Tales of College Life/"Aeger;" or, Mistaken Identity/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
THE SICK MAN IS IN DANGER.
It was remarked by the eminent Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, in his admirable manual of morals, "The Enchiridion"—or, if it was not remarked by Epictetus, it might have been, if he had chanced to have thought of such a thing—that it is impolitic to enumerate the brood of the domestic fowl, before the process of incubation has been brought to a satisfactory conclusion.
The folly of this delusive feeling of security was exemplified in the case of Mr. Percival Wylde, when he saw the Old Boy walk into the Great Western Station. Fortunately for the son, the father was so intent upon hastening to secure his ticket, and ascertaining if he was in time for the train, that he passed within a yard of Percie without seeing him; and the young gentleman had the intense satisfaction of hearing his paternal relative order a first-class ticket for Oxford, and assured by the clerk that he had full ten minutes to spare. Of course, Percie's first and chiefest impulse was to keep out of sight of the Old Boy; a feat the more easily achieved from the fact of the old gentleman, after one promenade and stern scrutiny of the platform during which, Percie lay hid in a lamp-room, redolent with greasy and oily compounds that would have gladdened the heart of a Russian—either designedly or accidentally, taking up his station in front of the ticket-taker's box.
"Well!" thought Percie, in the greasy recesses of the lamp-room, "this may be regarded as a fix. What must be my plan of action? To be myself, or not to be myself—that is the question. Shall I again face the Old Boy, and have a da capo performance of our previous entertainment? No! that would be a trifle too cool: it would surpass the bounds of probability for the Old Boy to fall in, on the same day, with two individuals so strikingly like me. That won't do. Stay! a brilliant idea strikes me! What if there is an express that starts half-an-hour, or even an hour, after this train, and yet reaches Oxford before it. How gratifying to the Old Boy's feelings it would be to have his slower Parliamentary shunted into a siding, while the quicker Express whirled me past him at the rate of a mile a minute. Delightful! if it can be put into execution."
But it could not. For, on Percie carefully emerging from the lamp-room, and consulting a time-table and a porter, he gathered from their joint information, that the train, now about to start, was a quick train, and that the Express had already gone.
"It won't do at all," thought Percie, "for the Old Boy to reach Oxford, and find the æger man not there. It would be risking Fanny's happiness as well as my own; for he would certainly cut off the supplies, and then, the only kind of union left for us would be the Union workhouse. In my cottage near a wood, where love and Rosa would all be mine, is all very well in poetry; but the sentiment won't do when translated into prose, unless the cottage is a cottage ornée, and Rosa has the proper amount of pin-money. I must take steps to prevent the Old Boy from cutting up rough. Desperate diseases require desperate remedies. I must go to Oxford in the same train with the Old Boy." And, as that venerable individual continued to remain on guard at the ticket-office until the moment of the train's departure, Percie was compelled to surmount the difficulty of obtaining his ticket, by commissioning a porter to do it for him.
"Now then! take your seats, if you please. Any more going on for Oxford?"
Certainly! Mr. Percival Wylde is going on, as soon as he has seen the Old Boy safely ensconced in a first-class carriage. He sees it; and, making a dart into another first-class carriage, the bell rings—the doors are slammed the last cry is heard of "Mornin' papers—'Times,' ''Vertiser,' ' Mor'n Post,' 'Punch,' ''Lustrated Noos!'"—the whistle is sounded the strong-minded old gentleman, who is determined to have all that he pays for, and has gulped down his boiling soup or coffee, in true Salamander fashion, rushes wildly at the locked carriage doors—the feeble-visioned old lady bewilders the porters with incoherent inquiries—the engine gives a few convulsive snorts, like the hippopotamus rising from his bath—and off she goes!
So far so good! But this is only the first part of the danger overcome. Mr. Percival Wylde must bear in mind that the old proverb advises him not to give vent to vociferations until he has emerged from the forest: and the dangers of the Didcot Junction have yet to be surmounted. Dangers they were, and had liked to have proved fatal to the case of the æger man.
The Old Boy, with a perversity peculiarly aggravating, had got into a carriage that was going on to Bristol, and out of which, therefore, he had to get at the Didcot Junction; while Mr. Percival Wylde, with a tenacity of purpose that was well nigh his ruin, had seated himself in a carriage that was going through to Oxford. This carriage was one of those peculiar to the Great Western line—divided into two compartments communicating with each other; and what was Mr. Percival Wylde's horror on seeing his father deliberately advancing to this carriage! He had barely time to pass into the second compartment (which was empty), and pull-to the door of communication, when his father stepped into the other compartment, and ensconced himself on the very seat that he had so lately occupied. "This is all very well," thought Percie, as he drew a long breath; "but, suppose the Old Boy takes it into his head to pay a visit to this compartment! 'The thought, it is madness, deceiver, to thee!' as the song says. I will sell my life as dearly as possible." Mr. Percival Wylde, therefore, silently, but firmly, clasped the handle of the door, and pulled it towards him; and, with a beating heart, listened to the gaspings, puffings, and mental ejaculations with which the Old Boy was amusing himself on the other side.
In this way the father and son reached Oxford, side by side, and yet, to all intents and purposes, far distant from each other. But though he had reached Oxford in safety, yet the æger man was not yet out of danger; even Doctor Love would not have pronounced him free from a relapse. The sick man had still to get into his College, and that, before the Old Boy could arrive there.
Now, the railway traveller may chance to remember, that the "Down" side of the Oxford Station is on the further side from the city; and that, on alighting on the "Down" platform, to proceed to the city, he has to pass over a bridge that spans the line—by which proceeding a greater amount of ground has to be traversed than if he had set out to the city from the "Up" platform. This problem of mensuration was at once apparent to Mr. Percival Wylde, and also the benefit that he might derive from its immediate solution. He had no sooner, therefore, seen the Old Boy clear out of compartment No. 1, than, darting from compartment No. 2, with his coat collar turned well up over his face, he ran across the line, jumped on to the "Up" platform, and, in defiance of policemen and railway regulations, vaulted over the iron-work fencing, that—in a manner believed to be peculiar to the Oxford station—performs the superfluous duty of an useless barricade against nothing, and utterly confounds elderly females, who, having once got within the railings, can't get out again, and regard them much in the same way as they would look upon the maze at Hampton Court. In less than a minute, Percie was in a cab; and, in less than five (minutes, not cabs), was put down at the end of the lane at the back of St. Boniface, having, by this stratagem, fairly distanced the Old Boy.
Surely, the Fates had befriended him! for he gained his rooms as he had left them, unseen by other than friendly eyes; and was received by Mac with those grins and double-actioned wriggles by which a Skye terrier is accustomed to express his joy.