Kitabı oku: «The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations», sayfa 9
Out it came, “Papa will you let me be a sailor?”
“Oh!” said Dr. May, “that is come on again, is it? I thought that you had forgotten all that.”
“No, papa,” said Harry, with the manly coolness that the sense of his determination gave him—“it was not a mere fancy, and I have never had it out of my head. I mean it quite in earnest—I had rather be a sailor. I don’t wish to get away from Latin and Greek, I don’t mind them; but I think I could be a better sailor than anything. I know it is not all play, but I am willing to rough it; and I am getting so old, it is time to see about it, so will you consent to it, papa?”
“Well! there’s some sense in your way of putting it,” said Dr. May. “You have it strong in your head then, and you know ‘tis not all fair-weather work!”
“That I do; Alan told me histories, and I’ve read all about it; but one must rough it anywhere, and if I am ever so far away, I’ll try not to forget what’s right. I’ll do my duty, and not care for danger.”
“Well said, my man; but remember ‘tis easier talking by one’s own fireside than doing when the trial comes.”
“And will you let me, papa?”
“I’ll think about it. I can’t make up my mind as ‘quick as directly,’ you know, Harry,” said his father, smiling kindly, “but I won’t treat it as a boy’s fancy, for you’ve spoken in a manly way, and deserve to be attended to. Now run down, and tell the girls to put away their work, for I shall come down in a minute to read prayers.”
Harry went, and his father sighed and mused! “That’s a fine fellow! So this is what comes of bringing sick sailors home—one’s own boys must be catching the infection. Little monkey, he talks as wisely as if he were forty! He is really set on it, do you think, Margaret? I’m afraid so!”
“I think so,” said Margaret; “I don’t think he ever has it out of his mind!”
“And when the roving spirit once lays hold of a lad, he must have his way—he is good for nothing else,” said Dr. May.
“I suppose a man may keep from evil in that profession as well as in any other,” said Margaret.
“Aha! you are bit too, are you?” said the doctor; “‘tis the husbandman and viper, is it?” Then his smile turned into a heavy sigh, as he saw he had brought colour to Margaret’s pale cheek, but she answered calmly, “Dear mamma did not think it would be a bad thing for him.”
“I know,” said the doctor, pausing; “but it never came to this with her.”
“I wish he had chosen something else; but—” and Margaret thought it right to lay before her father some part of what he had said of the temptations of the school at Stoneborough. The doctor listened and considered at last he rose, and said, “Well, I’ll set Ritchie to write to Ernescliffe, and hear what he says. What must be, must be. ‘Tis only asking me to give up the boy, that’s all;” and as he left the room, his daughter again heard his sigh and half-uttered words, “Oh, Maggie, Maggie!”
CHAPTER X
A tale
Would rouse adventurous courage in a boy,
And make him long to be a mariner,
That he might rove the main.
—SOUTHEY.
Etheldred had the satisfaction of seeing the Taylors at school on Sunday, but no Halls made their appearance, and, on inquiry, she was told, “Please ma’am, they said they would not come;” so Ethel condemned Granny Hall as “a horrid, vile, false, hypocritical old creature! It was no use having anything more to do with her.”
“Very well,” said Richard; “then I need not speak to my father.”
“Ritchie now! you know I meant no such thing!”
“You know, it is just what will happen continually.”
“Of course there will be failures, but this is so abominable, when they had those nice frocks, and those two beautiful eighteen-penny shawls! There are three shillings out of my pound thrown away!”
“Perhaps there was some reason to prevent them. We will go and see.”
“We shall only hear some more palavering. I want to have no more to say to—” but here Ethel caught herself up, and began to perceive what a happiness it was that she had not the power of acting on her own impulses.
The twins and their little brother of two years old were christened in the afternoon, and Flora invited the parents to drink tea in the kitchen, and visit Lucy, while Ethel and Mary each carried a baby upstairs to exhibit to Margaret.
Richard, in the meantime, had a conversation with John Taylor, and learned a good deal about the district, and the number of the people. At tea, he began to rehearse his information, and the doctor listened with interest, which put Ethel in happy agitation, believing that the moment was come, and Richard seemed to be only waiting for the conclusion of a long tirade against those who ought to do something for the place, when behold! Blanche was climbing on her father’s knee, begging for one of his Sunday stories.
Etheldred was cruelly disappointed, and could not at first rejoice to see her father able again to occupy himself with his little girl. The narration, in his low tones, roused her from her mood of vexation. It was the story of David, which he told in language scriptural and poetical, so pretty and tender in its simplicity, that she could not choose but attend. Ever and anon there was a glance towards Harry, as if he were secretly likening his own “yellow-haired laddie” to the “shepherd boy, ruddy, and of a fair countenance.”
“So Tom and Blanche,” he concluded, “can you tell me how we may be like the shepherd-boy, David?”
“There aren’t giants now,” said Tom.
“Wrong is a giant,” said his little sister.
“Right, my white May-flower, and what then?”
“We are to fight,” said Tom.
“Yes, and mind, the giant with all his armour may be some great thing we have to do: but what did David begin with when he was younger?”
“The lion and the bear.”
“Ay, and minding his sheep. Perhaps little things, now you are little children, may be like the lion and the bear—so kill them off—get rid of them—cure yourself of whining or dawdling, or whatever it be, and mind your sheep well,” said he, smiling sweetly in answer to the children’s earnest looks as they caught his meaning, “and if you do, you will not find it near so hard to deal with your great giant struggle when it comes.”
Ah! thought Ethel, it suits me as well as the children. I have a great giant on Cocksmoor, and here I am, not allowed to attack him, because, perhaps, I am not minding my sheep, and letting my lion and my bear run loose about the house.
She was less impatient this week, partly from the sense of being on probation, and partly because she, in common with all the rest, was much engrossed with Harry’s fate. He came home every day at dinner-time with Norman to ask if Alan Ernescliffe’s letter had come; and at length Mary and Tom met them open-mouthed with the news that Margaret had it in her room.
Thither they hastened. Margaret held it out with a smile of congratulation. “Here it is, Harry; papa said you were to have it, and consider it well, and let him know, when you had taken time. You must do it soberly. It is once for all.”
Harry’s impetuosity was checked, and he took the letter quietly. His sister put her hand on his shoulder, “Would you mind my kissing you, dear Harry?” and as he threw his arms round her neck, she whispered, “Pray that you may choose right.”
He went quietly away, and Norman begged to know what had been Alan Ernescliffe’s advice.
“I can scarcely say he gave any direct advice,” said Margaret; “He would not have thought that called for. He said, no doubt there were hardships and temptations, more or less, according to circumstances; but weighing one thing with another, he thought it gave as fair a chance of happiness as other professions, and the discipline and regularity had been very good for himself, as well as for many others he had known. He said, when a man is willing to go wrong there is much to help him, but when he is resolved on doing right, he need not be prevented.”
“That is what you may say of anything,” said Norman.
“Just so; and it answered papa’s question, whether it was exposing Harry to more temptation than he must meet with anywhere. That was the reason it was such a comfort to have anyone to write to, who understands it so well.”
“Yes, and knows Harry’s nature.”
“He said he had been fortunate in his captains, and had led, on the whole, a happy life at sea; and he thought if it was so with him, Harry was likely to enjoy it more, being of a hardy adventurous nature, and a sailor from choice, not from circumstances.”
“Then he advised for it? I did not think he would; you know he will not let Hector be a sailor.”
“He told me he thought only a strong natural bent that way made it desirable, and that he believed Hector only wished it from imitation of him. He said too, long ago, that he thought Harry cut out for a sailor.
“A spirited fellow!” said Norman, with a look of saddened pride and approval, not at all like one so near the same age. “He is up to anything, afraid of nothing, he can lick any boy in the school already. It will be worse than ever without him!”
“Yes, you will miss your constant follower. He has been your shadow ever since he could walk. But there’s the clock, I must not keep you any longer; good-bye, Norman.”
Harry gave his brother the letter as soon as they were outside the house, and, while he read it, took his arm and guided him. “Well,” said Norman as he finished.
“It is all right,” said Harry; and the two brothers said no more; there was something rising up in their throats at the thought that they had very few more walks to take together to Bishop Whichcote’s school; Norman’s heart was very full at the prospect of another vacancy in his home, and Harry’s was swelling between the ardour of enterprise and the thought of bidding good-bye to each familiar object, and, above all, to the brother who had been his model and admiration from babyhood.
“June!” at length he broke out, “I wish you were going too. I should not mind it half so much if you were.”
“Nonsense, Harry! you want to be July after June all your life, do you? You’ll be much more of a man without me.”
That evening Dr. May called Harry into his study to ask him if his mind was made up; he put the subject fairly before him, and told him not to be deterred from choosing what he thought would be for the best by any scruples about changing his mind. “We shall not think a bit the worse of you; better now, than too late.”
There was that in his face and tone that caused Harry to say, in a stifled voice, “I did not think you would care so much, papa; I won’t go, if you do.”
Dr. May put his hand on his shoulder, and was silent. Harry felt a strange mixture of hope and fear, joy and grief, disappointment and relief. “You must not give it up on that account, my dear,” he said at length; “I should not let you see this, if it did not happen at a time when I can’t command myself as I ought. If you were an only son, it might be your duty to stay; being one of many, ‘tis nonsense to make a rout about parting with you. If it is better for you, it is better for all of us; and we shall do very well when you are once fairly gone. Don’t let that influence you for a moment.”
Harry paused, not that he doubted, but he was collecting his energies—“Then, papa, I choose the navy.”
“Then it is done, Harry. You have chosen in a dutiful, unselfish spirit, and I trust it will prosper with you; for I am sure your father’s blessing—aye, and your mother’s too, go with you! Now then,” after a pause, “go and call Richard. I want him to write to Ernescliffe about that naval school. You must take your leave of the Whichcote foundation on Friday. I shall go and give Dr. Hoxton notice tomorrow, and get Tom’s name down instead.”
And when the name of Thomas May was set down, Dr. Hoxton expressed his trust that it would pass through the school as free from the slightest blemish as those of Richard, Norman, and Harry May.
Now that Harry’s destiny was fixed, Ethel began to think of Cocksmoor again, and she accomplished another walk there with Richard, Flora, and Mary, to question Granny Hall about the children’s failure.
The old woman’s reply was a tissue of contradictions: the girls were idle hussies, all contrary: they plagued the very life out of her, and she represented herself as using the most frightful threats, if they would not go to school. Breaking every bone in their skin was the least injury she promised them; till Mary, beginning to think her a cruel old woman, took hold of her brother’s coat-tails for protection.
“But I am afraid, Mrs. Hall,” said Richard, in that tone which might be either ironical or simple, “if you served them so, they would never be able to get to school at all, poor things.”
“Bless you, sir, d’ye think I’d ever lay a finger near them; it’s only the way one must talk to children, you see,” said she, patronising his inexperience.
“Perhaps they have found that out,” said Richard. Granny looked much entertained, and laughed triumphantly and shrewdly, “ay, ay, that they have, the lasses—they be sharp enough for anything, that they be. Why, when I tell little Jenny that there’s the black man coming after her, what does she do but she ups and says, ‘Granny, I know ‘tis only the wind in the chimney.’”
“Then I don’t think it seems to answer,” said Richard. “Just suppose you were to try for once, really punishing them when they won’t obey you, perhaps they would do it next time.”
“Why, sir, you see I don’t like to take the stick to them; they’ve got no mother, you see, sir.”
Mary thought her a kind grandmother, and came out from behind her brother.
“I think it would be kinder to do it for once. What do you think they will do as they grow older, if you don’t keep them in order when they are little?”
This was foresight beyond Granny Hall, who began to expatiate on the troubles she had undergone in their service, and the excellence of Sam. There was certainly a charm in her manners, for Ethel forgot her charge of ingratitude, the other sisters were perfectly taken with her, nor could they any of them help giving credence to her asseverations that Jenny and Polly should come to school next Sunday.
They soon formed another acquaintance; a sharp-faced woman stood in their path, with a little girl in her hand, and arrested them with a low curtsey, and not a very pleasant voice, addressing herself to Flora, who was quite as tall as Richard, and appeared the person of most consequence.
“If you please, miss, I wanted to speak to you. I have got a little girl here, and I want to send her to school, only I have no shoes for her.”
“Why, surely, if she can run about here on the heath, she can go to school,” said Flora.
“Oh! but there is all the other children to point at her. The poor thing would be daunted, you see, miss; if I could but get some friend to give her a pair of shoes, I’d send her in a minute. I want her to get some learning; as I am always saying, I’d never keep her away, if I had but got the clothes to send her in. I never lets her be running on the common, like them Halls, as it’s a shame to see them in nice frocks, as Mrs. Hall got by going hypercriting about.”
“What is your name?” said Richard, cutting her short.
“Watts, if you please, sir; we heard there was good work up here, sir, and so we came; but I’d never have set foot in it if I had known what a dark heathenish place it is, with never a Gospel minister to come near it,” and a great deal more to the same purpose.
Mary whispered to Flora something about having outgrown her boots, but Flora silenced her by a squeeze of the hand, and the two friends of Cocksmoor felt a good deal puzzled.
At last Flora said, “You will soon get her clothed if she comes regularly to school on Sundays, for she will be admitted into the club; I will recommend her if she has a good character and comes regularly. Good-morning, Mrs. Watts. Now we must go, or it will be dark before we get home.” And they walked hastily away.
“Horrid woman!” was Ethel’s exclamation.
“But Flora,” said innocent Mary, “why would you not let me give the little girl my boots?”
“Perhaps I may, if she is good and comes to school, said Flora.
“I think Margaret ought to settle what you do with your boots,” said Richard, not much to Flora’s satisfaction.
“It is the same,” she said. “If I approve, Margaret will not object.”
“How well you helped us out, Flora,” said Ethel; “I did not know in the least what to say.”
“It will be the best way of testing her sincerity, said Flora; and at least it will do the child good; but I congratulate you on the promising aspect of Cocksmoor.”
“We did not expect to find a perfect place,” said Ethel; “if it were, it would be of no use to go to it.”
Ethel could answer with dignity, but her heart sank at the aspect of what she had undertaken. She knew there would be evil, but she had expected it in a more striking and less disagreeable form.
That walk certainly made her less impatient, though it did not relax her determination, nor the guard over her lion and bear, which her own good feeling, aided by Margaret’s council, showed her were the greatest hindrances to her doing anything good and great.
Though she was obliged to set to work so many principles and reflections to induce herself to wipe a pen, or to sit straight on her chair, that it was like winding up a steam-engine to thread a needle; yet the work was being done—she was struggling with her faults, humbled by them, watching them, and overcoming them.
Flora, meanwhile, was sitting calmly down in the contemplation of the unexpected services she had rendered, confident that her character for energy and excellence was established, believing it herself, and looking back on her childish vanity and love of domineering as long past and conquered. She thought her grown-up character had begun, and was too secure to examine it closely.
CHAPTER XI
One thing is wanting in the beamy cup
Of my young life! one thing to be poured in;
Ay, and one thing is wanting to fill up
The measure of proud joy, and make it sin.
—F. W. F.
Hopes that Dr. May would ever have his mind free, seemed as fallacious as mamma’s old promise to Margaret, to make doll’s clothes for her whenever there should be no live dolls to be worked for in the nursery.
Richard and Ethel themselves had their thoughts otherwise engrossed. The last week before the holidays was an important one. There was an examination, by which the standing of the boys in the school was determined, and this time it was of more than ordinary importance, as the Randall scholarship of £100 a year for three years would be open in the summer to the competition of the first six boys. Richard had never come within six of the top, but had been past at every examination by younger boys, till his father could bear it no longer; and now Norman was too young to be likely to have much chance of being of the number. There were eight decidedly his seniors, and Harvey Anderson, a small, quick-witted boy, half a year older, who had entered school at the same time, and had always been one step below him, had, in the last three months, gained fast upon him.
Harry, however, meant Norman to be one of the six, and declared all the fellows thought he would be, except Andersen’s party. Mr. Wilmot, in a call on Ethel and Flora, told them that he thought their brother had a fair chance, but he feared he was over-working himself, and should tell the doctor so, whenever he could catch him; but this was difficult, as there was a great deal of illness just then, and he was less at home than usual.
All this excited the home party, but Norman only seemed annoyed by talk about it, and though always with a book in his hand, was so dreamy and listless, that Flora declared that there was no fear of his doing too much—she thought he would fail for want of trying.
“I mean to try,” said Norman; “say no more about it, pray.”
The great day was the 20th of December, and Ethel ran out, as the boys went to school, to judge of Norman’s looks, which were not promising. “No wonder,” said Harry, since he had stayed up doing Euripides and Cicero the whole length of a candle that had been new at bedtime. “But never mind, Ethel, if he only beats Anderson, I don’t care for anything else.”
“Oh, it will be unbearable if he does not! Do try, Norman, dear.”
“Never you mind.”
“He’ll light up at the last moment,” said Ethel, consolingly, to Harry; but she was very uneasy herself, for she had set her heart on his surpassing Harvey Anderson. No more was heard all day. Tom went at dinner-time to see if he could pick up any news; but he was shy, or was too late, and gained no intelligence. Dr. May and Richard talked of going to hear the speeches and viva voce examination in the afternoon—objects of great interest to all Stoneborough men—but just as they came home from a long day’s work, Dr. May was summoned to the next town, by an electric telegraph, and, as it was to a bad case, he did not expect to be at home till the mail-train came in at one o’clock at night. Richard begged to go with him, and he consented, unwillingly, to please Margaret, who could not bear to think of his “fending for himself” in the dark on the rail-road.
Very long did the evening seem to the listening sisters. Eight, and no tidings; nine, the boys not come; Tom obliged to go to bed by sheer sleepiness, and Ethel unable to sit still, and causing Flora demurely to wonder at her fidgeting so much, it would be so much better to fix her attention to some employment; while Margaret owned that Flora was right, but watched, and started at each sound, almost as anxiously as Ethel.
It was ten, when there was a sharp pull at the bell, and down flew the sisters; but old James was beforehand, and Harry was exclaiming, “Dux! James, he is Dux! Hurrah! Flossy, Ethel, Mary! There stands the Dux of Stoneborough! Where’s papa?”
“Sent for to Whitford. But oh! Norman, Dux! Is he really?”
“To be sure, but I must tell Margaret,” and up he rushed, shouted the news to her, but could not stay for congratulation; broke Tom’s slumber by roaring it in his ear, and dashed into the nursery, where nurse for once forgave him for waking the baby. Norman, meanwhile, followed his eager sisters into the drawing-room, putting up his hand as if the light dazzled him, and looking, by no means, as it he had just achieved triumphant success.
Ethel paused in her exultation: “But is it, is it true, Norman?”
“Yes,” he said wearily, making his way to his dark corner.
“But what was it for? How is it?”
“I don’t know,” he answered.
“What’s the matter?” said Flora. “Are you tired, Norman, dear, does your head ache?”
“Yes;” and the pain was evidently severe.
“Won’t you come to Margaret?” said Ethel, knowing what was the greater suffering; but he did not move, and they forbore to torment him with questions. The next moment Harry came down in an ecstacy, bringing in, from the hall, Norman’s beautiful prize books, and showing off their Latin inscription.
“Ah!” said he, looking at his brother, “he is regularly done for. He ought to turn in at once. That Everard is a famous fellow for an examiner. He said he never had seen such a copy of verses sent up by a school-boy, and could hardly believe June was barely sixteen. Old Hoxton says he is the youngest Dux they have had these fifty years that he has known the school, and Mr. Wilmot said ‘twas the most creditable examination he had ever known, and that I might tell papa so. What did possess that ridiculous old landlubber at Whitford, to go and get on the sick-list on this, of all the nights of the year? June, how can you go on sitting there, when you know you ought to be in your berth?”
“I wish he was,” said Flora, “but let him have some tea first.”
“And tell us more, Harry,” said Ethel. “Oh! it is famous! I knew he would come right at last. It is too delightful, if papa was but here!”
“Isn’t it? You should have seen how Anderson grinned—he is only fourth—down below Forder, and Cheviot, and Ashe.”
“Well, I did not think Norman would have been before Forder and Cheviot. That is grand.”
“It was the verses that did it,” said Harry; “they had an hour to do Themistocles on the hearth of Admetus, and there he beat them all to shivers. ‘Twas all done smack, smooth, without a scratch, in Alcaics, and Cheviot heard Wilmot saying, ‘twas no mere task, but had poetry, and all that sort of thing in it. But I don’t know whether that would have done, if he had not come out so strong in the recitation; they put him on in Priam’s speech to Achilles, and he said it—Oh it was too bad papa did not hear him! Every one held their breath and listened.”
“How you do go on!” muttered Norman; but no one heeded, and Harry continued. “He construed a chorus in Sophocles without a blunder, but what did the business was this, I believe. They asked all manner of out-of-the-way questions—history and geography, what no one expected, and the fellows who read nothing they can help, were thoroughly posed. Forder had not a word to say, and the others were worse, for Cheviot thought Queen Elizabeth’s Earl of Leicester was Simon de Montfort; and didn’t know when that battle was, beginning with an E.—was it Evesham, or Edgehill?”
“O Harry, you are as bad yourself?”
“But any one would know Leicester, because of Kenilworth,” said Harry; “and I’m not sixth form. If papa had but been there! Every one was asking for him, and wishing it. For Dr. Hoxton called me—they shook hands with me, and wished me joy of it, and told me to tell my father how well Norman had done.”
“I suppose you looked so happy, they could not help it,” said Flora, smiling at that honest beaming face of joy.
“Ay,” said Norman, looking up; “they had something to say to him on his own score, which he has forgotten.”
“I should think not,” said Harry. “Why, what d’ye think they said? That I had gone on as well as all the Mays, and they trusted I should still, and be a credit to my profession.”
“Oh! Harry! why didn’t you tell us?”
“Oh! that is grand!” and, as the two elder girls made this exclamation, Mary proceeded to a rapturous embrace. “Get along, Mary, you are throttling one. Mr. Everard inquired for my father and Margaret, and said he’d call to-morrow, and Hoxton and Wilmot kept on wishing he was there.”
“I wish he had been!” said Ethel; “he would have taken such delight in it; but, even if he could have gone, he doubted whether it would not have made Norman get on worse from anxiety.”
“Well, Cheviot wanted me to send up for him at dinner-time,” said Harry; “for as soon as we sat down in the hall, June turned off giddy, and could not stay, and looked so horrid, we thought it was all over with him, and he would not be able to go up at all.”
“And Cheviot thought you ought to send for papa!”
“Yes, I knew he would not be in, and so we left him lying down on the bench in the cloister till dinner was over.”
“What a place for catching cold!” said Flora.
“So Cheviot said, but I couldn’t help it; and when we went to call him afterwards, he was all right. Wasn’t it fun, when the names were called over, and May senior at the head! I don’t think it will be better when I am a post-captain myself! But Margaret has not heard half yet.”
After telling it once in her room, once in the nursery, in whispers like gusts of wind, and once in the pantry, Harry employed himself in writing—“Norman is Dux!” in immense letters, on pieces of paper, which he disposed all over the house, to meet the eyes of his father and Richard on their return.
Ethel’s joy was sadly damped by Norman’s manner. He hardly spoke—only just came in to wish Margaret good-night, and shrank from her affectionate sayings, departing abruptly to his own room.
“Poor fellow! he is sadly overdone,” said she, as he went.
“Oh!” sighed Ethel, nearly ready to cry, “‘tis not like what I used to fancy it would be when he came to the head of the school!”
“It will be different to-morrow,” said Margaret, trying to console herself as well as Ethel. “Think how he has been on the strain this whole day, and long before, doing so much more than older boys. No wonder he is tired and worn out.”
Ethel did not understand what mental fatigue was, for her active, vigorous spirit had never been tasked beyond its powers.
“I hope he will be like himself to-morrow!” said she disconsolately. “I never saw him rough and hasty before. It was even with you, Margaret.”
“No, no, Ethel you aren’t going to blame your own Norman for unkindness on this of all days in the year. You know how it was; you love him better; just as I do, for not being able to bear to stay in this room, where—”
“Yes,” said Ethel, mournfully; “it was a great shame of me! How could I? Dear Norman! how he does grieve—what love his must have been! But yet, Margaret,” she said impatiently, and the hot tears breaking out, “I cannot—cannot bear it! To have him not caring one bit for all of us! I want him to triumph! I can’t without him!”
“What, Ethel, you, who said you didn’t care for mere distinction and praise? Don’t you think dear mamma would say it was safer for him not to be delighted and triumphant?”
“It is very tiresome,” said Ethel, nearly convinced, but in a slightly petulant voice.
“And does not one love those two dear boys to-night!” said Margaret. “Norman not able to rejoice in his victory without her, and Harry in such an ecstacy with Norman’s honours. I don’t think I ever was so fond of my two brothers.”
Ethel smiled, and drew up her head, and said no boys were like them anywhere, and papa would be delighted, and so went to bed happier in her exultation, and in hoping that the holidays would make Norman himself again.
Nothing could be better news for Dr. May, who had never lost a grain of the ancient school-party-loyalty that is part of the nature of the English gentleman. He was a thorough Stoneborough boy, had followed the politics of the Whichcote foundation year by year all his life, and perhaps, in his heart, regarded no honour as more to be prized than that of Dux and Randall scholar. Harry was in his room the next morning as soon as ever he was stirring, a welcome guest—teased a little at first, by his pretending to take it all as a sailor’s prank to hoax him and Richard, and then free to pour out to delighted ears the whole history of the examination, and of every one’s congratulations.
