LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5381, 6 August 1885, Page 3

LITERATURE.

♦ A MISERABLE NIGHT IN COLLEGE. A Freshman's Story. (Concluded.) Chapter H. The fall and the pain occasioned by a severe crack on the shins did me good; and when I again stood erect I endeavoured to pull myself together and regain my Bcattered wits. That a most horrible murder had been committed by my neighbour, Nugent, there could be no earthly doubt. For a minute I tried to think that my eyes had played me false, and that my excited imagination had created a horrible vision. But no, as the showmen say, " there was no deception," and every detail of the awful sight was perfectly distinct in my memory. Those mysterious Tappings, too ! Could the spirit o£ tlie murdered man Lave been permitted to so work upon my feelings as to cause me to enter the room, and so be the means of bringing his murderer to justice ? Truly there are more things in, heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy ! What to do I knew not } not a soul was to be seen ; but now, jarring strangely on my nerves, I heard the sound of revelry going on in a distant part of the college. Had I been able to see a policeman or go to a police-station, I should at once have given information of my discovery ; but the college gates were closed,, and the porter not being visible, I found egress to be impossible. I thought of going to the tutor's looms and rousing him up, but I soon dismissed this idea. Itt the first place, I was uncertain as to whether he slept in the college ; and in the secoud, the thought of giving information to any of the college authorities was repulsive to me; as a public Bchool-boy tniß soemed too much like sneaking to please inc. Many of my readers will, I think, find this intelligible ; and those who donot, 1 can only ask to remember that I was very young. li'resolutely, I wandered backwards and forwards about the court. As to ascending the staircase and re-entering my rooms, I wouldn't have done it for a fortune. About 2 a.m. a further uproar in the other court seemed to indicate that the revellers were breaking up their party for the night, and as I stood under the shadow of the chapel wall a man attired in a cap and a suit of boating flannek ran hastily past me, whistling the latest popular song. Before I had time to follow and speak to him, he mounted uiy staircase., and I heard the ! noise of a door being closed with a bang. i In another moment a bright light issued* 1 from the window of the room in Tihicb,

lad made my horrible discovery. Good heavens ! this man must be Nugent, and yet, with the evidence of hia crime still in his rooms, he could join a merry party and whistle lively tunes ! No doubt he did it to avert suspicion, and a l .tempt to prove an alibi ; yet what a nerve the man must have, and although so young, what a hardened villain he miißt be ! In a short time the light waß extinguished, and shivering in the cold night air, I continued my dreary wanderings round the court. How long that awful night seemed to me as, still undecided how 1 should act, I paced up and down the moonlit flags ! •At length arrived the dawn, and with it courage. Chilled to the bone, and tired out, I rushed up my staircase, and alainming my door to, entered the bedroom and flung myself, dressed as I waa, upon the bed. In a couple of niinuteß I waa asleep, nor did I awake until aroused by my gyp preparing my tub. 1 „. ;:: '."v-:^ 44 He's beginning early, he is," I heard him mutter to himself; and then seeing that I was awake, " Better turn out now, sir, if you want to keep chapel thia morning ;^the bell has jußt begun," he. continued. Before I had time to rouse myself thoroughly he was gone, evidently taking with him the impression that I had " got tight " the night before. I had made a night of it, certainly, butj angels and ministers of grace, what a night it wa3! Amid thoughts of my horrible adventure, the tutor's injunctions as to keeping chapel regularly rose to my memory, and acting on my gyp's advice, I turned out. My tub considerably refreshed me, and hastening into the court — now cheerful in the morning sunlight and lively with gyps and bedmakers — I entered the quaint little chapel. Under the porter's directions I took my seat in one of the freshmen's stalls near the altar, and realised for the first time the meaning of " the nearer the altar, the farther from the church." When the service began there were not more than half a dozen men besides the Dean and myself in the chapel; and they being third - year men were all at the other end, so that I was sitting in solitary state. The Dean, of course, read the prayers; but when the time arrived for the lesson, as is customary in college chapels, an undergraduate (who was also a scholar) took his place at the lectern. Instinctively I "took to" thia man. Tall and athletic-looking, with pleaeaat, earnest blue eyes, he seemed to me — who, weakly constituted myself, had a great admiration of strength in otheus — to be a Tery beau ideal of mens sana in corpora tan* ; in addition to which I had a vague idea of having seen him somewhere before, though when and whei c I could not recollect. Without having spoken to the man, I liked him, and iv urgent need as I was for advice I determined to find out his name from my gyp, and inform him of the discovery I had made. Service over, having the whole length of the «hapel to traverse, I was the last to leave the edifice, and having mounted my staircase I found to my surprise that the man to whom I had taken such a fancy, and whose advice I meant to seek, was standing outside my door. Still more to ' my surprise, he addressed me. "Hullo, Probyn! you don't remember me, I suppose ? " I couldn't say that I did. " Ah, you were only a. very little kid, and I wasn't very much bigger ; but you were at Eugby with me about six years ago, unless I am much mistaken." "By Jove, yes ! I remember you now," I replied, though for the life of me I could not remember my newly-found schoolfellow's name. " I thought you must be precious lonely with no men of your own year up here," be continued, " so I told your gyp to bring your commons into my room. Will you come and have breakfast with me ?" " I shall be only too happy," I replied, glad of the chance of conversing with him quietly. "Come along, then," said he; and, to my horror, he opened the door opposite mine. Then, and not till then, did it flash across my mind that the boy with whose face I had associated his, and who in fact he was, bore the name of Nugent ! Good heavens ! was it to be my allotted task to bring to justice not only a fellow-under-graduate, but an old schoolfellow — one, too, whose hospitality I was about to accept ? Whilst these thoughts ran through my bewildered brain, Nug'-nt, with his hand on my shoulder, half pusWd me before him into his room. Very -afferent was the appearance of the latter troin that which it had presented when I saw it last. The sun shone brightly through the open window on a breakfast table covered with all the delicacies for which Cambridge is famous. Curried fowl, sausages and marmalade were among the eatables, intended to be helped down by either coffee or draughts from a pewter of foaming "audit" ale. No signs of the awful object I had seen the night before, and ouly a faint soupqon of the repulsive odour that had had such an effect on me. True, the windows were both open, and it being a warm- October morning, there wa3 no fire in the grate. Nervous and bewildei eel, I hesitated what to doj but Nugent, who evidently attributed my behaviour to the natural diffidence of a freshman in the presence of a third-year man, gently forced me into a chair, and, telling me to " make myself at home," helped me to fowl and coffee. He was soon eating with as good an appetite as he could have evinced had he had nothing on his conscience; but I could touch nothing, and he soon remarked it. " Hullo, old man I" he exclaimed, " you don't get on with your grub. By Jove, you do seem rather fishy, now I come to look at you. Been having a little ' drunk ' all to yourself last night, eh ?" "Far from it," I replied, in what, I imagine, must have been a rather sepulchraHone of voice, for my host looked at me with a puzzled expression on his goodhumoured face, and then changed the subject. "Do you mean to go in for rowing?" he enquired. " No ; lam afraid that lam not strong enough to be of much use in a boat." ** Urn ! And you are too heavy for a coxon. You had better join the bugshooters. " Bugshootera ! What on earth are they?" I thought. I did not say anything, however. The man might be a murderer ; but I did not want him to think me so very fresh, all the same. He, however, saw that I was puzzled, and hastened to explain. "That's our 'Varsity Volunteer Corps, you know. Why we call them bugshooters the Lord only knows— but we do." Chatting gaily about sport and reminiscences of Eugby, he went on with his breakfast. Among other things he offered to show me round the town, laughingly promising not to serve me in the same manner as Charles Larkins had treated Verdant Green. In fact, had it not been for what I knew concerning him, I should have taken Nugent to be one of the jolliest and most kind-hearted fellows whom I had ever met. Breakfast over, he inquired if I smoked ; and, on my answering in the affirmative, " Where's my tobacco jar ? Oh, here it is ! " he exclaimed ; and, going to a cupboard, he produced and extended towards my horrified gaze a grinning skull, the top of the cranium of which opened with a stiver hinge. Horror! Could this be another victim of this monster of iniquity ? With my eyes half starting from my head, I recoiled from the ghastly object, and in so doing nearly upset a chair, the back and seat of which were covered by Nugent'a blue serge gown. "Hullo!" he exclaimed, "don't knock that chair over, or you may damage my preparation." " Preparation ?" I faintly murmured. " Tes ; and a deuced fine one, too ? It' Hot often that a man can get a whole head to himself." So saying, Nugent lifted his gown from the chair, and on the seat of the latter, in a basin, wa3 the awful looking object that had so alarmed mo the night before. It seemed, if anything, more ghastly-looking by daylight than it had done then. Perfectly oblivious of my horrified looks, Nugent picked the thing up gingerly, and with almost paternal care. " Pretty, isn't it ? " he said, with a grin.

" I'm a medical, you know. I don't bring my preparations into college as a rule, because when they begin to get a bit •high* the other men, on the staircase object; though it's nothing when you're used to it," he added, with another giin. " However," he continued, " I didn't know that there was anyone else on this staircase come up yet, and as I wanted to dissect a brain quietly I told them to bring this round here. I meant to have had a good turn at it last night; but Graham, who keeps in the other court, came and asked me to a wino at his rooms. By the way, I heard that you were up last night, and as your oak whs sported I slipped my card in ycur letter-box on my way to Graham's." Inexpressibly relieved, but feeling uncommonly faint, I sank back on the sofa. "Where on earth did you get that thing ? " I asked. "Get it? Why, from the anatomical schools, of course. 'It's some poor beggar of a lunatic who has kicked the bucket lately in Fulbourn Asylum, most likely. We get most of our ' subjects' cither from there or from Addenbrook's Hospital." " But what makes its skin so dark ? Is — was it a nigger ? " " Nigger ! — no," laughed Nugent. " That's because it's been in pickle— had spirits injected into it to make it keep, you know. Hullo ! you look rather queer ; take a pull at the pewter— that will set you up again if anything will." As I " took a pull at" that glorious old audit ale, ideas of falling at Nugent's feet and asking his pardon for my suspicions concerning him, entered my head ; but suddenly the advice of my father, himself a University man — " never to do anything likely to raise a laugh at my own expense" — occurred to me. Fortunate, indeed, thab it did ao ; for had the story got about, I very much doubt whether, sensitive to ridicule as I was, I could have stayed a single term in Cambridge at all, much less in Caius. It was not until long afterwards, and when, in spite of our different status in the University, Nugent and I were fast friends, that I made a clean breast of it to him, under a solemn promise of secrecy on his part. By Jove! how he did laugh! My having walked about the court all night seemed to amuse him most consumedly ; but although BOrely tempted to break it, he religiously kept to his promise of silence. I found that there were many other men in college who were going in for the medical 'profession ; and that Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, had been a Caius man. On my return to my rooms on that eventful morning, I found that the mysterious tappings had been caused by the wind blowing a small branch of ivy against thewindow j and in the course of the day I discovered that the story of the undergraduate who had committed suicide had no foundation in fact.