RAVENSCLIFF E. CHAPTER I. "Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,- ....But to live by law, Acting the law we live by without fear; And quick as lightning fell the flashing horsewhip upon the shoulders of the wretched and degraded man. The whip was snapped into fifty pieces, and thrown triumphantly over his head; and then, with a shout of wild mocking laughter, the handsome young Irishman flung away, and left the victim of his passion standing there alone though, alas! surrounded by a crowd of astonished spectators, for it was high noon, The unclouded sun at his meridian was shining in full splendour through the canopy of green trees which arches the broad walk at the back of St. John's Col lege, Cambridge, and the walk was filled with gownsRavenscliffe. I. 1 men of every condition and degree, from heads of colleges to sizars. Undergraduates, masters of arts, grave professors, and wild young pupils. Gyps and laundresses, townsmen and gownsmen. The day was magnificent, and the walks were full. The victim of this outrageous burst of passion was a tall, thin, gaunt-looking young man, with straight dark hair arranged round his face in something of the puritan cut. His features were harsh and stern, his gait ungraceful, his eye deep-set and lowering. Such was the usual appearance of this man at the best; you may guess how he looked now insulted and degraded before the assembled University. He stood there in the broad sunlight, which almost blazed upon the gravel that hot and bright day, a dark figure, cast into the strongest, most dreadful relief, by the surrounding glare of light. Perfectly alone, in one strong sense of the word, for the crowd had instinctively retreated from the circuit of the whirling horsewhip, and stood there terrific circle! all eyes fixed upon the wretched man. His antagonist, the young Irishman, had, as I have told you, broken' through the press, and had, with loud shouts of triumphant laughter, disappeared; followed by a few of his friends, their scornful cachinnations serving as a sort of chorus to the leading voice. : He, the attacker, went away not unaccompanied by the applauding voice of the multitude he, the injured, stood there perfectly unsupported, and by himself." "He was on nobody loved. A few moments he remained immoveable, as if turned to stone; his head bent down upon his breast, his eyes fixed upon the earth something fearful in the dark cloud upon his face. Then he raised his head a very little, and slowly moved away. As he did so, a low hiss followed him. It was from the rude boys and fellows of the commoner sort; for the undergraduates looked on in a kind of appalled silence. There is something in seeing this dreadful humiliation inflicted upon a man, which cows the very heart of honour, and makes the blood tingle, and the hair crisp, as if one had been present at some act of excessive physical cruelty. The heads of houses and authorities stood by with yet other feelings. There was a very considerable sense of indignation aroused against the dashing young Irishman, and the words "expulsion," or at least "rustication," were murmured about amongst them. Marcus Fitzroy and his friends met in his rooms. "You'll have a bullet through your brains for it, see if you haven't," said one. - "He send a bullet through my brains! a contemptible scoundrel! I wish he'd try I wish he'd give me the opportunity to send one through his dastardly heart! No - no he won't fight he can't fight. His principles will not allow him to fight! That's it. He may use his cursed tongue with impunity, he thinks distil the venom of his black and detestable envy when and where he because he can't be brought to book will can't His principles will not suffer him to fight! But he's got it! it! He's got it for one while!" He's got And Marcus danced about the room with exultation. The young men who were present stood still and looked grave. There was something to their ideas so dreadful, in the vengeance which had been inflicted; something so doubly and trebly terrible when wrecked upon one so utterly helpless as the man who cannot fight that though they most cordially shared in the indignations and antipathies of their young friend, they stood there shocked and confounded. At last one of them, Berrington, said, "You don't mean to assert positively that this fellow can't and won't fight? Yesterday he might have said and thought so. He won't say and think so today. He is not a coward, whatever else he may be." "Coward or no coward, what care I? I tell you he is a sneaking, backbiting, insulting, envious scoundrel. A venomous worm, that stings a man in the heel because he dare not strike him in the face. And he shelters himself a pitiful rascal! under his principles, if a man calls him to account! And he 's got a good thrashing, a glorious, glorious thrashing. To lash his principles into him, or out of him - I care not a button which. I've had my revenge, and he may take his all one to me." or let it alone. It's He had darkened his rooms. The first thing he did when he entered was to tear down, rather than |