Part 8 (1/2)
”Musha, and will you be thravellin' that far--to Dublin?” said Felix.
”Ay will I, and would have gone last month on'y for the fever delayin'
me till after the midsummer entrance. Me savin's amount to somethin'
over thirty pound, so I may venture on the step, and prisint meself at the Michaelmas term. In short,” said Mr. Polymathers, re-poising himself upon his rickety stool, ”I might describe myself as an unmatriculated candidate undergraduate of the University of Dublin.”
”And what at all now would that be, sir, if I might be axin'?” said Felix, humbly, after the awe-stricken pause which followed Mr.
Polymathers's proclamation of his style and t.i.tle.
”It's a necessary preliminary,” said Mr. Polymathers, ”to proceeding to the Degree of _Baccalaureatus in Artibus_, or _In Artibus Baccalaureatus_--the _ordo verborum_ is, I take it, immaterial, to judge by the transposition of initials in the case of ----.”
”Faix, but it's the fine Latin you can be discoorsin' now, and his Riverence half-ways home,” said Felix reproachfully.
Mr. Polymathers, glancing round a circle of deeply impressed faces, felt that his prestige was restored, and even began to enjoy a foretaste of the triumph, which had been one part of his dream through the long laborious years. But he was puzzled how to bring the full grandeur of his design clearly before this uninstructed audience, and after reflecting for a while in quest of concise yet adequate definitions, he launched out into an eloquent description of the ceremonial observed in conferring degrees at Dublin University. It may be surmised that many of the details were due to his own fondly brooding fancy. For not only did the highest learning in the land crowd the Hall in their academic robes, but the Lord Lieutenant himself took a prominent part in the proceedings, which were enlivened by military music and thunderous salutes. Mr. Polymathers nearly toppled off his tricky stool more than once without noticing it in his excitement as he rehea.r.s.ed these splendid scenes, declaiming with great unction the formulas long since learned by all his heart, especially _Ego, auctoritate mihi concessa_, and the rest, until he came to his peroration: ”And all this pomp and ceremony, mind yous, to the honour and glory of science and fine scholars.h.i.+p. It's a grand occasion, lads; it's an object any man might be proud to give----” Here he pulled himself up, warned by an unusually violent lurch that his theme was running away with him. But having by no means worked off his enthusiasm, he expended some of it, as a schoolboy might have done, in throwing a small bit of turf at a stately white hen, who just then sailed across the dark doorway, like a little frigate under the most crowded canvas. She immediately took flight with floundering screeches, which drowned what the old man was muttering to himself. However, it was only ”_Admitto te--admitto te_.”
After these revelations Mr. Polymathers was looked up to more than ever, as one not only endowed with rare gifts, but destined by their means to scale heights of hardly realisable exaltation. ”Be all accounts there was no knowin' what he mightn't rise to be at Dublin College,” the neighbours said. They also often remarked that it was ”a surprisin'
thing to see a great scholar like him spendin' his time over taichin'
thim two young O'Beirnes.” If the speaker happened to be afflicted with a twinge of envy about those educational advantages, he was apt to say ”thim two young bosthoons” or ”gomerals.” But Dan and Nicholas were not, in fact, any such thing. Nicholas, indeed, quickly proved himself possessed of what Mr. Polymathers called ”a downright astonis.h.i.+n'
facility at the mathematics,” far out-stripping Dan, not quite to Dan's satisfaction, as he had always enjoyed the pre-eminence conferred by superior physical strength and a practical turn of mind. So well pleased was the old man with his eager pupil that he would have liked to do his teaching, ”nothing for reward,” but his host's hospitality, and his own ambition, would not permit this. Now and then he rather puzzled Nicholas by an apologetic tone in answering questions about his University career. And once at the end of a lesson he said, as if to himself: ”May goodness forgive me if I'm takin' what he'd have done better with. But sure he's young--he's plenty of chances yet.” However, as the time for his departure drew on, all his misgivings, if such he had, seemed to vanish away, and his thoughts became very apt to journey off blissfully to Dublin in the middle of the most interesting problems. Nicholas had to wait till they came back.
Mr. Polymathers left Lisconnel on a fine autumn morning, when the air was so still that the flas.h.i.+ng and twinkling of the many dewdrops seemed to make quite a stir in it. The sky was as clear as any one of them, and in the golden light the wavering columns of blue smoke rose with curves softly transparent. He started with a buoyant step, as well he might, since he was setting out on the enterprise into which he had put all the spirit of his youth. He felt some regret at parting from his Lisconnel friends, but his plans and prospects were naturally very pre-occupying, whereas they had the ampler leisure of the left-behind to deplore his flitting, which seemed likely enough to be for good. Nearly four years, he had explained, must elapse before the crowning height of the B. A.
Degree could be won, and it was only just possible that he might manage to tramp back on a visit meanwhile, during some Long Vacation. This doubtful chance was cold comfort for that ardent scholar Nicholas...o...b..irne, who grieved more than anybody else. Most ruefully did he help Dan to carry the candidate undergraduate's library as far as the Town; nor could he take more than a downcast pleasure in Mr. Polymathers's farewell gift to him of the raggedest _Euclid_. And as he stood watching the car out of sight, his eyes were as wistful as if a door briefly opened on glimpses of radiant vistas had been inexorably barred in his face.
Yet after all Mr. Polymathers's absence was not to be measured by years or months. One evening on the threshold of December, Lisconnel was lying roofed over by a ma.s.sy livid-black cloud, which came lumbering up and up interminably, and which the weatherwise estimated to contain as much snow as would smother the width of the world. The north wind moaned and keened dismally under the toil of wafting on this portentous load, and its breath was bitingly sharp, so that when the lads came in from the forge, their grandfather said, ”Ah, Dan, shut over the door, for there's a blast sweepin' through it 'ud freeze ten rigiments as stiff as staties.” We usually take a large view of things at Lisconnel. Dan went to carry out this order, but instead of doing so he suddenly shouted: ”Murdher alive! Here's Mr. Polymathers.”
Through the grey gloaming came a Mr. Polymathers, very different from what he had been on that brilliant, hopeful morning only a few weeks ago, when he had stepped lightly, and held his head up as if he were looking a friendly fortune in the face. Now his feet stumbled and dragged as he fared slowly against the wind's bl.u.s.tering, with his eyes on the ground, and his movements seemingly guided more by the weight of the bundle he carried than by his own will. Before he came within even loud shouting distance, everybody felt a presentiment of disaster; but he had not spoken a word to justify or discredit it by the time he got indoors.
”Musha, and so it's yourself, sir,” old Felix then repeated, in a congratulatory tone. ”Ah, but it's a hardy evenin', and it's perished you are, sir. Come in be the fire.”
”Ay, I'm back,” Mr. Polymathers said slowly, after a hesitating pause, as if the remark had been interpreted to him by some second person, ”I was bringin' the books, thinkin' the lad might use them--he's young enough. But I'm not come to stop on you,” he added, speaking faster, ”on'y just for this night. Early to-morra I must be off to Ardnacreagh, and try for the taichin' there again. 'Twas on'y on account of bringin'
the books I came this way. I'll be on the road quite early.”
His insistence on this point made, somehow, a very melancholy impression on Felix; but he replied jovially: ”Is it to-morra? Bedad then, sir, don't you wish you may slip off on us that soon, and we after gettin' a hould of you agin? What fools we are. Not if you was as slithery, ivery inch of you, as a wather-eel.”
The wraith of a relieved smile at this came over Mr. Polymathers's face; still it looked so grey and withered, and his eyes were so sunken, and his large, bony hands so shaky, that all with one consent refrained from questions which they were agog to ask; and when Mrs. Keogh by and by dropped in, and being an inquisitive and not very quick-witted person, said, ”Saints among us--it's Mr. Polymathers. And how's yourself, sir?
And are you bringing home the grand Degree?” though they all listened eagerly for the reply, they wished she had held her tongue.
”The divil a Degree, ma'am,” said Mr. Polymathers, ”and niver will.”
There was a short silence, and then he turned round on his stool--it was the same from which he had made his boast in the summer sunset, but Dan had meanwhile mended its broken leg with the handle of a worn-bladed spade. ”I've given up,” he said to them. ”I no longer entertain the project of becomin' a graduate, or for the matter of that an undergraduate of Dublin University; and if I'd done right, I'd niver have taken up such an idea. I've put it out of me head. But it's been in me mind a great while--a terrible long while.”
”Look you here, Mr. Polymathers, sir, are you after gittin' any bad thratment from any people up in thim places?” said Felix, who always liked better to lay a grievance on some human and possibly breakable head than to believe it the work of the vengeance-baffling demon bad-luck.
”Not at all, not at all,” said Mr. Polymathers, when the question reached him. ”I've nothin' to complain of. They're very respectable people in Dublin, and it's a fine city. But me head's a bit giddy yet wid the drivin' they have in the streets, that makes one stupid. I mind there was a car tatterin' along, and I crossin' over the College Green, had me down on the stones, on'y a dacint lad gript a hould of me, and whirled me inside the College gates. There I was before I rightly knew anythin' had happened me, and I after spendin' the best part of me life gettin' to it. 'Twasn't the way I thought it 'ud be.... But the College is as grand as any notion I had of it; on'y since I've seen it, 'tis like a drame to me that ever I set fut in it, just a sort of drame....
Great ancient places the squares are; I walked round the whole of them before I found the Hall. A couple of chaps in uniform like came axin' me me business, but I tould them fast enough that I was a candidate--ah, goodness help me.... And the Hall's a s.p.a.cious and splendid apartment.
On'y it was strange, now, to see it full of nothin' but young fellows, scarce oulder than the two lads there. I might, sure enough, have known the way it 'ud be, if I'd come to considher, but somehow it seemed to put me out, as if I'd no call to be there at all. There was one of them began pricin' me ould hat, and another of them tripped him up against a black marble construction with a pair of angels atop of it, that there is on the wall--sure they were just spalpeens. But I'll give you me word, when they called me up to the examiner's table, there was a young gintleman sittin' at it in his black gown and his cap wid the ta.s.sel--bound to be one of the College Fellows, and ivery sort of a fine scholar--and for all the age there was on him he might ha' been me son or me grandson.
”So he handed me over a little black _Virgil_ wid the page opened where I was to exhibit me acquaintance wid the text. It was merely a bit of an oration of Queen Dido's that I've known ivery line of these forty years as well as I know me own name, and better. And what came over me is more than I can tell, but the minute I took the book in me hand, it seemed to me as if ivery atom of sinse and manin' slipped out of the words, or out of me head--I couldn't say which, and I just stood starin'