Dean Frederic W. Farrar (continued 2)

Far be it from me to hold up to ridicule any body of earnest and honest men, to whatever party they may belong. I am writing of Hazlet, not of those who hold the same opinions as he did. That man must have been unfortunate in life who has not many friends, and friends whom he holds in deep affection, among the adherents of opinions most entirely antagonistic to his own. Hazlet’s repulsiveness was due to a very mistaken education, developing a very foolish idiosyncrasy, and especially to the pernicious system of encouraging sentiments and expressions which in a boy’s mind could not be other than sickly exotics. He had to be taught his own hypocrisy by the painful progress of events, and, above all, he had to learn that religious shibboleths may be no proof of sanctification, and that religious intolerance is usually the hybrid offspring of ignorance and conceit. In many essential matters he held the truth,—but he held it in unrighteousness.

It may be imagined that Hazlet was no favourite companion of Julian Home. But Julian loved and honoured to the utmost of his power the good points of all; he had a deep and real veneration for humanity, and rarely allowed himself an unkind expression, or a look which indicated ennui, even to those associates by whose presence he was most unspeakably bored. Hazlet mistook his courteous manner for a deferential agreement, and was, too often, in Julian’s presence more than usually insufferable in his Pharisaical tendencies.

“Good heavens!” said Kennedy, who saw Hazlet coming across the court. “Who’s this, Home? He looks as if he had been just presiding at three conventicles and a meeting at Philadelphus Hall. Surely he can’t be coming here.”

“Oh, yes,” said Julian, “that’s a compatriot of mine named Hazlet; a very good fellow, I believe, though rather obtrusive perhaps.”

“Good morning, Home,” said Hazlet, in a measured and sanctified tone, as he entered the room and sat down.

Kennedy glanced impatiently at the Aeschylus.

“Ah! I see you’re engaged on that heathen poet. It often strikes me, Home, that we may be wrong after all in spending so much time on these works of men, who, as Saint Paul tells us, were ‘wholly given to idolatry.’ I have just come from a most refreshing meeting at—”

“I say, Home,” cut in Kennedy hastily, “shall I go? I suppose you won’t do over any more of the Agamemnon this morning.”

“I don’t know,” said Julian; “perhaps Hazlet will join us in our construe.”

“No, I think not,” said Hazlet, with a compassionate sigh. “I have looked at it; but some of it appeared to me so pagan in its sentiments that I contented myself with praying that I might not be put on. But you haven’t told me what you think about what I was saying.”

“Botheration,” said Kennedy; “so your theory is that Christianity was intended to put an extinguisher over the light of heaven-born genius, and that the power and passion and wisdom of Aeschylus came from himself or the devil, and not from God? Surely, without any further argument on such an absurd proposition, it ought to be sufficient for you that this kind of learning forms a part of your immediate duty.”

“I find other duties more paramount—now prayer, for instance, and talk with sound friends.”

“Phew!!!” whistled Kennedy, thoroughly disgusted at language which was as new to him as it was distasteful; and, to relieve his feelings, he abandoned the conversation to Julian, and began to turn over the books on the table. Julian, however, seemed quite disinclined to enter into the question, and after a pause, Hazlet, gracefully waiving his little triumph, asked him with a peculiar unction—

“And how goes it, my dear Home, with your immortal soul?”

“My soul!” said Julian carelessly. “Oh! it’s all right.”

Hazlet then began to look at Julian’s pictures.

“Ah,” he observed with a deep sigh, “I’m sorry to see that you have the portrait of so unsound, so dangerous a man as Mr Vere.”

“We’ll drop that topic, please, Hazlet,” said Julian, “as we’re not likely to agree upon it.”

“Have you ever read one word that Mr Vere ever wrote?” asked Kennedy.

“Well, yes; at least no, not exactly: but still one may judge, you know; besides, I’ve seen extracts of his works.”

“Extracts!” answered Kennedy scornfully; “extracts which often attribute to him the very sentiments which he is opposing. But it isn’t worth arguing with one of your school, who have the dishonesty to condemn writers whom you are incapable of understanding, on the faith of extracts which they haven’t even read.”

The wrathful purpling of Hazlet’s sallow countenance portended an explosion of orthodox spleen, but Julian gently interposed in time to save the devoted Kennedy from a few unmeasured anathemas.

“Hush!” he said, “none of the odium theologicum, please, lest the mighty shade of Aeschylus smile at you in scorn. Do drop the subject, Hazlet.”

“Very well, if you like, Home; but I must deliver my conscience, you know. But really, Julian, you are not very Christian in your other pictures.”

This was too much even for Julian’s politeness, and he joined in the shout of laughter with which Kennedy greeted this appeal.

“Fools make a mock at sin,” said Hazlet austerely. “I trust that you will both be brought to a better state of mind. Good morning!”

Kennedy flung himself into an armchair, and after finishing his laugh, exclaimed, “My dear Home, where did you pick up that intolerable hypocrite?”

“Hush, Kennedy, hush! Don’t call him a hypocrite. His mode of religion may be very offensive to us, and yet it may be sincere.”

“Faugh! the idea of asking you, ‘How’s your soul?’ It reminds me of a friend of mine who was suddenly asked by a minister in a train ‘if he didn’t feel an aching void?’ ‘An aching void? Where?’ said Jones, in a tone of alarm, for he was an unimaginative person. ‘Within, sir, within!’ said the stranger. Jones felt anxiously to find whether one of his ribs was accidentally protruding, but finding them all safe, set down the minister for a lunatic, and moved to the further end of the carriage.”

Julian smiled; he was more accustomed to this kind of phraseology than his friend, and knew that outrageous as it was to good taste under the circumstances, it yet might spring from a sincere and honourable motive, or at best must be regarded as the natural result of innate vulgarity and mistaken training.

“Surely at best,” continued Kennedy, “it’s a most unwarrantable impertinence for a fellow like that to want to dabble his ignorant and coarse hand in the hallowed secrets of the microcosm. Not to one’s nearest and dearest friend, not to one’s mother or brother would one babble promiscuously on such awful themes; and to have the soul’s sublime and eternal emotions, its sacred and unspoken communings, lugged out into farcical prominence by such conversational cant as that, is to dry up the very fountain of true religion, and put a premium on the successful grin of an offensive hypocrisy.”

Kennedy seemed quite agitated, and as usual found relief in striding up and down the room. His religious feelings were deep and real—none the less so for being hidden—and Hazlet’s language and manner had given him a rude shock.

“Another hour in that fellow’s company would make me an infidel,” he exclaimed with quivering lip. “Pray for me, indeed, with some of his ‘sound and congenial friends.’ Faugh! ‘sound!’ how does he dare to judge whether his superiors are ‘sound’ or not? and why must he borrow a metaphor from Stilton cheeses when he’s talking of religious convictions.”

“Why really, Kennedy,” said Julian, “to see the contempt written in your face, one would think you were an archangel looking at a black beetle, as a learned judge once observed. If you won’t regard Hazlet as a man and a brother, at least remember that he’s a vertebrate animal.”

But Kennedy was not to be joked out of his indignation, so Julian continued. “I wish you knew more of Lillyston. At one time, I should have been nearly as much bothered by Hazlet as you, but Lillyston’s kind, genial good-humour with every one, and the genuine respectful sympathy which he shows even for things he can least understand, have made me much happier than I should have been. Now, he might have done Hazlet some good, whereas your opposition, my dear fellow, will only make him more rampant than ever. Ah, here Lillyston comes.”

“What an honest open face,” said Kennedy.

“Like the soul which looks through it, sans peur et sans reproche,” said Julian warmly.

“Rather a contrast to the last comer,” murmured Kennedy, as he picked up his cap and gown to walk to the lecture-room.

“There, don’t think of Hazlet any more,” said Julian.

“‘He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small, For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.’

“A capital good motto that; isn’t it, Hugh?”

“I must love Hazlet as one of the very small things, then,” said the incorrigible Kennedy as he left the room with the other two.

Hazlet was put on to construe during the lecture, and if anything could have shaken the brazen tower of his self-confidence, it would have been the egregious display of incapacity which followed; but Hazlet rather piqued himself on his indifference to the poor blind heathen poets, on whose names he usually dealt reprobation broadcast. “Like lions that die of an ass’s kick,” those wronged great souls lay prostrate before Hazlet’s wrathful heels.

Chapter Seven.

The Scorn of Scorn.

“And not a man, for being simply man, Hath any honour, but honour for those honours That are without him—as place, riches, favour, Prizes of accident as oft as merit.” Shakespeare.

Very different in all respects were Julian’s rencontres with others of his old schoolfellows. There were some, indeed, among them who had left Harton while they were still in low forms, and some whose tastes and pursuits were so entirely different from his own, that it was hardly likely that he should maintain any other intercourse with them than such as was demanded by a slight acquaintance. But of Bruce, at any rate, it might have been expected that he would see rather more than proved to be the case. Bruce, as having been head of the school during the period when Julian was a monitor, had been thrown daily into his company, and, as inmates of the same house, they had acted together in the thousand little scenes which diversify the bright and free monotony of a schoolboy’s life.

But the first fortnight passed by, and Bruce had not called on Julian, and as they were on different “sides,” they had not chanced to meet, either in lecture-room or elsewhere. Julian, not knowing whether his position as sizar would make any difference in Bruce’s estimation of him, had naturally left him to take the initiative in calling; while Bruce, on the other hand, always a little jealous of his brilliant contemporary, and not too anxious to be familiar with a sizar, pretended to himself that it was as much Julian’s place as his to be first in calling. Hence it was that, for the first fortnight, the two did not happen to come across each other.

Meanwhile Bruce also had made many fresh acquaintances. His reputation for immense wealth and considerable talent—his dashing easy manner—his handsome person and elaborate style of dress, attracted notice, and very soon threw him into the circle of all the young fashionables of Saint Werner’s. His style of life cannot be better described than by saying that he affected the fine gentleman. Hardly a day had passed during which he had not been at some large breakfast or wine-party, or formed one of a select little body of supping aristocrats. He did very little work, and pretended to do none, (for Bruce was a first-rate specimen of the never-open-a-book genus), although at unexpected hours he took care to get up the lecture-room subjects sufficiently well to make a display when he was put on. Even in this he was unsuccessful, for scholarship cannot be acquired per saltum, and Mr Serjeant, the lecturer on his side, looked on him with profound contempt as a puppy who was all the more offensive from pretending to some knowledge. He told him that he might distinguish himself by hard steady work, but would never do so without infinitely more pains than he took the trouble to apply. His quiet and caustic strictures, and the easy sarcasm with which he would allow Bruce to flourish his way through a passage, and then go through it himself, pointing out how utterly Bruce had “hopped with airy and fastidious levity” above all the nicer shades of meaning, and slurred over his ignorance of a difficulty by some piece of sonorous nonsense, made him peculiarly the object of the young man’s disgust. But though Mr Serjeant wounded his vanity, the irony of “a musty old don,” as Bruce contemptuously called him, was amply atoned for by the compliments of the fast young admirers whom Bruce soon gathered round him, and some of whom were always to be found after hall-time sipping his claret or lounging in his gorgeous rooms. To them Bruce’s genius was incontestably proved by the faultless evenness with which he parted his hair behind, the dapperness of his boots, and the merit of his spotless shirts.

Sir Rollo Bruce, Vyvyan’s father, was a man of no particular family, who had been knighted on a deputation, and contrived to glitter in the most splendid circles of London society. His magnificent entertainments, his exquisite appointments, his apparently fabulous resources, were a sufficient passport into the saloons of dukes; and, although ostensibly Sir Rollo had nothing to live on but his salary as the chairman of a bank, nobody who had the entrée of his house cared particularly to inquire into the sources of his wealth. Vyvyan imitated his father in his expensive tastes, and cultivated, with vulgar assiduity, the society of the noblemen at his college. In a short time he knew them all, and all of them had been at his rooms except a young Lord De Vayne, of whom we shall hear more hereafter, and whose retiring manners made him shrink with dislike from Bruce’s fawning familiarity.

The sizars at Saint Werner’s do not dine at the same hour as the rest of the undergraduates, but the hour after, and their dinner consists of the dishes which have previously figured on the Fellows’ table. It seems to me that the time may come when the authorities of that royal foundation will see reason to regret so unnecessary an arrangement, the relic of a long, obsolete, and always undesirable system. Many of Saint Werner’s most distinguished alumni have themselves sat at the sizars’ table, and if any of them were blessed or cursed with sensitive dispositions, they will not be dead to the justice of these remarks. The sizars are, by birth and education, invariably, so far as I know, the sons of gentlemen, and perhaps most often of clergymen whose means prevent them from bearing unassisted the heavy burden of University expenses. After a short time many of these sizars become scholars, and eventually a large number of them win for themselves the honours of a fellowship. Why put on these young students a gratuitous indignity? Why subject them to the unpleasant remarks which some are quite coarse enough to make on the subject? The authorities of Saint Werner’s are full of real courtesy and kindness, and that the arrangement is not intended as an indignity I am well aware; it is, as I have said, the accidental fragment of an obsolete period—a period when scholars dined on “a penny piece of beef,” and slept two or three in a room at the foot of the Fellows’ beds. All honour to Saint Werner’s; all honour to the great, and the wise, and the learned, and the noble whom she has sent forth into all lands; all honour to the bravery and the truthfulness of her sons; all honour to the profound scholars, and able teachers, and eloquent orators who preside at her councils; she is a Queen of colleges, and may wield her sceptre with a strong hand and a proud. But are there not some among her subjects who are deaf to the sounds of calm advice?—some who are so blind as to love her faults and prop up her abuses?—some who daub her walls with the untempered mortar of their blind prejudice, and treat every one as an enemy who would aid in removing here and there a bent pillar, and here and there a crumbling stone? (These words were written some time ago. I trust that since then all causes of offence, if they ever existed, have long been forgiven and forgotten.)

And now let all defenders of present institutions, however bad they may be—let all violent supporters of their old mumpsimus against any new sumpsimus whatever, listen to a conversation among some undergraduates. It may convince them, or it may not—I cannot tell; but I know that it had a powerful influence on me.

Bruce was standing in the Butteries, where he had just been joined by Lord Fitzurse and Sir John D’Acres, who by virtue of their titles—certainly not by any other virtue—sat among reverend Professors and learned Doctors at the high table, far removed from the herd of common undergraduates. With the three were Mr. Boodle and Mr. Tulk, (the “Mister” is given them in the college-lists out of respect for the long purses which have purchased them, the privilege of fellow-commoners or ballantiogennaioi), who enjoyed the same enviable distinction and happy privilege. By the screens were four or five sizars; a few more were scattered about in the passage waiting, whilst the servants hurriedly placed the dishes on the table set apart for them; and Julian was chatting to Lillyston, who chanced at the moment to have been passing by.

“Who is that table for?” asked D’Acres, pointing through the open door of the hall.

“Oh, that’s for the sizars,” tittered the feeble-minded Boodle, who tittered at everything.

“S–s–sizars!” stammered Lord Fitzurse. “What’s that mean? Are they v–v–very big f–f–fellows?”

“Ha! ha! ha!” said Bruce. “No; they’re sons of gyps and that kind of thing, who feed on the semese fragments of the high table.”

“They must be g–g–ghouls!” said his lordship, shudderingly.

“Hush,” said D’Acres, who was a thorough gentleman, “some of the sizars may be here;” and he dropped Bruce’s arm.

“Pooh! they’ll feel flattered,” said Bruce carelessly, as D’Acres walked off.

“Indeed!” said Julian, striding indignantly forward, for the conversation was so loud that he had heard every word of it. “Flattered to be the butt for the insolence of puppyism and every fool who is coarse enough to insult them publicly.”

“Who the d–d–d–deuce are you?” said Lord Fitzurse, “for you’re coming it r–r–rather strong.”

“Who is he?” said Lillyston, breaking in, “your equal, sir, in birth, as he is your superior in intellect, and in every moral quality. Gentlemen,” he continued, “let me warn you not to have the impertinence to talk in this way again.”

“Warn us!” said Bruce, trying to hide under bravado his crestfallen temper; “why, what’ll you do if we choose to continue?”

“Make a few counter-remarks to begin with, Bruce, on parasites and parvenus, tuft-hunting freshmen, and the tenth transmitters of a foolish face,” retorted Lillyston, glowing with honest indignation.

“And turn you out of the butteries by the shoulders,” said a strong undergraduate, who had chanced to be a witness of the scene. “A somewhat boyish proceeding, perhaps, but exactly suited to some capacities.”

Bruce and his friends, seeing that they were beginning to have the worst of it, thought it about time to swagger off, and for the future learnt to confine their remarks to a more exclusive circle.

There had been another silent spectator of the scene in the person of Lord De Vayne. He was a young viscount whose estate bordered on the grounds of Lonstead Abbey, and he had known Julian since both of them were little boys. He had been entirely educated at home with an excellent tutor, who had filled his mind with all wise and generous sentiments; but his widowed mother lived in such complete seclusion that he had rarely entered the society of any of his own age, and was consequently timid and bashful. Meeting sometimes with Julian, he had conceived a warm admiration for his genius and character, and at one time had earnestly wished to join him at Harton. But his mother was so distressed at the proposition that he at once abandoned it, while he eagerly looked forward to the time when he should meet his friend at Saint Werner’s, on the books of which college he had entered his name partly for this very reason. He had not been an undergraduate many days before he called on Julian, who had received him indeed very kindly, but who seemed rather shy of being much in his company for fear of the remarks which he had not yet learnt entirely to disregard. This was a great source of vexation to De Vayne, though the reason of it was partly explained after the remarks which he had just overheard.

“Home,” he whispered, “I wish you’d come into my rooms after hall, I should so much like to have a talk. Do,” he said, as he saw that Julian hesitated, “I assure you I have felt quite lonely here.”

Accordingly, after hall, Julian strolled into Warwick’s Court, and found his way to Lord De Vayne’s rooms.

“I am so glad to see you, Julian, at last. As I have told you,” he said, with a glistening eye, “I have been very lonely. I have never left home before, and have made no friend here as yet;” and he heaved a deep sigh.

Julian felt his heart full of friendliness for the gentle boy whose total inexperience made him seem younger than he really was. He glanced round the rooms; they were richly furnished, but full of memorials of home, that gave them a melancholy aspect. Over the fireplace was a water-colour likeness of his lady-mother in her widow’s weeds, and on the opposite side of the room another picture of a beautiful young child—De Vayne’s only brother, who had died in infancy. The handsomely-bound books on the shelves had been transferred from their well-known places in the library of Uther Hall, and the regal antlers which were fastened over the door had once graced the dining-room. Thousands would have envied Lord De Vayne’s position; but he had caught the shadow of his mother’s sadness, his relations were few, at Saint Werner’s as yet he had found none to lean upon, and he felt unhappy and alone.

“I was so ashamed, Julian,” he said, “so utterly and unspeakably ashamed to hear the rudeness of these men as we came out of hall. I’m afraid you must have felt deeply hurt.”

“Yes, for the moment; but I’m sorry that I took even a moment’s notice of it. Why should one be ruffled because others are unfeeling and impertinent; it is their misfortune, not ours.”

“But why did you come up as a sizar, Julian? Surely with Lonstead Abbey as your inheritance—”

“No,” said Julian with a smile; “I am lord of my leisure, and no land beside.”

“Really! I had always looked on you as a future neighbour and helper.”

He was too delicate to make any inquiries on the subject, but while a bright airy vision rose for an instant before Julian’s fancy, and then died away, his friend said, with ingenuous embarrassment:

“You know, Home, I am very rich. In truth, I have far more money than I know what to do with. It only troubles me. I wish—”

“Oh, dear no!” said Julian hastily; “I got the Newry scholarship, you know, at Harton, and I really need no assistance whatever.”

“I hope I haven’t offended you; how unlucky I am,” said De Vayne blushing.

“Not a whit, De Vayne; I know your kind heart.”

“Well, do let me see something of you. Won’t you come a walk sometimes, or let me come in of an evening when you’re taking tea, and not at work?”

“Do,” said Julian, and they agreed to meet at his rooms on the following Sunday evening.

Sunday at Camford was a happy day for Julian Home. It was a day of perfect leisure and rest; the time not spent at church or in the society of others, he generally occupied in taking a longer walk than usual, or in the luxuries of solemn and quiet thought. But the greatest enjoyment was to revel freely in books, and devote himself unrestrained to the gorgeous scenes of poetry, or the passionate pages of eloquent men; on that day he drank deeply of pure streams that refreshed him for his weekly work; nor did he forget some hour of commune, in the secrecy of his chamber and the silence of his heart, with that God and Father in whom alone he trusted, and to whom alone he looked for deliverance from difficulty, and guidance under temptation. Of all hours his happiest and strongest were those in which he was alone—alone except for a heavenly presence, sitting at the feet of a Friend, and looking face to face upon himself.

He had been reading Wordsworth since hall-time, when the ringing of the chapel-bell summoned him to put on his surplice, and walk quietly down to chapel. As there was plenty of time, he took a stroll or two across the court before going in. While doing so, he met De Vayne, and in his company suddenly found himself vis-à-vis with his old enemy Brogten.

“Hm!” whispered Brogten to his companion; “the sizars are getting on. A sizar and a viscount arm-in-arm!”

Julian only heard enough of this sentence to be aware that it was highly insolent; and the flush on De Vayne’s cheek showed that he too had caught something of its meaning.

“Never mind that boor’s rudeness,” he said. “I feel more than honoured to be in the sizar’s company. How admirably quiet you are, Julian, under such conduct!”

“I try to be; not always with success, though,” he answered, as his breast swelled, and his lip quivered with indignation

“Scorn!—to be scorned by one that I scorn: Is that a matter to make me fret? Is that a matter to cause regret? Stop! let’s come into chapel.”

They went into chapel together. De Vayne walked into the noblemen’s seats, and Julian, hot and angry, and with the words, “Scorn!—to be scorned by one that I scorn,” still ringing in his ears, strode up the whole length of the chapel to the obscure corner set apart—is it not very needlessly set apart?—for the sizars’ use.

Saint Werner’s chapel on a Sunday evening is a moving sight. Five hundred men in surplices thronging the chapel from end to end—the very flower of English youth, in manly beauty, in strength, in race, in courage, in mind—all kneeling side by side, bound together in a common bond of union by the grand historic associations of that noble place—all mingling their voices together with the trebles of the choir and the thunder-music of the organ. This is a spectacle not often equalled; and to take a share in it, as one for whose sake in part it has been established, is a privilege not to be forgotten. The music, the devotion, the spirit of the place, smoothed the swelling thoughts of Julian’s troubled heart. “Are we not all brethren? Hath not one Father begotten us?” Such began to be the burden of his thoughts, rather than the old “Scorn!—to be scorned by one that I scorn.” And when the glorious tones of the anthem ceased, and the calm steady voice of the chaplain was heard alone, uttering in the sudden hush the grand overture to the noble prayer—

“O Lord, our heavenly Father, high and mighty, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the only Ruler of princes, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth.”

Then the last demon of wrath was exorcised, and Julian thought to himself—

“No; from henceforth I scorn no one, and am indifferent alike to the proud man’s scorn and the base man’s sneer.”

The two incidents that we have narrated made Julian fear that his position as a sizar would be one of continual annoyance. He afterwards gratefully acknowledged that in such a supposition he was quite mistaken. Never again while he remained a sizar did he hear the slightest unkind allusions to the circumstance, and but for the external regulations imposed by the college, he might even have forgotten the fact. Those regulations, especially the hall arrangements, were indeed sufficiently disagreeable at times. It could not be pleasant to dine in a hall which had just been left by hundreds of men, and to make the meal amid the prospect of slovenly servants employed in the emptying of wine-glasses and the ligurrition of dishes, sometimes even in passages of coquetry or noisy civilities, on the interchange of which the presence of these undergraduates seemed to impose but little check. These things may be better now, and in spite of them Julian felt hearty reason to be grateful for the real kindness of the Saint Werner’s authorities. In other respects he found that the fact of his being a sizar made no sort of difference in his position; he found that the majority of men either knew or cared nothing about it, and sought his society on terms of the most unquestioned equality, for the sake of the pleasure which his company afforded them, and the thoughts which it enabled them to ventilate or interchange.

Chapter Eight.

Study and Idleness.

“Then what golden hours were for us, While we sate together there! How the white vests of the chorus Seemed to wave up a live air. How the cothurns trod majestic, Down the deep iambic lines, And the rolling anapaestic Curled like vapour over shrines!” E Barrett Browning.

The incentives which lead young men to work are as various as the influences which tend to make them idle. One toils on, however hopelessly, from a sense of duty, from a desire to please his parents, and satisfy the requirements of the place; another because he has been well trained into habits of work, and has a notion of educating the mind; a third because he has set his heart on a fellowship; a fourth, because he is intensely ambitious, and looks on a good degree as the stepping-stone to literary or political honours. The fewest perhaps pursue learning for her own sake, and study out of a simple eagerness to know what may be known, as the best means of cultivating their intellectual powers for the attainment of at least a personal solution of those great problems, the existence of which they have already begun to realise. But of this rare class was Julian Home. He studied with an ardour and a passion, before which difficulties vanished, and in consequence of which, he seemed to progress not the less surely, because it was with great strides. For the first time in his life, Julian found himself entirely alone in the great wide realm of literature—alone, to wander at his own will, almost without a guide. And joyously did that brave young spirit pursue its way—now resting in some fragrant glen, and by some fountain mirror, where the boughs which bent over him were bright with blossom, and rich with fruit—now plunging into some deep thicket, where at every step he had to push aside the heavy branches and tangled weeds—and now climbing with toilful progress some steep and rocky hill, on whose summit, hardly attained, he could rest at last, and gaze back over perils surmounted, and precipices passed, and mark the thunder rolling over the valleys, or gaze on kingdoms full of peace and beauty, slumbering in the broad sunshine beneath his feet.

Julian read for the sake of knowledge, and because he intensely enjoyed the great authors, whose thoughts he studied. He had read parts of Homer, parts of Thucydides, parts of Tacitus, parts of the tragedians, at school, but now he had it in his power to study a great author entire, and as a whole. Never before did he fully appreciate the “thunderous lilt” of Greek epic, the touching and voluptuous tenderness of Latin elegy, the regal pomp of history, the gorgeous and philosophic mystery of the old dramatic fables. Never before had he learnt to gaze on “the bright countenance of truth, in the mild and dewy air of delightful studies.” Those who decry classical education, do so from inexperience of its real character and value, and can hardly conceive the sense of strength and freedom which a young and ingenuous intellect acquires in all literature, and in all thought, by the laborious and successful endeavour to enter into that noble heritage which has been left us by the wisdom of bygone generations. Those hours were the happiest of Julian’s life; often would he be beguiled by his studies into the “wee small” hours of night; and in the grand old company of eloquent men, and profound philosophers, he would forget everything in the sense of intellectual advance. Then first he began to understand Milton’s noble exclamation—

“How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and rugged as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo’s lute, And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns.”

He studied accurately, yet with appreciation; sometimes the two ways of study are not combined, and while one man will be content with a cold and barren estimate of ge’s and pon’s derived from wading through the unutterable tedium of interminable German notes, of which the last always contradicted all the rest; another will content himself with eviscerating the general meaning of a passage, without any attempt to feel the finer pulses of emotion, or discriminate the nicer shades of thought. Eschewing commentators as much as he could, Julian would first carefully go over a long passage, solely with a view to the clear comprehension of the author’s language, and would then re-read the whole for the purpose of enjoying and appreciating the thoughts which the words enshrined; and finally, when he had finished a book or a poem, would run through it again as a whole, with all the glow and enthusiasm of a perfect comprehension.

Sometimes Kennedy, or Owen, or Lord De Vayne, would read with him. This was always in lighter and easier authors, read chiefly for practice, and for the sake of the poetry or the story, which lent them their attraction. It was necessary to pursue in solitude all the severer paths of study; but he found these evenings, spent at once in society and yet over books, full both of profit and enjoyment. Lillyston, although not a first-rate classic, often formed one of the party; Owen and Julian contributed the requisite scholarship and the accurate knowledge, while Lillyston and De Vayne would often throw out some literary illustration or historical parallel, and Kennedy gave life and brightness to them all, by the flow and sparkle of his gaiety and wit. But it must be admitted that Kennedy was the least studious element in the party, and was too often the cause of digressions, and conversations which led them to abandon altogether the immediate object of their evening’s work.

Kennedy had a tendency to idleness, which was developed by the freedom with which he plunged into society of all kinds. His company was so agreeable, and his bright young face was so happy an addition to all parties, that he was in a round of constant engagements—breakfast parties, wines, supper parties, and dinners—that encroached far too much on the hours of work. At school the perpetual examinations kept alive an emulous spirit, which counteracted his fondness for mental vagrancy; but at college the examinations—at least those of any importance—are few and far between; and he always flattered himself that he meant soon to make up for lost time, for three years looks an immense period to a young man at the entrance of his university career. It was nearly as necessary, (even in a pecuniary point of view), for him as for Julian to make the best use of his time; for although he was an only son, he was not destined to inherit a fortune sufficient for his support.

“Just look at these cards,” he said to Julian one day; “there is not one of them which hasn’t an invitation scribbled on it. These engagements really leave one no time for work. What a bore it is! How do you manage to escape them?”

“Well—first, I haven’t such a large acquaintance as you; that makes a great deal of difference. But, besides, I make a point of leaving breakfast parties at ten, and wines at chapel-time—so that I really don’t find them any serious hindrance. No hindrance, I mean, in comparison with the delight and profit of the society itself.”

“I wish I could make the same resolution,” said Kennedy; “but the fact is, I find company so thoroughly amusing, that I’m always tempted to stay.”

“But why not decline sometimes?”

“I don’t know—it looks uncivil. Here, which of these shall I cut?” he said, tossing three or four notes and cards to Julian.

“This for one,” said Julian, as he read the first:—

“Dear Kennedy—Come to supper and cards at ten. Bruce wants to be introduced to you. Yours,

“‘C Brogten.’”

“Yes, I think I shall. I don’t like that fellow Brogten, who is always thrusting himself in my way,” said Kennedy. “Heigh ho!” and Kennedy leant his head on his arm, and fell into a reverie, thinking that after all his three years at college might be over almost before he was aware of how much time he lost.

“I hope you don’t play cards much,” said Julian.

“Why? I hear Hazlet has been denouncing them in hall with unctuous fervour, and I do think it was that which led me to join in a game which was instantly proposed by some of the men who sat near.”

“I don’t say that there’s anything diabolical,” said Julian, smiling, “in paint and pasteboard, or that I should have the least objection to play them myself if I wanted amusement, but I think them—except very occasionally, and in moderation—a waste of time; and if you play for money I don’t think it does you any good.”

“Well, I’ve never played for money yet. By the bye, do you know Bruce? He has the character and manner of a very gentlemanly fellow.”

“Yes, I know him,” said Julian, who made a point of holding his tongue about a man when he had nothing favourable to say.

“Oh, ay, I forgot; of course; he’s a Hartonian. But didn’t you think him gentlemanly?”

“He has an easy manner, and is accustomed to good society, which is usually all that is intended by the word,” said Julian.

“I think I must go just this one evening. I like to see a variety of men; one learns something from it.”

Kennedy went. The supper took place in Brogten’s rooms, and the party then adjourned to Bruce’s, where they immediately began a game at whist for half-a-crown points, and then “unlimited loo.” Kennedy was induced to play “just to see what it was like.” As the game proceeded he became more and more excited; the others were accustomed to the thing, and concealed their eagerness; but Kennedy, who was younger and more inexperienced than any of them, threw himself into the game, and drank heedlessly of the wine that freely circulated. Surely if guardian spirits attend the footsteps of youth, one angel must have wept that evening “tears such as angels weep” to see him with his flushed face and sparkling eyes, eagerly seizing the sums he won, or, with clenched hand and contracted brow, anxiously awaiting the result of some adverse turn in the chances of the game. I remember once to have accidentally entered a scene like this in going to borrow something from a neighbour’s room; and I shall never forget the almost tiger-like eagerness and haggard anxiety depicted on the countenances of the men who were playing for sums far too extravagant for an undergraduate’s purse.

How Kennedy got home he never knew, but next morning he awoke headachy and feverish, and the first thing he saw on his table was a slip of paper on which was written, “Kennedy admonished by the senior Dean for being out after twelve o’clock.” The notice annoyed and ashamed him. He lay in bed till late, was absent from lecture, and got up to an unrelished breakfast, at which he was disturbed by the entrance of Bruce, to congratulate him on his winnings of the evening before.

While Bruce was talking to him, Lillyston also strolled in on his way from lecture to ask what had kept Kennedy away. He was surprised to see the pale and weary look on his face, and catching sight of Bruce seated in the armchair by the fire, he merely made some commonplace remarks and left the room. But he met Julian in the court, and told him that Kennedy didn’t seem to be well.

“I’m not surprised,” said Julian; “he supped with Brogten, and then went to play cards with Bruce, and I hear that Bruce’s card parties are not very steady proceedings.”

“Can’t we manage to keep him out of that set, Julian? It will be the ruin of his reading.”

“Ay, and worse, Hugh. But what can one say? It will hardly do to read homilies to one’s fellow undergraduates.”

“You might at least give him a hint.”

“I will. I suppose he’ll come and do some Euripides to-night.”

He did come, and when they had read some three hundred lines, and the rest were separating, he proposed to Julian a turn in the great court.

The stars were crowding in their bright myriads, and the clear silvery moonlight bathed the court, except where the hall and chapel flung fantastic and mysterious shadows across the green smooth-mown lawns of the quadrangle. The soft light, the cool exhilarating night air were provocative of thought, and they walked up and down for a time in silence.

Many thoughts were evidently working in Kennedy’s mind, and they did not all seem to be bright or beautiful as the thoughts of youth should be. Julian’s brain was busy, too; and as they paced up and down, arm in arm, the many-coloured images of hope and fancy were flitting thick and fast across his vision. He was thinking of his own future and of Kennedy’s, whom he was beginning to love as a brother, and for whose moral weakness he sometimes feared.

“Julian,” said Kennedy, suddenly breaking the silence; “were you ever seized by an uncontrollable, unaccountable, irresistible presentiment of coming evil,—a feeling as if a sudden gulf of blackness and horror yawned before you—a dreadful something haunting you, you knew not what, but only knew that it was there?”

“I have had presentiments, certainly; though hardly of the kind you describe.”

“Well, Julian, I have such a presentiment now, overshadowing me with the sense of guilt, of which I was never guilty; as though it were the shadow of some crime committed in a previous state of existence, forgotten yet unforgotten, incurred yet unavenged.”

“Probably the mere result of a headache this morning, and the night air now,” said Julian, smiling at the energetic description, yet pained by the intensity of Kennedy’s tone of voice.

“Hush, Julian! I hate all that stupid materialism. Depend upon it, some evil thing is over me. I wonder whether crimes of the future can throw their crimson shadow back over the past. My life, thank God, has been an innocent one, yet now I feel like the guiltiest thing alive.”

“One oughtn’t to yield to such feelings, or to be the victim of a heated imagination, Kennedy. In my own case at least, half the feelings I have fancied to be presentiments have turned out false in the end—presentiments, I mean, which have been suggested, as perhaps this has, by passing circumstances.”

“God grant this may be false,” said Kennedy, “but something makes me feel uneasy.”

“It will be a lying prophet, if you so determine, Kennedy. The only enemy who has real power to hurt us is ourselves. Why should you be agitated by an idle forecast of uncertain calamity? Be brave, and honest, and pure, and God will be with you.”

“Don’t be surprised,” continued Julian, “if you’ve heard me say the same words before; they were my father’s dying bequest to his eldest son.”

“Be brave, and honest, and pure—” repeated Kennedy; “yes, you must be right, Julian. Look what a glorious sky, and what numberless ‘patines of bright gold.’”

Julian looked up, and at that moment a meteor shot across the heaven, plunging as though from the galaxy into the darkness, and after the white and dazzling lustre of the trail had disappeared, seeming to leave behind the glory of it a deeper gloom. It gave too true a type of many a young man’s destiny.

Kennedy said nothing, but although it is not the Camford custom to shake hands, he shook Julian’s hand that night with one of those warm and loving grasps, which are not soon forgotten. And each walked slowly back to his own room.

Chapter Nine.

The Boat-Race.

“And caught once more the distant shout, The measured pulse of racing oars Between the willows.” In Memoriam.

The banks of “silvery-winding Iscam” were thronged with men; between the hours of two and four the sculls were to be tried for, and some 800 of the thousand undergraduates poured out of their colleges by twos and threes to watch the result from the banks on each side.

The first and second guns had been fired, and the scullers in their boats, each some ten yards apart from the other, are anxiously waiting the firing of the third, which is the signal for starting. That strong splendid-looking young man, whose arms are bared to the shoulder, and “the muscles all a-ripple on his back,” is almost quivering with anxious expectation. The very instant the sound of the gun reaches his ear, those oar-blades will flash like lightning into the water, and “smite the sounding furrows” with marvellous regularity and speed. He is the favourite, and there are some heavy bets on his success; Bruce and Brogten and Lord Fitzurse will be richer or poorer by some twenty pounds each from the result of this quarter of an hour.

The three are standing together on the towing-path opposite that little inn where the river suddenly makes a wide bend, and where, if the rush of men were not certain to sweep them forward, they might see a very considerable piece of the race. But directly the signal is given, and the boats start, everybody will run impetuously at full speed along the banks to keep up with the boats, and cheer on their own men, and it will be necessary for our trio to make the best possible use of their legs, before the living cataract pours down upon them. Indeed, they would not have been on the towing-path at all, but among the rather questionable occupants of the grass plot before the inn on the other side of the river, were it not for their desire to run along with the boats, and inspirit the rowers on whom they have betted.

But what is this? A great odious slow-trailing barge looms into sight, nearly as broad as the river itself, black as the ferrugineous ferryboat of Charon, and slowly dragged down the stream by two stout cart horses, beside which a young bargee is plodding along in stolid independence.

“Hi! hi! you clodhopper there, stop that infernal barge,” shouted Bruce at the top of his voice, knowing that if the barge once passed the winning posts, the race would be utterly spoilt.

“St–t–t–topp there, you cl–l–lown, w–w–will you,” stuttered Fitzurse more incoherent than usual, with indignation.

The young bargee either didn’t hear these apostrophes, or didn’t choose to attend to them, when they were urged in that kind of way; and besides this, as the men were entirely concealed from his view by the curve of the river, he wasn’t aware of the coming race, and therefore saw no reason to obey such imperious mandates.

“Confound the grimy idiot; doesn’t he hear?” said Bruce, turning red and pale with excitement as he thought of the money he had at stake, and remembered that the skiff on which all his hopes lay was first in order, and would therefore be most likely to suffer by any momentary confusion. “Come, Brogten, let’s stop him somehow before it’s too late.”

“Let’s cut the scoundrel’s ropes,” said Brogten between his teeth; and at once the three darted forward at full speed, at the very instant that the sharp crack of the final signal-gun was heard.

It so happened that Julian and Lillyston had started rather late for the races, and had come up with the barge just as it had first neglected the summons of Bruce and Fitzurse.

“Come, bargee,” said Lillyston good-humouredly, “out of the way with the barge as quick as ever you can; there’s a boat-race, and you’ll spoil the fun.”

“Oh, it’s a race, be it?” said the man, as he instantly helped Lillyston to back the horses. “If them young jackanapes had only toald me, ’stead of blusterin’ that way—”

His speech was interrupted by Bruce, who, with his friends, had instantly sprung at the ropes, and cut them in half a dozen places, while the great heavy horses, frightened out of their propriety, turned tail and bolted away at a terrifically heavy trot.

“You big hulking blackguard,” roared Brogten, who had been the first to use his knife, “why the devil didn’t you move when we told you? What business have louts like you to come blundering up the river, and spoil our races?” And Fitzurse, confident in superior numbers, gave emphasis to the question by knocking off the man’s cap.

The bargee was a strongly-built, stupid, healthy-looking young man, of some twenty-three years old, who, from being slow of passion was all the more terrible when aroused. Not finding any vent for his anger in words, he suddenly seized Bruce, (who of the three stood nearest him), by the collar of his boating jersey, shook him as he might have done a baby, and almost before he was aware, pitched him into the river. Instantly swinging round, he gave Lord Fitzurse a butt with his elbow, which sent his lordship tottering into the ditch on the other side, and while his wrath was still blazing, received in one eye a blow from Brogten’s strong fist, which for an instant made him reel.

But it was only for an instant, and then he repaid Brogten with a cuff which felled him to the ground. Brogten was mad with fury. At that moment the men were running round the corner, at the bend of the Iscam, in full career, and hundreds on both sides of the river must have seen him sprawl before the man’s blow. He sprang to his feet, and, blind with rage, lifted the clasp-knife with which he had cut the ropes. A second more, and it would have been buried to the handle in the right arm which, quick as lightning, the bargee raised to shield his face, when Brogten’s arm was seized from behind by Lillyston, who wrested the knife from him, and pitched it into the river.

Brogten turned round, still unconscious what he was about. Julian stood nearest him, and he thought it was Julian who had disarmed him. Old hatred was suddenly joined to outrageous passion, and clenching his fist, he struck Julian in the face. Julian started back just in time to evade the full force of the blow, and fearing a second attack, suddenly tripped his aggressor as he once more rushed towards him.

But now the full tide of men had reached the spot; the barge had drifted helplessly lengthwise across the stream, and an angry circle closed round the chief actors in the scene we have described, while a hundred hasty voices demanded what was the row, and what the bargee meant by “stopping the race in that stupid way?” Meanwhile Bruce, wet and muddy, was declaiming on one side, and Fitzurse, bruised and dirty, on the other, was stammering his uncomprehended oaths; while a dozen men were holding Brogten, who, foiled a second time, and now in a dreadfully ungovernable passion, was struggling with the men who held him, and vowing murder against Julian and the bargee.

It was no time for deliberation, nor are excited, hasty, and disappointed boys the most impartial of jurors. Julian and Lillyston were rapidly explaining the true state of the case to the few who were calm enough to listen; but all that appeared to most of the bystanders was, that a bargee had spoiled the event of the day, and assaulted two or three undergraduates. A cry arose to duck the fellow in the muddiest angle of the Iscam, and twenty hands were laid on his shoulder, to drag him off to his fate. But a sense of injustice, joined to strength and passion, are all but irresistible when their opponents are but half in earnest; and violently exerting his formidable muscles, the man shook himself free with a determination, agility, and pluck which, by a visible logic, showed the men how cruel and cowardly it was to punish him before they knew anything of the rights of the case. Lillyston’s voice, too, began to be loudly heard, and several dons among the crowd exerted themselves to restore order out of the hubbub.

There is nothing like a touch of manliness. A feeble, and fussy, and finicking little proctor, who happened to be on the bank, was pompously endeavouring to assert his dignity, and make himself attended to. He was just beginning to get indignant at the laughing contempt with which his impotent efforts were received, and was asking men for their names and colleges, in a futile sort of way, when a tall and stately tutor in the crowd raised his voice above the uproar, and said, “Silence, gentlemen, if you please, for a moment.” He was recognised and respected, and the men made room for him into the centre of the throng.

“Now, my man, just tell us what’s the matter.” The man was beginning to tell them how wantonly his ropes had been cut, and he himself insulted, when Bruce broke in, “That’s a lie, you beggar; we asked you to move, and you wouldn’t. I’ll have you in prison yet, my fine fellow, you’ll see.”

“And if I don’t make you pay for they ropes, you young pink-and-white monkey, my name ain’t Jem—that’s all.”

“Did anybody see what really took place?” asked the don, cutting short the altercation.

“Yes, I did,” said Lillyston instantly; “the fellow was civil enough, and began to back his horses the moment I told him there was a race, when these gentlemen ran up, abused him, struck him, and cut the ropes.”

“Ay, it’s all very fine for you gentlefolk,” said the man with bitter scorn, “to take away a poor man’s living for your pleasure. How do you think I’m to pay for them ropes? Am I to take the bread out of the children’s mouths, let alone being kicked and speered at? Hang you all, I ain’t afeard o’ none o’ you; come on, the whole lot o’ you to one. I ain’t afeard—not I,” he said again, glaring round like a bull at bay, and stripping an arm of iron strength.

“I never cut your ropes, you brute,” said Bruce, between his teeth, “though you wouldn’t move when we asked you civilly.”

“What’s that, then?” said the man, pointing to a bit of rope two inches long which Bruce still held dangling in his hand.

“I’m afraid you forget the facts, Bruce, in your excitement,” said Lillyston, very sternly.

“Facts or not, I’ll have you up for assault,” said Bruce affectedly, wringing the mud out of his wet sleeve.

“Have me up for assault,” mimicked the man, trying to mince his broad rough accents into Bruce’s delicate tones; and he condescended to add no more, but turned round to catch his horses, which had trotted through the open gate of a neighbouring field, and were now quietly grazing.

“I hope, gentleman,” said Brogten, bluntly, “that you’re not going to believe that blackguard’s word against ours.”

“You forget, sir,” said Mr Norton, the tall don, “that what the blackguard, (as you are pleased to call him), said is confirmed by a gentleman here.”

“And impugned by three gentlemen,” said Bruce, who felt how thoroughly he was in disgrace.

“Do you mean to deny, Bruce, that you swore at the man first, and then cut his ropes, when he was already stopping his barge?” asked Lillyston.

“I mean to say he wouldn’t move when we told him.”

“I appeal to Home,” said Lillyston; “didn’t the man instantly stop when he understood why we wanted him to do so?”

“Yes,” said Julian, who, still dizzy with Brogten’s blow, was standing a little apart, “I am bound to say that the man was entirely in the right.”

“I am inclined to think so,” said Mr Norton, with scorn in his eye; and so saying, he took the little proctor’s arm, and strode away, while the crowd of undergraduates also broke up, and streamed off in twos and threes.

“Do you mean to pay that fellow for his rope, Bruce?” asked Lillyston; “if not, I do.”

“Pay!” said Brogten, with an explosion of oaths; “I’ll pay you and your sizar friend there for this, depend upon it.”

“We’re not afraid,” said Lillyston, quietly. Julian only answered the threat by a bow, and the two walked off to the bargee, who, in despair and anger, was knotting together the cut pieces of his rope.

Lillyston slipped a sovereign into his hand, and told him how sorry he was for what had happened.

“Thank you, sir,” said the man, humbly; “it’s a hard thing for a poor chap to be treated as I’ve been; but you’re a rale gentleman.”

“Well, do me one favour, then. Promise not to say a word to, or take any notice of, those three fellows as they pass you.”

The man promised; but there was no need to have done so, for furious as Brogten was, he and his companions were too crestfallen to take any notice of the bargee in passing, except by contemptuous looks, which he returned with interest. On the whole, it struck them that they would not make a particularly creditable display in hall that evening, and therefore they partook instead of a sumptuous repast in the rooms of Lord Fitzurse, who made up for the dirt which they had been eating by the splendour of his entertainment.

“I’ll be even yet with that fellow Home,” muttered Brogten, as they were parting.

“He’s not w–w–worth it,” said the host. “He’s one of the g–g–ghouls; eh, Bruce—ha! ha! ha!”

Chapter Ten.

Contrasts.

“And here was Labour his own bond slave; Hope That never set the pains against the prize; Idleness halting with his weary clog, And poor misguided Shame and witless Fear And simple Pleasure foraging for Death.” Wordsworth. The Prelude.

Although Julian did not immediately feel, and had not particular reason to dread, the results of Brogten’s displeasure, yet it was very annoying to be on the same stair-case with him. It was a constant reminder that there was one person, and he near at hand, who regarded him as an enemy. For a time, indeed, Brogten tried a few practical jokes on his neighbour and quondam school-fellow, which gratified for the moment his desire for revenge. Thus he would empty the little jug of milk which stood every day before Julian’s door into the great earthenware pitcher of water which was usually to be found in the same position or he would make a surreptitious entry into his rooms, and amuse himself by upturning chairs and tables, turning pictures with their faces to the wall, and doing sometimes considerable damage and mischief. Once Julian, on preparing to get into bed, found a neat little garden laid out for his reception, between the sheets—flower-beds and gravel walks, all complete. This course of petty annoyance he bore, though not without a great struggle, in dignified and contemptuous silence. He looked Brogten firmly in the face, whenever they chanced to meet, and never gave him the triumph of perceiving that his small arts of vexation had taken the slightest effect. He merely smiled when the hot-headed Kennedy suggested retaliation, and would not allow Lillyston to try the effect of remonstrance. It was not long before Brogten became thoroughly ashamed that his malice should be tried and despised, and he would have proceeded to more overt acts of hatred had he not been one day informed by Lillyston that the Hartonians generally had heard of his proceedings, and that if he continued them he would be universally cut. For, indeed, such practical jokes as Brogten attempted are now almost unknown at Camford, and every man’s room is considered sacred in his absence. But although he desisted from this kind of malice, it was not long before Brogten was generally shunned by his former schoolfellows. He developed into such a thorough blackguard that, had it not been for his merits as an oarsman and a cricketer, even the countenance of Bruce and Lord Fitzurse would have been insufficient to prevent him from being deserted by all the undergraduates of Saint Werner’s, except that small and wretched class who take refuge from vacuity in the society of cads, dog-fanciers, and grooms.

Yet Brogten’s Harton education, idle as he had been, sufficed to make him see that he was sinking lower and lower, not only in the world’s estimation, but in his own. Unable to make the mental effort which the least approach to study would have required, he suffered his few intellectual faculties to grow more and more gross and stolid, and spent his mornings in smoking, drinking beer, or lounging in the rooms of some one as idle and discontented as himself. It was sad to see the change which even in his first term came over his face; it was not the change from boyhood to youth which gave a manlier beauty to the almost feminine delicacy of Julian’s features, but it was a look in which effrontery supplied the place of self-dependence, and coarseness was the substitute for strength. Beer in the morning, and brandy in the evening, cards, and low company, and vice, made him sink into a degradation from which he was only redeemed by the still lingering ambition to excel in athletic sports, and by the manly exercises which rescued him for a time from such dissipation as would have incapacitated him from shining in the boat or in the field.

Lillyston was a singular contrast with Brogten; originally they were about equal in ability, position, and strength. They had entered school in the same form, and, until Julian came, they had generally been placed near each other in the quarterly examinations. Both of them were strong and active, and without being clever or brilliant they were both possessed of respectable powers of mind. Both of them had been in the Harton eleven, and now each of them was already in the second boat of their respective clubs; but with all these similarities Lillyston was beginning to be one of the men most liked and respected among all the best sets of his own year, and was reading for honours with a fair chance of ultimate success, while Brogten was looked on as a low and stupid fellow, whose company was discreditable, and whose doings were a disgrace to his old school.

The two presented much the same contrast as was also visible between Julian and Bruce. While Julian and Lillyston had mutually influenced each other for good, while they had been growing up together in warm and honourable friendship, thinking whatsoever things are pure and true and of good report, the other two had only fostered each other’s vanity, and rather encouraged than checked each other’s failings. At school they were always exchanging the grossest flattery, and the lessons and tendencies which each had derived from the other’s society were lessons of weakness and sin alone. And now Bruce was looked on at Saint Werner’s as a vain, empty fellow, living on a reputation for cleverness which he had never justified,—low, dressy, and extravagant, despised by the reading men, (whose society he affected to avoid), for his weakness and want of resolution; by the real athletes for his deficiency in strength and pluck, and by the aristocrats, (whose rooms he most frequented), for the ill-concealed obscurity of his father’s origin, and the ill-understood source of his wealth. Since he first astonished the men of his year by the brilliancy of his entertainments and the gorgeousness of his rooms, he had steadily declined in general estimation among all whose regard was most really valuable, and he would have found few among his immense acquaintance who cared as much for him as they did for his good dinners and recherché wines. Julian, on the other hand, who knew far fewer men, could count among his new and old companions some real friends—friends who would cling to him in adversity as well as in prosperity, and who loved him for his own sake, whether his fortunes were in sunshine or in cloud. First among these newly-acquired friends he counted the names of Owen and Kennedy, among the old ones of Lillyston and De Vayne. But, besides these, he had been sought out by all the most distinguished men among the Saint Werner’s undergraduates, while Mr Admer, who improved immensely on acquaintance, had introduced him to some of the most genial and least exclusive dons. Even Mr Grayson used to address him with something approaching to warmth, and so high was his general reputation, that he had no difficulty in making the acquaintance of every man of his college, whom he in the least cared to see or know.

Brogten was one of those who perceived these contrasts, and the bitter intense malice with which they filled him was one of the evil feelings which helped to drag him down from following out his occasional resolutions for better things.

Strange that a few weeks could produce such differences but so it was. At the end of those few weeks Bruce went back to take part in his mother’s splendid theatricals and routs, with a consciousness of neglected opportunities and wasted times even if his conscience laid no worse sins to his charge. Brogten went back, cursing himself and all around him, with the violent self-accusations of a reprobate obstinacy, a man in vice, though hardly more than a boy in years. Kennedy went back happy on the whole, happy above all in the certainty that he had made in Julian one noble friend. Lillyston went back happy, well-pleased with the sense of duty done, and the prime of life well and innocently enjoyed. And Julian went back in the same train with De Vayne, happy too, with a mind strengthened and expanded, with knowledge deepened and widened, with an honourable ambition opening before him, and friends and a fair position already won. All these results had sprung from those few and swiftly-gliding weeks.

The Christmas time passed very pleasantly for the Homes. They had few relations, and Lady Vinsear had dropped all intercourse with them, but they were happy in themselves. Violet, too, had the pleasure of forming an acquaintance with Kennedy’s sister Eva, who, with her aunt, happened to be paying a short visit to a family in the neighbourhood. Frank and Cyril were at home for their holidays, and the house and garden at Ildown rang all day long with their merry voices and incessant games. Old Christmas observances were not yet obsolete in Ildown, and Yule logs and royal feasts were the order of the day. The bright, clear, frosty air—the sparkling sea and freshening wind—a lovely country, a united and cheerful family, and the delights of moderate study, made the weeks speed by in pure enjoyment. With his mother, his brothers, and Violet, Julian felt the need of no other society, but he corresponded with Kennedy and other college friends, and saw a great deal of Lord De Vayne, who continually rode over to pass the Sunday with them at Ildown, and sometimes persuaded all the Homes to come and spend the day with him and his mother in the beautiful but lonely grounds of Other Hall.

Whenever they accepted the invitation, the young and pensive viscount seemed another man. He would join in the boys’ mirth with the most joyous alacrity, and talked to Violet with such vivacity that none who saw him would believe what a shade of melancholy usually hung over his mind. His life had been spent in seclusion, and he had never yet seen any to whom his heart turned with such affection as he felt for Julian and Violet. His mother observed it, and often thought that if she saw in Violet Home the future Lady De Vayne, a source of happiness was laid up for her only son, which would fulfil, and more than fulfil, her fondest prayers. It never occurred to her to think that he would do better to choose a bride among the noblest and wealthiest houses of England, rather than in the orphan family of a poor and unknown clergyman. What she sought for him was goodness and usefulness, not grandeur or riches; a lonely and sorrowful life had taught her at how slight a value rank and wealth are to be reckoned in any high or true estimate of the meaning of human life; nor did it add greatly to her desire for such a match that Violet, with her bright hair, and soft eyes, and graceful figure—with her sweet musical voice, and the rippling silver of her laugh, and the rich imagery which filled her fancy—might well have fulfilled the ideal of a poet’s dream. But Violet was still very young, and none of Lady De Vayne’s hopes had ever for an instant crossed her mind.

Julian was at this time, and had been for some months, intensely occupied with the thought and desire of winning the Clerkland scholarship, a university scholarship of 60 pounds a year, open to general competition among all the undergraduates of less than one year’s standing. This scholarship was the favourite success of Camford life. It stamped at once a man’s position as one of the most prominent scholars of his year, and as the names of many remarkable men were found in the list of those who had already obtained it, it gave a strong prestige of future distinction and success. Julian had a peculiar reason for longing to gain it, because, with his Harton scholarship, it would not only enable him at once to enter his name as a pensioner, instead of a sizar, at Saint Werner’s, but even make him independent of all help from his family and guardians. There would have been reasons sufficient to account for his passionate desire for this particular distinction, even independently of his natural wish to justify the general opinion of his abilities, and the eager ambition caused by the formidable numbers of the other competitors. In short, at this time, to obtain the Clerkland scholarship was the most prominent personal desire in Julian’s heart, and could some genius have suddenly offered him the fulfilment of any one wish, this would undoubtedly have been the first to spring to his lips. He looked with emulation, almost with envy, on those who had won it before him; he almost knew by heart the list of Clerkland scholars; and when he returned to Camford, constantly discussed the chances of success in favour of the different candidates. Do not blame him; his motives were all high and blameless, although he at length turned over this thought so often in his mind as to recur to it with almost selfish iteration, and to regard success in this particular struggle as the one thing wanting to complete, or even to create his happiness.

He could not refrain from mentioning it at home, although, for the sake of preventing disappointment, he generally avoided dwelling on any of his school or college struggles. Deprecating his own abilities, it made him doubly anxious to find that not only did his Saint Werner’s contemporaries regard him as the favourite candidate, and bet upon him in the sporting circles, (although Brogten furiously took the largest odds against him), but, what was worse, his own family, always proud of him, seemed to regard his triumph as certain. Thus circumstanced, and most fondly avoiding every possibility of causing pain or disappointment to that thrice-loved circle, of which he regarded himself as the natural protector and head, he was more than ever determined to do his very utmost to prevent failure, and give them the lasting pride and pleasure which they would all receive by seeing his name in the public papers as Clerkland scholar.

“Come, Julian, and let’s have a row or a sail,” said Cyril one morning to him, as he sat at work. “Frank and I have nothing to do to-day.”

“Not to-day, Cyril, my boy. I really must do some work; you know De Vayne made me ride with him yesterday, and I’ve done very little the last day or two.”

“I wish I liked work as you do, Julian.”

“It isn’t only that I like work, (though I do),” said Julian; “but you know a good deal depends on it.”

“Oh! I know!” said Cyril; “you mean the Clerkland scholarship; but never mind, Julian, Lord De Vayne told me you were sure of that.”

“Did he?” said Julian, a little anxiously; “then for goodness’ sake, don’t believe him. It’s very kind of him to say so—but he’s quite mistaken.”

“Ah, you always say so beforehand, you know. You used to say that about the Harton scholarship, Julian, and yet you see? Do come.”

“Well, I’ll come,” said Julian, smiling a little sadly. “But, Cyril, don’t, pray, say anything of that kind to mother or to Violet, for if I should fail it would make me doubly sad.”

Cyril, thanking Julian, and still laughingly prophesying success, ran out to tell Frank; and, when he had gone, Julian stamped his foot passionately on the ground, and said half-aloud, “I will get this Clerkland, I will get it, I must get it.”

He paused a moment, and then, raising his eyes and hands to heaven, prayed that “God would do for him that which was best for his highest welfare;” but even as he prayed, he secretly determined that obtaining the Clerkland scholarship was, and must necessarily be, the best piece of worldly prosperity that could possibly happen to him.

Chapter Eleven.

Screwed In.

Reader, if the latter part of the preceding chapter has been dull to you, it is because you have never entered into the devouring ambition which, in a matter of this kind, actuates a young man’s heart when he is aiming at his first grand distinction—an ambition which, if selfishly encouraged, becomes dangerous both to health and peace, and works powerfully, perhaps by a merciful provision, to the defeat of its own darling hope.

As long as Julian had been at home, a thousand objects helped to divert his thoughts from their one cherished desire; but when he returned to Camford, finding the Clerkland a frequent subject of discussion among the men, even in hall, and constantly meeting others who were as absorbed in the thought of the approaching examination as himself, he once more fell into the vortex, and thought comparatively of little else.

As yet he had had no means of measuring himself with others, except so far as the lecture-room enabled him to judge of the abilities of some few in his own college. Under these circumstances all conjecture must have seemed to be idle; but somehow or other at Camford, by a sort of intuition, the exact place a man will ultimately take is often prophesied from the first with wonderful accuracy. Saint Werner’s, being by far the largest college at Camford, supplied the majority of the candidates, and Julian, Owen, and Kennedy were all three mentioned as likely to be first; but the rival ranks of Saint Margaret’s boasted their champions also, and almost every small college nursed some prodigy of its own, for which it vehemently predicted an easy and indisputable success.

Owen was the competitor whom Julian most really feared; educated at Roslyn, a comparatively small school, his scholarship was not so ready and polished as that acquired by the training of Marlby and Harton, but, on the other hand, he had improved greatly in the short time he had been at Saint Werner’s, and besides his sound knowledge he had a strong-headed common sense, and a clearness and steadiness of purpose, more valuable than a quick fancy and refined taste. In composition, and in all the lighter and more graceful requirements of a classical examination, Julian had an undoubted superiority, but Owen was his equal, if not his master, in the power of unravelling intricacies and understanding logic; and, besides this, Owen was a better mathematician, and, although classics had considerable preponderance, yet one mathematical paper always formed part of the Clerkland examination. Kennedy who, if he had properly employed his time, would have been no mean rival to either of them, had unfortunately been so idle, and continued to be so gay and idle even for the weeks immediately preceding the examination, that they all felt his chance to be gone. He acknowledged the fact himself, with something between a laugh and sigh, and only threatening to catch them both up in the classical tripos, he resigned all hope for himself, and threw all his wishes into the scale of Julian’s endeavours. And although Owen was liked and respected, there was no doubt that Julian was regarded throughout the University as the popular candidate; the Hartonians especially, who had carried off the prize for several years, were confident that he would win them another victory.

As the time drew near, Julian became more and more feverish with eagerness, and his friends feared that he would hinder, by over reading, his real probability of success. Kennedy felt this most strongly, but being himself engaged in the competition, was afraid that any attempt to divert Julian’s thoughts would not have a disinterested look. Lillyston and De Vayne, unrestrained by such motives, did all they could to take him from his books, and amuse him by turning his attention to other subjects; but with such strong reasons for exertion, and so much depending on success or failure, the Clerkland scholarship continued ever the prominent subject of Julian’s thoughts.

At last the long looked for week arrived. After chapel, on the Sunday morning, De Vayne invited himself to breakfast with Julian, and continued in his company the greater part of the day, going with him to the University sermon. He entirely forbade Julian even to allude more than once to the coming examination, and managed in the evening to get him to come to his rooms, where, with some other Hartonians and Kennedy, they spent a very pleasant evening.

“Good-night,” he said to Julian, as he strolled with him to his stair-case across the starlight court; “don’t stay up to-night. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”

The examination was to last a week, and Julian rose for it refreshed and cheerful on Monday morning. The papers suited him excellently, and his hopes rose higher and higher as he felt that in each paper he had done to the utmost of his knowledge and ability. He had not been able to afford a private tutor during the term, with whom he might have discussed the papers, but he sent his Iambics and Latin verse to Mr Carden at Harton, who wrote back a most favourable and encouraging judgment of them, and seemed to regard Julian’s success as certain. Julian had implicit confidence in his opinion, for Mr Carden entered very warmly into all his hopes and wishes, and kept up with him an affectionate correspondence, which had helped him out of many intellectual difficulties, and lessened the force of many a temptation.

The papers usually lasted from nine till twelve in the morning, and from two to four in the afternoon. It was on the Friday morning, when only three more papers remained, that Julian found Mr Carden’s kind and hopeful letter lying on his breakfast-table at eight o’clock; he read it with a glow of pleasure, because he knew that he could rely thoroughly on the accuracy and truth of his old tutor’s judgment, and as he read and re-read it, his hopes rose higher and higher. Finishing breakfast, he began to build castles in the air, and to imagine to himself the delight it would be to write and tell the Doctor and Mr Carden of this new leaf to the Harton laurels. Never before had he a more reasonable ground for favourable expectation, and he began almost to run over in his mind the sort of letter he would write, and the kind of things he would say. Leaning over his window-sill, he enjoyed the cool feeling of the early spring breeze on his brow and hair, and then, finding by his watch that it was time to start, he took his cap and gown, and prepared to sally out to the senate-house.

It was the custom of the gyp, when he had laid breakfast, and put the kettle on the fire, to go away and “sport the oak,” (i e, shut the outer door), so as to prevent any one from coming into the rooms until their owner was awake and dressed. Julian therefore was not surprised to see his door “sported,” but was surprised to find that, when he lifted the latch, the door did not open to his touch. He pushed it with some force, and then kicked it with his foot to see if some stone or coal had not caught against it, but the door still remained obstinately closed; he put his shoulder against it, fancying that some heavy weight like the coal-box or water-pitcher might have been placed outside,—but all in vain; the thick door did not even stir, and then there flashed upon Julian the bitter truth that he had been screwed in. He understood now the stifled titter which he fancied he had heard after one of his most violent efforts to get out.

In one instant, before he had time to think, a fit of blind, passionate, uncontrollable fury had clouded and overpowered Julian’s whole mind. Almost unconscious of what he was doing, he kicked the door with all his might, and beat on it savagely with his clenched fists until his knuckles streamed with blood; he forgot everything but the one burning determination to get out at all hazards, and to wreak on Brogten, whom he felt to be the author of his calamity, some desperate and terrible revenge. But the thick oak door, screwed evidently with much care; and in many places, resisted all his efforts, and no one came to help him from outside. The gyp, who was usually about, happened to have gone on an errand; the stair-case was one of the most secluded in the college; the Fellow who was Julian’s nearest neighbour had “gone down” for a few days, and it was improbable that any one ever heard him except Brogten, to whom, he thought, every sound of his angry violence would be perfect music.

All was useless, and Julian, as he strode up and down the room, clenched his hands, and bit his lips in passionate excitement. Suddenly it struck him that he would escape by the window; but looking out for the purpose, he found that, when he had jumped on the sloping roof below him, he was still thirty feet above the ground, which, in that place, was not the turf of the bowling-green, but a hard gravel road. Giving up the attempt in despair he sat down, and covered his face with his hands; but instantly the picture of the senate-house, with the sixty candidates who were trying for the scholarship, all writing at some new paper—while he was thus cut off, (as he thought), from the long-desired accomplishment of all his hopes—rose before his eyes, and springing up once more he seized the poker, and raising it over his shoulder like a hammer, brought down the heavy iron knob with a crash on the oaken panels. He struck again and again, but, by a shower of fierce blows, could only succeed in covering the door with deep round dents. Finally he seized the heaviest chair in the room, and dashed it savagely with one heavy drive against the unyielding oak; a second blow shivered the chair to splinters, and Julian, a compulsory prisoner at that excited moment, flung himself on the sofa, furious and weary, with something that sounded like a fierce imprecation.

Full twenty minutes had been occupied by his futile and frantic efforts, and for a few moments longer he sat still in a stupor of grief and rage. Meanwhile, several of the other competitors for the Clerkland had noticed his absence in the senate-house, and Owen and Kennedy kept directing anxious glances to the door, and dreading that he was ill. At last half an hour had elapsed, and Kennedy, unable any longer to endure the suspense, went up to the examiner and said—

“One of the candidates is absent, sir. Would you allow me to go and inquire the reason?”

“Who is it?” asked the examiner.

“Home, sir.”

“Indeed. But I am afraid I cannot allow you to leave the senate-house; the rules, you know, on this subject are necessarily very strict.”

“Then, sir, I will merely show up what I have written, for I am sure there must be some unusual reason for Home’s absence.”

“Oh, no, Mr Kennedy, pray don’t do so,” said the examiner, who knew how well Kennedy had been doing; “I will send the University marshal to inquire for Mr Home; it is a very unusual compliment to pay him, but I think it may be as well to do so.”

It so happened that, as the marshal crossed the court to Julian’s rooms, Lillyston and De Vayne, who were strolling towards the grounds, caught sight of him, and went with much curiosity to inquire the object of his errand.

“Home not in the senate-house,” said Lillyston, on hearing the marshal’s answer. “Good heavens, what can be the matter?” and without waiting to hear more, he darted to Julian’s door, and called his name.

“What do you want?” said Julian in a fretful and angry voice.

“Why are you sported? And why aren’t you in for the Clerkland?”

“Can’t you see, then?”

“What! So you are screwed in,” said Lillyston in deep surprise; “wait three minutes, Julian, three minutes, and I will let you out.”

He sprang down-stairs, four steps at a time, borrowed a screwdriver at the porter’s lodge, was back in a moment, and then with quick and skilful hand he drew out, one after another, the screws which had been driven deep into the door.

Julian lifted the latch inside, and Lillyston saw with surprise and pain his scared and wild glance. Julian said not a word, but rushed past his friend, and burst furiously into Brogten’s room. Fortunately Brogten was not in, for the moment he heard steps approaching, he had purposely gone out; but Lillyston followed Julian, and said—

“Come, this is folly, Julian; you have not a moment to lose. You will be already nearly an hour late, and remember that the Clerkland may depend upon it.”

He suffered himself to be led, but as he walked he was still silent, and seemed as though he were trying to gulp down some hard knot that rose in his throat. His expression was something totally different from anything that Lillyston had ever observed in him, even from a boy, and his feet seemed to waver under him as he walked.

De Vayne joined them in the court, and was quite startled to see Julian looking so ill. He saw that it was no time to trouble him with idle inquiries, and merely pressed him to come into his rooms and take some wine before going to do the paper. Julian silently complied. The kind-hearted young viscount took out a bottle of wine, of which Julian swallowed off a tumblerful, and then, without speaking a word, strode off to the senate-house, which he reached pale and agitated, attracting, as he entered, the notice and commiseration of all present.

The examiner, with a kind word of encouragement, and an inquiry as to the cause of his delay, which Julian left unanswered, promised to allow him in the evening as much additional time for doing the paper as he had already lost. Julian bowed, and walked to his place.

And now that he was seated, with the paper before him, he found himself in a condition to do nothing. His mind was in a tumult of wrath and sorrow. Bitter sorrow that his hopes should be shattered; fiery wrath that any one should have treated him with such malignant cruelty. His brain swam giddily, and his head throbbed with violent pain. His hands were still raw and bleeding with his efforts to burst open the door; and the consciousness that his whole appearance was wild, and that several eyes were upon him, unnerved him so completely, that he was quite unable to collect or control his scattered senses. He made but little progress. The clock of Saint Mary’s told the passing hours, and at twelve Julian found himself with nothing written except a few half-finished and incoherent sentences which he was ashamed to show up. Dashing the nib of his pen on the desk, he split it to pieces; and then, tearing up his papers, was hurrying out, when the voice of the examiner suddenly recalled him.

“You have not shown me up any papers, Mr Home.”

“No, sir,” he answered sullenly.

“Indeed! But why?”

“I have not done any, sir.”

“Really. I am sorry for that. It is a serious matter, for you have been doing remarkably well, and— Are you not feeling well?”

“No, sir, not exactly.”

“Hum! Well, it is a great pity; a great pity; a very great pity. However—”

There seemed to be no more to say, and as Julian’s mind was in too turbulent a state to allow of his being communicative, he did not trust himself to make any remark, and left the room.

Kennedy, who came up with him as he went out, asked what was the matter; but as he only answered with an impatient gesture, and evidently seemed to wish to be alone, Kennedy left him and went to inquire of Lillyston what had happened, while Julian hastened to the solitude of his own room, and breaking with his poker one of the outer hinges of his door, to secure himself from a second imprisonment, flung himself on a chair, and pressed his hands to his burning forehead. In his bitterness of soul he half determined to abandon all further attempt to gain the Clerkland, and dwelt, with galling recurrence, on the anguish of defeated aims. But the sound of the clock striking the hour of examination started him into sudden effort, and almost mechanically he seized his cap and gown, and went out without food and unrefreshed.

Although he endeavoured, with all his might, to shake off all thought of the morning’s insult and misfortune, he only partially succeeded, and when he folded up his papers, he felt that the fire and energy which had shone so conspicuously during the earlier days of the examination, and had imparted such strength and brilliancy to his efforts, were utterly extinguished, and had left him wandering and weak. When the time was over, he went to De Vayne’s rooms, and said abruptly—

“De Vayne, will you lend me your riding-whip?”

“Certainly,” said De Vayne, starting up to meet him.

“Are you going to have a ride? I wish you would ride my horse; I’ll hire another, and come with you.”

“No; I don’t want a ride.”

“What do you want the whip for, then?” said De Vayne uneasily.

“Nothing. Let me go; it must be time for you to go to hall.”

“I’m not going to dine in hall to-day,” said De Vayne. “Dining at the high table, with none but dons to talk to, is dull work for an undergraduate. Stop! you shall dine with me here, Julian. I know you won’t care to go to hall to-day. Nay, you shall,” he said, putting his back against the door; “I shall be as dull as night without you.”

He made Julian stay, for it happened that at that moment his gyp brought up dinner, and Julian, hungry and weary, was tempted to sit down. De Vayne, who only too well divined his reason for borrowing the whip, was delighted at having succeeded in detaining him, for he knew that the only time when Julian would be likely to meet Brogten was immediately after hall.

Wiling away the time with exquisite tact—talking to him without pressing him to talk much in reply—turning his thoughts to indifferent subjects, until he had succeeded in arousing his interest—the young viscount detained his guest till evening, and then persuaded him to have tea. Lord De Vayne played well on the piano, and knowing Julian’s passion for music, was rewarded for his unselfish efforts by complete success in rousing his attention. He played some of the finest passages of a recent and beautiful oratorio, until Julian almost forgot his troubles, and was ready to talk with more freedom and in a kindlier mood.

“You surely won’t want the whip now,” said De Vayne in some dismay, as Julian picked it up on saying good-night.

“Yes, I shall,” answered Julian. “Good-night!”

Chapter Twelve.

A Gust of the Soul.

“Once more will the wronger, at this last of all. Dare to say ‘I did wrong,’ rising in his fall?” Browning.

The story of Brogten’s practical joke, and the circumstances which made it so unusually disgraceful, spread with lightning-like rapidity through Saint Werner’s College; and when he swaggered into hall with his usual self-confident air, he was surprised to find himself met with cold and even with frowning looks. Snatches of conversation which went on around him soon showed him the reason of the general disapprobation; and when he learnt how violently the current of popular opinion was beginning to set against him, and how unfavourable a view was taken of his conduct, he began seriously to regret that he had given the reins to his malice.