est touch in verse of any man in college. Heaven only 
 knows how man}- more went to swell the pile of rejected 
 manuscript in the sanctum of the editors, and were 
 handed about and laughed over by those severe officials iu 
 
416 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 their moments of levity. How gloomy, how misanthropic, 
 how wildly desperate, they were ! copied and paraphrased 
 so carefully from the whole range of literature, ancient 
 and modern. " Every clever man, such as Leibnitz or 
 Kant for instance, must have written verses in his 3 r outh," 
 says Jean Paul ; and if every clever man, then, of course, 
 every Ruddiman ! What tender versicles they were, when 
 they chose to be tender ! But, as Hood says, writing on 
 a certain baby, " I cannot write any more on him, he is 
 so soft, and I have only steel pens." 
 
 It was while Hammersmith was in the frame of mind 
 imperfectly outlined above, that the all-important class- 
 elections came on, and the various societies, secret and 
 open, marshalled their forces, and prepared to make a 
 sharp fight over the distribution of the spoils of war. 
 There had been button-holing and canvassing, secret meet 
 ings and forming of " slates," and all the preliminary 
 pulling of wires, of which Americans are fond, for many 
 weeks now. Men had been begged to consent to run for 
 this office, societies to allow this name to go on a ticket. 
 The records of candidates were scrutinized as carefully as 
 if the elections were to decide the government of the uni 
 verse for an entire century ; and Mr. Tom, for his part, 
 was thoroughly disgusted with the thought of all the 
 subterfuge and undue rivalry, the jealous} 1 " and the proba 
 ble enmity. His peculiar condition of mind at this time, 
 his diminished interest in the petty wrangles of college- 
 life, and his more frequent absence in Boston, tended to 
 this feeling of disgust. 
 
 It was quite natural, therefore, that, when the meeting 
 for the elections came off, he should saunter, with the rest, 
 into Holden Chapel, after supper, and expect nothing but 
 a long evening of bargain and sale, crimination and re 
 crimination. He was not disappointed. 
 
 The secret societies, which have not, to be sure, such 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 417 
 
 prominent publicity, or such flamboyant insignia, as at 
 other colleges, are capable of wielding great power at 
 such a time. Great power ! one would say that a con 
 gress of nations was in progress, and that the talk was of 
 some vast and earth-shaking combination, instead of a 
 friendly meeting of youth to elect their officers for class- 
 day, the seniors day of farewell. I must look at it all 
 from the young man s stand, I own, and must admit the 
 fact, that the secret societies, the Pudding, the O. K., with 
 a numerous body of men called "The Outs," had spent 
 a large part of the evening in excited discussion of plans 
 for distribution of the offices, of compromises to please all 
 parties, and in fiery speeches onty kept within due bounds 
 by the extremest exercise of power by the chairman, Al- 
 bemarle, when suddenly Hammersmith stood up on a back 
 seat, and called out, 
 
 "Mr. Chairman." 
 
 Men were talking, shouting, moving about, making 
 motions, after the manner of the national House of Rep 
 resentatives on a field-night. But at last Albemarle rec 
 ognized Mr. Tom, rapped with his gavel, and called out, 
 
 " Mr. Hammersmith. Gentlemen will be kind enough to 
 preserve order. We shall never be able to finish business, 
 if quiet is not maintained. Mr. Hammersmith has the 
 floor." 
 
 " Mr. Chairman and gentlemen," began Hammersmith, 
 " I ve been sitting here a couple of hours now, listening 
 to what s been said, and trying to see some way out of 
 the snarl that we ve gotten into. I want to say, in the 
 first place, that I am not a candidate for any office, and 
 I haven t been a party to any of the schemes that have 
 been on foot to secure offices for this or that society. 
 Having said this, I am more free to put what I have to 
 say to this meeting. 
 
 " Everybody present knows, I suppose, how universal 
 
418 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 this custom of canvassing for offices has become here in 
 Cambridge, in the middle of senior year; and how a 
 whole class is cut up into sets and parties by this squab 
 ble after a few beggarly honors that are held to be very 
 important for a few weeks, and then are past and gone. 
 Everybody knows all this, and knows how, for weeks now, 
 men have been rushing about like maniacs, pledging other 
 fellows, and getting their votes, bargaining this office for 
 that, pitching into this man, and cracking up that, and 
 doing all they can to set us all by the ears, and make our 
 last few months here as much of a hot-bed as possible. 
 If anybody doubts this, let him reflect on what has been 
 going on in this chapel for the last two hours, and consid 
 er if the turmoil and bitterness will not be vastly greater 
 before we are through, if we go on in the old way. 
 
 " Now, I say all this is wrong. I am a Pudding man, 
 and I m glad of it ! I have a good many friends in the 
 club ; and I think we have some suitable men for the 
 class offices. You are O. K. men, some of you ; and you 
 are doubtless glad of it : you think of your own club and 
 men as I do of mine, and it is very natural. But I don t 
 think it is right, I don t think it is right at all, for the 
 Pudding, or the O. K., or any other society, to gobble all 
 the offices, or divide them up among them to suit them 
 selves. It is making unpleasant feeling ; it is not fair to 
 the large body of outsiders ; and what is the use of all 
 this quarrelling? There are men enough, good enough 
 men, in the class to fill all the offices ; and a man isn t 
 any better because he happens to belong to a society, and 
 has a badge hanging up in his room ; not a bit of it. 
 We are all classmates ; and I tell you right here, that if 
 this squabble goes on, and one party or the other forces 
 .Its ticket through, it will make a state of things that we 
 shall all regret most emphatically ; and none more so than 
 the men who have been engineering these different jobs, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 419 
 
 or else I don t know what I m talking about ; and I think 
 I do. 
 
 44 Now, what do I propose? I move, Mr. Chairman, 
 that the sense of this meeting be recorded as against any 
 combinations, or slates, or any thing of the kind ; and I 
 move further that a direct ballot be taken at once for 
 every officer in turn." 
 
 44 You can only make one motion at a time, Mr. Ham 
 mersmith," said Albemarle. 
 
 44 Then I move, sir, to simplify matters, that this meet 
 ing proceed at once to ballot for the officers of class day 
 seriatim, in the order to be designated by the Chair." 
 And Hammersmith sat down. 
 
 Harvard men are not especially inflammable. They 
 are not apt to be carried away by a clever speech or a 
 brilliant sally. They retain enough of the old colonial 
 spirit of controversy and debate never to give their assent 
 to a proposition, unless their judgment shall approve. 
 They are certainly not as fickle as the French, of whom 
 Pierre d Avity wrote in 1615, 44 They are easy; and a 
 witty fellow is able to mutine a thousand." But equally 
 certain it is, that almost before the chairman could put 
 the question, and a great answering 44 Ay" had gone up, 
 the straightforward words of Hammersmith, sufficient 
 yet not personal, earnest yet not bitter, and the sight 
 of the young fellow who had served his college so well at 
 Worcester, standing there, and counselling what a vast 
 number felt, but dared not say, had had their effect. 
 
 Before he had concluded, there was a buzz among the 
 groups of men. When the 44 Ays" had been shouted, 
 and a few scattering 44 Noes " had only served to raise a 
 laugh, a man jumped up, Thorpe, who had been the can 
 didate of the O. K. and others for the office of chief mar 
 shal. Cries of 44 Hammersmith, Hammersmith!" came 
 from several parts of the meeting ; and Thorpe, securing 
 
420 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 the floor, moved that Hammersmith be declared the 
 choice of the class for chief marshal by acclamation. 
 "No, no!" came feebly from a far corner. Hammer 
 smith rose, and protested that he should not serve, if 
 elected, after what he had said ; but the chairman put the 
 motion. Such a tremendous booming chorus of " Ays " 
 was given, that not a single man dared open his mouth 
 to say "No" when the time came. So at last, despite 
 many protestations on Hammersmith s part, who in 
 sisted that he would be subject to gross misconstruction 
 if he allowed himself to accept the office after his speech 
 of the evening, he at last gave way to the solicitations 
 of the earnest fellows who crowded about him, and ac 
 cepted the honor with many thanks. 
 
 Thorpe had been especially urgent that he should ac 
 cept, a manly, studious fellow, on the pattern of Breese, 
 though with much more popular traits. Freemantle, the 
 regular Pudding candidate for the post, seeing how things 
 were going, came and begged Tom to accept ; but he had 
 made himself so obnoxious to the majority of the class 
 before this evening by his partisan efforts and personal 
 ambition, that this tardy action did not save him. Pie 
 not only lost the place of marshal, either first, second, or 
 third, but when, later in the evening, he was put upon the 
 class-day committee, with Pinckney as chairman, he felt 
 the snub so keenly, that he rose, declined the honor posi 
 tively, and left the meeting in dudgeon, as disappointed 
 a man as ever a confident candidate for a high office could 
 be. Poor Freemantle ! 
 
 The ice was broken. The good beginning inaugurated 
 by Hammersmith s speech, and his choice by acclamation, 
 was followed up by the meeting ; and all the bitterness of 
 spirit that might have run through the whole class was 
 confined to a few unhappy self-seekers, like Freemantle, 
 who perhaps deserved their lot. Breese was elected ora- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 421 
 
 tor after a close ballot with Albemarle ; Trimble was the 
 only man thought of for poet ; Thorpe and Goldie were 
 added to the list of marshals ; Albemarle was elected 
 chairman of the class committee ; Pinckney, of the class- 
 day committee, as has been said ; and a good feeling pre 
 vailed at the close of the meeting, and ever afterward 
 during the months that the men were together as a class, 
 which was in striking contrast to the feuds and rankling 
 too commonly engendered by such meetings, a good 
 feeling, which, I trust, is still the rule, and not the excep 
 tion, after class elections, and all other meetings of the 
 student bcdy politic and body athletic. 
 
422 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 A GALLOP FOR A SENORITA. 
 
 11 A good rider on a good horse is as much above himself and others as the 
 world can make him." LOBD HEBBEBT of Cherbury. 
 
 Qi EVERAL weeks had passed in the second term of 
 k3 senior year. Hammersmith s cynic spirit had given 
 way almost completely before the pleasant excitement 
 attending the reception of his name at the late class 
 elections. He seemed to be gliding back into his old 
 enthusiastic self. The honor paid him by his classmates, 
 their devoted attachment to their chief marshal, his short 
 but merry Christmas visit at home, on which Goldie ac 
 companied him, many things conspired to produce this 
 old-time cheerful mood. And not the least factor in this 
 happy result was the following graphic letter from Pen- 
 hallow the rover, which came to him one day in spring, 
 and produced no little excitement in the quadrangle, when 
 its news was made known : 
 
 SANTA B ABB ABA, CAL., Feb. 25, 186-. 
 
 MY DEAR OLD TOM, Why am I here ? Why have I left the 
 company of the much-bleating and the horny? Why have I 
 eloped from Simmons? Listen, and I will tell you as briefly as 
 possible. 
 
 I have told you several times of the Machado girl, Senorita 
 Guadalupe Machado, of the ranch over the hills from Simmons s 
 camp, you remember. Well, last Tuesday came a mounted Mexi 
 can to us lying in hammocks, and reading of you poo idiots 
 snowed up in Cambridge and Boston. Would the Senor and his 
 friend honor the Don Pedro Machado by attending at a fandango 
 
HIS HAKVAED DAYS. 423 
 
 and general powwow in honor of his beloved daughter s ap 
 proaching nuptials with the young Don Jose Maria Lugo de Val- 
 lejo, recently from the pure-blooded Castilians of Spain? Of 
 course the Scnor and his friend were only too happy, and tried to 
 put on as many airs in accepting the polite invitation as the red- 
 sashed centaur had assumed in delivering it. We didn t know at 
 the time what a figure this much-bearded messenger was to cut 
 in the near future, cutting into more biographies than one. 
 
 We accepted, we went, bedizened in our most carefully pre 
 served of Van Nason s finery, and hoping to eclipse the local 
 Spanish youth, and fire the too hasty Senorita with regretful long 
 ing, by reason of the exceeding gorgeousness of our get-up. I 
 need not say that we failed ignominiously in this attempt ; for who 
 could shine beside the handsome young Don! fiery as to his eye, 
 graceful and impetuous as to his manners, liquid as to his beauti 
 ful tenor voice, nimble-footed in the dance, light of touch at the 
 seductive guitar, destructive (beyond New-England standards, my 
 boy) with his low voice, his tender glances, and absorbing style of 
 devotion ; a magnificent horseman, moreover, as you shall hear. 
 
 Nor need I say that the fandango was a success; and that 
 when, far in the night, the large company (made up of representa 
 tives from the De la Guerras, Figueroas, Carrillos, Micheltorrenas, 
 Del Valles, and other swell families of this lower country) toddled 
 off to their respective " downies," the ample quarters of Don Pedro 
 were taxed to their utmost, and everybody was full of expectation 
 for the elaborate wedding to come off at noon of the next day. 
 Simmons and I, I know, fell off to sleep white chafiing each other 
 on the subject of matrimony, and speculating if Spanish weddings 
 allowed to invited guests any of those sweet perquisites that 
 plucky ushers and groomsmen are wont to seize in the east. But 
 we did not know what was in store for the next day. 
 
 At early dawn a terrific scream wakened the whole house 
 hold, scattered about in the rambling adobe building. People 
 were rushing about in the court-yard ; horses were being fetched 
 from the corrals; men were saddling and mounting, women 
 screaming. A knock at our. door. Will the Senor and his 
 friend be pleased to come forth and aid in the search? for the 
 beautiful Sciiirita Guadalupe is gone! gone quien sabc, nobody 
 knows where ; and Don Jose Maria, her lover, is beside himself 
 with grief. Gone in the dead of night, nobody knows when. 
 There are fresh horse-tracks outside the court-yard. The Seiio- 
 rita s door is ajir; her Mexican maid, astir early on this festal 
 
424 HAMMEESM1TII : 
 
 morning, bad entered, wondering at the open door, and found her 
 gone. Hence the scream, hence the excitement. 
 
 No clew, no clew for several hours, during which a hundred 
 (no, I ll say fifty) men, young and old, were scouring the country 
 in every direction, examining trails, ascending hill-peaks., looking 
 for tracks. At last came a man, riding as only a Spaniard can 
 ride, tearing up the valley from the direction of Ventura, San 
 Buena- Ventura, Ventura for short. 
 
 Who? What news? The messenger Juan, returning from a 
 sheep-camp down the valley in the gray of morning; tw,o horses, 
 seen in the dim light, two horses and three riders, galloping 
 fiercely westward down the valley. Three horsemen? Si Senor. 
 Espanoles ? Si Senor, but one a woman ; and he produced a hand 
 kerchief picked up on the road. The young Don snatched it from 
 his hand, examined it, touched it quickly to his lips, and, with a 
 "gracias d Dios," thrust it into his bosom, and tightened his 
 pistol-belt. 
 
 Thus much for a clew, but many precious hours lost. Present 
 ly the young Don, a Machado, Juan, and myself, were mounted, 
 and spurring down the valley. Simmons gave way to me, press 
 ing me to mount his horse in place of mine ; but my little Diablo 
 had stood me so well, that I would not dishonor him by leaving 
 him behind now, when there was possible glory ahead. Juan had 
 rushed to a corral, turned loose his tired beast, caught and 
 mounted another a vicious-looking gray, blind of one eye in 
 quicker time than it takes me to tell of it. We four, with pistols 
 at our belts, riding lightly, went careering down the valley. 
 
 No word was spoken. The men seemed to know every trail, 
 every ford, every landmark. Their eyes were everywhere : they 
 noted every sign in the road on which we were galloping. But 
 there was no need of especial caution; for here were the plain 
 marks of two galloping horses, one of which had been shod only 
 on the fore-feet, and, having lost one of those shoes, had left a 
 sign, not easily mistaken, wherever he went. 
 
 Five miles, and Juan says, " Aqui, Senor," pointing to some 
 trees on the right ; and explains that from there he saw the flying 
 horsemen early in the morning. Heavens, how much time has 
 been lost ! 
 
 Trails lead off here and there over the side-hills. They are care 
 fully examined ; and once Juan gives a great grunt of satisfaction 
 as he sees the horse-tracks leading into a certain trail. He speaks 
 (the young Don interprets to me) as we take up this trail: "Muy 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 425 
 
 bueno. No chance to escape, if they have taken this trail. Land 
 slide in mountains blocked up trail. Catch them surely, if they ve 
 gone this way." But, as he finished talking, Juan sheered sud 
 denly to the left, with another grunt. The villains had turned 
 off here for a mere blind, leaving the new trail on a bit of rocky 
 ground, and returning to the valley-road lower down. Cunning 
 flight this : equally cunning pursuit ; Juan, Argus-eyed. 
 
 More trails, more blinds, much valuable time lost. 
 
 Ten miles. Horses breathing very hard. The Don s glorious 
 black, without a white spot on him, save a star in his forehead, 
 Machado s sorrel, Juan s ugly gray, my little roan, are dropping 
 foam from their mouths as they run. We dismount by a creek, 
 throw our saddles on the ground, give our beasts a mouthful of 
 water, walk them up and down for five minutes, saddle, are up 
 and away. Not much mercy for horseflesh have these Spaniards. 
 Why should they have in a chase like this, with fresh horses at 
 Ventura, twenty miles ahead, and a beautiful girl being whisked 
 away from her lover? 
 
 By Jove, how I pitied the young Don, riding with his lips 
 pressed firmly, his eyes strained ahead on the road, spurs now and 
 then plunged strongly into the sides of his horse! It was a 
 glorious sight. He looked as handsome as a picture ; but it was 
 a cruel suspense for him. 
 
 Santa Paula Cafion. Can they have fled up its steep road, and 
 issued into the Ojai Valley above ? Another blind, another quar 
 ter of an hour lost. Several roads diverging to the left as the 
 valley comes to an end. Several roads leading out upon the broad 
 Colonia Rancho. 
 
 No, they have kept straight on. There are the single-shod 
 horse and his unshod mate, their signatures distinct in the sand 
 and gravel. There is but one road for them now : they are mak 
 ing for Ventura. 
 
 But it is cruel riding. The sun is hot ; the horses are dripping 
 wet. They look haggard and worn already, with their twenty- 
 mile jump. Can they last till Ventura, ten miles away? A 
 breeze meets us as we mount a little eminence, and sight Ven 
 tura, now seven miles off. Our beasts feel it: they are crowded 
 into a sharper pace. We lift our hats, and cool our heads with its 
 breath. 
 
 Many tracks as we enter Ventura. No sign of the single-shod 
 horse. Nobody has seen the flying horsemen: where can thoy 
 have gone? The beach! And Juan and Machado dash towards 
 
426 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 the ocean abreast of the little town, and are back in a few mo 
 ments. Yes, tracks on the beach, the single-shod, the unshod. 
 They have avoided the town, and wisely. 
 
 Our horses, ourselves, must have rest. Thirty miles or more 
 from the start, and hardly a drawing of the rein! But not much 
 rest. 
 
 We dash up to the Figueroas , cousins of the Machados. We 
 turn loose our horses : they are washed down ; buckets of water are 
 thrown over the saddle-marks. We throw ourselves into chairs, 
 all except the young Don, who paces the floor, his eyes flashing 
 with excitement. 
 
 A half-hour, three-quarters; we must go. I must have a new 
 horse. A fiery, long-bodied beast, reddish-sorrel, with cream-col 
 ored mane and tail, is caught up for me. They call him a palomino, 
 from his color; a restless, forever-prancing animal; no easy matter 
 to ride him. 
 
 Away, across the Ventura River, around the headland, and a 
 road of thirty miles, half on the beach, half skirting it stretches 
 away to Santa Barbara, whose mission we already see against the 
 sky. 
 
 We are on the beach, following the tracks. The waves have 
 come up, and washed them away in places. The sun is setting. 
 The Santa Barbara Islands, twenty miles away, though seeming 
 but five, are covered with purple mist. The surf is breaking on 
 our left : our horses start with a snort as the sharp reports come. 
 There has been a storm at sea. The steep mountains on our right, 
 leaving only a narrow ledge for the road and a few scattered farms, 
 are bright with sunset: where canons cut into them, they are pur 
 ple and sombre in shadow. 
 
 We ride still without a word. My fresh horse plunges and cara 
 coles with excitement: he dashes ahead of the rest, he comes 
 down stiff-legged. But I am not the greenhorn that I was six 
 months ago. 
 
 Ha! the smoke of a small steamer on the southern horizon, 
 steaming for Santa Barbara ! Don Jose looks anxiously at it. The 
 flight of the villains is well timed. If they can reach the town, and 
 take passage on this steamer, who knows where they may go? 
 
 But can they? Shall we allow them? I tell you, Tom, it was 
 worth a whole lifetime to be riding along the beach that day, with 
 those three fellows, never saying a word, but riding as if their lives 
 depended on it; the young Don glancing over his shoulder at the 
 approaching steamer, all three leaning forward lightly in their sad- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 427 
 
 dies and riding like centaurs! I never knew any thing like it 
 before : I never expect to know any thing like it again. 
 
 Five miles out, and we stop and cinch up. Steamer or no 
 steamer, we must not kill our horses, or be left on the sand from 
 a shifting cinch. We dismount, and throw off our saddles again. 
 It was a picturesque sight, as the men were walking their animals 
 up and down the beach, the sea and the streaming sunset be 
 hind them, this white floor at their feet, their horses, with drooped 
 heads and heaving sides, walking by them. 
 
 Up and away again, riding with fresh energy, your humble ser 
 vant beginning to feel that he cannot last many hours at this pace, 
 and wishing that his palomino would not dance quite so much. 
 But I would have died before I would have given up, Tom, though 
 I began to feel very light about the head, and sore all over. With 
 out the light meal at the Figueroas , I would have been off my 
 horse long ago. It is terribly wearing, this continual gallop! 
 
 I felt as you say you did, when you were saving Miss Darby in 
 Fresh Pond, you know, Tom. I was bound to hold on till I 
 dropped off ; and, when I thought of you fellows, I tell you I felt 
 freshened up amazingly, and as good as any of them. How I 
 thought of you, my dear Tom! And how you would have enjoyed 
 being with us ! The sun is down, and the short California twilight 
 merging into darkness. 
 
 We have passed several headlands. Don Vallejo looks inquir 
 ingly at me. I suppose I looked pretty well used up, but I an 
 swered, as cheerfully as possible, that I was good for fifty miles 
 yet. But, Lord, how I lied ! And if I was tired, how much more 
 so must be that delicate Senorita, bound to her horse, and being 
 driven roughly all this way to what ? Some such idea seemed 
 to pass through the young Don s head and mine at once, as he 
 looked at me and I answered his look; for he smiled, oh, such 
 a sad, unhappy smile ! and dug his spurs into his horse : we fol 
 lowed him at a keener jump. 
 
 It was quite dark, we could no longer distinguish the horse- 
 tracks, the smoke of the steamer was entirely out of sight, when 
 we dashed up to the little stage-station at a place called Rincon. 
 A man came running towards us as we neared the low house. We 
 pulled our pistols ; and Juan was on the point of firing, when the 
 man raised his hand, and we found him to be the stage-man in 
 charge, McCloskey by name. 
 
 He spoke hurriedly in Spanish. Juan plunged his spurs into 
 his horse, and was forging ahead, when Don Jose called him back. 
 
428 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 A few words to his men, which I did not catch, and the young 
 Don led the way cautiously around the point on horseback, we 
 following him. Not a hundred paces, and we dash ahead, as 
 fast as our horses will carry us, towards the spot where a light 
 smoke is rising. 
 
 They are there, one man leading a horse to the creek, another 
 binding a woman to her saddle : they are just about to leave. 
 
 We almost trample them under foot. Juan s pistol is out, and 
 his bullet doing its work with the man by the Senorita, in quicker 
 time than it takes to describe it, ~v\|hile the other rascal falls on his 
 knees, and bellows for mercy. 
 
 It was all done so quickly that it seemed like a flash, and I 
 never shall forget, as long as I live, the tableau that the whole 
 scene made, as Machado and I returned to the group, after cap 
 turing the bellowing fellow, Juan, great shaggy Juan, with a red 
 handkerchief binding his forehead, and his big sombrero pushed 
 back on his head, standing by his gray horse, and looking down 
 upon the man dead at his feet (he must have died instantly) ; the 
 young Don and the Senorita in each other s arms; the Don s black 
 horse, necked with foam, standing with drooped head almost over 
 the two ; and the mounting fire throwing a glow over the whole, 
 emphasizing bits of color here and there, lighting up as well the 
 crouching prisoner in our hands; with Machado, my handsome 
 young companion, and our own horses following us. 
 
 I tell you it was something for a man to remember for a life 
 time, Tom; and I had to think very hard to believe myself the 
 same fellow that used to peg about Milton and Cambridge in 
 such a civilized way, never dreaming that a little bit of the fif 
 teenth century was to drop down before me some day. 
 
 But if this all seemed wonderful, and seems a little apocryphal 
 to you, (I believe that s the word, eh?) imagine my surprise, my 
 perfect horror-stricken surprise, when I went forward to look at 
 the man dead at the feet of Juan, and found it was Tuf ton ! 
 
 Tom, I felt as weak as a cat when I saw him. I turned pale, I 
 must have turned pale ; I know I started back a step ; and Juan 
 uttered a grunt of wonder or surprise. 
 
 " You know him? " asked the Don. 
 
 "No, yes," I answered; and Juan, who knew enough English 
 to understand what was said, uttered another suspicious grunt, 
 and eyed me narrowly ; the Don, too, did not appear to appreciate 
 the fact of my being at all acquainted with the villain who had 
 run away with his fiancee, and whom we had been chasing all 
 day over the plains and shore. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 429 
 
 I didn t like the situation, I assure you. What was I to say? 
 How were they likely to receive what I had said? How were they 
 likely to look upon me, who had confessed that I knew the man 
 lying dead in his own blood? 
 
 There was nothing else to be done. I explained to the young 
 Don, in as few words as possible, that I had known Tuf ton in the 
 east, at college (the Don smiled) ; that he had cruelly injured a 
 dear friend of mine (that s you, old boy); had fled in very much 
 the same way as this, and that I had quite unexpectedly come 
 across him again in Los Angeles. The Don received it with the 
 politest attention, apologized for seeming to notice the fact of my 
 showing surprise at the sight of the man, and explained my words 
 to the rest ; Juan answering with his usual grunt and mutter, the 
 Senorita putting out her small hand to me, and saying in the 
 sweetest voice that I ever heard, Tom, " Mil gracias, Senor" and 
 something more that I could not understand. 
 
 I stammered and bowed, and thought what a fool I was before 
 young women, and how much better you would have behaved in 
 the emergency (only I m glad it was not you). And soon the Don 
 lifted the young Senorita into his saddle, and we followed with 
 the horses and the prisoner. 
 
 Well, to make a long story short, old boy, Tuf ton was buried 
 not far from the spot where he fell. I spare you details ; but it 
 was simply horrible, the manner of his death. I put a simple 
 little board at his grave, with his name on it. Juan was sent 
 back immediately to carry word to the people below of the cap 
 ture. We spent the night at the stage-station; and the next 
 morning we separated, Machado driving the prisoner before him 
 on his horse, he was a Mexican of the lowest type, and had had 
 some trouble with old Machado, I believe, the young Don and 
 the Senorita galloping off on fresh horses, and your humble ser 
 vant coming up to Santa Barbara astride of the noblest animal I 
 ever mounted, my dear boy, the Don s glorious black, which he 
 pressed upon me, and which I had already coveted. Machado 
 joins me here to-morrow. I came up here in order to present my 
 letter to Judge Hewett, the only Harvard man here, but find him 
 ou" of town. 
 
 Did you know that many of the high-bred Castilians are 
 purest blondes, Tom? fair hair, blue eyes, and, oh ! such com 
 plexions! Faqt; and I own I was vastly surprised to find that the 
 SeTwrita was of this type when Simmons and I made our first 
 
430 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 call at the Camulos. You can imagine what a striking picture 
 the two must make together, she, with her fair hair, blue eyes, 
 and cheeks showing just a faint blush continually; the young 
 Don, with hair, eyes, and mustaches black as night, and such a 
 way of flashing upon you in surprise or anger ! 
 
 I can imagine that this news will create not a little surprise 
 among the fellows in Cambridge, to whom make my kindest 
 remembrances, and yet I fear that you will be putting me down 
 as a confirmed romancer, like Euddiman, our old crony, and your 
 present bete noire. It is too true, too true, my dear fellow; and 
 for proof I can show you Tuf ton s seal-ring (which you of course 
 remember, the one with the sphinx cut in it), which I thought 
 I might as well take as to leave it for Juan and the rest. I saw 
 that nothing else was removed. Poor fellow! I thank God that 
 it was Juan s bullet, and not mine! 
 
 I am stopping with the Micheltorrenas, the swell Spanish 
 family in town; and I shall describe their picturesque though 
 rather slow modes of life next time. Young Machado gave me a 
 line to them when I left him at Bincon ; and they are treating 
 me as though I were one of the royal family. My noble steed, 
 Don Sebastian, I can see tethered in a neighboring field ; a young 
 Micheltorrena is singing a jolly little Spanish song to her guitar 
 in the corridor by the court-yard ; and if I only had some such 
 sympathetic fellow as you, Tom, to talk to, and receive my enthu 
 siasm over the life and the country out here, I should be quite 
 happy. I have not yet delivered my letter to Judge Hewett, as 
 I believe I have said above. 
 
 By-by, then, for a while, my dear fellow. Kind regards, as I 
 said before, and for yourself the undying devotion of 
 
 Yours, ever, 
 
 PENHALLOW. 
 
 You might perhaps get this to my family, if you can conven 
 iently: it will save my writing it all out again for them; and 
 writing is such a bore in this country, where every thing draws a 
 fellow out of doors. Don t fail to keep your promise about class 
 day and commencement. Make your account as full as possible, 
 and tell me all the gossip that you can collect. Why, class elec 
 tions must have come off by this time ! I wonder if they were 
 as stormy as usual. You must write me a full account of them. 
 I wonder what mighty honor you have had bestowed on you, my 
 boy. They will have hard work to decide which to give you, I 
 
HIS HAKVAKD DAYS. 431 
 
 fear, yon devastating fellow ! Perhaps three or four offices com 
 bined. By-by again, 
 
 Yours, 
 
 PEN. 
 
 " Talk of there being no romance in the nineteenth 
 century!" exclaimed Ruddiman, in a group of men 
 returning from a society meeting, this letter of Hammer 
 smith s being under discussion. "There s plenty of it, 
 if a man only knows where to find it." 
 
 " Certainty," said Freemantle drowsily. " What s her 
 name now, Hud? " 
 
 " O gammon ! " answered Ruddiman, " I wasn t think 
 ing of myself." 
 
 " No: somebody else, of course. It s very necessary, 
 somebod} 7 else, if a man would have a romance," put in 
 Albemarle. 
 
 " Some men don t appreciate any thing of the kind 
 till it s shoved down their throats," retorted Ruddiman, 
 the quickly appreciating. 
 
 And some men go about with their mouths open pe 
 rennially, in hopes something of the kind will drop into 
 them," added Pinckney. But never despair, Rud. Your 
 turn will come some day; and you ll perhaps be able to 
 rescue a Senorita, or a goody, or some other fair creature, 
 as well as Penhallow. By Jove, but I should like to have 
 been on that ride of his ! Mighty exciting it must have 
 been eh, fellows?" And the fellows thought it was, 
 and all college thought it was. It was talked about, and 
 gossiped about ; and Hammersmith s former history was 
 again brought forward for discussion. Would the Tuft on 
 imbroglio never be entirely forgotten? Would he never 
 hear the last of it? The tragic end of poor Tufton, too, 
 who had figured so in Cambridge not many years ago, 
 made a profound sensation among the people who had 
 known him in all his splendor, and through the halls 
 where his sleek presence was so well remembered. 
 
432 HAMMEKSMITIJ : 
 
 How it should make a man pause and deliberate in his 
 voyage through life, the thought of the resurgent mem 
 ories and bitter castaway facts that will rise continually 
 from out the wreck of the past, whether he will or not ! 
 How they return to strew the fair shore of the present 
 with ocean-spume and mocking faces that make one shud 
 der at their swift re-appearance ! Small wonder that Cir 
 cumspection puts on its glasses more and more, as men 
 advance in years, when every thought, every new rela 
 tion, every change of residence, every casual acquaint 
 ance even, is known to hold the possibility of a life-long 
 experience, a memory that can never quite die out, bind 
 ing arms that never lose their hold, but, free as you think 
 you are, pull you back remorselessly into the dark caverns 
 of the past, set with waning lights. 
 
 Hammersmith could not but be powerfully affected by 
 this descriptive and dramatic letter of Penhallow s, this 
 tragic death of the man who had done so much to imbit- 
 ter his early college-life, sowing thoughts and suspicions 
 in his mind that could never be quite rooted out. He did 
 not make a display of passing the letter about : it was 
 too unhappy an experience, too sad a death, to dwell 
 upon. He showed it to Goldie, Pinckney, and one or two 
 others : he would have liked to show it to Breese ; but 
 he could never speak to him again. That was all that he 
 ever thought nowadays of his relation to Breese : every 
 thing was over; there was an end of it. A Hammer 
 smith does not go about reviving dead friendships, mak 
 ing apologies, retracting words that have been said, what 
 ever their effect. He would never have another word 
 with him, unless, indeed, his official relation to Breese as 
 chief marshal on class day should require. How little 
 any of them knew, even yet, what was in store for them ! 
 
 Such an adventure, such news, however, could not 
 remain secret, much as Hammersmith might desire 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 433 
 
 Well as His troubles were known to have resulted from 
 association with this same Tufton, well as his hatred of 
 gossip was understood, poor Tom was subjected to a 
 thousand questions, a thousand light exclamations from 
 fair friends in Boston and Cambridge, and appreciated, as 
 he never had done before, how indissolubly linked all 
 one s acts and experiences are one with the other, alas 
 for unhappj 7 man ! 
 
 " You are very kind never to hare said a word about 
 this Tufton news, Miss Darby," said Hammersmith at a 
 musical party at Mrs. Fayerweather s in early spring. 
 "Have you heard it?" 
 
 1 1 Yes , I ve heard of it, " she answered . * But I thought 
 you were probably bored to death already about it ; and I 
 knew it could not be a pleasant memory for you." 
 
 " I wish others were as considerate," said Hammer 
 smith. " Penhallow seems to have had a very exciting 
 time of it, his young Don, and the Senorlta, and the 
 rest. California must have a very stimulating effect on 
 the imagination, don t you think? " 
 
 "Perhaps so. I ve been reading a good deal about 
 California lately, every thing % that I can lay hands on ; 
 but there s so little written about it! almost nothing. 
 Life must be very delightful out there, especially where 
 Mr. Penhallow is. The climate is perfect, I understand, 
 and every thing must be so fresh and novel ! Here, ah, 
 how commonplace every thing is ! I had almost said, 
 everybody. You can always tell beforehand what any 
 one is going to say to you. You can always tell what 
 you re going to do from day to day. It must be fasci 
 nating to live such a wild life. If I were a man, I would 
 never be content till I could strike out in some new land, 
 with every thing untamed and strange about me. I hate 
 all this tiresome life ! I hate people so ! " 
 
 "Why, Miss Darby!" Hammersmith began; and no 
 
434 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 one can tell how the world s history might have been 
 altered, from that evening on, if Mr. Beauclerk, a young 
 English tutor just arrived in Cambridge, had not come up 
 to summon Miss Darb}^ to the piano, where she was 
 needed in a trio, and prevented Hammersmith from finish 
 ing his sentence. 
 
 He had no opportunity of uninterrupted conversation 
 with her again that evening. Before another occasion 
 offered, while he was still, in moments of reflection, pon 
 dering and wondering over that frank speech of hers, and 
 the mood that could have allowed it, events transpired 
 which in a measure explained it, events which not only 
 explained it, but made Mr. Tom s own course more easy 
 and more difficult at the same time. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 435 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 WAR-NOTES AND OTHER SURPRISES. 
 
 "A blow from the hand of Jier we love is as sweet as raisins." ABABIO 
 PROVERB. 
 
 " Eo, neque ut noctu iter facientes infestem, 
 Sed amo ; pulcrum autem est amantem in amore adjuvare." BION. 
 
 STUDENTS had been leaving for the seat of war in 
 the South for many months now, bidding good-by 
 to the peaceful scenes where their young lives had been 
 nurtured. 
 
 Pinckney, chivalric Pinckney, Trimble, many Southern 
 ers from the different schools of the university, had long 
 ago left, to cast their lot with their families and their kin 
 dred. Breese, Goldie, Curtis, very many of Hammer 
 smith s class, were going or about to go ; and Tom him 
 self, eager, impetuous Tom, would have been among the 
 foremost to set out, months ago, had it not been for the 
 extrcmety delicate state of his mother s health, of which 
 his sweet young sister Mabel kept him duly informed. 
 
 u Do not imagine that she is worse than she is, dear 
 Tom," Miss Mabel had written in one of her letters. " I 
 have no doubt she will be quite strong again by your class- 
 day. She talks of you very, very often, hopes you are 
 going to graduate with high honors in your class ; and I 
 beg you, Tom, as you love her, not to think of going off 
 at present. If the war is not over when you graduate, 
 as we confidently hope it may be, perhaps she may feel 
 differently ; and I am sure she will be stronger, and better 
 able to bear your going. 
 
436 HAMMEKSMITH : 
 
 " I am coming on to Miss Darby s in the end of May, 
 dear Tom: are you glad? Mother is to stay at auntie s 
 till your class-day week (that is, if she is well enough ; 
 of course I shall not leave her if she is not) ; and uncle 
 Gayton is to come on and get her in time for the great 
 day. Oh, what a nice time we shall have, Tom dear ! " 
 
 It was while returning from a large mass-meeting of the 
 citizens of Cambridge, where impassioned speeches had 
 been made, and the war-spirit aroused to an extraordi 
 nary degree, that Hammersmith, his mind full of the elo 
 quence that he had just heard, and yet busy with the 
 thought of this anxious news from home, was overtaken 
 and passed by Breese, walking rapidly, as usual. 
 
 Breese turned after passing, and waited for Tom to 
 come up. He did not hold out his hand, but said quiet- 
 
 iy,- 
 
 "Hammersmith, perhaps I m committing an imperti 
 nence ; but this is not a time for small feelings to separate 
 people. I want to talk to you. May I walk with you? 
 Will you come up to my rooms? " 
 
 " As 3 T ou will," answered Hammersmith; and they 
 walked in silence to Breese s quarters, Hammersmith 
 much softened in spirit by the news from home, the ex 
 citement roused by the evening s speeches, and the feel 
 ing, that, anxious as he might be to go to the war, his duty 
 to his mother required that he should abandon the idea, 
 for the present at least, and see his friends depart without 
 him; Breese quiet and subdued from quite a different 
 reason, and from the effect of a sudden resolve that he had 
 made that very evening, at the meeting. 
 
 "Hammersmith," said Breese, when they had entered 
 his rooms, the first time for Tom since their midnight 
 quarrel, "I m going to the war on Monday, and I 
 couldn t go without seeing you again." 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 437 
 
 "By Jove ! I wish I might say the same : I wish I were 
 going ! responded Hammersmith energetically ; and he 
 explained his situation. 
 
 "You are right, entirely right," said Breese. "But I 
 am differently situated : I have nobody depending on me, 
 nobody to care whether I fall or not." And he stopped 
 a moment, while Tom looked up in surprise at his words. 
 
 "Hammersmith, if a man loves a woman and can t win 
 her, is it a manly way to go moping about, cursing the 
 world in general, and 3 oung women in particular? " 
 
 u B} Jove!" exclaimed Tom. "I don t know what 
 in thunder you are driving at ; but I don t see what my 
 affairs have got to do with } T our going to the war ; 
 and" 
 
 " Pardon me, pardon me ! " answered Breese. "I m 
 talking of nryself, I m talking of myself, Hammersmith. 
 .Don t think that I would be guilty of such an impertinence 
 as alluding to affairs of your own in this connection ! I 
 mean myself ; and that s what I want to tell you about. 
 I am not engaged to Miss Darby, Hammersmith. I never 
 have been, and I now never expect to be." 
 
 " Thunder ! " was Tom s only answer. 
 
 "You may well say so," said Breese. "Probably 
 more people than j ourself would say the same, with a 
 different exclamation perhaps. But it is not my fault or 
 hers that reports of our engagement have gotten about. 
 
 " Now, Hammersmith, you and I are not the men to 
 whine about our misfortunes. I know that well enough. 
 You know it well enough. So that I ve not asked 3~ou 
 up here for the purpose of pouring my sorrows into 
 your ear, as I understand Ruddiman is in the habit of 
 doing 
 
 "Oh, hang Ruddiman ! " said Tom. 
 
 " Yes, yes, hang him, say I ! Nor have I any apology 
 to make for any words that I may have spoken to 3*011 in 
 
438 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 this room several months ago. I do not ask you for any 
 apology : I do not propose to make any apology myself. 
 But I have been thinking, all these weeks, over that mis 
 erable evening s work ; and I m convinced not only that 
 yon received a wrong impression from my words at the 
 time, but that I would be a mean coward and a sneak, if 
 I went off to the war, and did not try to undo their ill 
 effect, to explain to you how I spoke as I did. 
 
 "Two evenings before we quarrelled in this room, I 
 had offered myself to Miss Darby, and she had refused 
 me. 
 
 " I do not need to go back of that evening, Hammer 
 smith, in talking to you, who know my college-history 
 better than any man in the class. You know that I would 
 never talk to another man in all the world as I am talk 
 ing to you. I do not need to go back to those earlier 
 times, when we used to discuss every thing under the sun, 
 and beyond the sun, or to say any thing about my strict 
 and settled views about various matters. 
 
 You know how firm I was in my determination never 
 to go into society. You know how our half-plaj^ful dis 
 cussions on the subject ended ; how you carried the day ; 
 (though I never dreamed how it would all turn out, Heaven 
 knows !) how I went out again and again and again and 
 how did it all end? My God, how did it all end? " and 
 the strong man arose, and paced the room in agitation ; 
 while Hammersmith s mind was filled with strange, con 
 fusing thoughts, wonder, pity, remorse, expectancy, 
 fear. 
 
 "Mount Desert came on. You know about that, and 
 how that infernal Ruddiman thought fit to spread a thou 
 sand rumors and a thousand exaggerated reports about 
 us, about Miss Darby and me. I would have throttled 
 him long ago if Miss Darby had allowed me, and if it 
 would not have caused an unpleasant scandal and pub- 
 licit} . 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 439 
 
 "I do no more than allude to these things, though: 
 you know them ; I know them. You know that a young 
 woman never once entered into my scheme of life as we 
 used to talk about it ; you know now that my firm-set 
 plans were all upset, that I loved Miss Darby, struggle 
 against it as I might, and that I have failed to make her 
 love me in return. 
 
 " Now, this is all about myself, Hammersmith, about 
 my own personal matters ; and I certainly would not have 
 asked to have this talk with you if there were not some 
 thing else. 
 
 " I feel that you will pardon me, I know that you will 
 not fly out at me. Heaven knows how I have struggled 
 with myself to decide what was best to be done in this 
 emergency ! If you knew it, and how I hate to meddle 
 with other people s business, you -would appreciate my 
 motives ; and I feel that you can. 
 
 u As I started out with saying, if a man loves a woman 
 truly and deeply, and fails to win her, is he any thing but 
 a weakling to go about abusing her, or himself, or the 
 universe in general ? Is he any thing but a coward to go 
 and shoot himself, or butt his brains out against a wall ? 
 
 "If he does that, does it not show that his was only a 
 selfish, savage love, the love of a boy, who goes about 
 making faces, and sulking, when a boy-rival cuts him out? 
 If a man really loves a woman, does he not desire her 
 perfect happiness, her absolute satisfaction, as far as earth 
 can give it ? I think so. And if he finds at last, strive 
 as he may, that he is not the man to make her happy, that 
 she looks to somebody else, ought he not to step aside, 
 and pray God that she may be happy with that other 
 person? I think so; and I believe you think so too, 
 Hammersmith . 
 
 "Miss Darby does not love me: she loves you. No, 
 no : don t tell me any thing about it ! I beg, above all 
 
440 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 things, that you will not say a word of your own feelings. 
 I would be ashamed of myself, if I brought you up here, 
 and, even by inference, drew your feelings from you. Be 
 lieve me, Hammersmith, I am doing a thing that cuts me 
 to the quick, a thing that Miss Darby herself might 
 never forgive me for, but which, as I have asked Heaven s 
 guidance, I cannot refrain from doing. 
 
 44 Don t ask me how I know it ! I know that you will 
 not. Don t ask me why we did not deny the report of 
 our engagement ! Both those are things very difficult to 
 answer. But I know that she loves you. I know it from 
 every word and look and action of hers, when your name 
 is mentioned, or when you are near yourself. I knew it 
 at the end of sophomore } r ear, when I went to see her 
 father about your suspension." 
 
 44 You went to see her father ! " said Tom in surprise. 
 
 "Yes," answered Breese, and explained his connec 
 tion with the matter, how he had met the father and 
 daughter in the professor s library, had an earnest talk 
 with them on the subject, and finally had gone to presi 
 dent Dummer and others to intercede for him. 
 
 44 Well," said Tom, " I thought I knew all the particu 
 lars of that affair by this time ; but it seems I was mis 
 taken. And I have to thank you again, Breese, as I do 
 most heartily. And Tom wandered back, in his memory, 
 over the old imbroglio and Miss Darby s connection with 
 it, and all the little facts that had come out since. 
 
 "And about denying the report of the engagement," 
 continued Breese: " }~ou know, as well as I, why she 
 would not allow it. That s one thing about Miss Darby 
 that I never could quite understand. 
 
 14 Then she went away to New York for a month, after 
 that night and my rejection ; and all this war-fever broke 
 out ; and you deserted Cambridge society almost entirely : 
 and so matters have slipped along till now. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 441 
 
 u Now do you see a little better how it all is? I loved 
 her ; I love her yet, God knows how much ! I desire 
 her perfect happiness above any one thing that I desire on 
 earth, and would do any thing, yes, any thing to-day, to 
 assure it. She does not love me, but somebody else. I 
 call that other person to me, swallow my pride, tell him 
 what I know, leave the rest to him. 
 
 "Now you can understand, Hammersmith, somewhat 
 how I felt that evening when you burst in upon me after 
 your great day at cricket. I had just been thrown over 
 by her ; my mind was still busy with her, as it is to 
 night, and has been for months, and I could not bear 
 the idea of anybody taking her name for a toast in so 
 light a way." 
 
 " Yes," said Hammersmith ; " and I had no right to do 
 it. But I had been at a supper at Kent s ; I was flushed 
 with my success in cricket : and the fact is, I was desper 
 ate (if you must know it) to find out how you stood." 
 
 "Well, well, it s all past now," answered Breese, with 
 a wave of his hand. 
 
 "Not all," said Hammersmith; "for I have still to 
 offer you my hand, Breese, and ask that you will try 
 to forget all that wretched evening s work." And the two 
 men stood again under the gaslight, grasping hands this 
 time with the heart} grip common to each of them, and 
 looking into each other s eyes with quite a different look 
 from that of the bitter midnight many weeks ago. 
 
 Far into the night, with the thought of this woman 
 between them, they sat, not alluding again to the subject, 
 but talking, as they had not talked for months, of their col 
 lege-life, their future plans now so rudely broken in upon, 
 and the grand call that their country was making upon 
 their manhood. But the thought of this woman, beloved 
 of both, was there between .them ; and then, as in the few 
 days of Breese s delay in getting away, it bound the two 
 
442 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 together in a manner difficult to describe. It came as 
 the crowning consecration to Breese s self-sacrifice, and 
 was regarded by Hammersmith in the light of a precious 
 legacy, very pleasant to contemplate, but much involved, 
 so foolish and arrogant and snobbish had he been for 
 months, and so neglectful of his good Cambridge friends, 
 of none more so than of Miss Darby. 
 
 So, for the three days or more of Breese s sta} T , the two 
 re-united friends spent as much time as possible together ; 
 and all their long walks and talks were eloquent of one 
 young woman, though they said never a word about her. 
 
 And when, on Monday, Breese and Farley, Curtis and 
 Wingate and others, went off to the war in the same com 
 pany, amid the cheers and blessings of their classmates, 
 who had flocked to Boston in crowds to see them start, 
 Breese seemed to all the rest to be about the happiest fel 
 low on the face of the earth, beloved of a beautiful 
 woman, head scholar of his class, and marching forth to 
 further glory among guns and trumpets and battle-flags. 
 Tom alone knew what heaviness there was at the poor fel 
 low s heart, how grandly he tried to conceal it, and thank 
 God in the very midst of his grief. And Tom went back 
 to Cambridge, strangely strengthened in his mind by the 
 thought that the world contained such a patient, whole- 
 souled, noble fellow as Breese, who could carry himself 
 as he had carried himself in this matter, sinking all 
 thought of himself in his great desire for Miss Darby s 
 happiness, and daring to tell the truth to Hammersmith 
 as fearlessly, with as much tact, as he had done. 
 
 When he was leaving, and his classmates were bidding 
 him hearty good-bys, he had alluded for once only to the 
 old subject, taking Tom aside a bit, and saying, 
 
 "You will write to me now and then, Hammersmith? 
 And you will tell me how she is? and the college 
 news? " 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 443 
 
 1 That I will, my dear fellow," said Hammersmith. 
 * Depend upon it ! And I shall be with you the moment 
 I graduate, if it is a possible thing. Jove, how I wish I 
 were going now ! 
 
 * God bless you ! said Breese ; and the drams rolled, 
 Breese stepped back into the ranks, and, with a tremen 
 dous chorus of cheers from the students at hand, he was 
 off, with his face to duty, his heart and life consecrated to 
 noble daring. And Hammersmith and the others went 
 back to Cambridge, restless, and longing for their day of 
 graduation to come. 
 
444 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 MISS DARBY AND MR. TOM ON THEIR HIGH HORSES. 
 
 41 Quse secuta sunt defleri magis quarn defend! possunt." TACITUS. 
 
 " I find she loves him much because she hides it : 
 Love teaches cunning, even to Innocence." DBYDEN. 
 
 " Fooles in love s colledge 
 Have farre more Knowledge 
 To Reade a woman over 
 Than a neate prating lover." JOHN LYLY, Mother JBombie. 
 
 IF there be any young readers, any very young readers, 
 who have followed the biography of Hammersmith as 
 far as this, they will probably exclaim, at this point in his 
 history, "Now I hope Hammersmith will not be foolish 
 any longer ! Breese is out of the way ; the coast is clear : 
 if Mr. Tom loves her, why doesn t he go up boldly and 
 tell her so?" 
 
 Very natural question, very natural interest in Ham 
 mersmith s behalf. As his biographer, permit me to 
 thank you for desiring expedition and success for the 
 young fellow. 
 
 But, bless me ! do we all march bravely up and declare 
 ourselves to the girls we love? Are we always sure just 
 when we love them? And do 3^ou forget, that, for long 
 months now, Hammersmith had been shunning the Cam 
 bridge social world with a remarkable fatuity, occasional 
 ly descending upon it with a patronizing air that was 
 worse than absence, and imagining, with that adorable 
 perversity of } T outh before alluded to, that he was utterly 
 blase and misanthropic, no longer fit company for the en- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 445 
 
 thusiastic folk of the university town? Would you have 
 a man return to a young woman whom he has treated 
 with distinguished neglect, and say, " I have been trying 
 to amuse myself with the gay world ; but I find it s all 
 emptiness and mockery, and I don t seem to care for any 
 body or any thing ! I haven t much spirit or enthusiasm 
 left, but, such as I am, behold me ! I haven t treated you 
 very well, to be sure ; but you used to be my good friend 
 in our younger days, when we were both very verdant : 
 will 3 T ou be something nearer to me now?" Bless me! 
 Would } T ou have a young woman subjected to such an in 
 sult as this ? Would you have her treated as Miss Darby 
 had been treated for months, and expect her to receive 
 the repentant Hammersmith with open arms so soon as 
 he chose to return to her ? Heaven forbid ! And you are 
 vastly mistaken in Miss Darby, if you imagine that she 
 would have been other than highly incensed at Hammer 
 smith, or Breese, or anybody, who should dare to play 
 fast and loose in such a way with her feelings. You -are 
 vastly mistaken in Hammersmith, if you can think him 
 guilty of such an impertinence. 
 
 The closing weeks of his college-course, the frequent 
 meetings of his classmates, his relation as chief marshal 
 to the various committees and arrangements incident 
 to graduation, the severe class-work preparatory to the 
 final examinations, and, above all, the kindling war-spirit 
 which drew the young men more and more together as 
 the time for their own participation in the struggle came 
 near, all these things, as well as the startling revelation 
 of Breese, with, perhaps, a nuance of disgust at his own 
 frivolous life of the past winter, conspired to attract 
 Hammersmith to Cambridge the more, and to break up 
 the clouds that had gathered in his sky. 
 
 That awful official, the class secretary, was abroad, 
 requesting his classmates biographies, their plans in life, 
 
MG HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 their religious faith, and every minutest fact in their his 
 tory, from the size of their biceps to the names of their 
 maternal grandmothers of the fiftieth remove. The class- 
 song, written by Pinckney poor Pinckney ! before he 
 went away, was in active rehearsal in upper Harvard Hall, 
 whence its swelling chorus came forth into the night-air 
 twice or thrice a week, adding a pensive refrain to the 
 musings of under-classmen gathered in their rooms about 
 the quadrangle, and drawing the thoughts of the singers 
 more and more to the final day of festivity and college 
 entertainment, when this joyous song was to be given. 
 The various societies, Hasty Pudding, O. K., Natural 
 History, Glee Club, Pierian Sodality, tf>. B. K., and others, 
 
 various club-tables and congenial "entries" of men, 
 the Eleven, the Varsity, the college-buildings, the faculty, 
 the doughty "goodies " and skips, all were being photo 
 graphed by the class photographer. The class-day com 
 mittee was busily engaged preparing for the abundant 
 good time of that day. Men were already deciding upon 
 the place and style of their " spreads," some in sets, 
 some few by themselves. Albemarle, who had been chosen 
 orator in Breese s place, was preparing his class-day ora 
 tion. Oliver, who had succeeded Trimble as poet, was 
 reading extracts of his poem occasionally to Hammer 
 smith and others. Letters were coming from Breese and 
 the rest at the seat of war in Virginia. 
 
 How could Mr. Tom, in the midst of all these tender 
 associations pointing to their day of graduation and the 
 time when they were to leave these dear old scenes forever, 
 
 how could he do other than forget all that was bitter 
 in the past? above all, forget the silly role that he had 
 assumed so grandly during the winter, and be himself 
 again ? How could he fail to be affected by all the crowd 
 ing thoughts and hopes which these final preparations 
 aroused, and to be filled with infinite tenderness for all 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 447 
 
 the old places and haunts of the university, and all the 
 people in any way pleasurably associated with them? 
 That man s spirit must be indeed bitter, or his 3 oung life 
 indeed hopeless, who can be otherwise than pleasantly, 
 pensively, and regretfully moved by these closing weeks 
 of his college-life which Hammersmith is now passing 
 through. 
 
 We have not the space to describe the various occasions 
 on which Tom and Miss Darby were brought together at 
 this period, before the arrival of Miss Mabel Hammer 
 smith ; how they rode together occasionally, with a 
 strange sort of silence between them now and then ; how 
 they tallied of books and people, the war, the approach 
 ing class-day, and the thousand and one things that form 
 the subject of young people s learned discussions ; how 
 Tom now and then accompanied Miss Darby to a small 
 children s charity-hospital not far from Harvard Square, 
 which Miss Fayerweather, Miss Summerdale, and she 
 were largely instrumental in supporting ; and how pleas 
 ant it was to Tom to feel himself slipping back to his 
 former sensible life, and intimacy with his good Cambridge 
 friends. 
 
 " Well, I declare, Miss Darby," said he one afternoon, 
 as they came out of the little hospital, where he had been 
 greatly affected by the sight of the patient young sufferers, 
 with Miss Darby moving among them like some divine 
 messenger, followed continually by their loving looks, " I 
 think it s wonderfully sweet in you to give so much time 
 to those little beggars ! I d no idea that you had such 
 an army of worshippers ! 
 
 " No? " she said. " It is the greatest comfort in the 
 world ! They are so sweet, and so thankful for every thing 
 that is done for them ! It is a perfect rest to go and see 
 them. I sometimes think that I am only intended to take 
 care of such castaways and invalids as those. They seem 
 
448 HAMMEKSMITH: 
 
 to appreciate kindness so much better than well people, 
 don t you think? " 
 
 "Yes," said Tom, " they do certainly. I never saw 
 such glorified looks in my life as they gave when yon 
 went around among them." 
 
 "Poor little innocents! Didn t you enjoy going? I 
 thought you would. I really would find it hard to decide, 
 Mr. Hammersmith, if I had to choose between the world 
 and my hospital : I enjoy them both. But the world is 
 so cold and haughty, and full of misunderstanding ! and 
 my small people here are so different ! I think I would 
 choose my hospital, if I had to take one or the other 
 only." Hammersmith was switching trees and weeds with 
 his cane as he walked, and did not say much as she talked 
 thus. 
 
 The next day they were riding in the direction of Bel- 
 mont, Hammersmith again very silent. He was thinking 
 what a mockery life is ; what fools men make of them 
 selves ; how they refuse happiness when it is at their 
 very threshold ; how they rush off into extravagance and 
 folly, and try to imagine themselves very grand and indif 
 ferent ; and how, after all, they come back to the simple 
 faith of their boyhood, and, if they are not wholly hard 
 ened and wholly lost, believe that the love of a good 
 woman is of more worth than all the gay pageants and 
 brilliant escapades of Christendom put together. He was 
 thinking of Breese, too, and of the young woman by his 
 side ; and well, he was thinking of a great many things, 
 as } Ou may imagine, this sweet May afternoon. 
 
 He was again switching the foliage of the .trees they 
 passed, this time with his riding-stick, when he broke 
 out, 
 
 " Miss Darby, I ve been an awful fool ! " 
 
 She turned her face partly towards him, and then looked 
 straight ahead. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 449 
 
 " I ve been an awful fool all these months, I say. It s 
 a very hard thing to explain. But, if I had not been so 
 much interested in you, I would not have minded every 
 little change so much." 
 
 "I doVt understand you, Mr. Hammersmith," she 
 said, flashing upon him for an instant, indignant. " What 
 change do you refer to ? " 
 
 "Oh! nothing in particular. But, you see, I m very 
 sensitive. I come of a sensitive family ; and every little 
 thing affects us, and makes us fly off at a tangent." 
 
 "But still I don t understand you," she returned. 
 And she reined her horse in as they came to an entrance 
 to the Waverley Woods. " I don t see what I have done 
 to make you fly off at a tangent, as you say." And she 
 became silent, and looked off into the grove. 
 
 "Well, you know a fellow often sees things, or ima 
 gines he sees things, that affect him ; and yet he cannot 
 explain them," Hammersmith continued blindly. 
 
 " I haven t an idea what you are talking about," said 
 Miss Darby. 
 
 "I suppose it was very weak in me; but I couldn t 
 help it," urged Tom ; and any further blind explanation 
 of his was cut off by Miss Darby s suddenly leaping from 
 her horse, tying the reins quickly to a branch of a tree, 
 and seating herself by a rock in the grove which they had 
 entered. 
 
 "For Heaven s sake, what is this for?" asked Ham 
 mersmith, dismounting, and leading his horse to where 
 she sat, whipping the grass with her riding-whip. 
 
 " I am going to stay here. I wish you would go on," 
 she said ; and her eyes were bright with rage, and her 
 cheeks a bit pale, as she spoke. 
 
 " But I cannot. What have I done, Miss Darby? " 
 
 "Nothing; but I wish you would go." And she 
 whipped the grass again, and her riding-habit, biting her 
 lips the while. 
 
450 HAMMEBSMITH : 
 
 " I cannot leave you here : it would not be proper. 
 Believe me, Miss Darby, I did not mean to hurt your 
 feelings. What have I said? " he pleaded. 
 
 "Nothing, I say. But I wish you would go away." 
 And she turned her angry eyes upon him again. But, 
 before he could reply, she exclaimed bitterly, " That I 
 should have come to this ! " and presently again, " That 
 I should have come to this ! " as her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 "I confess I was weak," said Tom again. "I 
 ought" 
 
 "Yes, you ivere weak, weaker than water!" she ex 
 claimed. "Oh that I Mr. Hammersmith, will you 
 leave me ? I cannot bear to have you here." 
 
 4 Do you mean it ? " 
 
 "I do." 
 
 " How will it look for you to come riding back alone? " 
 
 " I don t care how it looks ! Why should I? That I 
 should have come to this ! " 
 
 " Good-by, then;" and Hammersmith lifted his hat, 
 led his horse a space apart, mounted, and rode slowly 
 awa}^, while she kept her eyes fixed on the ground at her 
 feet. 
 
 O buds and flowers ! O waving grass, and sheltering 
 boughs that looked down upon the scene ! what a sad sight 
 you saw ! Can this be our brave Hammersmith, mount 
 ing his horse, and leaving the woman that he loves alone 
 in the greenwood, alone with her bruised thoughts, and 
 her anger at the half-way Hammersmith ? Will he never 
 learn a young woman s ways ? Or is this youngster, 
 who can stand up before the bowling of the " Young 
 Americas," fight his way through a street-mob, and pull 
 his heart out in a boat-race, after all, merely like many 
 another young fellow, afraid to brave the pleasant dangers 
 of a 3^oung woman, afraid to believe what he scarcely 
 dares hope, and, above all, unable to comprehend the 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 451 
 
 ways of a high-bred, sensitive girl, and her fine rage at 
 having allowed her own feelings to be known, as Miss 
 Darby fears that she has done ? Well, well, shut up the 
 page, and call him a very blind or a very cowardly young 
 fellow, but do not blame him for thinking that perhaps he 
 had mortall} offended her, that perhaps she had never 
 cared a straw for him, that perhaps she really meant in 
 good faith that he should go away and not offend her 
 further. Overmodesty may be more of a failing than of a 
 virtue ; but it is infinitely preferable, I conceive, to an 
 overweening Ruddiman confidence and egotism. 
 
 At the brow of a little hill he pulled up, and sat wait 
 ing on his horse. Every thing looked wofully dark and 
 chilly to him, though the sun was shining bright along the 
 road, and the birds were singing and fluttering in the 
 trees, as though there were no heavy-hearted Hammer 
 smith in existence, sitting there like a statue, gazing 
 down the road. 
 
 Presently Miss Darby appeared on her horse, coming 
 slowly up the country lane, her head dropped forward, 
 apparently unconscious where she went. She started 
 and blushed, and then turned very pale, as Hammersmith 
 said, 
 
 "Miss Darby, you must pardon me; but I could not 
 let you ride back alone. I will promise not to say a 
 word ; but you must let me ride back with you. Will you 
 not?" 
 
 "I told you to go away. You have not gone," she 
 said, as she turned her eyes towards him a moment : they 
 were dim with tears. 
 
 "But it is growing dark. I cannot let you go back 
 alone." 
 
 " You cannot let me ! " she said, with a deep emphasis 
 of scorn and rage combined. u Well, just as you will, 
 then ; " and, beyond a word or two on indifferent matters, 
 
452 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 not a word was spoken on that longest of rides that Ham 
 mersmith had ever taken in his life. 
 
 They rode slowly ; they were seldom out of a walk. 
 They passed several people whom they knew ; and Ham 
 mersmith summoned courage to appear to be carrying on 
 an animated conversation with Miss Darby, to conceal 
 their awkward, solemn quiet. It seemed a hundred years 
 to Hammersmith, and to Miss Darby as well J imagine, 
 before they reached her home. 
 
 What Hammersmith s thoughts were during this black 
 est of rides, what they were as he watched her averted 
 face through it all, what he imagined and feared and 
 suspected, after he had left her at her gate with a simple, 
 "Good-by, I do not see what I have done, Miss Darby," 
 as well as during the two days before his sister s arrival, 
 it would be difficult to discover. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 453 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 IN WHICH SOME PRETTY BARBARIANS INVADE THE QUAD 
 RANGLE. 
 
 11 Strepit omnis munnure campus." VIRGIL. 
 
 "Nessun maggior dolore 
 Che ricordarsi del tempo felice 
 Nella miseria." DANTE. 
 
 MISS MABEL HAMMERSMITH arrived in Cam 
 bridge, radiant as are all the young Hammersmith 
 maidens. What freshness, what cloud-dispelling sunshine, 
 she brought ! 
 
 As many a young man, in the midst of troubles and 
 boyish mystification, has been cheered by the coming of 
 a loving young sister, bursting in upon him, bright-eyed, 
 from the outer world, unconscious of his troubles, uncon 
 scious even of the cheer that she brings, so Mr. Tom was 
 infinitely refreshed, infinitely strengthened, by her sunny 
 presence. 
 
 GMs may be the most extraordinary creatures in the 
 world, as the ingenuous boating-man Goldie had said ; 
 but they are probably the best of allies and comforters for 
 despondent brothers, when they choose to be ; which is a 
 fact that Hammersmith, most affectionate of brothers, has 
 never been known to contradict. 
 
 " How glad I am to be here, Tom dear ! " Miss Mabel 
 exclaimed as they were riding past the college-grounds. 
 "And how beautiful it all is! Why, you have never 
 given us half of an idea how lovely the quadrangle is ; 
 
454 HAMMERSMITH I 
 
 you naughty fellow ! You ve been too busy studying, I 
 suppose ; " and she gave him a sly look. 
 
 " Oh ! I hate to write descriptions," said Tom. "They 
 never do justice. And I knew you and mother would be 
 here some day to see it all for yourselves." 
 
 Who was that you just bowed to ? " asked Miss 
 Mabel. 
 
 " Tutor Beauclerk, a young Englishman who has been 
 here this year." And a mere shadow of a shade passed 
 over Mr. Tom s face as he spoke ; for Mr. Beauclerk was 
 a devoted friend of Miss Darby s, and had been honored 
 with a large share of Hammersmith s gloomy thoughts 
 during the last few days, as well as during that dismal 
 return-ride of his and Miss Darby s from the Waverley 
 Woods. 
 
 " And the first thing I want to do, Tom, is to see your 
 rooms, and walk all about Cambridge with you, and hear 
 all about every thing," Miss Mabel said, as the coachman 
 was ordered to take a turn about the Delta, and was carry 
 ing them, by way of Kirkland Street and the Washington 
 Elm, to Professor Darby s. 
 
 "Oh! there s time enough for that," answered her 
 brother. " We don t like to have girls running about 
 our rooms, and rummaging over every thing." 
 
 " But you ve got to have me," said Miss Mabel, "and 
 to-morrow afternoon too! So you had better put your 
 rooms in order, and hide any thing that you don t want 
 us to see, } ou wicked boy ! for, if the Darbys can come, I 
 shall certainly make them." 
 
 And, sure enough, the next afternoon, Mrs. and Miss 
 Darby and Miss Hammersmith, escorted by Goldie and 
 Tom, were sailing through the quadrangle, the young men 
 pointing out the various buildings, the rooms of distin 
 guished graduates and prominent undergraduates, their 
 own of course among the latter, the different recitation- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 455 
 
 halls, the chapel, the library, and lifting their hats again 
 and again as they passed professors and tutors, and envi 
 ous students, moving about the grounds. The young ladies 
 or perhaps I should say Miss Hammersmith went off 
 into raptures over the peaceful beauty of the quadrangle, 
 surrounded by its sombre, solemn halls, recalling an age 
 of plainer, more solid architecture, and the air of quiet 
 repose and thought which pervaded the whole place ; 
 which seemed, indeed, to Miss Hammersmith, to cast a 
 glamour of greatness and scholarship over even the most 
 rakish swell and the most languid dawdler that they met 
 in their ramble. 
 
 " O Mr. Goldie, what charming rooms ! " said Miss 
 Mabel, as they entered Goldie s Holworthy rooms ; and 
 she settled herself into a window-seat at once, making a 
 pretty picture for a knot of juniors in the yard below on 
 their way to afternoon class. She jumped down, and 
 went about examining the countless curiosities and knick- 
 knacks that the great boating-man had collected in his 
 four-years life in Cambridge. 
 
 "What is this? and this? and this? Why doesn t 
 somebody else talk? " she asked eagerly. 
 
 4 Because we re glad to hear you, and to see your en 
 joyment, my dear," answered Mrs. Darby. "Tell her 
 about the Prince of Wales picture, George." 
 
 "The Prince of Wales ! Oh! what do you mean?" 
 exclaimed Miss Mabel excitedly, after the manner of 
 young girls at the mention of royalty. 
 
 " That picture by the door, his photograph, was given 
 by the prince when he was out here last year," said 
 Goldie. 
 
 " Given to you ! The Prince of Wales gave it to you ! " 
 
 " Oh, no ! McGregor had the rooms then. The prince 
 was out visiting the university, and came up here to see a 
 specimen college-room. He sent this out as a souvenir 
 to Mac the next day. It is a transmittendum now." 
 
456 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 " A what? " asked Miss Mabel. 
 
 " A transmittendum," said Goldie. " It goes with the 
 room ; sent down from one fellow to the other. " 
 
 " And you can t take it away? * 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I should steal it if I were you," said Miss Mabel. 
 " The idea!" 
 
 " Here s another transmittendum," added Goldie, tak 
 ing up a blackened pipe from the mantel. 
 
 "What a horrid dirty thing!" said Miss Hammer- 
 smith. How can you keep it ! " 
 
 " Custom," answered Goldie. 
 
 " They do almost any thing in the name of custom here, 
 my dear," said Mrs. Darby. " You ll see some very odd 
 customs on class-day." 
 
 "And what s that little badge? " Miss Mabel asked. 
 
 " Pudding badge," answered Goldie. 
 
 " What ! " exclaimed she, her thoughts flying to kitch 
 ens and culinary matters. 
 
 "My Hasty Pudding Club badge," said Goldie, and 
 explained the name and the origin of the badge as well 
 as he was allowed to do by the awful authorities of the 
 club. 
 
 " Have you one, Tom? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes," answered he. " Let s go to my rooms, if you 
 insist on seeing them." 
 
 The door had been opened many times during this 
 short visit of the ladies, sometimes after a preliminary 
 knock and a c Come in from Goldie ; oftener without 
 any announcement except the rapid running up stairs of 
 the men, who came bursting into the room, unconscious 
 of the visitors. The intruders invariably lifted their hats, 
 with a " Beg pardon," or " I ll call again, George," and 
 vanished into the entry; till a certain caller who an 
 nounced his approach by a species of musical gymnastics 
 
HIS HAKVAKD DAYS. 457 
 
 called by himself singing, though the air was quite un 
 discovered by his hearers kicked at the door, by way 
 of accompaniment, for a moment, and came singing into 
 the room, radiant in summer finery. 
 
 " I beg pardon. Why, Miss Mabel, you here ! Glad 
 to see you in Cambridge." 
 
 " How do you do, Mr. Ruddiman? " 
 
 " How d ye do, ladies, how do? Excuse my yelling in 
 the entry. Practising the class-song, you know," said 
 Ruddiman. 
 
 "It s a pretty air," answered Miss Hammersmith. 
 "You ve improved a great deal, Mr. Kuddiman." 
 
 "Improved! Ah" 
 
 " In singing," added Miss Mabel. 
 
 " Yes, just so," said Ruddiman the relieved ; and, as 
 Hammersmith suggested going over to his rooms, Ruddi 
 man added, "Looking at rooms? Why shouldn t you 
 come round and look in upon my den? Proud to see 
 you! Say you will? Good: I ll just run round, and 
 see that it s all right. Left a crowd of men there using 
 my ponies." 
 
 "Using what? " asked Miss Mabel. 
 
 "My ponies, classical books, ahem! No, transla 
 tions, Miss Mabel, my translations. Have to use em 
 now and then. Greek and Latin awfully hard this term ! 
 By -by, then, for a while. You ll come? You will make 
 them come, Tom?" Hammersmith nodded; and the 
 lively young man ran off, and ejected his pony-friends, 
 threw a number of yellow- covered novels into the coal- 
 closet, tossed some Greek books carelessly on the table in 
 their place, took down a picture or two, and shoved them 
 under his bed ; and presently the visitors were upon him. 
 
 Excuse disorder ! Fellows have been running riot 
 here all day," said Ruddiman. 
 
 "No apology is needed, Mr. Ruddiman," answered 
 
458 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 Miss Darby: "your rooms are very pretty and cheer 
 ful." 
 
 "Yes, very cheerful; can t study in a dark, dingy 
 room," added Ruddiman. 
 
 " It must be very nice to be able to study and study all 
 the time in such lovely rooms ! " said Miss Hammersmith. 
 
 "Yes, uncommon," answered Ruddiman, who was 
 accustomed to avail himself of that charming privilege 
 quite sparingly, out of respect to maternal solicitude ; and 
 presently Miss Hammersmith was peeping into his pretty 
 bedroom, and saying, 
 
 " Oh, how very nice ! " 
 
 " Don t," said Tom. " Come out of that, Mabel ! " 
 
 "Please, can t I, Mr. Ruddiman?" she pleaded; and 
 Ruddiman said, 
 
 " Oh, certainly, certainly ! " and the ladies went in, and 
 stood quite bewildered, looking about at all the gay young 
 gentleman s costly appointments. They saw many flaming 
 wall-pictures, which alarmed them not a little ; and Miss 
 Mabel spied the small velvet shrine, which Ruddiman 
 had, of course, not removed, with its still adored Miss 
 Malachite in place ; and she exclaimed, 
 
 "Oh, how pretty, how very pretty, she is! Who is 
 it?" 
 
 "A a friend of mine," answered Ruddiman, blush 
 ing, and feeling quite proud, and yet leading the way to 
 his parlor. 
 
 "I m afraid you re a very inconstant man, Mr. Rud 
 diman," said Miss Mabel. And the young fellow was 
 stammering, "No, I m not! not a bit of it!" when 
 Goldie cried out, 
 
 "I say, Rud, what s this dent in the wall?" looking 
 mischievous. 
 
 "Oh! that s where I shied a boot at Waddle, and he 
 ducked too quickly for me ; " and Ruddiman was anxious 
 to change the conversation. But Miss Darby said, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 459 
 
 " What in the world does he mean, George? " 
 
 " Oh ! Rud has an old boy that he calls Waddle, whom 
 he is accustomed to pelt in the morning, when he comes 
 in to light his fires. " 
 
 4 What for ? Is he very old ? asked Miss Mabel. 
 
 " Oh ! just for fun," answered Ruddiman. 
 
 " A custom? " asked Miss Darby. 
 
 "My custom, yes," said Ruddiman. "It s such jolly 
 good sport to see the old fellow dance about and dodge, 
 grinning like a monkey ! " 
 
 4 How cruel!" said Miss Hammersmith. "What do 
 you throw at him? " 
 
 " Oh ! any thing that s handy, books and pillows, and 
 boots and chairs, and such little things." 
 
 " Do you ever hit him? " 
 
 "Used to at first, but he s getting too spry for me 
 now. I must get a new man, who isn t up to the game." 
 
 " Oh ! what are all these? " asked Miss Hammersmith, 
 pointing to the piles of opera-checks, and spindles of 
 theatre-bills. 
 
 " A few opera-checks, and so on," said Ruddiman. 
 
 " Who gave them to you? " 
 
 " Gave them to me ! Bought em, I should say, when 
 I went to the opera ! " 
 
 Miss Hammersmith was being wonderfully undeceived 
 as to the studious habits of some, at least, of the young 
 men of Cambridge, and called Ruddiman all sorts of 
 funny names as her yes were opened more and more by 
 the queer things she saw in his rooms. But her brother 
 was hurrying her ; and she had barely tune to glance at 
 the marvellous array of curious things hung and plastered 
 about the young gentleman s mantel and walls as they 
 moved off to Hammersmith s rooms, where they went 
 through the same performance of inquiring about every 
 thing they saw, to the no small amusement of Mr. Tom 
 and the placid G oldie. 
 
460 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 " There s your Pudding badge ; and that s your scratch- 
 race cup ; and that s your spoon-oar : you see I m already 
 quite learned in college matters," said Miss Mabel. 
 4 But what are all these medals and things ? 
 
 "Oh, Glee Club, and Natural History, and Institute, 
 and so on. Here s one that I prize as much as any," 
 said Tom, "the (/->. B. K. ; just managed to squeak in 
 this term" 
 
 "To do what?" asked Miss Mabel. "Dear Tom, 
 why will you use so much slang? Mother and I have 
 had the greatest trouble in deciphering his letters, Mrs. 
 Darby : half his words are never in the dictionary, I do 
 assure you ! " 
 
 "But you ll find them mighty good and expressive, 
 when you know them," said Goldie. " Tom can t hold a 
 candle to some of the fellows ! " 
 
 "Can t do what?" 
 
 " Well, I don t see but we shall have to taboo slang 
 while the ladies are here, Tom," said Goldie. 
 
 " Or give them a course of reading in College Words 
 and Customs, " added Hammersmith. 
 
 "And what are these? Oh, how sweet!" said his 
 sister, reaching up, and shaking a mass of ribbons and 
 cords and bells, arranged on a pair of horns, a light jangle 
 following the movement. 
 
 " German favors ; some that I ve kept," said Tom. 
 
 "Gracious!" was Miss Mabel s only reply as she 
 turned, and gave her brother a merry look ; and she was 
 again springing about the room, and examining things. 
 
 "What are those?" she asked, pointing to some 
 crossed foils and masks above his mantel-mirror. 
 
 "A set of foils for fencing. And those are some 
 boxing-gloves that a man left me who died here last 
 year." 
 
 " Mr. Ladbroke? " asked Mrs. Darby. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 461 
 
 < Yes, poor fellow! He insisted on my taking them 
 the day before he died. A very warm-hearted fellow ; 
 very sad death," said Hammersmith. "There s the bat 
 that I made my great score at East Cambridge with last 
 fall, Miss Darby, in cricket. Did you hear of it? " 
 
 "Yes," said she, "I remember. Mr. Beauclerk told 
 me of it." But she did not turn towards him, continuing 
 to examine a number of invitation- cards that lay about on 
 the mantel, glancing furtively, also, at a glorious photo 
 graph of the bare-backed Varsity crew of last year that 
 hung at one side of the mirror. 
 
 And so, after rummaging, as Tom had said they would 
 do, through his various curiosities and souvenirs, trying his 
 easy-chairs, and looking out upon the quadrangle, whose 
 turf was like velvet in these last days of the summer 
 term, the party was moving away, when Miss Hammer 
 smith, sitting cosily in a window-seat, said, 
 
 " I do declare! this is too beautiful to leave, Mrs. 
 Darby. I wish girls had such chances as these unappre- 
 ciative boys have! They would know how to improve 
 their opportunities if they had." 
 
 "Humph!" said her brother. "They d do nothing 
 but spoon with the professors, and " 
 
 " Do what? " asked Miss Mabel. 
 
 "A what can you say for spoon, George? You 
 see, slang : there s nothing that will just express it. Flirt, 
 I suppose, is nearest. They d do nothing but flirt and 
 gossip, and criticise ^ach other s bonnets and toggery," 
 said Mr. Tom. 
 
 " For shame, Tom ! " said Miss Mabel. " Is that the 
 result of your observation? I m sorry for you, if it is ; 
 for I am sure we would do no such thing, but would show 
 you that we are just as clever as boys, if we only had the 
 chances they have. Think of the way that girls have to 
 go bobbing about from one school to another, instead of 
 staying in one place long enough to learn something ! " 
 
462 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 " We must go now, Miss Mabel, indeed we must," 
 urged Mrs. Darby. 
 
 "Oh, please, Mrs. Darby! I want to lecture Tom. 
 Won t you let me stay a little while ? He s my brother, 
 you know ; and I see he needs lecturing. He s lived too 
 long alone, he s lived too long alone here ; and he 
 needs a little stirring up." 
 
 In spite of a protest of " Oh, nonsense!" from the 
 young man in question, and Mrs. Darby s announcement 
 that they had just time to reach home before dinner, Miss 
 Mabel carried her point. The others went off. She 
 promised to follow almost immediately ; and, as soon as 
 they were well out of the entry, she closed the door, 
 turned the key, took it out, and put it in her pocket. 
 
 "What s that for? What roguery are you up to now?" 
 asked Tom. "I never saw a girl change so much in a 
 year in all my life. I can hardly believe it s you, after 
 all, Mab." Arid he sat down on his table, and swung 
 his feet ; while Miss Mabel drew an easy-chair towards 
 the door, sat down facing him, and said quietly, 
 
 " No roguery, Tom; but I want to know what it all 
 means. What roguery have you been committing, you 
 bad boy?" 
 
 Nonsense ! What do you mean ? 
 
 "You can call it nonsense ; I ve no doubt it is: but 
 I shall wait till you explain matters and things entirely 
 to my satisfaction ; then I will open the door. I m very 
 comfortable : I hope you are. I sltell stay here till you 
 explain it." 
 
 " What do you mean by c it ? 
 
 "Now, Tom, don t be silly: it isn t at all becoming. 
 I m not blind. I ve been here a day, and I know that 
 something has happened : what is it ? " 
 
 " Has she been talking to you? " asked Tom. 
 
 " Whom do you mean by she/ sir? " 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 463 
 
 " Oh, come now ! Has Miss Darby been telling you of 
 our quarrel ? 
 
 "Tom, Tom, dear Tom! what an extraordinary ques 
 tion ! Do you think a girl like Miss Darby could possibly 
 talk about such a thing ? It is precisely because she has 
 not mentioned you in any way whatever since I arrived, 
 and because she has hardly written your name once in 
 all the letters that I ve had from her for the last year, 
 and because I happen to know certain things that she 
 said and did at Worcester last year, well, it s because 
 of a good many things, that I say I know something has 
 happened. You know it too, and will not tell me." 
 
 " What did she say and do at Worcester last year? " 
 asked Tom. And as each had apparently some news for 
 the other, and as Miss Mabel s only desire was to tell 
 Tom what she knew, provided she could have a fair 
 exchange of commodity, there was no great difficulty in 
 arranging a barter. So while Tom kept insisting that he 
 would never tell her every thing, and men kept knocking 
 at his door, and going away disappointed, Miss Mabel 
 contrived to draw from him a pretty full account of the 
 last year s work, and the Waverley Woods finale. 
 
 In return, she gave him a minute description of the few 
 days at Worcester last year, Miss Darby s enthusiasm 
 and interest in a certain boating-man on the day of the 
 race ; the pressure of the hand which she had given Miss 
 Mabel so many times during the exciting race (and which 
 signifies so much among young women) ; the rosebud by 
 the lakeside, in the ball-room, and in the little glass after 
 their crooning talk that night ; Miss Darby s very, very 
 slight inadvertence in the speech of hers that evening, 
 about class-day ( u he your brother will be so glad! ") 
 yes, and a hundred other small matters, which the 
 young sister could remember, and which had given her 
 the greatest pleasure in the world. 
 
464 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 Tom, for his part, sat listening to all that she said with 
 a pleased wonder and hesitating credulity, hopping down 
 now and then to pace the room excitedly, occasionally 
 breaking out with, " Come, come, Mabel, I tell you we 
 must go ! it s getting very late ! " and yet being brought 
 back every time to the discussion by his imperturbable 
 young sister sitting quietly in his easy-chair, guarding the 
 door. For this young woman, who had been dreaming 
 such pretty dreams for her beloved brotherever since that 
 festive Worcester day of last year ; who had discovered, 
 as only young women can discover, the secret that Ham 
 mersmith himself was not courageous enough to capture ; 
 and who had gone on building such gorgeous air- castles 
 to be presented to her brother and Miss Darby for occu 
 pancy, this little woman had seen, at her very first 
 arrival in Cambridge, that something was wrong. She 
 had seen that the foundations of all her fine castles were 
 likely to be utterly overthrown ; and she had feared that it 
 was through some silly misunderstanding or mistake of 
 somebody, she could not guess who. Never for once doubt 
 ing the correctness of her own surmises and intuitions, 
 what woman will ? she set out, with the customary 
 Hammersmith perseverance, to investigate the matter for 
 herself ; to see if the headstrong Tom was not, after all, 
 standing at the door of his own castle, and blocking the 
 entrance of his queen, all through some terrible mistake, 
 perhaps through some slander of rival powers. 
 
 Whatever may have been her mam reason, she was 
 bound not to let Tom out of his room until she heard 
 the truth from him. There she sat, a pretty little jailer, 
 tapping the arm of the chair with her dainty gloved hand, 
 examining and cross-examining the prisoner at the bar, 
 smiling roguishly when he refused to testify, glancing 
 unconcernedly about the room when he was silent, and 
 altogether conducting her investigation in a charming 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 4G5 
 
 manner quite irresistible. So, at least, Mr. Tom found it -, 
 for the result of a very few minutes talk was, as has been 
 said, that he disclosed to his sister much of the secret 
 history of the last year, Breese s reported engagement, 
 his own devotion to Boston societ3 T , Breese s final confes 
 sion to him before leaving, his own endeavor to get back 
 into Miss Darby s good graces, his quarrel in the Waver- 
 ley Woods. What this quarrel was, however, just what 
 had been said and done, he would not say. 
 
 " No, Mabel, confound it ! I can t tell you ever}^ thing : 
 that s flat. We had a quarrel : that s all there is to it. 
 I don t pretend to know how it came about ; I don t 
 pretend to know how I offended her : but I did, and she 
 told me to go away. I went. And I confess I don t know 
 anything, whether she s engaged to Breese, after all, 
 or to Mr. Beauclerk, or is meaning to be a sister of chari 
 ty, or what? I believe young women were sent into the 
 world to torture young men, and were never meant to be 
 consistent. That s my position." 
 
 4 But what did you say ? and what did she do ? asked 
 Miss Mabel. And, after much hesitation, Tom was made 
 to disclose the purport of his words to Miss Darby. Miss 
 Mabel looked serious, but continued, 
 
 4 And now what did she do ? No matter what she said : 
 what did she do ? " 
 
 And when Tom had explained what she had done, how 
 she had dismounted from her horse and thrown herself on 
 the ground, ordering him awa}^ ; how he had gone, and yet 
 waited to escort her back to Cambridge ; and how thor 
 oughly provoked and incensed she had appeared through 
 it all, Miss Mabel at length laughed, and said, 
 
 " Well, Tom, you. are the silliest boy I ever saw in all 
 my life!" 
 
 " Why? What on earth could she mean, if she didn t 
 mean that I was to go away, and not bother her? " 
 
4G6 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 " Mean ! Why, she meant that you were cowardly and 
 weak in talking to her as you did. She meant that you 
 were mano3uvring to get her to disclose her own feelings, 
 (as I believe you were, you naughty boy !) instead of 
 declaring your own first, like a man. She feared her 
 manner had told you that she loved you ; and, of course, 
 she was incensed and ashamed, as any girl of spirit would 
 have been. She told you to go away, that you might not 
 see her tears : that the reason she kept saying, Oh that 
 I should have come to this ! And you ought to have 
 known it, if you had not been as blind as a bat, as all 
 men are ! I don t blame her in the least ; and I think 
 you behaved shamefully ! 
 
 " Hang it ! I only gave her a chance to let me know 
 if I was mistaken." 
 
 " O Tom, Tom, how silly! how unutterably weak! 
 Some girls might take advantage of such a chance, as 
 you call it ! what a way to put it ! Some girls might 
 be willing to let a man know that they loved him, and 
 not be ashamed of it ; but I m sure Miss Darby is not 
 one of them. I know you would be as sorry as any one, 
 if you thought she were. A girl should die rather than 
 let a man know that she loves him, unless he tells her his 
 own love first." 
 
 "I m not so sure of that," said Tom. 
 
 " Of course } T ou re not, because you are weak, as Miss 
 Darby says, and don t understand girls. Tom, if a man 
 loves a woman, let him tell her so simply, frankly, hon 
 estly : if he does not, let him hold his tongue. What 
 I want to impress on you, in this case, is the great mis 
 take you made in talking to her of your feeling for her. 
 You have no right to talk in this half-way style with a 
 girl, and then expect her to make her own feelings known 
 to you. No high-bred girl will stand it ; and it is un 
 worthy of you, Tom, it is unworthy of you. Imagine 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 467 
 
 your friend Breese doing such a weak thing as you have 
 done ! Didn t you tell me that he went bravely up, and 
 told her he loved her, and then bore his fate like a man ? 
 
 " Yes ; but he was, in a measure, forced to do it by the 
 rumors that were about, and were causing remark." 
 
 " And you hadn t the courage to do as he had done, 
 unless 3 r ou were forced to it by some outside circum 
 stance? " asked Miss Mabel. 
 
 " Oh, don t put it in that way ! " urged Tom. "I tell 
 i ou, Mabel, a great many things have happened, that you 
 know nothing about, and that I can t explain, a great 
 many things in my life here in Cambridge. They made 
 me suspicious of everybody, suspicious of Breese, of 
 myself, of Miss Darby, everybody. Don t ask me about 
 them." 
 
 " I ve no idea of asking you about them, Tom ! I m 
 not going to bother you any more. I m going home. I 
 have told you all that I know and believe and hope, and 
 I m very much disappointed in you. Yes, Tom, you are 
 the most disappointing man I ever saw ! " 
 
 " Ho, ho ! What do you know about men, Miss Sweet- 
 Sixteen?" 
 
 " Well, I don t need to be so very old to understand 
 men! " she said, bowing her head several times, and look 
 ing peculiarly defiant, with the jaunty red feather in her 
 hat emphasizing her words: " They are the easiest to 
 read and understand of any thing J ever saw ! And I ve 
 read you, you cowardly boy, and I m fearfully disappointed 
 in you!" 
 
 She arose, took the key from her pocket, and was un 
 locking the door, when Tom rushed up to her, and put his 
 arms around her, saying eagerly, 
 
 "Well, well, my little puss, don t be angry with me! 
 I confess I m a fool in these matters, but I will not be 
 any longer;" and he kissed her. Then, holding her at 
 
468 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 ann s-length, he said, " But you will allow that you are 
 all sphinxes, and very hard to make out? " looking down 
 into her eyes, and putting his head on one side. 
 
 "Perhaps we are," she said. "But Heaven made us 
 so; and you would not have us otherwise, would you? 
 Come now ! would you, Tom? Would you have us wear 
 our hearts on our sleeves, and run about telling such silly, 
 cowardly boys as you, that we loved them? " 
 
 " No, I think not. But don t you pile on the agon} T 
 sometimes, and mystify a fellow just for the fun of the 
 thing?" 
 
 "Sometimes they deserve it," she answered, putting 
 the key in the door. 
 
 "I suppose they do," he said ruefully, shaking his 
 head. He kissed her again ; and they went out, and 
 walked rapidly to Mrs. Darby s. 
 
 Tom felt a bit conscious, as he passed students here 
 and there, returning from supper. But Mabel did not 
 appreciate that the sight of a young woman like herself, 
 issuing from the quadrangle at this time of the evening, 
 was somewhat anomalous. She thought it the most natu 
 ral thing in the world that she should be seen walking 
 anywhere and everywhere with Tom : wasn t he her 
 brother? and hadn t she a right to take his arm if she 
 chose ? Why did those men stare so ? 
 
 " His sister? " asked one man of another. 
 
 " Don t know. I can t pretend to keep track of Ham 
 mersmith. May be his sister ; may be some other fel 
 low s." 
 
 " Come up for class-day, perhaps. A very clean step 
 per," remarked the first man, young Tilbury, devoted to 
 the turf. 
 
 "Won t you come in to dinner, Mr. Hammersmith?" 
 asked Mrs. Darby, as the two appeared walking briskly up 
 the walk. 
 
HIS HAEVAED DAYS. 469 
 
 "No, thanks, Mrs. Darby! I ve a committee-meeting 
 to attend at seven. Gracious ! I shall have hardly time to 
 reach it. Sorry I kept Mabel after your dinner-hour : 
 we had a little matter to talk over." 
 
 " Some other time, then," said Mrs. Darby. 
 
 " Thanks ! " and he ran back to his club-table, took a 
 hasty meal, and appeared at the committee-meeting in 
 question, which was called to arrange various matters of 
 importance in reference to class-day. 
 
470 HAMMEKSMITH: 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE WORLD IS SET HUMMING FOR HAMMERSMITH. 
 
 With time and patience the leaf of the mulberry-tree becomes satin." 
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 
 
 " How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use? 
 A hope, to sing by gladly ? ... or a fine 
 Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse? 
 A shade, in which to sing ... of palm or pine? 
 A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose." 
 
 MBS. BBOWNINQ. 
 
 rplHIS interview with his persistent little sister was 
 -*- several days old, and Hammersmith had pondered 
 and speculated on it with an effect presently to be de 
 scribed, when he and Miss Darby were again on horse 
 back, riding together for the first time since that luckless 
 evening of two weeks before. 
 
 It was a silent ride, as silent almost as that black 
 return-ride on the unhappy evening of which they both 
 scarcely dared to think. They talked somewhat, but of 
 indifferent matters, chopping off the heads of subjects, 
 after the fashion of young people, and avoiding, as if by 
 common consent, all themes that could in any way remind 
 them by remotest implication of the one thing of which 
 the}^ were both thinking. 
 
 Hammersmith did not ask Miss Darby which road -.he 
 would take, but guided the ride himself in the direction 
 of the same fatal Waverley Grove. 
 
 " I don t like to go in there, Mr. Hammersmith," said 
 Miss Darby, as Tom was entering the wood by the same 
 
HIS HAEVAKD DAYS. 471 
 
 narrow opening in the stone wall ; and she shook her 
 head. 
 
 " Please, Miss Darby ! " He looked infinitely entreat 
 ing ; and she went in. 
 
 They dismounted. Hammersmith tied his own reins to 
 the horn of Miss Darby s saddle, retaining her reins in 
 his hand. 
 
 " See ! " he said : " they have come up since we were 
 here." And he added to himself, "I hope they are a 
 good omen," as he picked a bunch of violets from under 
 the edge of the rock against which Miss Darby had leaned 
 the last time they were here. "Will you have them? * 
 She put them in the bosom of her riding-habit, and they 
 sat down. 
 
 Silence, broken only by the light wind in the tree-tops, 
 the chattering of a couple of squirrels running along the 
 branches, and the pawing of Hammersmith s horse Baldy, 
 restless as his master himself for this suspense to be over. 
 
 "Whoa, Baldy! still, sir!" said Hammersmith; and 
 he rose and patted him. He came back and sat down. 
 
 " Miss Darby," he said, " do you remember what you 
 said the last day I went to your hospital with you, about 
 the difficulty you would have in choosing between the 
 world and the little castaways, as you called them, if you 
 had to make the choice? " 
 
 " I had forgotten that I said that ; but I meant to say 
 that I love them, and am never happier than when taking 
 care of them," she answered. 
 
 Silence again, which a careful investigator might have 
 discovered was just perceptibly broken by a quicker breath 
 ing from Mr. Tom, caused by a light tattoo under his 
 waistcoat, most unusual in the placid young fellow. 
 
 " I know an old fellow that s in a very bad way, and 
 wants to get taken care of," he added. 
 
 " But we don t take old men," she answered. 
 
472 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 k Couldn t you admit just this one?" he asked. " It 
 would be a mercy," he added. 
 
 " I ll submit it to Miss Fayerweather and Miss Suin- 
 merdale, if you wish," she said. 
 
 " But it isn t for them to decide," he said. 
 
 " Certainly it is. I never decide such a question 
 alone." 
 
 " But this is a question for you to decide alone," h< 
 said ; and he called to his horse to be quiet. 
 
 " What do you mean? " she asked. " An old gentle 
 man to be taken in, and I to decide it alone ! " 
 
 " Young ladies generally decide such questions alone," 
 he said. But she continued, without apparently hearing 
 him, 
 
 Who is he ? Where is he ? Is he very badly off ? " 
 
 " He s in a terrible way, I assure you. He s in Cam 
 bridge. No ! he s in Belmont." 
 
 " How old is he?" 
 
 " He s about twenty-two. Is that too old? " 
 
 She had been shaking her head at the general proposi 
 tion ; and, when he said this, she opened her eyes wide, 
 and drew a quick breath, and presently went on shaking 
 her head again, as Hammersmith continued, 
 
 "It is not too old? You know who he is? He loves 
 you, Miss Darby ; and will you take him in? " he asked, 
 with charming ambiguity. 
 
 Her head fell forward on her breast. Then she lifted 
 her face full to his ; and the next minute his arms were 
 about her, and he was kissing her sweet, warm lips. 
 
 Then things were said, and things were done, which I 
 am sure the bending foliage had never heard or seen 
 before. For the little leaves that had so recently burst 
 upon the world shook their sides, and made light merri 
 ment or light applause above their heads. The sun came 
 peeping in under the greenwood with an envious glance. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 473 
 
 And the horses, standing with drooped heads, loose now, 
 and free to run if they chose, pointed their ears at the 
 pretty scene, adding a picturesqueness of their own. 
 
 O buds and flowers ! O waving green banners and warm 
 breath of summer breezes, what a different sight is this 
 to-day! Smile, and kiss your benediction upon him; 
 for he has had a hard and troublesome Hammersmith 
 battle to fight, with himself, with circumstances, with 
 other men, before this happy day could come, and he be 
 holding his love within his arms. 
 
 And presently they were in the saddle again, walking 
 up the road, which lay flooded with sunshine. 
 
 "Isn t it all beautiful!" said Miss Darby, after they 
 had gone a short distance, with loose rein, in silence. 
 
 " Isn t it ! " answered Hammersmith, and added, after 
 a moment, " If I had only known this all the time ! " 
 
 " Known what, Mr. Hammersmith? " 
 
 " Mr. Hammersmith ! Indeed ! " 
 
 "What! why! oh, I can t, all at once! It is so 
 sudden. Mr. well, Tom, then." 
 
 " Good for you ! " said Tom. " Didn t hurt you, did 
 it, Ellen? See how easily I do it ! " 
 
 u No, but it seems so funny ! What is it that you wish 
 you had known ? 
 
 "Why, that you that I might have that for all 
 these months oh, you know what I mean ! " said Tom. 
 
 " Don t flatter yourself," answered she. " I never 
 cared a straw for you till five minutes ago, you vain man, 
 when you looked so unutterably miserable, begging for 
 that poor old gentleman. I couldn t resist such a plain 
 tive appeal." 
 
 " Ton honor?" 
 
 " Of course I never cared any thing for you till five 
 minutes ago. The idea! " she said. " Perhaps it is six 
 minutes now ! But do you know what I promised you, 
 what you asked me just now? " 
 
474 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 " Why, you promised me that you you said that you 
 would always fact is, you didn t say much of any 
 thing/ said Hammersmith. 
 
 " You asked me if I would c take you in. Take you 
 in ! I shall be sure to do it ; and so you will have no 
 right to complain of any ill treatment I may give you, 
 you hasty man ! No, never ! " 
 
 " I shall never need to, I m sure," he answered, with 
 mingled gravity and mirth. u But I was using the meta 
 phor of the hospital, and speaking to you as a sister of 
 charity." 
 
 u That s very fine. But you cannot help it now : you 
 cannot take back your words ! And I have your authori 
 ty to take you in to my heart s content," she said. 
 
 " Certainly, to your heart s content, if you put it in 
 that way," replied Tom gleefully. u Shall we have a 
 spin?" 
 
 And with more such happy, sentimental badinage, 
 which need not be set down in this place, and many 
 delicious, silent pauses, they rode home ; Hammersmith 
 thinking of nothing but this young being by his side, who 
 had promised to give her life into his keeping ; Miss Darby 
 in a strange new role for a sister of charity, riding through 
 country-lanes with a knot of violets on her bosom, and a 
 handsome young student turning beaming eyes upon her. 
 And the young student, indeed, looked different, far dif 
 ferent, from the poor old gentleman for whom he had been 
 pleading, who was in a very bad way, forsooth, and likely 
 to die if he were not taken care of. 
 
 Heaven send peace and joy to them, and fulfilment of 
 all their happy plans, which sprang up from that day, as 
 the violets had sprung from their shady nook in the woods ! 
 Heaven speed all 3 7 oung fellows like Hammersmith in their 
 suits, and guide them to the proper charitable sister, who 
 can set all the world humming with joy for them by a sim- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 475 
 
 pie smile ! And Heaven teach them to fall down on their 
 knees, and thank God for the rarest blessing, the sweetest 
 consolation, that He can bestow ! 
 
 The final festivities and exercises of the academic year 
 were drawing near. 
 
 Parties were being given throughout the length and 
 breadth of the university town, one of the first at Mrs. 
 Darby s, where a bit of interesting news was announced ; 
 and it would be a pathetic chronicle, were I to exhibit 
 in this place a tenth part of the grand vows and impres 
 sive sentiment that these occasions evoked from the mighty 
 seniors sitting in tete-a-tete with their fair Cambridge 
 friends. 
 
 The Glee Club concert came on an evening or two 
 after the arrival of Mrs. Hammersmith ; and Hammer 
 smith brought his mother and sister, and his brother 
 Dick (now a fine j oung stripling of seventeen summers 
 or so) , with the entire Darby family, to enjoy the music 
 of this last appearance of his with the dear old club, 
 the last except the informal singing of class-da}^ evening, 
 and the various occasions when he may return as a gradu 
 ate, please God, to add his voice to those of cordial under 
 graduates. 
 
 It was a great success, this concert. The dear mother 
 could hardly keep from tears as she saw her handsome 
 boy (who was growing so like his poor father every day) 
 singing his ponderous part up there among the second 
 basses, and smiling down upon the group of his friends. 
 He came down in the intermission and spoke with them ; 
 and Miss Mabel exclaimed, 
 
 "O Tom, that was beautiful, that Marschner Sere 
 nade ! Won t you give the waltz, if we encore you? " 
 
 " Perhaps so," said Tom, smiling ; and he leaned over 
 to Miss Darby, who said, 
 
476 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 " You re in splendid voice to-night, Tom. Do give the 
 waltz ! It s pretty old, I know ; but it s always good, and 
 your mother and Mabel will like it." And she blushed 
 prettily, conscious, no doubt, that many eyes were turned 
 towards her as she talked with the man to whom she had 
 jnst become engaged. The second part began, and Ham 
 mersmith went back to the stage. 
 
 The encore was given, the applause being swollen in 
 no small measure by the clamors of the hearty " Duke," 
 who had come in, and was seated in the aisle by the Ham 
 mersmiths and Darbj T s ; and Miss Mabel -put her hand 
 again into Miss Darby s, as on the day of the Worcester 
 regatta, and said softly, 
 
 "Dear Ellen, I never was so happy in all my life! " 
 How many happiest days had she already had in her brief 
 life, I wonder. 
 
 "You will be, some day, Mabel," she answered; and 
 the two contrasted beauties Miss Darby the fair and the 
 blue-ej ed, Miss Hammersmith, with the dark hair and 
 coloring and the brilliant eyes of her race made a pretty 
 picture to the young fellows of the Glee Club and the Pie 
 rian, looking down from the low stage. I doubt not that 
 not a few of them, and not a few young and old boys in 
 the audience, regarded Hammersmith that evening with 
 envious admiration, as they saw him singing there in the 
 prime of his young manhood, honored by his classmates, 
 honored more by the trust and love of the beautiful } 7 oung 
 creature before whose lovely eyes he was singing his fare 
 well to college-life. 
 
 The college societies, too, were giving their last enter 
 tainments, holding their last full meetings of the term ; 
 and Hammersmith was kept busy, busier than almost any 
 one else, by the many duties that his chief marshalship, 
 and his general supervision of class-day arrangements, 
 brought him. 
 
HIS HAKVAKD DAYS. 477 
 
 Hasty Pudding "Strawberry Night " and " Seniors 
 Benefit " had come off; and all the ties that bound Ham 
 mersmith and his friends to the old society were drawn 
 firmer and closer by the warm brotherly feeling which 
 these gatherings of graduate and undergraduate members 
 called forth. 
 
 The final examinations are over, and the young men 
 mentioned in this chronicle have all passed, with various 
 degrees of honor ; only Ruddiman the bold having any 
 great difficulty, which consisted in his barely squeaking 
 through" in history, as he expressed it. Provident 
 tradesmen are already presenting their little bills with 
 apologies, and their big bills with eagerness. The turf in 
 the quadrangle has been mowed and rolled in preparation 
 for the class-day dances, till it is as smooth as turf can 
 be ; kept unmolested, moreover, by means of numerous 
 prohibitory placards, and the constant call of "Off the 
 grass!" from jealous seniors. Under-classmen returning 
 from the river and cricket are regarded by the great 
 senior, with his eyes already on the larger field to which 
 he is hastening, as belonging to a younger world, a differ 
 ent existence from himself. Parents and friends, gradu 
 ates and strangers from a distance, are already filling and 
 overflowing the modest Cambridge accommodations. Our 
 young friend Malachite who has been forever carrying 
 about mighty calf volumes of the law, and devoting to 
 moot courts and law lectures what little time he could 
 spare from the cultivation of a pair of mustaches, just 
 visible to the naked eye after the lapse of a year now 
 bursts forth resplendent for the gorgeous festivities ap 
 proaching. Local belles, and those from a distance who 
 propose to outshine them, and dazzle the all-embracing 
 student eye, have collected marvels of adornment and 
 brilliant trapping most wonderful to behold. Praj ers are 
 offered plentifully to the gods of the weather for smiling 
 
478 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 skies on the day of which all Cambridge is thinking, and 
 to which a hundred men or more have been looking for 
 ward for the four years past. 
 
 Oration, poem, ode, class-song, every thing, is ready for 
 the crowning festivity of class-day, beloved of students, 
 a period of unbounded bliss for the youth and maidens 
 of the neighborhood, a day of unbridled riot for local 
 urchins hovering on the outskirts of feast and revelry. 
 
HIS HAEVABD DAYS. 479 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 CLASS-DAY AND A TALK OF SPUES. 
 
 " Annie of Tharaw, my true love of old, 
 She is my life, and my goods, and my gold." 
 
 LONGFELLOW, from the German of SIMON DACH. 
 
 " Ah, backward fancy, wherefore wake 
 
 The old bitterness again, and break 
 The low beginnings of content! " TENNYSON. 
 
 WHAT meagre description can do justice to the 
 abounding gayety, the full, throbbing life, the 
 buoyant festivities, and the deep undercurrent of earnest 
 thought and feeling, of a class-day, the last, the only 
 elaborate, social entertainment of the undergraduate before 
 he rushes forth into the thick of the outer world ! How 
 the old graduate, unless his life has been sad and gloomy 
 indeed, looks back with kindling pleasure and a certain 
 mournful tenderness at the sufficient happiness of those 
 earlier entertainments, or, rather, that all-important, long- 
 expected entertainment which marked the term of his own 
 academic course ! 
 
 And the charming Amelias, the lovely Marys, the radi 
 ant Octavias, and the thoroughly enslaving Rebeccas, that 
 annually, in ever recurrent waves of sentiment and ro 
 mance, sail in upon the quiet university town on this 
 festal day, the pen must be dipped in colors of sunset, 
 that can hope to paint their varied charms ! 
 
 How they take possession of easy-chairs, henceforth 
 consecrated, and blossom out in window-seats ! How 
 they explore and exclaim over the startling wonders, the 
 
480 HAMMEESMITH : - 
 
 unique adornments, of the ancient rooms ! How they 
 penetrate, with proper escort, even into the mysterious 
 realms of the Hasty Pudding and other societies, and 
 ask many unanswerable questions about the marvellous 
 tilings that they see ! How becomingly sad and surprised, 
 and entirely charming, they look, as they listen to the 
 apocryphal stories related of college-life by their imagina 
 tive gentlemen-in-waiting ! What reprehensible glances 
 they throw at many a stalwart young fellow, who has never 
 blushed before in his life! And how! but, Heavens! 
 I shall never get on, if I linger longer in their detaining 
 company to the neglect of graver personages. 
 
 Quieter, graver groups of mothers and fathers, and 
 other relatives, serve as a background to this merry young 
 life. The university town is a familiar spot to many of 
 them ; to many it is an Ultima Thule which they have 
 only contrived to reach this once, out of honor to their 
 darling boy s graduation, their homespun boy, who has 
 blossomed so famously since he came to this brilliant hot 
 house of learning, a day to be marked with a white 
 stone in the annals of the family. 
 
 Graduates on this day, as on the quieter commence 
 ment soon to follow, pace the yard, or climb the old famil 
 iar stairs, musingly eloquent of the splendid days of their 
 youth, and pointing out to their friends the while the 
 landmarks of those bygone times. " There s my old 
 freshman room, in the corner of Stoughton," says one, in 
 dicating it with his cane. Says another, " There s where 
 the Med. Fac. blew up a couple of sophomores in their 
 beds, there in the top of Massachusetts. Some treach 
 ery or malpractice : we never could find out just what." 
 And another, leaning heavily on the arm of a younger 
 graduate, says, looking up at a Holworthy room, "In 
 that room, Hal, on my class-day, your mother God bless 
 her ! she was not your mother then first let me know 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 481 
 
 that I had a chance of winning her. Women were women 
 then, my boy ; and the army of men that she had at her 
 feet was quite put to rout and demoralized when I carried 
 her off before their very eyes. It seems but yesterday, 
 though Heaven knows it is forty years since ! 
 
 And the list of orators and poets of class-day, a copy 
 of which is before me as I write, with a mass of college- 
 papers, college-verses, examination-lists, themes, society- 
 notices, and the like, with what a pathetic interest you 
 examine the long line reaching back a hundred years now ! 
 
 How many a name has confirmed its early promise and 
 the correctness of the undergraduate judgment ! How 
 many a man that started out brilliant, accomplished, full- 
 freighted, honored by his class with this or the other class- 
 day distinction, has felt the fires of genius gradually dying 
 out, and lived on into a flickering old age, supported by 
 the thought of his youthful fame ! This man gave no 
 prophecy in his plain college oration of the world-wide 
 fame that awaited him as a silver-tongued orator, per 
 suader of thousands. That one set all his audience, his 
 classmates above all, ablaze with the fervor of his parting 
 words, and seemed about entering on a career of glory 
 and usefulness unapproachable : a lonely grave in a dis 
 tant country holds all that was perishable in that com 
 manding presence ; and the sweet spring birds sing carols 
 about the spot. 
 
 The gods that preside over the weather, the goddesses 
 that preside over beautiful girls and captivating toilets, 
 had smiled propitious ; and Mr. Tom s class-day promised 
 to be as gay and happy as any that the old university 
 town had ever seen. 
 
 The exercises in the church, preluded by the old-time 
 "rush" of undergraduates, which alarmed Miss Mabel 
 Hammersmith not a little ; the oration by Albemarle, 
 
482 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 glowing with patriotism, tender with happy reminiscences, 
 inspiring with lofty exhortation ; the poem of Oliver, 
 sparkling with brilliant sallies, chronicling the glorious 
 victories and the famous record of the class ; the singing of 
 the class ode ; the benediction by the beloved doctor, 
 all are over, and the crowd is scattering for the merrier 
 festivities of the quadrangle. 
 
 " God bless you, dear Tom ! " said Mrs. Hammersmith, 
 as her son came up to her in the church. " It was very 
 fine." 
 
 "Splendid oration, wasn t it?" asked Tom. "That 
 was to have been delivered by Breese, you know, mother," 
 he added in a low voice, audible only to her. But Miss 
 Darby felt what he was saying, and smiled a sad sort of 
 smile upon him ; and Tom gave his arm to his mother, 
 leading the way to the college-buildings. 
 
 " Bravo, Tom ! " said his uncle Gay ton, following, with 
 Mrs. Darb}^ on his arm. " You look quite the field-mar 
 shal, with your baton, and all ! " 
 
 " A field-marshal in evening dress? " asked Tom. 
 
 "Well, undress-uniform, let us say," answered his 
 uncle ; and the two } T oung ladies, following with Goldie, 
 did not care b}^ what name their beloved Tom was called ; 
 for they knew that he was the handsomest, the best, the 
 most satisfactory, of brothers and lovers. They said as 
 much to each other with their eyes, and tripped across 
 the street in their dainty shoes and delicate raiment, a 
 pretty spectacle for the files of undergraduates and towns 
 people through which they passed. 
 
 Caterers and skips, and countless attendants, had been 
 holding high carnival for hours, now, in the old college- 
 halls, opening hampers, setting tables, decorating rooms, 
 and making read} 7 the feasts. Local youngsters, annually 
 scenting the class-day odors from afar, had hovered about 
 the outskirts of preparation, capturing a straggling tidbit, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 483 
 
 or receiving damaged luxuries with a thankful grin. The 
 plain college-rooms were transformed quite be} ond recog 
 nition by gay festoons and bouquets, and the showy, 
 amply-stocked tables. So that our young people were 
 entirely surprised when they entered the rooms of Ham 
 mersmith s and Goldie s and others " spreads" in middle 
 Holworthy; and Miss Mabel again made herself the 
 mouthpiece of the wonder that they all felt. 
 
 " Mr. Goldie, I believe }~ou have witches, or fairies, or 
 something of the sort, in the university ! " she said. "I 
 am meeting surprises and funny things on every hand, 
 wherever I go. I believe it is all magic ! I believe your 
 old halls are enchanted ! 
 
 " They are to-day, Miss Mabel," the wicked old boat 
 ing man answered. But Miss Hammersmith said, "Why, 
 Mr. Goldie ! This from 3^011 ! Well, you are improving 
 in compliments ! No wonder you blush ! " 
 
 But Goldie said, " Blush/ not a bit of it! Red cur 
 tain, don t you see? Won t you have some salad? " 
 
 " Thanks, I m almost famished," she answered. Gol 
 die and Hammersmith, Oliver and Fayerweather, who 
 were associated in this " spread," continued to receive 
 their throngs of guests, and forage for them, settling the 
 old ladies in comfortable seats, exchanging light badinage 
 with the 3 7 oung ones, and putting everybody at ease by 
 their cheerful manner and ready tact. 
 
 The same scene was enacting throughout the entire 
 quadrangle and at many a boarding-house hard by. The 
 entries were packed with blooming girls, moving from one 
 " spread " to another. Younger brothers, like our young 
 Dick Hammersmith, were gorging themselves on the un 
 usual delicacies ready at their hands. Servants were mak 
 ing their difficult way through the crush, poising dangerous 
 dishes unsteadily aloft. The windows overflowed with 
 muslin and tarlatan and tulle, and a thousand bright bits 
 
484 HAMMEKSMITH : 
 
 of color ; and I do not wonder that the elms outside rose 
 and fell in gentle whispers of pleasure, looking on at 
 all this radiance and freshness and beauty. How many 
 such battalions of happy youth and maidens have they 
 looked down upon before, and, please God, shall continue 
 to protect with their sheltering shade, on those too brief 
 days of college festivity ! Who can tell how soon they 
 ma}^ look down upon battalions of " sweet girl graduates " 
 of Harvard pacing along their leafy avenues ? 
 
 Ruddiman, Freemantle, Albemarle, and many others, 
 had arranged their entertainments outside the quadrangle. 
 Ruddiman s, in especial, was sumptuous to an alarming 
 degree, the forerunner of the lavish extravagance with 
 which Harvard men of to-day are familiar. 
 
 Crowds of common friends had passed from these 
 4 spreads " to Hammersmith s and others within the quad 
 rangle. Crowds from the quadrangle had gone to those 
 outside, Miss Darby and Miss Hammersmith, with the 
 uncle and Tom, among the latter. When the feasting had 
 been carried on for an hour or two, and the young ladies 
 had returned to Goldie s rooms, Miss Mabel broke out, 
 
 "Now, Tom, what comes next? I m insatiable, you 
 see. I mean to see every thing and do every thing that I 
 possibly can ! 
 
 " Why, Mabel ! " said her mother. 
 
 " Well, I do," she answered. "It is my first class- 
 day, and it may be my last, unless Dick improves more 
 in his studies than he has improved the last year." 
 
 "Humph!" exclaimed Dick the indignant, from be 
 hind a dish of strawberries. 
 
 "Oh, the Hasty Pudding ! " said Miss Mabel, going up 
 to Tom. 
 
 "What is it you want, Mabel? Haven t you eaten 
 enough? Hasty Pudding!" said her mother, in some 
 alarm at the hidden possibilities of the banquet. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 485 
 
 " I don t want any thing, mother dear ; " and she went 
 over, and kissed the pale widow in her chair hy the win 
 dow. But Tom promised to show us the Hasty Pudding 
 Club rooms, and I want so much to see them ! they are 
 so awfully mysterious about the club, Tom and Geor 
 Mr. Goldie. And you must take us up, Tom ! " 
 
 " But you ll have to climb three flights of stairs, and be 
 blindfolded, and have your hands tied behind your back, 
 and recite three verses from the Koran, and promise never 
 to eat chocolate-creams, and " 
 
 " Oh, nonsense, Tom ! Must we do all that, Mr. Gol 
 die? " asked Miss Hammersmith. 
 
 " Not allowed to say," answered the mysterious fellow. 
 " Will take you up, if you ll run the risk. Girls have 
 been known to live through it sometimes ! 
 
 " Come, Ellen ; come, Tom," said Miss Mabel. " Can t 
 uncle go ? " 
 
 " Bless you, yes ! " answered the " Duke." " I m an 
 honorarius, ex post facto tempus fugit concordia discors 
 seges votis respondet crocodilicos, at your service, my 
 lady!" 
 
 "You re all making fun of me, I do believe ! " said 
 she. u It isn t fair ; is it, mother? " And she appealed 
 to her mother in mock gravity of despair. 
 
 Presently the four young people were mounting the 
 Stoughton stairway, up which legions of trembling neo 
 phytes have climbed before and since ; while the older* 
 people remained in Goldie s rooms, looking out upon the 
 swarming yard, and chatting pleasantly. 
 
 The young ladies did not find any thing terrific, or fear 
 fully mysterious, in the famous Pudding rooms ; and 
 though Tom made a great show of secrecy at the door, 
 insisting on blindfolding his sister, and bringing out an 
 old volume that he declared was the Koran, Miss Darby 
 put a stop to his brotherly pranks and, laughing heartily 
 at Miss Mabel s perplexity, said, 
 
486 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 " Come, Tom dear. We shall be losing the dancing ! " 
 And Goldie added, 
 
 "Well, Miss Mabel, we are allowed b}^ the sphinx to 
 forego these ceremonies on some occasions, when a 
 person has conscientious scruples about repeating from the 
 Koran, for instance. You have scruples of that sort, 
 haven t you? " 
 
 u Yes, yes I suppose so," answered the mystified 
 young woman. 
 
 " I thought so. And we can permit you to go in, if 
 you ll promise solemnly never to divulge what you may 
 see, or hear, or feel " 
 
 " Oh, gracious ! " said Miss Mabel. 
 
 Under penalty of losing the devotion of yours truly, 
 George Goldie," he added sotto voce to her, as Tom and 
 Miss Darby were passing in ahead. She said " Oh, gra 
 cious ! " again, and continued to make use of that and 
 many other exclamations, as the} 7 examined the mysteries 
 and wonders of that elaborate old society, whose name 
 they had heard so often, and with such awful forebodings. 
 
 Other couples were before them, sitting in the cosey 
 window-seats, turning over the famous painted pro 
 grammes of the society, scrutinizing the anomalous toilets 
 of the male-women actors whose photographs hung about 
 on the walls, taking down a musty volume here and there 
 from the ample librar} 7 ranged about the rooms, and dip 
 ping into some few secret mysteries that cannot bear tran 
 script to these pages. 
 
 "What funny, funny, looking actresses you men make ! " 
 exclaimed Miss Mabel. 
 
 " Some of them are mighty good, I think," said Goldie. 
 
 " You should have seen Ruddiman, the other evening, 
 as Juliet ! " added Tom; and, as they were leaving, that 
 effulgent young gentleman, to-day as sombre and severe 
 as all his class, to be sure, in evening-dress of faultless 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 487 
 
 cut, entered with Miss Malachite, the proudest man in all 
 Cambridge. 
 "How d ye do?" 
 
 " How do you do? " 
 
 " Miss Malachite, Miss Hammersmith ; Miss Hammer 
 smith, Miss Malachite," said the elaborate Ruddiman ; and 
 Miss Mabel bowed with the rest, and presently said, 
 
 " Mr. Ruddiman, we were just talking of your acting." 
 
 " Great thing ! " said the young man. "Immense suc 
 cess, no end of applause ! Seen my photo ? Permit me 
 I was just bringing a couple to hang up in the rooms." 
 And the jocund fellow pulled out a pencil, wrote " Com 
 pliments of Robt. Ruddiman" on the back of a cabinet 
 photograph that he took from his pocket, and handed it to 
 Miss Hammersmith. 
 
 Is that you ? Really ! I . never should have known 
 it ! " she said. " How handsome ! " 
 
 " Well, I like that ! " said Ruddiman, firing up. 
 
 " What ! Oh, you know what I mean ! I didn t sup 
 pose you could make up so well. And that is my poor 
 old gown, Tom, that you borrowed! And who did up 
 your hair I mean, where did you get your wig ? It is 
 a wig, isn t it? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " answered Ruddiman ; and the mysteries of 
 the club hair-dressing and other adornment were explained, 
 while the photograph was passed around, and criticised. 
 
 " I wish I were a young man ! " exclaimed Miss Mabel, 
 as they -were making their way to the green for a dance, in 
 that pretty bygone fashion of the day, destructive though 
 it may have been to delicate slippers and skirts. " We 
 girls have no chance at all compared to 3^011 men. Look 
 at our wishy-washy schools ! And what a lovely time you 
 have here ! 
 
 " You can t judge from to-day, Mabel," said Tom. 
 " We have to work like Trojans in term-time ; haven t we, 
 George?" 
 
488 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Darby slily, answering for Goldie. 
 " But I ll tell you to-night, when we are at home, what it 
 is at which the}* work like Trojans. I wouldn t advise 
 your believing all these silly young men tell you to-daj*, 
 Mabel." 
 
 " And I wouldn t advise your believing all that a cer 
 tain young woman may tell you about midnight, Miss 
 Mabel," said Goldie. " The imagination is very lively 
 at that time of night, particularly in young women." 
 
 " For shame, George ! " said his cousin ; and they saun 
 tered off, the two couples, to the dances on the green, and 
 the " fascinating " and " delightful " and " lovely " and 
 " sweet dances" in Harvard Hall, as various exuberant 
 young women might have been heard to declare them 
 during the course of the afternoon. 
 
 This dancing experience was so novel and alluring to 
 Miss Hammersmith, she had so recently obtained her 
 mother s sanction for her indulging in the round dances, 
 and the merry scene before her was all so dazzling and dis 
 tracting, that I do not wonder the young girl was quite 
 beside herself with pleasant intoxication of delight. 
 
 " Dear Mabel, you must not, you really must not, dance 
 so much," her mother would say, as she returned now 
 and then to the rooms of the " spread," her cheeks 
 flushed, her eyes sparkling with excitement*. 
 
 " I m not dancing too much, mother dear," she would 
 say ; " but the music is so lovely that I can t keep still." 
 And she would go off on the arm of Goldie, Freemantle, 
 Fayerweather, or some other young student, for more 
 dances and more delicious intoxication. 
 
 Miss Darby, graver than her wont under the sense of 
 Tom s approaching departure for the war, danced but 
 little, took a turn of the green, visited Harvard Hall and 
 several " spreads " with Hammersmith, and sat quietly a 
 large part of the time with Mrs. Hammersmith and the 
 rest. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 489 
 
 "Happy fellow, Hammersmith!" men would say to 
 each other, as Tom and his beautiful young love sailed 
 about the yard and the old buildings. 
 
 " How proud they look ! " would be the exclamation of 
 envious beauties, or plebeian strangers, who looked on at 
 the handsome, happy couple moving about, really too 
 happy to speak, and so wearing an air of silent haughti 
 ness not unlikely to provoke comment. 
 
 " My dear Emily, you ought to be the happiest woman 
 in the quadrangle to-day/ Mr. Gayton said to Mrs. Ham 
 mersmith during the afternoon, "with such a beautiful 
 girl, two such beautiful girls, I may say, and such a 
 fellow as Tom before your eyes. What a swell the young 
 fellow is!" 
 
 " Please, not that name, Gayton," the quiet mother 
 answered. " He is only Tom to me ; and I could be very, 
 very happy, if the thought of his going away to the war 
 were not in my mind continually. It will break my 
 heart!" 
 
 " Pooh, pooh ! Excuse me, dear Emily ; but I remem 
 ber you. used that very expression when Tom was about 
 to be sent away to college. Was it a hundred years ago? 
 No, pardon me, four," bowing elaborately as he said this ; 
 " and here is the young fellow alive and well, and a great 
 man in his class, as you must allow." 
 
 " Yes ; but this is a very different matter," the mother 
 answered; and all the "Duke s" skill as a diplomatist 
 was called into play to cheer her, and to make her son s 
 departure seem the most natural, the most honorable, 
 course in the world, the very one that all able-bodied 
 young Hammersmiths were fond of following, from the 
 earliest history of the family. 
 
 The dances were over ; the crowds in the quadrangle 
 were immensely increased as evening came on ; and the 
 day was going out like a gorgeous sunset, rich with color, 
 flashing with many-lined radiance. 
 
490 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 It was while stopping, almost breathless, from the last 
 dance in Harvard Hall, that Miss Hammersmith was 
 aware of a pensive figure leaning against a column, and 
 watching the whirling couples in the centre of the floor. 
 
 She was on the arm of Goldie ; and, as she passed the 
 figure in question, she said with a light air, 
 
 " Why so pensive, Mr. Ruddiman? " 
 
 4 1 Oh ! I was thinking I was thinking of graduat 
 ing, of leaving all these endearing young charms and the 
 old university," answered the mournful youth, with a 
 sudden accession of regretful tenderness. 
 
 "Ah, I m sorry for you, Mr. Ruddiman! It must be 
 so hard ! the young woman said quietly. She looked so 
 mischievous, however, and she glanced so involuntarily to 
 a certain couple gliding gracefully about in the crush of 
 dancers, a couple on which Ruddiman s eyes were also 
 fastened, that Ruddiman felt uncomfortable. He never 
 could quite make Miss Hammersmith out. She had so 
 casual a way of sajdng things, making such accidental 
 double entendres, that he could never tell just how much 
 was badinage, just how much was serious. She was very 
 happy, certainty, and very merry, this afternoon. Goldie 
 had been her devoted squire from noon till now ; and we 
 cannot blame the cheerful girl if she dropped a little chaff 
 with the doleful Ruddiman, and if such things as trials 
 and tribulations seemed quite out of the pale of possible 
 things in the fulness of her sunny joy. 
 
 So Ruddiman was left consuming himself with jealousy 
 as Freemantle and Miss Malachite danced and talked 
 in low tones before his very eyes, and wishing quite a 
 catalogue of unkind wishes for his free and easy classmate 
 in return for his cutting in, and stealing Miss Malachite 
 away from his table, and monopolizing her ever since, 
 monopolizing her as well in the pensive evening, when the 
 crowds and the lights, the music and the thought of part- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 491 
 
 ing, filled the tender student with sentiment, and sur 
 rounded every casual maiden with a halo of romance* 
 
 It was not a cheerful spectacle, the noble Ruddiman 
 looking at life through the smoked glasses of despair. 
 But there were scores of youth in the quadrangle, dying 
 just such pleasant half-deaths that afternoon and evening ; 
 and we know enough of the resuscitating habit of the 
 Ruddiman stock not to be fearful of his entire extinction. 
 Other men have seen their innamoratas sailing away in 
 the arms of successful rivals, and have yet survived : why 
 should not he ? 
 
 The same Darby group was gathered, just before sunset, 
 in a spacious window of Harvard Hall, waiting for the 
 unique closing exercises of the day, the songs and rings, 
 and grotesque farewell performances of the seniors about 
 Liberty Tree. 
 
 The windows of Harvard, Hollis, Stoughton, Holden, 
 were alive with eager faces from ground-floor to eaves. 
 Crowds filled all the available space between those halls 
 and the street. Fences, trees, carriage-tops, were sur 
 mounted by youthful acrobats bent on seeing the sport. 
 A large concourse of sight-seers in carriages, on horse 
 back, on foot blocked up the street adjacent, and drove 
 the local policeman frantic. 
 
 The under-classmen are grouped in the centre of a huge 
 ring. A wreath of small bouquets circles the Liberty 
 Tree at a height to which you and I might have leaped 
 or scrambled when we were lads, my dear Philippus, but 
 which we would not venture to reach nowadays, for all 
 the roses and posies of Christendom, and all the happy 
 laughter and light applause that might reward us from the 
 surrounding halls. We might be ever so anxious and 
 willing ; but gravity is against us. 
 
 The music of a band again, in the distance, followed 
 at intervals by cheers ; cheers such as Miss Mabel had 
 
492 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 not heard since Worcester of last year ; cheers such as 
 set many a heart in the crowd beating, and recalled to 
 many a graduate present the vigorous, joyous days of his 
 prime. 
 
 " What are they doing, Ellen? " asked Miss Hammer 
 smith. 
 
 "They are cheering the buildings, for farewell," said 
 Miss Darby. 
 
 " How lovely, how hearty, how splendid, it all is, Ellen ! 
 Why don t you say something? " 
 
 " Oh ! I ve seen two class-days before, Harry Goldie s 
 four years ago (just after I was home from Europe) , my 
 friend Miss Fayerweather s brother s last year, you know." 
 
 " Is it always as sweet as this? " 
 
 " Not always such pleasant weather. It is often fear 
 fully hot ; sometimes it rains, I believe. But there ia 
 usually an immense crowd, and just such excitement and 
 gayety as you ve seen to-day." 
 
 But were you ever so happy ? Were you ever so 
 happy as to-day, Ellen ? 
 
 " Were you, Mabel?" asked the other. And the two 
 young girls, each as happy as girls could be, looked into 
 each other s eyes for just a brief moment, and smiled. I 
 am not sure which blushed the more of the two ; I fear it 
 was Miss Hammersmith : and I do not in the least blame 
 a knot of juniors, sitting on the grass within the ring, for 
 looking many times up at the two girls in the Harvard 
 Hall window, smiling and blushing there in their beauty. 
 
 Two to one on the girl with the red feather ! said 
 one. 
 
 " Mine s the girl in blue and white," said another. 
 
 A basket of champagne that Goldie is engaged to 
 her!" added a third. 
 
 "Nonsense! He s not such a quick bird as that. 
 Give him a little time ! " 
 
HIS HAKVABD DAYS. 493 
 
 " She smiled at me, by Jove ! Five to one she ll smile 
 again, Phil! " 
 
 " Everybody knows a smile will upset you, old fellow. 
 One smile s all you can stand." 
 
 "Here they come, fellows! Here are the seniors!" 
 shouted a junior, as the seniors appeared. 
 
 "What frights! what perfect horrors! Why, Ellen, 
 why do they dress like that ? 
 
 " A custom, my dear Mabel, a custom of class-day. 
 You ll see why in a few moments." 
 
 t There s Tom, and Mr. Goldie and Mr. Albemarle 
 and Mr. Ruddiman. What fearful old clothes ! What 
 disgraceful hats ! Why, Tom has a new hat ! " 
 
 " Yes, a custom," chimed in Mr. Gayton. " A 
 mighty expensive little item for a young senior, you ll see 
 in a few moments, Mabel." 
 
 And while the Darby group, and a hundred others 
 equally interested, looked on, and commented on the droll 
 figures and eccentric dressing of the seniors, and a low 
 murmur ran about through the crowds at hand, the seniors 
 marched into the centre of the ring, and halted. 
 
 " Oh ! what do they do now ? Do tell me, Ellen ! I m 
 afraid I shall lose something," said Miss Hammersmith. 
 
 " Have you lost any thing to-day, Mabel? " asked her 
 uncle, looking mischievous a moment, then glancing 
 quickly out at the window, and lengthening his face. 
 
 "No," said she, "nothing, I think." And then, noti 
 cing her uncle s look, she blushed prettily, as she said in a 
 low voice, "Uncle, you re very unkind! I ve not lost 
 what you mean, and I don t intend to ever! " And the 
 old gentleman of course felt very uncomfortable, and of 
 course believed her, and of course concluded that he must 
 have been mistaken in thinking Mr. George Goldie most 
 remarkably devoted to his sweet young niece during the 
 entire day. 
 
494 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 The great ringing chorus of the class song ; the hearty 
 cheers for the president, the professors, the tutors, every 
 body and every thing, from the old university itself to 
 the ancient handmaidens and the various sports of the 
 time ; the excited singing of Auld Lang Syne, with UP 
 accelerated movement and gradual crescendo of impetu 
 osity ; the whirling rush about the garlanded tree, with 
 the concentric rings colliding in their course, the sopho 
 mores and freshmen ending, as usual, in a fierce scrimmage, 
 and an attempt to break each other s lines ; the wild 
 scramble for the flowers encircling the tree-trunk ; the vic 
 torious shouts ; the applause from the surrounding halls, 
 and the long-continued and quite unprecedented hugging 
 and farewells of the graduating class, ah, how the vigo 
 rous scene comes back to me these thousands of miles 
 away ! And what a thrill the memory of that festal after 
 noon, those brave 3 r oung seniors, that rose-garden of youth 
 and beauty blooming in the ancient hall-windows, gives an 
 old graduate after the lapse of a few decades ! 
 
 The new hat of Hammersmith s, which excited his sis 
 ter s comment, had been many times lifted and waved in 
 air, as his old ancestor Rupert might have waved his 
 chapeau at the Buena Vista charge. Mr. Tom had called 
 for cheers for everybody and every thing, as has been 
 said, faculty, old university, boating, cricket, the classes 
 (saving the freshmen, who set up a partisan howl on their 
 own account) , the ladies, the societies, even the factotum 
 " Glue," and the body of skips and forgiven "old pocos ; 
 and the surrounding halls had given back mighty echoes 
 of " Rah, rah, rah ! " And when at last, standing bare 
 headed, handsome, among all those manly young students 
 already immensely excited, he lifted his voice and said, 
 " Now, fellows, I propose three times three cheers for our 
 dear old country and the men that have gone forth from 
 this place to defend her," there was a sudden crash of 
 
TITS HARVAED DAYS. 495 
 
 applause and of cheers from the immense crowd in attend 
 ance. 
 
 As he lifted his hat, and swung it in air, such cheers 
 were given, by students and spectators alike, as I ima 
 gine the old Liberty Tree had rarely listened to before ; 
 cheers which would have fired the hearts of Breese and 
 Curtis and Farley and the rest, could they have heard 
 their echo in the Virginia camp where they lay ; cheers 
 which did infinite honor to the happy young gentlemen 
 who gave them, and which proved, that, beneath an exte 
 rior of seeming carelessness and assumed ease, there was 
 a warm and abiding love of country, and a devotion to 
 ideas worthy of the noble old university that had cher- 
 ished them and trained them all these years, and other 
 patriots before them. 
 
 Hammersmith has finally hurled his hat at the tree as 
 a signal for the scramble to begin, Miss Hammersmith 
 exclaiming, "Good gracious! So that s the expensive 
 custom, uncle Gayton ! " as she saw it trodden under foot 
 by the rushing seniors, making for the tree. The wreath 
 of flowers has at length been entirely torn from its place 
 by the young men, who jumped and clambered, and made 
 Trojan charges, combination-attacks, for it. All these 
 brisk young fellows, who have been so fine in evening- 
 dress and faultless linen all day, now, in the oldest and 
 oddest of clothes, are covered with dust, and breathing 
 like war-horses. Youthful spectators have shouted Ki-yi ! 
 Look at the li ttle one ! " as Ruddiman distinguished him 
 self by climbing over the heads and shoulders of his class 
 mates, and carrying off a small arc of the flower-circle. 
 Young ladies have felt their hearts beating a trifle quicker 
 as they looked down and saw the ecstatic embraces of 
 their young friends, hitherto so severely decorous, so care 
 fully restrained in their devotions. The last tired class 
 mate has fallen into the arms of his friends, of his quondam 
 
496 HAMMEESMITH: 
 
 enemies, of men with whom he has hardly had a word 
 during his whole college- course. The seniors have left, 
 soon to re-appear, gorgeous for the evening s festivities. 
 The crowd melts away. Village urchins, bent on anti 
 quarian research, traverse and prod the field for trophies 
 of the peaceful fight. The sun has long since gone down, 
 with a last lingering smile on all this happy throng, this 
 merry flower-scene, bright after its own sunny heart. The 
 lights are lit in the quadrangle ; the cosey teas of the 
 seniors are in progress ; and a few short hours of music, 
 of song, of re very, of sentiment, and the glad-sorrowful 
 day is over. 
 
 The band is playing in the middle of the quadrangle. 
 Lights are hung far and near under the arching elms. 
 Happy couples, bathed in a delicious sea of romance, 
 wander here and there through the crowds. Flood-gates 
 of sentiment are opened that were never dreamed of before 
 by the startled gate-keepers. Young men are talking 
 proudly, hopefully, of their vast plans, their lofty aims ; 
 and bright eyes flash with admiration, or melt in tender 
 sympathy, as the manly youth pour forth their vows, their 
 hopes, their doughty resolves. 
 
 "Well, my little mother," says Hammersmith, approach 
 ing his mother in the beginning of the evening, just as 
 the Glee Club is mounting the stand for a song, " how 
 are you getting along? Will you go to the president s 
 reception with us ? " 
 
 " No, Tom dear: I m too tired. I have had a very 
 happy day ; but I must go now. Gay ton will take care of 
 me ; do you stay and enjoy yourself. Mrs. Darbj^ will 
 look after the girls will you not, Mrs. Darby ? Thanks ! 
 And with tears in her eyes, and a pressure of Tom s hand, 
 that meant volumes of pleasure and grief, and forecasting 
 fear, to Hammersmith, the good mother left the room with 
 Mr. Gay ton, and returned to the Darbys . 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 497 
 
 " Why are you so quiet, Ellen? " asked Hammersmith, 
 bending over Miss Darby, who sat in a window-seat, look 
 ing out. " Why have you been so quiet all day? " 
 
 " O Tom ! " she answered, turning her face up to his, 
 and taking one of his hands in both of hers, " can t you 
 imagine? How can I help feeling sad, and being quiet, if 
 you persist in going to the war, dear Tom ? 
 
 " Come, come/ said Tom, " don t let us think of that 
 this evening ! The war may be ended before commence 
 ment ; and I ve promised you not to go till then." 
 
 " But I can think of nothing else, Tom. I ve tried to 
 forget it ah 1 day. I ve danced, and watched every thing 
 and everybody about me, and tried to imagine that it was 
 all a dream, and that you were not really going, after all. 
 But it is no use. I can think of absolutely nothing else. 
 I have thought of nothing else for weeks ; and she re 
 leased his hand, and leaned her head on her own hand. 
 
 " But see how well and happy I am! And what a 
 merry scene this is!" said Hammersmith. "Don t let 
 us prophesy evil on a night like this, Ellen dear ! " 
 
 " But I cannot help it, Tom. I cannot help dreading 
 your going. You are always rushing into danger so ! " 
 And Tom was leaning over to speak words of comfort to 
 her, when " One, two, three, Hammersmith ! " came in a 
 great chorus from the Glee Club ; and he drew back, 
 saying, 
 
 " Pshaw, I forgot those fellows were looking up here ! 
 Shall I go down ? I ll do any thing that you say to-night, 
 Ellen, except "- 
 
 " Yes, except," she said mournfully. 
 
 " Except promising you not to go to the war." 
 
 " One, two, three, Hammersmith ! " came up again from 
 the quadrangle. Miss Darby said, "Go, Tom, they want 
 you ; but don t stay long." And Mr. Tom went down, and 
 was soon singing away with the club. But his thoughts 
 
498 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 were far away from the music in hand ; away with Breese 
 and the rest at the post of danger ; away on the wild 
 journey which his hopes and fears led him, when he 
 thought of the dear girl in the window-seat yonder, whom 
 he loved only less dearly than his country and his honor. 
 
 "Come, Ellen, let us go to the reception," he said, 
 returning after a while to Miss Darby. "You have been 
 sitting here too long, thinking of the war and all that." 
 
 " I d rather not go to the reception, Tom," she said ; 
 " but I ll take a little walk, if you wish.". And they went 
 out, and made a tour of the quadrangle ; strangely and 
 yet not strangely silent, under the influence of their com 
 mon thought ; silent too, as their memories went back 
 over the short years of Hammersmith s Cambridge life, 
 packed full of events that had been drawing them gradu 
 ally but surely together. 
 
 Then they passed out of the yard, and traversed many 
 of the familiar promenades in the neighborhood of the 
 college. All Cambridge was floating in a golden atmos 
 phere of pensive revery, and tender, melancholy senti 
 ment ; and these two young hearts were touched as they 
 had never been before with the sweet sadness of parting 
 and the new thought of their terrible dependence on each 
 other. 
 
 What they said on that peaceful, starlit night, as they 
 paced the leafy avenues of the town, within sound of the 
 music from the quadrangle ; how Mr. Tom pointed out 
 many a spot here and there, made interesting to him (and 
 now to her) by boyish adventures of his ; how he tried to 
 draw her mind from the sad thought of separation and of 
 battle-fields, it does not concern us to inquire. 
 
 It was a difficult task to free her from this bitter, blind 
 ing fear ; a difficult task to make her believe, that, in a few 
 short weeks, he would be returning to lay his spurs at her 
 feet. For not only to Miss Darby, but to scores of others 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 499 
 
 in the merry quadrangle that day, had come the thought 
 of the nameless dangers to which many of these young 
 men, their brothers, their sons, their lovers, were so soon 
 to expose themselves. 
 
 A deep, solemn undertone of sadness, a bitter refrain, 
 from out the hearts of mothers and sisters and sweet 
 hearts, had been singing itself all day under the light 
 music, the gay, festive songs of revelry. And the hearts 
 of the 3 oung men, which beat so proudly that day, were 
 themselves smitten with a sense of the noble rage, the 
 high responsibility, of the conflict that called them. 
 
 It was as if a jolly woodland party were feasting and 
 making merry under sun-flecked foliage, all unconscious, 
 or but dimly conscious, of the muttering thunder and the 
 leaping lightning of a fierce summer storm approaching 
 apace. The light footing of the dance was soon to give 
 place to the hurried tramp of horses and men ; the festive 
 music, to the clang of summoning trumpets ; and all 
 the light laughter and sentiment and merrymaking, to be 
 drowned in the hoarse roar of conflict. 
 
 " Dear Ellen, you would not tujve me turn my back on 
 my duty ! " Tom said, as they were returning across the 
 Delta to the quadrangle, Miss Darby leaning heavily on 
 his arm. 
 
 " No, of course not, Tom," she answered. " But one 
 man more or less, what can it matter? " 
 
 "One man may save a whole country!" exclaimed 
 Hammersmith; "a whole cause, a whole side, a whole 
 army ! Look ! " said he, " here is the ve^ place where 
 Breese saved our freshman game four years ago ! You 
 saw it. You know how it was done ? It was done by one 
 man s being plucky, and mad with fine anger-, and care 
 less of himself, so that only he could serve his fellows, and 
 win the victory." 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Miss Darby. 
 
500 HAMMERSMITH: 
 
 " And what would Breese say, do you think, if he knew 
 that I was hesitating about joining him ! I am not hesi 
 tating ; I have never hesitated except, dear Ellen, when 
 I have thought of you and mother and Mabel ; " and he 
 leaned towards her, and spoke in a low voice, to which 
 Miss Darby inclined her ear. 
 
 "Yes," she said, " war is always the hardest on the 
 women, Tom." 
 
 But you would not have the men cowards and shirks ! 
 he exclaimed. "You would not have them stand wring 
 ing their hands, and let their country be torn to pieces ! 
 No, death, grief, any thing, is better than that ! I would 
 rather fall in my first fight, with my face to the enemy, 
 than to live, and feel that I had shirked my duty. You 
 would prefer it so, too, dear Ellen; yes, I know you 
 would." But she only clung the closer to his arm, and 
 made no answer. 
 
 " As you say, what is one man more or less ! " he went 
 on. "But I mean it in a different sense. And what 
 great matter, if I do fall? " 
 
 " O Tom, Tom ! " sfte said. 
 
 " If I fell, it would be with your love in my heart, dear 
 Ellen, and 3~our name on my lips ; and I would have them 
 for eternity ! And you would be proud that I had died in 
 such a cause 
 
 " Please don t, Tom ! " she interposed. 
 
 " But if I staid at home, and saw others plunge in and 
 do the fighting for me Heavens, how I should feel ! I 
 should be ashamed of my name, ashamed to look a brave 
 man in the face ; and you would be ashamed of me your 
 self, Ellen dear." 
 
 " Never, Tom, never ; for I should know that you only 
 staid at home for your mother s sake and mine." 
 
 "Ellen, ask me any thing, make me promise you any 
 thing ; but I beg you, as you love me, as you know that 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 501 
 
 I love you more dearly than all the world besides, not to 
 hold me back from what I think my duty in this case. 
 You don t distrust me? You believe what I say? Yes, 
 I thought so. God bless you for it ! Believe me, then, 
 when I say again, what I have said so many times before, 
 that I love you dearly, deeply, hopefully ; that it is only 
 the thought of you and my mother that causes me a 
 moment s pang, a moment s hesitation ; but that, before 
 God and you, I swear that my honor, my manhood, the 
 name I bear, every thing, calls me to this war in defence 
 of my country, and that every thing must give way before 
 this duty." 
 
 They walked a moment in silence, the low night- wind 
 coming with a delicious coolness to their excitement, and 
 the distant music of the Glee Club detaining their thoughts 
 for a brief space from the sad journey on which they were 
 bound. 
 
 " Have I been stud} T ing the lives of the great and the 
 patriotic all these years," Hammersmith went on ; " have 
 I been taught to admire courage and honor, and noble 
 daring, in all ages, from the beginning of time ; and do I 
 now find myself wavering? No, no, Ellen! God knows 
 how bitterly I hate to leave you. God knows how eagerly 
 I shall look forward to the time when I can come back to 
 you, never to be away from you. But now my mind is 
 made up I must go ! 
 
 The low sobbing which he felt at his side, and which 
 went to his heart as he spoke, broke into a single cry of 
 grief; and, as he bent over the fair form on his arm, she 
 lifted her face, which he and the stars looked down upon, 
 and saw was bright with tears. Then she said, 
 
 " You are right, dear Tom : you must go. I was very 
 weak to think of keeping you. But I never loved any 
 body in my life before : it makes it all the harder to bear 
 the thought of being separated from you now. But, when 
 
502 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 you talk as you did just now, Tom, I feel how weak I 
 have been ; I feel how much stronger and nobler you are 
 than I, yes, 3^3, please let me say so, Tom ! it is sweet 
 to me to say it, and I love you for it, and am thankful 
 to God for sending you to me." 
 
 And presently she added, " You will promise to take 
 good care of yourself, Tom? You will promise not to 
 expose yourself more than is necessary? " 
 
 He saw how her mind was torn and agitated with 
 anxiety ; and so he answered lightly, 
 
 " Bless your little heart, Ellen, of course I will ! I ve 
 no great desire to be mowed down by a cannon-ball. I ve 
 no intention of swallowing hot shot by way of matutinal 
 amusement. I shall dodge every ball I can see, of 
 course ; and climb trees, when the engagement is too hot ; 
 and bury nryself in baggage-wagons at every opportu 
 nity " 
 
 " Oh, I know you will never do that, Tom ! " she inter 
 posed more cheerfully. As they were entering the quad 
 rangle, on their return, they fell again into a more serious 
 mood ; and Hammersmith said, 
 
 " How can I help taking care of myself, my dear Ellen, 
 when I have you to look forward to, and your love to 
 cheer me at ever} 7 " turn of fortune ! Remember what I 
 have said to you to-night ; remember that I have never 
 told the least fraction of an untruth to you in my life, and 
 that I mean all that the words imply, when I say that the 
 world would be very dark indeed, and life not worth the 
 living, if I did not know that I had your love and trust 
 and confidence. You know that you have mine, dear 
 Ellen ; and God surely does not mean that we shall be 
 separated, or that I shall fall, as you fear, in my first 
 campaign." 
 
 "I shall pray that you may not, Tom; but I wish I 
 could be sure of it. I wish I could free myself from the 
 terrible dread that chokes me ! " 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 503 
 
 When they went back to the quadrangle and Hammer 
 smith s rooms, they were very quiet and subdued ; and 
 Mr. Tom felt himself as much consecrated, ennobled, and 
 uplifted by this young woman s love, as ever a young 
 knight that buckled on his armor, and went forth to win 
 his spurs, with the noble words of knighthood in his ears, 
 and his fair love s favor on his lance. 
 
 Class-day, with its tender sentiment and lingering fare 
 wells, is over. 
 
 The baccalaureate sermon, preached two days later, in 
 the chapel, by the beloved Dr. Brimblecom, is past. It 
 was deep and earnest, tender and thoughtful, filled with 
 all manner of cheerful augury and manly exhortation for 
 the young men just leaving these scenes of their tutelage, 
 and entering the warfare of life. Taken in connection 
 with all the sweetly-sad influences of class-day, the final 
 farewells, the preparations for departure, the swearing of 
 eternal friendships, it made a profound impression on 
 the young students, who had so often clambered into these 
 same chapel-seats in headlong haste, somewhat regardless 
 of the sanctity of the service ; the 3 r oung students, who 
 were now opening their eyes for almost the first time on 
 the real problem of life, and the man s part that they were 
 to play in the world. 
 
 Commencement and Phi Beta Kappa days are past, 
 when graver masculine throngs again filled the old building, 
 and enjoyed more strictly literary entertainments, relieved 
 by the great collegiate dinners in Harvard Hall, to be sure, 
 and the numberless symposia of the classes of graduates, 
 which met for class business throughout the different halls. 
 
 The last college-exercise is over. The last college and 
 tradesman s bill is paid (let us fondly hope) . The young 
 graduates have each packed away carefully among their 
 university belongings the little sheepskins which pro- 
 
504 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 claim in elaborate Latin that they are bachelors of arts, 
 with omnia insignia et jura ad hunc honor em spectantia. 
 Such men as are so minded have called to bid good-by to 
 their professors, their tutors, their Cambridge friends; 
 and the last tie that binds the class of Hammersmith to 
 the old university as undergraduates is severed. Heaven 
 ordain that deeper, closer, more affectionate relations may 
 draw them, as graduates, back to the kind mother that 
 has borne with their youthful follies, and cherished their 
 youthful lives so fondly ; and that an interest born of ex 
 perience may attach them more and more, as the years go 
 by, to the problem of the college government and the 
 college curriculum , under which their sons and grandsons 
 shall be placed ! 
 
 Hammersmith s college-life, then, was over. His four 
 years were past ; and whatever of good or evil influence 
 they had brought him, whatever of earnestness and 
 wisdom they had ingrafted on his native sturdiness and 
 impulsiveness of temperament, whatever they had given 
 him in the way of friends and counsellors and loving 
 life-companions, all was behind him now; all but the 
 sweet memory and kindling enthusiasm born of this hearty 
 quadriennium of his life ; all but the living faith in him 
 self, his own powers, the nobility of correct living and 
 high endeavor ; all but the few strong friends among his 
 classmates who were bound to him, he felt convinced, as 
 by bands of iron, and hooks of steel ; all but a professor 
 or a tutor here and there who had been drawn to him, 
 and was likely to remain his friend ; all but this fair being 
 at his side, cheering him, strengthening him, more than 
 all these, by her love and her trust. 
 
 And when, with numbers of his classmates, he left, 
 soon after commencement, for the seat of war, it was 
 with many backward glances, you may be sure, at the 
 happy spot where so many splendid days of his youth had 
 
HIS HAKVAKD DAYS. 505 
 
 been passed. It was a heart as heavy as poor Breese s 
 that he carried away with him that day ; but, ah, so dif 
 ferently freighted from that of Breese ! For it was filled 
 heavy with love and anxiety, and infinite tenderness for 
 the dear girl left weeping under her Cambridge elms, 
 the fair Oriana, who had shown herself at her lattice, and 
 smiled upon him, when he was fighting his bitter fight with 
 himself and the world. 
 
 Into that sterner fight, those redder battle-fields, where 
 he found himself so soon, he carried the memory of 
 that sweet, courageous face, as many a man who marched 
 shoulder to shoulder with him was carrying some other 
 dear features continually before him. Heaven only knows 
 what strength and courage it gave him, as such a memory 
 and such a hope give any man who believes that a pure, 
 sincere, and loving woman is the brightest blessing that 
 the sun in all his wandering shines upon. 
 
506 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 EXEUNT OMNES. 
 
 " What is the fate of a brave man, but to fall amid the foremost? He who 10 
 never wounded has a weary lot." DEATH-SONG or REGNAR LODBROG. 
 
 " Their good swords rust, 
 And their steeds are dust ; 
 But their souls are with the saints, we trust." 
 
 WS of a bloody struggle on a Southern battle- 
 field had sent a thrill, and a wail of consternation, 
 throughout the entire North. Bulletins from the seat of 
 war were being scanned with an anxiety which was almost 
 blinding to those who had friends and relatives in that 
 unhappy army, (as who had not?) when the following 
 letter came to Miss Darby in her Cambridge home, bring 
 ing a sad relief to her fearful suspense : 
 
 HOSPITAL, WASHINGTON, 19 July, 186-. 
 
 MY DEAB Miss DAKBY, I promised you, that, if Tom ever 
 joined us down here, I would look after him, and keep you in 
 formed of his welfare : so I send you this line of news. 
 
 He is all right. Do not be alarmed. He has been wounded, not 
 very severely, in the sword-arm, and sits propped up in the next 
 bed to mine, smoking a placid pipe, taking his otium cum dig., as 
 he just tells me to say to you. He cannot write, of course, and so 
 commissions me to send you this word for him. He will scrawl a 
 left-handed postcript, he says, to show you that he is not entirely 
 used up, and that I am not deceiving you with pleasant hopes. 
 
 I will not tell you how it all happened, but leave that to Tom, 
 who will see you in a few days. But, as the brave fellow will not 
 tell you more than half the truth about his own exploits and 
 behavior on that terrible day, I will say just a few words as to 
 how it came about. 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 507 
 
 You see we were on the extreme left of our division. The 
 papers and despatches will have told you how tremendously out 
 numbered we were by the " rebs," and how division after division 
 was ambushed and almost decimated. The memory of it all is so 
 sickening and horrible to me, that I cannot dwell on it. It was 
 such a carnage and slaughter as I pray Heaven I may never see 
 again. I do not wonder now at peace societies and philosophers, 
 who cry out against the insane demonism of war. 
 
 Well, we were marching ahead in the gray of the morning, 
 hearing firing and heavy cannonading on our right, rather in 
 advance of our line; and just as we were crossing a narrow clear 
 ing, which sqemed to have been recently made, we were met by 
 the most terrific fire, apparently from all sides at once, left, right, 
 and front. We stood our ground for a few moments and exchanged 
 several rounds with the enemy; but it was no use. They out 
 numbered us three to one; and we almost immediately heard a 
 terrible shouting and screaming and stampede on our right, which 
 we thought at first meant re-enforcements for the " rebs," but 
 found afterwards to be our own army in retreat on the road that 
 we had just left. 
 
 The "rebs" came pouring out of the woods, yelling like sav 
 ages; men were falling about me on every side; and just as our 
 column wavered, and turned to run, the color-sergeant was killed. 
 The colors lay for a moment neglected on the ground ; and the 
 next instant a man seized them, lifted them with a shout which 
 could be heard above the roar of the conflict, and faced the ene 
 my. I shall remember that shout as long as I live, Miss Darby, 
 and longer. It was Tom; and he shouted and shouted again, as 
 he stood with his hat off, his hair floating in the breeze, "My 
 God, men, but what is this? Stand, men, stand!" And for a 
 brief moment there was a halt and a rally by those within sound 
 of his voice. I could have cried to see the brave fellow standing 
 there, holding the colors, and shouting to the men. I need not 
 say that I thought of you, my dear Miss Darby, and prayed that 
 the dear fellow might come out safe and sound for your sake, if 
 for no other reason. 
 
 The captain of our company rushed past, going to the rear. 
 Hammersmith shouted at him. The captain returned, " It is no 
 use, sir: you had better look out for yourself." And, if you could 
 have seen the look of scorn that came into Tom s eyes, I know 
 you would have been prouder of him than ever (if that wero 
 possible), and would have rushed to him as Goldie and Thorpe, 
 
508 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 Curtis and I, did, the moment we saw who it was that was holding 
 the colors, and shouting. 
 
 It seemed for a moment as if the rout had really been stayed. 
 Our men had turned, and commenced firing, when a ball struck 
 Tom in the arm. The colors went down again for just an instant , 
 and though Thorpe and I seized them, and shook them aloft in a 
 trice, it was no use. One of those panics which take hold of the 
 best of troops seized our men. We were left almost alone with 
 the colors in the centre of the clearing; and we turned reluc 
 tantly to flee. 
 
 Tom had fallen on being wounded ; I had been struck with a 
 fragment of a spent shell, which took away my breath, and stag 
 gered me ; and it seemed impossible for us to succeed in getting 
 Tom from out the clutches of the "rebs," when a company of 
 California cavalry, riding as I never saw men ride before in all 
 my life, came swinging up through the woods on our right, and 
 dashed in between us and the " rebs." They slashed and fired 
 away at the "rebs," shouting like wild Indians, and leaning from 
 their saddles to the right and the left as they galloped ; and the 
 " rebs " were checked in their advance, retreating to their cover. 
 The slashing and firing were still going on, and I began to feel 
 faint, and forget where I was, when a horseman came dashing up 
 to where we fellows were holding Tom and the colors. " Good 
 heavens! " he shouted. " Is this you, Breese ? And Goldie! And 
 Thorpe! Who is that in the middle? Wounded? What, Tom! 
 Tom, my dear old Tom! " And he was off his horse like a shot, 
 and hugging the old fellow till I thought he would squeeze all the 
 breath out of his body. Tom smiled feebly, and we all felt a 
 little tearful (if I may judge from my own state of mind) ; for we 
 recognized in this slashing rider, bearded like a pard, and tough 
 as a bison, Penhallow, our old classmate, and Tom s old chum. 
 
 It was no time for reminiscences, however. We exchanged greet 
 ings rapidly, scarcely believing our senses, and thinking at the 
 rate of a hundred ideas to the second. Then Pen said, " Come, 
 Tom, up in my saddle, old boy ! Yes, yes, I ll go with you; " and 
 we helped Tom to mount. He was scarcely mounted when Pen- 
 hallow gave a spring, with one hand on the rear of the saddle; 
 was seated on the horse s back, behind Tom, before we knew how 
 lie was going to manage it ; and putting his arms round Tom, and 
 digging his spurs into his horse s flanks, he went tearing away 
 with him at a rapid jump. We gave a feeble cheer, which sounds 
 dismal enough to me as I recall it, and then turned to save our- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 509 
 
 selves; for the cavalry had only temporarily delayed the "rebs," 
 and that miserable rout of which you have heard so much was 
 already in full progress. 
 
 I need not tell you how we all reached Washington. I have 
 written too much already. I feel very tired, and have occasion 
 ally to catch my breath. They cannot make out just what is the 
 matter with me. Goldie is all right, came out without a scratch. 
 Curtis is missing. Thorpe is badly wounded in the leg. 
 
 Tom goes home day after to-morrow. Goldie will accompany 
 him. Tom can be of no service for some weeks, and has a fur 
 lough of a month. I have written his uncle Gayton by this mail 
 to meet him in New York : he will, of course, be delighted beyond 
 measure if you can make it convenient to meet him there or at 
 home. 
 
 I must take this place, my dear Miss Darby, to offer my con 
 gratulations on your engagement. You have gained the love of 
 one of the best fellows that the sun ever shone upon, and I thank 
 Heaven that you are happy. God bless you ! God bless you ! 
 Always devotedly yours, 
 
 JOHN BBEESE. 
 
 Following this letter, which moved Miss Darby not a 
 little, and left her bathed in tears, came a few scrawled 
 lines of Tom s. She pressed them to her lips, and petted 
 them fondly, and Cried over them, as she had cried over 
 nothing since that sad, sad day when he had waved a 
 good-by from the ranks as he marched away with his 
 heart in his mouth. They ran as follows : 
 
 MY DEAR LITTLE WOOD-NYMPH, Don t worry. I m all right. 
 Eight arm a bit useless ; that s all. Not good for much fighting 
 or boxing for some time. Leave for home day after to-morrow. 
 Uncle Gayton will call on you. Come if you can. I have some 
 thing important to say to you. 
 
 My love to your mother and the professor. I thought it was 
 all up with me for a while; never expected to see you again. 
 Came near having my wish, of falling in my first fight. Are you 
 glad that I did not? Goldie and Breese and Penhallow well, 
 I ll tell you all about them; stunning fellows. No Penhallow, 
 no Hammersmith ; great thing! Brass monument to Penhallow; 
 mighty horseman ! 
 
510 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 Poor Breese is miserable. I do not let him see it; but I m very 
 much worried about him: so are doctors. I can get him furlough; 
 but he will not leave. 
 
 Au revoir. How is this for a left-handed opus ? I feel like an 
 old veteran; perhaps you will not know me. Think you will? 
 Hope so. 
 
 Lovingly thine, 
 
 TOM. 
 
 Two weeks later the village bells were ringing merrily, 
 the village heart was dancing gayly, at the little hamlet 
 on the banks of the Hudson where Hammersmith s early 
 da} T s had been passed. 
 
 Milliners, jewellers, tailors, and haberdashers had been 
 put hastily to work to do their very neatest handiwork in 
 preparation for a certain occasion very interesting to young 
 people generally, and to Mr. Tom Hammersmith and Miss 
 Darby in particular. 
 
 Mr. Gayton Hammersmith, in faultless blue frock-coat, 
 immaculate linen, the shiniest of boots, the rosiest and 
 happiest of moods, sat reading the early morning New- 
 York papers in the darkened library of " Ivy Hill." 
 The feminine portion of the household was pleasantly 
 engaged in those delightful preliminaries which go before 
 such interesting occasions, all of them except Miss 
 Mabel, who was wandering in the shrubbery with Mr. 
 Goldie, regardless of her delicate finery ; and Miss 
 Fayerweather, who stood near the "Duke" in the 
 library, pulling on a pair of gloves of fabulous length 
 and number of buttons. 
 
 There is a rustle on the stairway ; and a beautiful young 
 creature glides into the room, smiling and blushing as she 
 surveys herself in the pier-glass. 
 
 Mr. Gayton drops his paper, advances as he might 
 advance to the Queen of Sheba, or any other dazzling 
 potentate that could be mentioned, and performs a salute 
 on her fair brow that causes her to blush still more, and 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 511 
 
 still more prettily ; that causes Mr. Tom, coming in be 
 hind her, to shake his fist menacingly at the rapacious 
 "Duke," and Mr. Gayton himself to turn, and grasp 
 Tom s honest left hand, saying, 
 
 "Couldn t help it, Tom ! Couldn t help it! I knew 
 you were hors de combat, too, as to your dexter hand ; 
 and so I didn t fear you." 
 
 "The left is my favorite, sir," Mr. Tom answered. 
 And his uncle added, 
 
 "God bless you, my boy! God bless you! It is 
 worth going to the war for, eh ? " 
 
 And when Mr. Tom marched down the aisle of the 
 church a half-hour later, after the brief ceremony was 
 over, with his bride on his arm, and the sweet village 
 choir made music above them as they went, more than 
 one pair of eyes in that cosey little church was dim with 
 tears, more than one heart beat quickly to -see that hand 
 some young couple advancing so proudly, so confidently, 
 so trustingly, the great broad-shouldered soldier, with 
 his arm in a sling, and a firm, determined look about the 
 mouth ; the sweet young bride, with downcast eyes, and 
 head bent slightly forward, leaning heavily on his arm. 
 
 It is an interesting occasion indeed, on which, with its 
 attendant festivities, I might like to linger with Mr. Tom 
 and the rest, were it only to gratify the curiosity of my 
 young feminine readers (if, haply, I am so fortunate as to 
 have such at this stage of the chronicle) . But the pen 
 of the biographer is weary with a history already pro 
 tracted far beyond its original limits ; and a single act yet 
 remains, before the curtain shall go clown on the char 
 acters, young and old, with whom Mr. Tom s college-life 
 was intimately associated. 
 
 The flying trip which the young couple made to Albany 
 and Lake Champlain, a favorite haunt of Hammer 
 smith s 3 ounger years, was over, and the time for Tom s 
 
51 2 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 return to his regiment had nearly come, when one of 
 those fatal yellow envelopes which strike terror into so 
 many hearts was handed to Mr. Tom. He opened it 
 hastily, and read, 
 
 WASHINGTON, Aug. 15, 186-. 
 THOS. HAMMERSMITH, The Landing, Hudson River, N.T. 
 
 Breese failing rapidly. You had better come on at once. 
 
 G. GOLDIE. 
 
 He passed it without a word to his wife. 
 
 " When can we go? " she asked. 
 
 " Good ! I m glad you ll go, Ellen," he said. 
 
 " Of course I shall go. When is the first train? " 
 
 " In an hour and a half, if we can flag the express." 
 
 The next morning the young soldier and his beautiful 
 bride were in Washington, making their way to the hospi 
 tal which Hammersmith had so recently left, Goldie meet 
 ing them with a carriage at the station. 
 
 It was by no means the first time that Mrs. Tom Ham 
 mersmith had entered the wards of a hospital, and yet it 
 was ; for, often as Miss Darby had gone on her delicate 
 errands of mercy to the little Cambridge hospital, this was 
 the first time that she had crossed the threshold of one 
 of those sad, solemn houses as Mrs. Tom. 
 
 It was with a strange mingling of courage and timidity 
 that she advanced after her cousin Goldie, through the 
 long line of white beds, whose occupants stared not a 
 little, and opened pleased eyes of admiration at the beau 
 tiful apparition and. her manly escort ; some of them 
 nodding familiarly to Mr. Tom. 
 
 She was courageous, because she was walking proudly, 
 in the consciousness of youth and health and happiness, 
 on the arm of Mr. Tom, a hero, who had been one in 
 her eyes, long before the episode of the colors had come 
 to stamp him with its imprimatur. She was timid, for 
 she was going to meet the man who had placed all his life, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 513 
 
 his genius, his nobility of character, at her feet, and who 
 had gone off, like the brave-hearted gentleman that he 
 was, to meet the enemy, perhaps his death, at the call of 
 his country. 
 
 More than once, too, he had come to the rescue of her 
 beloved Tom, as on this final battle-field ; and now he 
 was lying at the portal of death, perhaps even now beyond 
 the power of recognizing his old friends, Ms old class 
 mates. 
 
 It was as Goldie had feared. Breese did not recognize 
 them. He was in one of his wandering moods again. 
 He only opened his eyes in wonder, as Tom advanced and 
 put his arm about his neck, and smiled sadly, when Ellen, 
 her eyes filled with tears, stooped and kissed his broad 
 forehead, white as a girl s now, after his month s confine 
 ment in the hospital. 
 
 The next day, and the next, it was the same. 
 
 But, on the evening of the third day, he smiled more 
 cheerfully as the friends came forward, and, reaching out 
 his hand, said naturally enough, 
 
 "Ah, Miss Darby, I am so glad to see you! " And 
 then he relapsed quiet, closing his eyes as if from excess 
 of happiness. 
 
 "Yes, I m here," returned Mrs. Tom, taking one of 
 his great hands in hers, " and you are looking better; 
 and I m glad you know us," she added. But he kept his 
 eyes closed for a long, long while, and at length opened 
 them quickly, saying in an excited voice, 
 
 "It s getting dark, Miss Darby. Hadn t I better 
 shout for your father ? The woods are very lonesome at 
 night." And presently again, as the friends bowed 
 their heads, 
 
 "It s getting dark, Miss Darby. I don t see but I 
 shall have to carry } T ou." He leaned forward quickly, 
 and put out his arms, as if he would take her up, as on 
 
514 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 that dark night of the Mount Desert accident, so many 
 months ago. Tom would have caught him, if his dis 
 abled arm had allowed ; but, before he could put his left 
 arm about him, Ellen had thrown her arms about the sick 
 man s shoulders, and supported him. 
 
 Presently he said with a glow of satisfaction, 
 
 "Ah, they re coming! I see the lights! I m very 
 sorry you are in pain, Miss Darby." 
 
 Then his mind seemed to take a long jump from Mount 
 Desert, as Tom caught hold of one of his hands ; and he 
 exclaimed eagerly, 
 
 " My God, what is this, men ! Where are the colors? 
 Ah, Tom! " And with this last word on his lips, and 
 the arms of the only woman that he had loved in all the 
 world about him, the woman whom he would have died 
 to serve, whom he had served with a patient, pure, and 
 noble life, he dropped his head on her shoulder. He 
 had found peace and rest at last. 
 
 The soft summer wind was stirring in the tree-tops 
 below the opened windows. Across the Potomac, Tom, 
 looking mournfully out, saw the fair wooded slopes of 
 Arlington Heights, surmounted by the colors that had 
 been the last thought in Breese s mind. An evening gun 
 came dreamily, in softened echo, across the intervening 
 water. The muffled beat of a passing regimental band 
 was faintly heard. Far down the winding reaches of the 
 river, dotted with sails and flags, and over the city quiver 
 ing with the very life-heart of the nation, the setting sun 
 was throwing a golden light, which transfigured every 
 commonest object, and told of places where war and con 
 flict and carnage are things unknown. All the world 
 seemed at peace for that brief moment, and all sweet in 
 fluences to unite in proclaiming quiet and calm and infinite 
 rest, when the great soul of Breese, which had been 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 515 
 
 filled with such noble planning, and had so vexed itself in 
 the pursuit of the purest ideals here below, was flooded 
 with the light which searches every ideal, and glorifies 
 ever} T patient, struggling spirit. 
 
 God keep him ! And God grant that the memory of 
 him, and such as he, their steadfast lives, their noble, 
 deaths, may blossom in heroic example, and days wisely 
 spent ; that, above all, the youth who succeed him and 
 his fellows in the old university halls may not quite for 
 get the bright lesson that they set, a lesson easy to all 
 who have the courage to dare, and the stout heart to fol 
 low great plans. 
 
 And now, when these annals are compiled, the long 
 agony of the war is many years past, and the fickle Fates 
 have ordered many a varying fortune to the young men 
 associated in these pages. When they gather at com 
 mencements and rare class-days, it is with wofully thinned 
 ranks, to be sure ; for the implacable Shearer has been as 
 busy with the threads of their lives as has old Time with 
 the hairs of their heads and the crow s-feet about their 
 young eyes. But their talk is of those old days, the hotter 
 days of their college-life. All the enmity and bickerings 
 of those punctilious times are quite forgot ; and the mel 
 lowing years only bring a greater ripeness and sweetness 
 to the 3 T oung friendships which showed their first blos 
 soms so long ago in the old university town. 
 
 Another cottage has sprung up at Ivy Hill, which 
 the stout-hearted proprietor has dubbed " The Ledge." 
 It stands on the pinnacle of the point, whence a dozen 
 long strides will take the mighty boating-man Goldie from 
 his door to the boat-house and his favorite wherry. If 
 you were very inquisitive, and were to watch him some 
 fair afternoon, when he comes up early from New York. 
 
516 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 bursting into the house with all his old-time enthusiasm, 
 as he used to burst into Hammersmith s room in the Cam 
 bridge da} r s, you would see him greet a sweet young 
 matron whom we have seen before, (who was very fearful, 
 on a certain class-day, that she was going to have nobody 
 to take care of her, and would have " such a stupid 
 time ! ") and you might hear him say, 
 
 "Come, Mabel, get ready for a little pull. Tom and 
 Ellen are going ; and there are some college-men staying 
 at Ruddiman s, who will join us, I think." And present 
 ly you might see the pretty river-party floating out upon 
 the broad bosom of the Hudson, Hammersmith and 
 Goldie by no means forgetting the cunning which their 
 early training had taught them at the oar, but not quite 
 appearing to relish a " spurt," or a three-mile stretch, as 
 in their slimmer years ; very willing to let the festive and 
 ambitious undergraduates of the party attempt all that. 
 
 Hammersmith and his wife are with his mother in 
 the old home. Mr. Gay ton has been weaned from his 
 club ways sufficiently to spend a half-year annually with 
 the happy young people in the two cottages (Goldie keep 
 ing a sunny room always at his command) . And there is 
 a merry, full-hearted life lived among the people on that 
 breezy little point, which may well detain the aging 
 " Duke," as well as you and me, and any one who loves 
 cheerfulness and happy content, wherever he sees them. 
 
 The old "Duke" is never happier, indeed, than when 
 listening to the young people s plans, and joining, in his 
 own merry wa}^, in all their routs and festivities, yes, and 
 sharing the griefs and trials that fall to their lot. He 
 is a great ally of Mrs. Hammersmith mere, in her devo 
 tion to the interests of the church of which her sainted 
 husband had had charge ; and he pla} T s the part of 
 great-uncle with the successful dignity and Oriental mag 
 nificence without which he would not be Mr. Gayton 
 Hammersmith, the " Duke." 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 517 
 
 Goldie and Hammersmith are associated, I will not say 
 if in business or professional life, lest some one say, " Oh, 
 Hammersmith was never cut out for a doctor ! " or 
 another interpose, " I hate to think of Hammersmith and 
 Goldie as mewed up in a law-office ! " or a third exclaim, 
 u Hammersmith a merchant ! Isn t it too bad? He s so 
 honest and impulsive, that I know he ll be cheated and 
 never get on," for everybody must have his say and his 
 little wish in disposing of the characters in a chronicle 
 that interests him, as, of course, this chronicle interests 
 any one who has followed patiently to this far-off page. 
 
 So I will let every one imagine the two in whatsoever 
 occupation he pleases, although I myself know very well 
 what it is. I know, too, that they do " get on," and very 
 famously, thanks to their sturdy qualities and their acute- 
 ness ; and that, when I assume the distant relative s privi 
 lege, and sit at their well-laid tables for a brief season, 
 I cannot sufficiently admire and envy them their happy 
 households and well-earned fortunes. 
 
 Now and then, when a fracas occurs in the nursery 
 overhead, where young John Breese Hammersmith is per 
 haps trying his small fists on his nurse, I have heard 
 Hammersmith exclaim, 
 
 Confound the little beggar ! Is he going to yell all 
 the evening, my dear? " 
 
 And his wife will say, 
 
 u Don t call him by that name, Tom dear! I m sure 
 he s not a little beggar ! That s what you used to call 
 my little orphans in the Cambridge hospital." 
 
 " And that s why I like the name," Mr. Tom has been 
 heard to say, laying down his paper. 
 
 "You don t think you ve been taken in, then? " she 
 has been known to ask, by way of reply. Then she would 
 come over to Mr. Tom, the lucky fellow ! and stroke 
 his hair, or lay her hand in his, and But, bless me ! the 
 
518 HAMMEESMITH : 
 
 very memory of the 3 oung fellow s good-fortune causes a 
 mist to gather over this page as I write ; and I lay down 
 the pen, thanking God that I have been permitted to see 
 such perfect happiness and perfect trust. For they minded 
 me no more than they minded the great Newfoundland 
 dog that lay on the rug, the successor of " Trim," 
 or the neat-handed Phillis that came in to remove the tea- 
 things ; Mr. Tom occasionally exclaiming, "Oh, never 
 mind ! cousin Harry doesn t care ; do you, Harry? " while 
 his wife would blush as becomingly as ever, and say, 
 4 You wretched man ! How can you act so ! " and 
 cousin Harry, the present biographer, would feel very 
 uncomfortable and very envious, and v.ery like breaking 
 the commandments.- Such consideration have young mar 
 ried people, as the great Lamb has suggested, for the 
 feelings of less fortunate humanity ! 
 
 Ruddiman the bold, from being quite a pronounced 
 " muff " and do-nothing in his college-days, has developed, 
 through the agency of the war (which did so much for men 
 of his stamp) , into a brisk junior partner in the house of 
 Ruddiman and Son, where he is laying up treasures for 
 himself against the day of matrimony. For he still ranges 
 the world untrammelled by domestic ties, ever blithe and 
 resplendent as in those golden days of his youth, devoted 
 as ever to the softer sex, but, for some reason unknown 
 to the present writer, never succeeding in securing himself 
 a mate from out the gay throngs of } T oung women to which 
 his ardent society-life introduces him. The festive gor- 
 geousness of apparel which marked his youth has been 
 toned down into a more business-like sobriety ; but his 
 rooms in the city and in the country retain all and more 
 than all of the splendor of his college-quarters. He lives 
 in the midst of plunder gathered from every quarter of the 
 habitable globe, around which he has made two complete 
 voyages since we last saw him. The array of Indian leg- 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 519 
 
 gings and war-clubs, Persian cimcters, Oriental pipes and 
 screens and squat idols, Esquimau snow-shoes, German 
 smoking-caps of elaborate pattern, and a thousand other 
 gimcracks, is something quite overpowering to one unac 
 quainted with the acquisitive Ruddirnan habit. His house 
 is full of roistering young college-men in vacation-time. 
 He is devoted to his horses and other rapid friends as of 
 yore. Any fine afternoon, indeed, in spring and autumn, 
 you may see him prancing through Central Park, after 
 office-hours, on the sleekest of horses, sporting the bright 
 est of spurs and bits, and altogether wearing a look of 
 the most consummate satisfaction with himself and the rest 
 of mankind. He is still a picturesque addition to the land 
 scape, as Miss Darby so long ago called him in the glen 
 at Mount Desert. He is a very cheerful sight. 
 
 Freemantle has stumbled upon a career which quite 
 accommodates his languid temperament, in the manage 
 ment of extensive tobacco interests in Cuba, where he 
 makes flying visits twice a year or more, returning to 
 Boston with marvellous brands of cigars and tobacco, 
 undreamed of by plebeian counter-customers, and regaling 
 his friends with the same ; where, too, his wife, nee 
 Malachite, in the casual trips that she makes with him, 
 has added a more captivating radiance to her already 
 Spanish style of beauty ; and returning whence, the two 
 are apt to stop for a time in New York, and run up to 
 make a brief visit at the little colony of Harvard men on 
 the banks of the Hudson. 
 
 You may be sure that the old days and the old friends 
 are talked over, wept over, and laughed over on such occa 
 sions, and that Ruddiman is in his element. He has been 
 known, indeed, at various festive moments, to attempt a 
 species of badinage with the dangerous Mrs. Freemantle, 
 apropos of the devotion of his youth ; declaring, on one 
 occasion, that nobody knew how near he came once to 
 
520 HAMMERSMITH : 
 
 making a fool of himself (this with a knowing look at 
 Mrs. Freemantle, and a glance at the rest) ; and, of course, 
 nobody felt like gainsaying him when he put it in that 
 light, least of all, Mrs. Freemantle ! But they all kept 
 up a tremendous amount of thinking, I doubt not, and 
 probably said to themselves, as his college-friends had 
 been used to say aloud, on similar embarrassing occasions, 
 " Oh, Ruddiman ! Never mind, it s only Ruddiman ! " 
 
 Penhallow has not received the monument of brass for 
 saving Hammersmith s life, which 1 Mr. Tom prophesied in 
 his hospital note, to be sure ; but a sturdy friendship, 
 worthy of such commemoration, still exists between the 
 old college chums. 
 
 Hammersmith has invested quite extensively in Califor 
 nia sheep and cattle, under Pen s advice, and made quite 
 recently a flying trip to the land of which he had heard so 
 much extravagant praise, finding it more than justified by 
 the glorious reality. He dismounted from his horse in the 
 little canon by the Santa Barbara beach, while making a 
 horseback trip with Penhallow through the country, and 
 felt all his past life surging up before him as he looked 
 down at the small slab with " G. Tufton " rudely carved 
 upon it. He felt again how small the world is, how 
 one s past life pursues him like a relentless Fury ; and 
 after a few words from Pen, descriptive of the memora 
 ble ride and the scene in the little canon that dark night, 
 they mounted their horses, and turned sorrowfully away. 
 
 Young Dick Hammersmith, who has long since gone 
 through the old university with considerable credit and the 
 usual Hammersmith experience, has joined Penhallow and 
 Simmons, assuming the care of his brother s sheep and 
 cattle. The Spanish major-domo who was left in charge 
 of the stock of Simmons and Penhallow when they went 
 to the war served them the trick that major-domos are apt 
 to serve their principals ; and the young men, returning, 
 
HIS HARVARD DAYS. 521 
 
 found a sad diminution in the amount of their four-footed 
 property. Care and thrift have long since made good the 
 loss, however ; and, for Simmons s part, what would he 
 care for the loss of ten thousand sheep, or his entire 
 patrimony, in view of the new wealth that has recently 
 flowed in upon him ! For what is this ? and this ? and 
 this ? A side-saddle ! A riding- whip ! Miss Fayer- 
 weather swinging in a hammock under the live-oaks ! 
 Yes, Miss Fayerweather the obdurate, the spurner of 
 Simmons when he was a plodding law-student of civili 
 zation, now the wife of as sterling a fellow as ever put 
 foot in stirrup, or won golden spurs in the great war 
 which called him away to fight, and to win his love. 
 
 There are more Boston books, more seductive ham 
 mocks, more rooms, added to the old dobe on the Simi ; 
 and young Dick, who has so recently left his books and 
 the close halls of civilization, writes home the most glow 
 ing accounts of the wild joys of Western life and the 
 perfect little household of which he forms an exuberant 
 member. . He has a favorite phrase, that " the great 
 problem of modern life is how not to be bored to death 
 by the flummeries of civilization ; " and if one may judge 
 from his ecstatic sentences, and the bulletins of the young 
 fellow s height and weight, appetite and perfect happi 
 ness, one would say that he has found the life which 
 suits his Hammersmith temperament at any rate, and 
 might question if he were not about right, after all. At 
 least you and I, my dear Philippus, knowing whereof he 
 writes, and all the enchantment of the country that he 
 praises, might say as much, and settle in our minds that 
 he is right, entirely right, and no mistake. But then 
 young Dick will be set down as an enthusiast, and you 
 and I as designing people with Western lands to sell ; 
 so that we can hardly hope to be believed. 
 
 And the little Boggle, who came so near causing a sud- 
 
522 HAMMERSMITH I 
 
 dcnjinale to this biography, by reason of the remorse and 
 despair of poor Hammersmith over his entanglement, 
 nobody ever learned to what new role, to what fresh fields, 
 she descended. Penhallow and Tom included Los Angeles 
 in the little trip above mentioned, and spent a few days 
 among its marvellous vine} T ards and orange-groves, inquir 
 ing casually the while for news of her whereabouts. They 
 learned nothing, except that she had left the untheatrical 
 city, when, with whom, for what place, nobody knew; 
 and may God have mercy on her in her wanderings ! 
 
 Of all the souvenirs of the happy college-days, the 
 badges, cups, oars, medals, cricket-bats, prizes, with which 
 Hammersmith s library is decorated, there are two in 
 especial that interest him above the rest, a pair of 
 boxing-gloves, hanging in an honored post above the 
 mantel; a set of books, an Emerson, a Thoreau, a 
 Marcus Aurelius, an Epictetus, a Carlyle, with the 
 strong name "John Breese," in a bold hand, on the fly 
 leaf of each volume. 
 
 Every August, on the nineteenth day of the month, 
 and often at other times during the year, when he is at 
 home quietly with his wife, Mr. Tom takes down the 
 well-thumbed volumes, scored with many a mark by the 
 pencil of the dead Breese, and reads his favorite passages. 
 As the two sit there reading and talking of their lost 
 friend, their minds go back to the brave, fresh days of their 
 youth, and they recall many things to make them sad, but 
 more to make them glad. And, if their cousin Harry is 
 present, he sits quietly in Ms corner, in the chaise-longue, 
 pretending to be asleep ; for he knows that the couple 
 there, with the books of their dear friend and their happy- 
 sad thoughts between them, are busy with memories and 
 reveries too sacred for his intrusion. 
 
 Happy, happy, college-days ! When are friendships so 
 
HIS HAIiVABD DAYS. 523 
 
 ardent, so unquestioning ! When does the wine of life 
 sparkle so brightly, so enticingly ! When are the skies so 
 full of rainbows ! When do we so expect to live alwa}^ 
 in unfailing youth ! Ah ! when, and when, and when ! 
 
 " They were happy, gloriously happy days, weren t they, 
 Nell? " Hammersmith would say as they read and mused 
 by the lamplight. 
 
 " Yes, dear Tom, but not the happiest." 
 
 " No, no! But you know I ve been taken in* since 
 then; and now I m a miserable old fellow indeed!" he 
 would say, putting on a mock-lugubrious expression. And 
 one of those demonstrative scenes to which I have alluded 
 was very likely to ensue. At last Hammersmith would 
 turn, and shout, 
 
 " Halloo, Harry, wake up ! Little birds will begin to 
 sing soon/ " And the figure in the long-chair would stir 
 itself, and relate, yawning, what pleasant dreams it had 
 had, a hypocrite is cousin Harry ! 
 
 But, for all Mr. Tom s banter, I can see that a great 
 tenderness takes possession of him after one of these read 
 ings. I know that on the following day he is very apt to 
 return from town laden with marvellous toys for the young 
 John Breese, and extravagant presents for his wife, which 
 cause her to lift her hands in thankful surprise. For the 
 heart of Hammersmith is still as tender and impressiona 
 ble as a child s (as the hearts of strong, impulsive men are 
 apt to be) ; and I do not wonder that he is thankful for 
 the happiness that has come to him. I do not wonder 
 that he feels infinitely softened at thought of the broad- 
 brained Broese, who was so near winning the love that is 
 now his, and who died so nobly, fronting his duty. 
 
 And Thorpe and Albemarle and Curtis, and the rest? 
 Ah, it is a sad, sad page to write ; and Ball s Bluff, Chan- 
 cellorsville, Bull Run, and a score of battlefields, must be 
 set down, if you would know the way that they quitted 
 
524 HAMMERSMITH. 
 
 themselves. Some have survived, some that went down 
 into that terrible war ; some bear still the marks of the 
 conflict ; some feel still the effects of the foul imprison 
 ment, the low Virginia swamps, the nameless horrors of 
 war. Some are already conspicuous at the bar, in the 
 pulpit, with the pen, in all the varied peaceful arts. 
 
 Yonder Memorial Hall, that lifts its calm front where 
 the youth of Hammersmith s day had their first fierce 
 struggle with the truculent sophomores, has written the 
 names of some on its immortal tablets, where the throng 
 ing youth of to-day, who come up annually to the old uni 
 versity, may read the bright record and the brightening 
 names. The lives of these will not have been in vain, if 
 they shall teach their successors in the happy college walks 
 and ways, consecrated by their heroic feet, that courage, 
 high daring, devoted sacrifice of self, are not alone to be 
 admired among the ancient Greeks and Romans, with 
 whose histories the youth are busy, but that the more 
 prosy present is packed full of equal possibilities, and that 
 simple, steadfast lives alone are glorious. 
 
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