Chapter One.

Speech-Day at Harton.

“A little bench of heedless bishops there,
And here a chancellor in embryo.”
Shenstone.

It was Speech-day at Harton. From an early hour handsome equipages had been dashing down the street, and depositing their occupants at the masters’ houses. The perpetual rolling of wheels distracted the attention every moment, and curiosity was keenly on the alert to catch a glimpse of the various magnates whose arrival was expected. At the Queen’s Head stood a large array of carriages, and the streets were thronged with gay groups of pedestrians, and full of bustle and liveliness.

The visitors—chiefly parents and relatives of the Harton boys—occupied the morning in seeing the school and village, and it was a pretty sight to observe mothers and sisters as they wandered with delighted interest through the scenes so proudly pointed out to them by their young escort. Some of them were strolling over the cricket-field, or through the pleasant path down to the bathing-place. Many lingered in the beautiful chapel, on whose painted windows the sunlight streamed, making them flame like jewellery, and flinging their fair shadows of blue, and scarlet, and crimson, on the delicate carving of the pillars on either side. But, on the whole, the boys were most proud of showing their friends the old school-room, on whose rude panels many a name may be deciphered, carved there by the boyish hand of poets, orators, and statesmen, who in the zenith of their fame still looked back with fond remembrance on the home of their earlier days, and some of whom were then testifying by their presence the undying interest which they took in their old school.

The pleasant morning wore away, and the time for the Speeches drew on. The room was thronged with a distinguished company, and presented a brilliant and animated appearance. In the centre was a table loaded with prize-books, and all round it sat the secular and episcopal dignitaries for whom seats had been reserved, while the chair was occupied by a young Prince of the royal house. On the other side was a slightly elevated platform, on which were seated the monitors who were to take part in the day’s proceedings, and behind it, under the gallery set apart for old Hartonians, crowded a number of gentlemen and boys who could find no room elsewhere.

“Now, papa,” said a young lady sitting opposite the monitors, “I’ve been asking Walter here which is the cleverest of those boys.”

“Ahem! young men you mean,” interrupted her elder sister.

“No, no,” said Walter positively, “call them boys; to call them young men is all bosh; we shall have ‘young gentlemen’ next, which is awful twaddle.”

“Well, which of those boys on the platform is the cleverest—the greatest swell he calls it? Now you profess to be a physiognomist, papa, so just see if you can guess.”

“I’m to look out for some future Byron or Peel among them; eh, Walter?”

“Yes.”

The old gentleman put on his spectacles, and deliberately looked round the row of monitors, who were awaiting the Headmaster’s signal to begin the speeches.

“Well, haven’t you done yet, papa? What an age you are. Walter says you ought to tell at a glance.”

“Patience, my dear, patience. I’ll tell you in a minute.”

“There,” he said, after a moment’s pause, “that boy seated last but one on the bench nearest us has more genius than any of them, I should say.” He pointed to one of the youngest-looking of the monitors, who would also have been the most striking in personal appearance had not the almost hectic rose-colour of his cheeks, and the quiet shining of his blue eyes, under the soft hair that hung over his forehead, given a look of greater delicacy than was desirable in a boyish face.

“Wrong, wrong, wrong,” chuckled Walter and his sister. “Try again.”

“I’m very rarely wrong, you little rogue, in spite of you; but I’ll look again. No, there can be no doubt about it. Several of those faces show talent, but one only has a look of genius, and that is the face of the boy I pointed out before. What is his name?”

“Oh, that’s Home. He’s clever enough in his way, but the fellow you ought to have picked out is the monitor I fag for—Bruce, the head of the school.”

“Well, show me your hero.”

“There he sits, right in the middle of them, opposite us. There, that’s he just going to speak now.”

He pointed to a tall, handsome fellow, with a look of infinite self-confidence, who at that moment made a low bow to the assembly, and then began to recite with much force a splendid burst of oratory from one of Burke’s great speeches; which he did with the air of one who had no doubt that Burke himself might have studied with benefit the scorn which he flung into his invective and the Olympian grace with which he waved his arm. A burst of applause followed the conclusion of his recitation, during which Bruce took his seat with a look of unconcealed delight and triumph.

“There, papa—what do you think of that? Wasn’t I right now?” said the young Hartonian, whose name was Walter Thornley.

But the old gentleman’s only answer was a quiet smile, and he had not joined in the general clapping. “Is Home to take any part in the speeches?” he inquired.

“Oh, yes! He’s got some part or other in one of the Shakespeare scenes; but he won’t do it half as well as Bruce.”

“I observe he’s got several of the prizes.”

“Yes, that’s true. He’s a fellow that grinds, you know, and so he can’t help getting some. But Bruce, now, never opens a book, and yet he’s swept off no end of a lot, as you’ll see.”

“Humph! Walter, I don’t much believe in your boys that ‘never open a book,’ and, as far as I can observe, the phrase must be taken with very considerable latitude; I still believe that the boy who ‘grinds,’ as you call it, is the abler boy of the two.”

“Yes, Walter,” said his brother, an old Hartonian, “whenever a fellow, who has got a prize, tells you he won it without opening a book, set him down as a shallow puppy, and don’t believe him.”

By this time four of the monitors were standing up to recite a scene from the Merchant of Venice, and Home among them; his part was a very slight one, and although there was nothing remarkable in his way of acting, yet he had evidently studied with intelligence his author’s meaning, and his modest self-possession attracted favourable regards. But, a few minutes after, he had to recite alone a passage of Tennyson’s Morte d’Arthur, and then he appeared to greater advantage. Standing in a perfectly natural attitude, he began in low clear tones, enunciating every line with a distinctness that instantly won attention, and at last warming with his theme he modulated his voice with the requirements of the verse, and used gestures so graceful, yet so unaffected, that when with musical emphasis he spoke the last lines,—

“Long stood Sir Bedivere
Resolving many memories, till the hull
Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away,—”

he seemed entirely absorbed in the subject, and for half a minute stood as if unconscious, until the deep murmur of applause startled his meditations, and he sat down as naturally as he had risen.

“Well done, old Home,” said Walter; while Mr Thornley nodded rapidly two or three times, and murmured after him,—

“And on the mere the wailing died away.”

“Really, I think Julian did that admirably, did he not?” said a young and lovely girl to her mother, as Home sat down.

“By jingo,” whispered Walter, “I believe these people just by us are Home’s people.”

“People!” said his sister; “what do you mean by his people?”

“Oh, you know, Mary; you girls are always shamming you don’t understand plain English. I mean his people.”

Mary smiled, and looked at the strangers. “Yes, no doubt of it,” she said, “that young lady has just the same features as Mr Home, only softened a little; more refined they could not be. And they’ve been hearing all your rude remarks, Walter, no doubt.”

The boy was right, for when the speeches were over, they saw Home offer his arm to the two ladies and lead them out into the courtyard, where everybody was waiting, under the large awning, to hear the lions of the day cheered as they came down the school steps. Bruce was leading the cheers; he seemed to know everybody and everybody to know him, and as group after group passed him, he was bowing and smiling repeatedly while he listened to the congratulations which were lavished upon him from all sides. Among the last his own family came out, and when he gave his arm to his mother and descended the school steps, one of the other monitors suddenly cried—

“Three cheers for the Head of the school.”

The boys cordially echoed the cheers, and taking off his hat, Bruce stood still with a flush of exultation on his handsome face, in an attitude peculiar to him whenever he was undergoing an ovation.

“Pose plastique; King Bruce snuffing up the incense of flattery!” muttered a school Thersites, standing by.

“Green-minded scoundrel,” was the reply; “that’s because he beat you to fits in the Latin verse.”

“How very popular he seems to be, Julian,” said Miss Home to her brother, as they stood rather apart from the fashionable crowd.

“Very popular, and, on the whole, he deserves his popularity; how capitally he recited to-day,” and Julian looked at him and sighed.

“And now, mother, will you come to lunch?” he said; “you’re invited to my tutor’s, you know.”

They went and took a hasty lunch, heartily enjoying the simple and general good-humour which was the order of the day; and finding that there was still an hour before the train started which was to convey them home, Julian took them up to the old churchyard, and while they enjoyed the only breath of air which made the tall elms murmur in the burning day, he showed them the beautiful scene spread out at their feet, and the distant towers of Elton and Saint George. Field after field, filled with yellowing harvests or grazing herds, stretched away to the horizon, and nothing on earth could be fairer than that soft sleep of the golden sunshine on the green and flowery meadowland, while overhead only a few silvery cloudlets variegated with their fleecy lustre the expanse of blue, rippling down to the horizon like curves of white foam at the edges of a summer sea.

“No wonder a poet loved this view,” said Mrs Home. “By the bye, Julian, which is the tomb he used to lie upon?”

“There, just behind us; that one with the fragments broken off by stupid picturesque tourists, with the name of Peachey on it.”

“And so Byron really used, as a boy, to rest under these elms, and look at this lovely view!” said his sister.

“Yes, Violet. I wonder how much he’d have given, in after-life, to be a boy again,” said Julian thoughtfully; “and have a fresh start—a rejuvenescence, beginning after a summer hour spent on Peachey’s tomb;” and Julian sighed again.

“My dear Julian,” said Violet, gaily rallying him, “what a boy you are! What business have you to sigh here of all places, and now of all times? That’s the second time in the course of an hour that I’ve heard you. Imagine a Harton monitor sighing twice on Speech-day! You must be tired of us.”

“Did I sigh? Abominably rude of me. I really didn’t mean it,” said Julian; and shaking off the influences which had slightly depressed him for the moment, he began to laugh and joke with the utmost mirth until it became time to meet the train. He accompanied his mother and sister to the station, bade them an affectionate farewell, and then walked slowly back, for the beauty of the summer evening made him loiter on the way.

“Poor Julian!” said Violet to her mother when the train started; “he lets the sense of responsibility weigh on him too much, I’m afraid.”

But Julian was thinking that the next time he came to the station would probably be at the end of term, when his schoolboy days would be over. He leaned against a gate, and looked long at the green quiet hill, with its tall spire and embosoming trees, till he fell into a reverie.

A slap on the back awoke him, and turning round, he saw the genial, good-humoured face of one of his fellow-monitors, Hugh Lillyston.

“Well, Julian, dreaming as usual—castle-building, and all that sort of thing, eh?”

“No; I was thinking how soon one will have to bid good-bye to dear old Harton. How well the chapel looks from here, doesn’t it?—and the church towering above it.”

“The chapel being like a fair daughter seated at her mother’s feet, as your poetical tutor remarked the other day. Well, Julian, I’m glad we shall leave together, anyhow. Come and have some tea.”

Julian went to his friend’s room. The fag brought the tea and toast, and they spent a merry evening, chatting over the speeches, and the way in which the day had gone off. At lock-up, Julian went to write some letters, and then feeling the melancholy thought of future days stealing over him, he plunged into a book of poems till it was bed-time, being disturbed a good deal, however, by the noisy mirth which resounded long after forbidden hours from Bruce’s study overhead. Bruce was also to leave Harton in a month, and they were going up together to Saint Werner’s College, Camford. But the difference was, that Bruce went up wealthy and popular; Julian, whose retiring disposition and refined tastes won him far fewer though truer friends, was going up as a sizar, with no prospect of remaining at the University unless he won himself the means of doing so by his own success. It was this thought that had made him sigh.