CHAPTER II. REGINALD, meanwhile, wanted not in the prison, towards which his heart-broken parent was hastening, whatever comfort could be afforded to him by the kindness and sympathy of his juvenile friends in the University. The very morning after his apprehension, his cell was visited in succession by almost all the gentlemen of his own college, with whom he had at any period lived on terms of the smallest intimacy. Their society, their purses, whatever these thoughtless young fellows could command, was offered with such heartiness and sincerity as if he had been the brother of each of them. If it be true, that when Reginald rose that morning, he was as well disposed as any one can be to think hardly of the worldit is no less true, ere the day was done, he had seen abundant reason to reproach himself for such thoughts. Among other traits of real generosity, that which affected him the most sensibly was the behaviour of Mr Stukeley. This young gentleman, having reached in safety the house of a friend of his family near Reading, considered himself as, for the present, quite beyond the reach of the Proctor's inquiries. After resting himself for a few hours, he was about to proceed to London by crossways, and in a female disguise, when his friend, who had ridden into the town of Reading for the purpose of gathering intelligence, brought him word of Mr Dalton's having been taken immediately, and committed to the Castle of Oxford. Mr Stukeley, who had reckoned pretty securely on Reginald's agility, and scarcely doubted he was ere this time buried in London, no sooner heard the real situation of things, than he threw himself into a post-chaise, and drove straight back to Oxford. Without even visiting his chambers, he instantly went to the Castle, announced and surrendered himself, and had taken possession, ere Reginald had the least hint of his proceedings, of a cell immediately adjoining that occupied by his friend. After he had settled himself in his new quarters, he asked and obtained admission to those of his neighbour; and, in reply to all Reginald's reproofs of his rashness, contented himself with swearing that he knew Reginald would have done the same thing, had their situations been exchanged. In short, Stukeley made it his business to have Reginald's room arrayed forthwith in as comfortable a style as its character would permit; and seemed to devote himself to the task of lightening and soothing his unfortunate young friend's reflections, with a zeal as entire and unremitting as if he had himself been altogether free from trouble and entanglement. Much, however, as Reginald felt all the kindness which his misfortunes had thus called into action around him, it is not to be supposed that even this could have much effect in lessening the gloom which sat upon his mind, whenever he returned to the contemplation of the real state of his affairs. On the contrary, the better he was compelled to think of the world in which he had been living, the more sorely did he feel the conviction, that, whatever might be the issue of Chisney's illness, he was in truth and for ever done with that world, and with all that belonged to it. That very day the official notification of his having ceased to be a member of the University, was handed to him in his prison. He had expected it ;-yet when it came, it was still a blow. He heard nothing from Mr Keith-hour after hour he sat watching, but never a word or a line from him. He could account for this only by supposing (which was indeed the case) that the Priest had been very seriously affected by the incidents and exposures of the preceding day. Yet what poor comfort was here!-Keith ill, dying-himself a prisoner, ruined, an outcast at the best !-Ellen Hesketh, alone under such circumstances, bereaved of every support, what hope could there now be for him or for her?-His father, too! when he turned his thoughts to Lannwell, and pictured all that agony -and then perhaps reverted to Chisney, and thought of him cut off, very likely at least to be so, in the prime and pride of his days-when he weighed with himself in calmness all that had been, and all that might be, what wonder that our youth found even kindness a weariness, society a |