Читать книгу Two College Friends - Frederic W. Loring - Страница 4

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Whether the Professor would have made any alterations or amendments in his lecture, it is difficult to say; that he did not is due to the fact that his eye fell upon a little photograph, which hung over his fireplace. As he sits there, thinking over what Ned has told him, and laughing at the idea of Tom’s being really in love, he gazes on this little photograph, and smiles. The Professor has one or two real art treasures, but nothing that he values quite as much as this fading picture. This is the only copy in existence; and this hangs there, and will hang there until the Professor dies. How well he remembers the morning when the two boys, whom he loves so well, rushed into his room, and left it there! As he looks at it now, there is an expression of tenderness on his plain but strongly cut features that would greatly astonish those of his pupils who only know him as a crusty instructor.

The Professor is somewhat crusty, it must be owned. It is, however, an acquired and not a natural crustiness. Cause, the fact that at thirty years of age he discovered that he cared more for a certain Miss Spencer than for all the world beside. On intimating this fact to her, she told him that she should always value his friendship; and that she hoped soon to introduce to him her cousin Hugh, “who is,” she added quietly, “to become my husband.” After this the Professor withdrew almost entirely from society, and plunged deeper and deeper into study. Before many years his reputation was cosmopolitan, his head bald, and his life a matter of routine. Boys came and went; and at intervals he repeated before them much of what he knew. It is to these two boys, of whom he thinks now, as he gazes on the picture over the mantel, that he owes his rescue from this lethargic life.

What does he see in the picture? He sees behind a chair, in which a boy is sitting, another boy with soft, curling brown hair, deep blue eyes, and dazzling complexion. His features are delicately cut; but the especial beauty of his face is the brilliancy of color in his hair, eyes, and complexion. There is the freshness of youth on his features; and his whole attitude, as he leans over his companion, is full of that quaint grace of boyish tenderness so indefinable and so transitory. The boy in the chair has a face full of strength and weakness. The photograph makes him appear the more striking of the two, though the less handsome. The sunny sweetness of the first face, though it never alters, never becomes wearisome; but the second face is now all love, now disfigured by scorn and hatred, now full of intellect, and glowing with animation, now sullen and morose. The complexion is olive, the eyes brown, the lips strongly cut, yet so mobile as to be capable of every variety of earnest and sneering expression. The face is always, in all its varying phases, the face of one who is not dissatisfied but unsatisfied. This is what the Professor sees, as the firelight throws its glimmer over the room, making grotesque shadows waver fitfully on the pictures and books around him, as well as on the heavy curtains that hide the rays of afternoon light which struggle through the leafy boughs of the old elms in the yard without.

As the Professor sits there thinking, he seems to recall again the first visit of Tom and Ned to his room. Tom is a lovely boy—the original of the standing figure in the photograph; and the Professor had been attracted by his face once or twice when he had met him in the yard, soon after his entrance into college. Still he is surprised, one evening, when he hears a knock at his door, and this Freshman enters half shyly. The Professor asks him to be seated, and then looks at him inquiringly.

“I was awfully homesick,” says Tom, with perfect trustfulness; “and mother told me that you were once a very dear friend of hers; so I thought I would come up and see you.” The Professor is bewildered. Still he is a gentleman; so he smiles, and says to Tom:—

“Pray be seated. Your mother is well, I trust.”

“Oh, yes!” says Tom. “Perhaps, as she hasn’t seen you since before I was born, I ought to have said who she was. Her name was Spencer.”

The Professor turns quickly. Tom proceeds with entire unconsciousness:—

“She often speaks of you, sir, and always in a way that has made me want to know you.”

“I am very glad, Tom,” said the Professor. “You must excuse my calling you by your first name; but then you are the son of—your mother.”

Any one but Tom, who never noticed anything, would have seen here that the Professor’s manner was peculiar. But Tom is always so brightly ignorant of what is before his eyes, that the Professor recovers his self-possession, and says calmly:—

“And your mother is well, I hope?”

“Oh, yes!” said Tom; “very well, but a little sad at my leaving home. She is very fond of me, sir.”

“Strange fact!” said the Professor, dryly. “And I see that you are equally fond of her. I am not given to moralizing; but I think that college life will not decay you, if you don’t forget how much you are to your mother—how unhappy you can make her.”

“Forget her?” said Tom; “not I! When I am at home, I make love to her all the time.”

“Then,” said the Professor, “it is well that you have left home; for it will soon be time for you to make love to some one else.”

As the Professor makes this observation, there is another knock at the door, and Ned enters. Who is Ned? Ned is the original of the sitting figure in the little picture over the fireplace. He is despotic in character, and has therefore many sincere friends and enemies. He is fearless when indignant, and is indignant easily. He is not handsome as Tom is—for Tom’s beauty charms you immediately, and the charm is never broken; but he has a curious grace and fascination of manner when he is not perverse; but then, he often is perverse.

The Professor cannot tell whether he likes Ned, or not. He has been giving Ned private tuition, to fit him for college, for nearly a year. All their acquaintance hitherto has been one of business, all their conversation confined to an occasional dry remark on either side. Now, when their contract is fulfilled, the Professor cannot imagine why Ned should take advantage of his general invitation, and visit him. Still he asks Ned to be seated, and then enters into conversation with him.

Ned talks. His keen eye has noted everything ludicrous and everything interesting among his instructors, among his classmates, among all the persons and things with which college life has brought him in contact. He is full of animation; he tells stories, all of which have a point; he sparkles with wit, which is none the less brilliant for having a certain boyish freshness about it. All this is a new revelation to the Professor. He laughs, and in his turn becomes entertaining; and, finally, going to his sideboard, produces three quaint glasses, which he fills with some of that rare and wonderful old Madeira, which many of his acquaintances have heard of, but which few have ever seen.

Tom, in the mean time, sits listening, radiant with enjoyment, with the firelight tinting his lovely face. “Such a jolly old fellow as this Professor is!” he says to himself; “and such a being as Ned!” He is happier than he has been since he left home; and he wishes his mother could look in upon them now; and he drains his glass to her health. He is puzzled because Ned will address his remarks only to the Professor, and seems shy whenever he speaks. Finally, conscious that it is growing late, he bids the Professor farewell, and Ned rises to accompany him. The Professor says then, with a courteous and quiet dignity:—

“Tom, you must give my regards to your mother, when you write. Tell her that her boy will be always an object of especial interest to her old friend.” Then, turning to Ned, the Professor adds, as Tom disappears in the entry:—

“I have to thank you for a very pleasant evening. You will come again, my boy, will you not? Why have you never before shown me what you really are?”

“It wasn’t for you, sir,” said Ned, with a certain frankness that was not discourteous. “It was for Tom, sir; though I like you, and hope we shall be friends. But the moment I saw Tom, I felt drawn towards him; and, as I saw him come up here, I felt that here was a chance to get acquainted with him. Good-night, sir.”

And Ned joined Tom at the foot of the stairs, leaving the Professor in a state of complete bewilderment. The Professor laughs now, as he recalls that evening, and looks again at the picture over the fireplace.

“They are an interesting pair—a sunbeam and a volcano,” he says; and, throwing on his cloak, just as the bell begins to ring, he starts for his lecture-room.