e to you and make it up.
But he is young, sir; young and proud. He said he couldn't move
in it, his mind was made up; he was wretched enough over it, but
the move must come from you. And so that's the favor I have to
ask, that you will make it up with Jack. It isn't often a young
man can do such a favor to an old one--to an old father with one
son. You'll not feel the worse for having done it, if it's ever
so hard to do, when you come to be my age." And the old man
looked wistfully across the table, the muscles about his mouth
quivering as he ended.

Tom sprang from his chair, and grasped the old sailor's hand, as
he felt the load pass out of his heart. "Favour, sir!" he said,
"I have been a mad fool enough already in this business--I should
have been a double-dyed scoundrel, like enough, by this time but
for your son, and I've quarrelled with him for stopping me at the
pit's mouth. Favor! If God will, I'll prove somehow where the
favor lies, and what I owe to him; and to you, sir, for coming to
me tonight. Stop here two minutes, sir, and I'll run down and
bring him over."

Tom tore away to Hardy's door and knocked. There was no pausing
in the passage now. "Come in." He opened the door but did not
enter, and for a moment or two could not speak. The rush of
associations which the sight of the well-known old rickety
furniture, and the figure which was seated, book in hand, with
its back to the door and its feet against one side of the
mantel-piece, called up, choked him.

"_May_ I come in?" he said at last.

He saw the figure give a start, and the book trembled a little,
but then came the answer, slow but firm--

"I have not changed my opinion."

"No; dear old boy, but I have," and Tom rushed across to his
friend, dearer than ever to him now, and threw his arm round his
neck; and, if the un-English truth must out had three parts of a
mind to kiss the rough face which was now working with strong
emotion.

"Thank God!" said Hardy, as he grasped the hand which hung over
his shoulder.

"And now come over to my room; your father is there waiting for
us."

"What, the dear old governor? That's what he has been after, is
it? I couldn't think where he could have 'hove to,' as he would
say."

Hardy put on his cap, and the two hurried back to Tom's rooms,
the lightest hearts in the University of Oxford.

CHAPTER XXI

CAPTAIN HARDY ENTERTAINED BY ST. AMBROSE.

There are moments in the life of the most self-c