A TALE OF OUR UNIVERSITY.

"More strange than true."

Midsummer Night's Dream.

Many years ago-it were useless to tell how many, although report would fix the date at the commencement of the Mathematical Tripos, which has been established somewhat less than a century-a student of the University of Cambridge, habited in full academicals, was plodding his way, slowly and silently, along the road conducting to the famous Gog-Magog Hills. It was a still evening late in autumn; the birds were chanting vespers to the departing sun; a faint, gentie breeze murmered through the air, scarcely sufficient to shake the brown leaves that hung in thick foliage on the trees. It was one of those calm and dreamy periods of existence, which speaks tranquillity to the soul; when the blitheness of the visible world around us is responded to with chords of exquisite melody by the internal sympathy of our own hearts; like the beloved voice of a lamented mother, or the remembered music of some far-off land. It was a merry evening, but the student was unconscious of its merriment. Slowly and sadly" he wended his way onward, as heedless, apparently, of the distance of his journey, as of the descending twilight and lengthening shadows. And what were the thoughts which occupied the attention of the young collegian? He was in love, undoubtedly, and the charms of his mistress had smitten his susceptible breast. He was awakening from the unseen future-bright and cherished visions of conjugal tenderness, and matrimonial felicity. But what, in truth, was he thinking of? Was he indeed in love? Was it of the dark-eyed girl, who sat near him in St. Mary's Church on the last Sunday, and of the stolen and half-timid glances which she occasionally cast at him? Oh, no! The dark-eyed girl shared no corner of his heart. He was not in love.

What were his thoughts? His young sisters were dear to his bosom, and they were many miles away over the wide, widebounding sea, and the curling, frothy ocean; and his thoughts were with them-yes, that they were. The young student was thinking of his sisters, and of his happy home, and of the steep mountains. Happy, happy student!

But what were his thoughts? Were they of his young sisters, who were many miles away, over the wide sea, and the curling ocean? Were they of his own happy home, and the steep mountains of his own dear land? Oh, no! the student was not thinking of home.

He had reached the Gog Magog Hills-those hills which are celebrated in the academical history of every Cambridge gownsman, and which afforded to the late Robert Hallso good an incident for a bon mot. He had reached the Gog-Magog Hills, and the earth was indeed darkening, and the stars were peeping out from heaven

"The stars were forth-the inoon above the tops

Of the snow-shining mountains-Beautiful!" But there was no snow upon the ground, and the Gog-Magog Hills (as every University man at least is nware) are not mountains-merely excrescences of nature, slight protuberances elevated above the resd of the too level country, by no very dire

VOL. 11.

convulsion of nature: so that Byron's quotation is out of place. The young student stood upon the summit of these hills, and cast his eyes around him. The "gloaming" of a summer twilight had descended upon the earth like the mantle of Coila upon the shoulders of Burns; and the gownsman stood alone upon the hills, and there were four miles between him and King's College Chapel. But he thought neither of the distance, not of the sacred edifice, which has braved so many centuries of tempest and decay, has survived so many revolutions of states and changes of empires, and now stands, like a pyramid amidst the storm, the object of unbounded admiration. The young student thought not of the Chapel.

The dream of the opium-eater is a fearful thing. "The morning was come of a mighty day,—a day of crisis and final hope for human nature, then suffering some mysterious eclipse, and labouring in some dread extremity. Then came sudden alarms, and hurryings to and fro; trepidations of innumerable fugitives -I know not whether from the good cause or the bad; darkness and lights; tempest and human faces; and at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the features that were worth all the world to me-and but a moment allowed, and clasped hands, and heart-breaking partings, and then everlasting farewells and with a sigh, such as the caves of hell sighed, when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of Death, the sound was reverberated-everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again, reverberated-everlasting farewells! And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud, 'I will sleep no more.

This dream is indeed what we before pronounced it, a fearful thing; and into such a trance was the young student fallen, as he threw himself upon the ground, and fixed his listless and vacant gaze upon the bright evening star that shone in the far horizon. But its operative was not opium. He threw himself upon the ground; and strange thoughts, and still stranger feelings flashed across his brain. It was the delirium of jealousy. The young Cantab was jealous-jealous of his fellow studentsmadly, fiercely jealous. It wanted scarcely three months to the general Senate House Examination :-he was not prepared! he had worked hard-very hard: morning and evening-evening and morning he had worked, and toiled, and struggled-in vain -all in vain; his fellow-students, and one whom he hated with a mortal hatred, would look down upon him, and would banter and laugh! The student knew this-he felt it, and he was jealous.

It is not that I shall not be the first of the wranglers, but that Hester M'Gregor will be a higher man. I would buy the seniority at any price."

"You would would you?" uttered a deep voice near him. The young student started, and jumped up. The darkness in which the world had been but lately enveloped, had yielded to the brilliant and beautiful light of the moon. The heaven was radiant with fleecy clouds, the grass was sparkling with the dewdrops that glittered in the soft moonshine. "You would, would you?" uttered the deep voice.

The student started, and looked behind him in terror. The light of the moon was clear, and the country was visible for a great distance-but no being was to be seen. "It was only the winds," ejaculated the student.

"The winds sing not upon a summer's night," was the mysterious reply. The gownsman's hair stood on end; the voice

which had answered him was not of earth-at least so thought the student: his jealous fears-his mathematical honours, all escaped from his memory. He made an effort to run down the hills, but alarm had paralyzed him he stood rooted to the spot. "The winds sing not upon a summer's night, I tell you."

The speaker was a little, old, haggard-looking man, with a long beard, and hair that flowed down to his ancles. He was dressed in a dark fustian coat, that seemed to have seen some service-it was torn and ragged; a large pair of silver buckles ornamented his shoes, which were of a strange ungainly make, and terminated at the toes in a peak. His head was covered with a huge slouched hat, similar to that worn by the London coal-heavers.

"And what price would you pay!" was the demand of this singular intruder.

The student attempted an answer, but his voice died away ere the air vibrated with the sound. His heart sunk within him; he felt that the being before him was a visitant from another world, and he gasped for very fear, and his breath came thick and clammy. It is a dreadful thing to fancy one's self in the presence of a spectre.

"You say you would pay any price, to obtain the seniority over Hester M'Gregor-now what would you pay?"

The inquirer was earnest in his interrogatory; the student was terrified at the idea of offending him-he faultered out a reply. I would pay anything-anything, that is, which is lawful."

"Listen," continued the stranger: "I can obtain for you your desire one word from me, and you shall be at the head of ALL your fellow-students--at the head of them ALL, what say you to that?"

The student's eyes glistened with delight, notwithstanding his fear. "I would pay you any price, whatever you may demand-can you indeed do this?"

"I can-but ask no questions. You will pay anything, will you?"

"Willingly, only

"Only what?"

"It must be lawful."

"Lawful or unlawful, it is too late Now to hesitate-you have agreed, What is your price?"

"For God's sake, let it not be an

that is, I mean, not of another world-let it not be an infernal compact." "It will be at least a binding one-the bargain is mine," replied the being; "the price is

66 NOT MY SOUL."

It is not your soul."

The student breathed more freely, but his knees still knocked together with fright, and the cold sweat still stood in large drops upon his forehead. It is not your soul," continued the being; "but hearken, and you shall learn the nature of the bargain. You see this repeater-it is a beautiful jewel, a rare gem there is not another like it in the world; it is your's, but hearken! if you omit to wind it up any one night, before the moon rises,mind, BEFORE THE MOON RISES-the bargain is closed, and your fate becomes mine. Are you agreed?"

"It is indeed a beautiful jewel," and the student's breast thrilled with vanity as he beheld it. "It is indeed beautifulbut what is its price ?"

"Nothing-I affix no price whatever. It is your's but remember to wind it up before the moon rises; omit that one nightonly one night, and your fate is mine. Beware, I warn you!"

The student gazed upon the watch; it was set round with diamonds. a rare, beautiful jewel, and that jewel might be his at an easy purchase. He remembered too that Hestor M'Gregor's watch was considered the most handsome in the University; but Hestor McGregor's watch did not equal this. "I accept your conditions," he replied, "but how does this affect my mathematical honours ?"

"Take my watch under the conditions I have specified, and you become senior wrangler. Do not start-senior wrangler, I say. I know the name you bestow upon the most talented. Do you accept the offer?"

"I do, but what, if I forget my duty-if the moon rise, and the chain be run out-what then?"

"YOU LOSE YOUR REASON!"

An involuntary shudder ran through the student's frame; not that there was anything in the words of very fearful import, but the thought MADMAN flashed upon his brain, and the possibility but, tush, there was no possibility. He should always remember to wind it up-as if he could forget it, with such a curse hanging over his head-impossible! It was impossible, and he knew it. "I accept the conditions," he shouted. The watch was in his hands-he felt it-he grasped it. Oh? what transports were in that grasp!" Yet stop," he cried—but the being was nowhere to be seen.

It was late when the student arrived in Cambridge, past the hour of closing the College gates; but he was a richer man than when he last passed under the great arch of Trinity, with Sir Isaac Newton's rooms above it; he was a richer man, and a man sure of the highest mathematical honours sure, quite sure, without a possibility of failure. His heart leaped with delight! what would Hestor M.Gregor say now! aye, what would he say?"

Days-months, rolled away-months-days-blythe and bonny days, for the student had taken his degree, and a most splendid degree it was, SENIOR WRANGLER ! His friends were as glad and proud as himself. What a happiness to have such friends! Days rolled away, and Hester M'Gregor had left Cambridge out of sheer mortification: how the student chuckled when he heard of it! it was a lucky ramble, that, to the Gog-Magog Hills that night!

Well, months did roll away, and the watch was regularly wound up; a fine rare jewel, that! One would have thought the student's friends would never have ceased their admiration. His grandfather had bought it for him of a Scotch jeweller, the only man who could have made such an unique, and he could make no more, for he was dead. Ah! ah! what a good grandfather!

The river Cam, notwithstanding its narrow channel and ambiguous windings, is a great source of temptation to those who are gifted with a liking for the nautical. "We will try a boat to-day," said the student to his friends, on a glad sunny afternoon in the early part of May. So away they rowed up the stream towards Ely, and the fish played along its margin, and the dragon-flies sported in the bright sunshine, or dipped their gauze wings and painted bodies in the glassy surface of the water. Away they rowed ;-it was a bonny day.

"If Hester M Gregor were here now, Vivian, (Vivian was the student's name,) would he not die of ennui, or something worse?" began one of the party, after a long couversation relating to subjects unconnected with the history of our tale.

"I think he would," replied Vivian. "Did you notice his features when the degrees were given, and when the names were read over?"

"I did; never was demon half so deadly-he would have strangled you for very revenge. I saw how his fingers clutched, and his hands clenched, till the nails were actually driven into their palms, and the red blood trickled forth and dropped upon the floor of the Senate House."

"The mad fool!--but never mind him; our friend Vivian is senior-wrangler, and why should we heed? But we had better turn our oars now-we have lost our dinner as it is, and the moon has risen; how early she rises to-day-the sun has hardly

for his repeater, he held it to his ear-it was silent, the chain had run out. Good God! how the blood rushed tingling to his temples! He dashed the jewel into the river.

"Vivian! why Vivian! "exclaimed his friend; “why, what do you do that for? are you mad?"

"MAD!" answered the student, with a piercing shriek; "MAD!-what did you say that word for?"

Vivian walked that night in the fields leading to Grantchester. They were then, as now, the most picturesque ramble which the University-man can enjoy. The evening was a beautiful one; twilight had again descended upon the world, and had shrouded in her "sober livery," the lovely forms and flowers of the earth. Vivian walked over the fields to Grantchester.

It is a fearful thing to dread madness-to watch it coming slowly, hut surely on-to loll out the parched tongue, and shrink at the touch of a drop of water-to feel the head swim giddily, giddily, and the temples burn, and the eye-balls strain in their sockets.

Grantchester itself, at that period, was not the pretty village which it now is. There were tall trees, it is true, that overshadowed the church-yard, and ivy had grown up, and had spread its mantling arms round the ancient edifice, and the graves were here and there surrounded with flowers; and old houses-quaint enough in their architecture-and rustic cottages which have been long pulled down, were standing. It was a pretty place, though, even then.

Grantchester is a locality with which every man who has been educated at Cambridge is well acquainted. The fields which lead to it are said to have been Lord Byron's favourite walk, when at Trinity. Many a genius, hardly less famous than the noble poet. has trodden that "slight pathway" before and since his day.

There, perhaps, Bacon and Newton walked, and Ben Jonson, and Churchill, and Grey, and even Milton-we had almost forgotten the "proud bard of song "-if the road was formed in their time. And there, in later periods, strolled Kirk White, the "martyr student," as Professor Smythe has called him, with his heart full of piety, and his brain full of poetry; and Byron, and Wordsworth, and Coleridge. It is one of those beautiful rambles which make us to love the country, and the green fields, and the tall elms, flinging their shadows upon the pathway; and the sweet flowers springing beneath the feet, and the young daisies basking in the hedge-rows.

Vivian reached the church-yard. It was spring, and the violets threw up an odour which gave luxuriance to the atmosphere, impregnated with their "balmy utterance," as the enthusiast Keats has it. It was spring, and the soft moss yielded to his tread, and the golden buttercup bent beneath his footstep.

Hark! It was but the nightingale singing her evening song in the depth of the sweet silence, making the air to tremble with the loveliness of the harmony.

Vivian lent over the iron-railings which surrounded a tomb, and, in the agony and loneliness of his spirit, he wished himself beneath that sod, sleeping his last sleep, and slumbering his last slumber. It is fearful for the man of carelessness and gaiety, to meditate upon the grave's deep solitude. There arises a shrinking of nature-of his nature at least-from familiar communion with the cold and slimy earth-worm.

It is not thus with all. The being of blighted hopes and bitter disappointments has his "bourne" in the grave, and his dwelling in the sepulchre. The weary are at rest there, they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The man of wretchedness, the poor and the afflicted, the desperate and the distressed—all have a home there; a place of retreat from the scorn and calumny of the world, the voice of malice, and the sneer of contempt and pity.

"The storm that wrecks the wintry sky
No more disturbs their deep repose,
Than summer evening's latest sigh,

That shuts the rose.

"I long to lay this painful head,
And aching heart beneath the soil,
To slumber in that dreamless bed
From all my toil.

"For misery stole me at my birth, And cast me helpless on the wild; I perish :-Oh, my mother-earth,

Take home thy child!"

Vivian lent upon the iron-railings, and gazed upon the moon. There was no cloud in the sky, no mist to obscure her brightness, and she was bright-she was beautiful-she was holy: Vivian gazed upon her thoughtfully, and as he gazed, recollections of past and fondly-cherished years came rushing, thick and crowdlike, upon his brain-thoughts of home and dreams of infancy; and then there were whisperings-loud and startling whisperings of evil, and the tones of silvery voices, long since choked in dust.

He remembered when he was a child, when his mother stroked his flaxen hair with her soft, delicate hand; and he remembered, too, sitting in her lap, and listening to the sweet songs she used to sing him in the night-fall of a summer's evening, when the cool breeze came in at the open lattice. Then there followed a long blank-a dim, desolate void which he could not fill up; there were indistinct recollections of death, and a black hearse, and a weeping father, and a newly-dug grave ;— the traces were confused, he could not arrange them in their proper order.

Again his remembrances returned; but he had no mother now -her soft, delicate hand no longer stroked his hair, and she no longer sang him the pretty songs which she was wont to sing. Vivian had grown into boyhood, but he had no mother.

There is a something in the want of a mother, when we first miss her accustomed endearments, which defies the power of human pen to describe; those little kindnesses. only valued when lost for ever, those cares, apparently trivial, but only to be treasured up in our bosoms, when the beloved of our hearts is departed from amongst us.

Again there was a long and dreary blank :-there were scenes constantly changing, and the whispering of friendly voices, and the greetings of relatives, and the songs of young and beloved sisters. Again and again the scene altered, and Vivian was now at College. The schoolboy was forgotten in the undergraduate ; the short jacket was exchanged for the manly coat, the green school-bag for the cap and gown of the collegian. But here the tablet of his remembrance grew darker;- Vivian was no longer the young and ingenuous boy; no longer were there merely whisperings of evil-the catalogue became gloomy: friends had fallen off; deeds had been committed at which Vivian would once have shuddered; the deserted companion-the injured femalethe fearful array of dark reminisences all marshalling themselves in order. Vivian could not recal them :-he dared not.

He leant upon the tomb and wept. What tears are like the tears of penitence? The moon fell softly on the earth around him, and the stars were looking forth like angels' eyes from heaven; and the breeze passed gently by like the melody of departed spirits. The air was odorous with the breath of the balmy flowers, the primroses and the violets which sprang up in the hedge-banks; and the perfume of those flowers recalled the scenes of his boyhood-the green fields and the fertile pastures; and Vivian leant upon the tomb and wept.

There was a noise in the church-yard. It was the village sexton, preparing to finish a grave in which a corpse was to be interred on the following morning. He was a merry-hearted man, and he began to whistle to enliven his employment. The tall trees which grew around the old church, cast their lengthened shadows upon the spot where Vivian was standing. The sexton continued to whistle, and Vivian remained silent. There was

something in the fellow's mirth, unsuited as it was to the sombre character of the place and the stillness of the hour, that diverted the student from the contemplation of his own wretchedness. "I must join this man," he thought to himself: "his merriment may gladden me. You're jovival to-night, friend."

The man stood bolt upright. Had a ghost arisen from one of the neighbouring graves, and appeared suddenly before him, he could not have been more startled than at Vivian's unexpected intrusion, "Aye, aye, merriment is merriment, though it be in a church-yard, although it is not a place, as one may say, to be merry in. You are here after your hour to-night, if I may be so bold."

I am late out of my college," replied the student; "but the night is fair, and the walk to your village is pretty."

The trees have shot up since I was a boy," continued the sexton; "they were but small then: my father had the planting of them, poor soul; they overshadow his own grave now."

"Ah! and do you follow your father's occupation?"

"I do: man and boy he worked, as sexton and grave-digger, here sixty years and I have taken his trade up, as they say: we have shared it a hundred years between us."

"It is a long time," replied Vivian, "to have turned over one piece of ground; you have buried many a proud heart, and many a broken heart, in your day."

"Why, as for that, many's the proud heart, 'tis true, that I've buried,-it is'nt every haughty person that wears fine clothes; poverty can be high as well as riches, as my father used to say; but broken hearts, I buried one broken heart; the grass has'nt grown over her grave yet."

"Indeed, did she belong to this village?"

"She did, poor girl: I knew her, sir, from a child, and a fine young thing she grew up. First there came the carpenter that lives down yonder, with his round face and his spruce Sundaycoat, but Mary Gray had nothing to say to him; then there was the young farmer would take it into his head to see her into church every Sunday, but she shook her head at him too,-more's the pity! And then came Bill Dackets, and poor Mary had soon no heart of her own to lose. It was a weary day when that happened."

"Were they married?" demanded Vivian.

"Never," returned the man. “Bill died, and the poor girl drooped-she sank, sir, by degrees; day after day we watched her; and her parents, it would have wrung tears from a stone to have seen them; she broke her heart, sir, and we buried them side by side.',

"And what ailed her lover? did he die suddenly?

"No. sir, no! he became strange: used to walk about the fields and this church-yard by night; and then would tell us he had seen his mother's ghost, and that she had come to warn him that he had been leading a wicked life,-he, poor fellow, that had never in his life done an infant's harm; and then he took a dislike to water, and they could'nt get him to drink. It was terrible to hear him shriek when they brought it where he was." A slight tremor ran through the student's frame. "What was his illness?" he asked of the sexton.

"It was not illness," replied the man; "it was uot illness sir, it was worse than that, poor Bill was mad."

Damnation!" shouted the student, "What did you say that word for?"

The man looked up in surprise: Vivian had dashed over the graves, and disappeared.

Eleven o'clock; how the hours fly away when we are afraid of some approaching calamity! There's nothing on earth like iton they go-on-on-on-with the rapidity of a steam-coach, or Mr. Wordsworth's "little cresent boat," tossed up and down in a hurricane. Pardon the simile, ye admirers of " Peter Bell." Eleven o'clock, and Vivian was seated by the side of a good blazing fire in his little room, in the old court of Trinity College.

The empty glass stood by his side upon the table, inviting him to replenish it: he filled a bumper, and smacked his lips as he set down the bottle. "Pshaw! 'tis all foolery-confounded nonsense--I am not mad-am I? pshaw! not I!" and he drained off the wine; 'tis glorious good stuff, by Bacchus!"

And it was undoubtedly, for five glasses more set Vivian to singing most merrily. He got up from his chair, danced about the room, shouting at the highest pitch of his lungs, and finally being wearied by the exertion, he flung himself into an easy chair, and fell fast asleep.

How long he continued to sleep is not recorded; but the wick of the candle began to lengthen, and by-and-bye to be surmounted with a thick, black-looking mushroom top, and the fire in the grate grew lower and lower; the coals, ever and anon, sending forth that ominous crackle which warns us of their departing heat. A loud knocking at the door aroused the student at length from his slumber : "Who in God's name wants me at this time of night?" was his first exclamation, as he arose from his chair and indulged in a good yawn. Knock! knock! knock! "There it is again-stop-stay a moment, don't hammer the door so furiously, what do ye bang it so for?"

Vivian arose, and having snuffed the candle, proceeded to open the door. He undid the latch cautiously, for he was fearful of some trick about to be played upon him by the intruder, whom he supposed to be his old acquaintance and fellow-student, Philip Forester. Aha! Philip, a late greeting to night," he exclaimed, as he set open the door of his study and gave free ingress to his companion. But his eyes opened to the fullest extent their lids would allow, on beholding the form, shape, and universally quaint appearance of his unceremonious visitant. Vivian's heart sickened to its core, on beholding the precise counterpart of the miraculous being who had accosted him upon the Gog-Magog Hills, and whose fatal gift had been that day the cause of such extreme mental agony and excitement.

"Ha! ha ha!" said the being, "we have met again then." Vivian replied not, but his knees trembled, and his lips quivered. an ashy paleness overspread his faee: he made way for the old man, and then tottered to a chair which stood by the window. You will be cold out there-draw your seat nearer to the fire," said the being, who had already comfortably seated himself by the side of the nearly extinguished embers: he stirred them, however, and they blazed up astonishingly. "A merry blaze that," he exclaimed; "come here, young man-you remember our bargain; you are senior wrangler then, are you not?" Vivian gave a convulsive start.

"Senior wrangler-ha! ha! a merry honour that! 'tis something to see all the rest of your College looking up to you, as to the branch from which their own laurel is gathered-is it not Vivian?"

Vivian had approached the old man, and with a determination to be as firm as his nerves would allow him, he drew his chair immediately opposite the object of his extreme dread. The latter seemed to enjoy his trepidation, for he smiled marvellously as the student turned away his eyes from his glance. "Have you got the watch ?" he demanded.

"I have not," was Vivian's reply.

"I thought as much-in fact I knew it," returned the being, "and I have troubled you with my company to-night, that we might settle the difference. You remember the stipulation?" I do," and Vivian shuddered again as he spoke. "And I am still willing to give you another chance of avoiding the fulfilment of it. Are you content to accept any further conditions?" continued the old man.

"Oh! for God's sake," cried Vivian, in the highest pitch of agony, for God's sake demand nothing further-it was an unholy, an infernal compact. I have bound my soul already to the powers of darkness."

Of your own free will. It was a glorious watch!" and the creature chuckled as he spoke.