Flora took Margaret's advice, and did not reproach Ethel, for a little reflection convinced her that she should make a silly figure in so doing, and she did not like altercations.
It was the same evening that Norman came in from school with his hands full of papers, and, with one voice, his father and Ethel exclaimed, "You have them?"
"Yes;" and he gave the letter to his father, while Blanche, who had a very inquisitive pair of eyes, began to read from a paper he placed on the table.
"'Norman Walter, son of Richard and Margaret May, High Street, Doctor of Medicine, December 21st, 18--. Thomas Ramsden.'"
"What is that for, Norman?" and, as he did not attend, she called Mary to share her speculations, and spell out the words.
"Ha!" cried Dr. May, "this is capital! The old doctor seems not to know how to say enough for you. Have you read it?"
"No, he only told me he had said something in my favour, and wished me all success."
"Success!" cried Mary. "Oh, Norman, you are not going to sea too?"
"No, no!" interposed Blanche knowingly--" he is going to be married. I heard nurse wish her brother success when he was going to marry the washerwoman with a red face."
"No," said Mary, "people never are married till they are twenty."
"But I tell you," persisted Blanche, "people always write like this, in a great book in church, when they are married. I know, for we always go into church with Lucy and nurse when there is a wedding."
"Well, Norman, I wish you success with the bride you are to court," said Dr. May, much diverted with the young ladies' conjectures.
"But is it really?" said Mary, making her eyes as round as full moons.
"Is it really?" repeated Blanche. "Oh, dear! is Norman going to be married? I wish it was to be Meta Rivers, for then I could always ride her dear little white pony."
"Tell them," whispered Norman, a good deal out of countenance, as he leaned over Ethel, and quitted the room.
Ethel cried, "Now then!" and looked at her father, while Blanche and Mary reiterated inquiries--marriage, and going to sea, being the only events that, in their imagination, the world could furnish. Going to try for a Balliol scholarship! It was a sad falling off, even if they understood what it meant. The doctor's explanations to Margaret had a tone of apology for having kept her in ignorance, and Flora said few words, but felt herself injured; she had nearly gone to Mrs. Hoxton that afternoon, and how strange it would have been if anything had been said to her of her own brother's projects, when she was in ignorance.
Ethel slipped away to her brother, who was in his own room, surrounded with books, flushed and anxious, and trying to glance over each subject on which he felt himself weak.
"I shall fail! I know I shall!" was his exclamation. "I wish I had never thought of it!"
"What? did Dr. Hoxton think you not likely to succeed?" cried Ethel, in consternation.
"Oh! he said I was certain, but what is that? We Stoneborough men only compare ourselves with each other. I shall break down to a certainty, and my father will be disappointed."
"You will do your best?"
"I don't know that. My best will all go away when it comes to the point."
"Surely not. It did not go away last time you were examined, and why should it now?"
"I tell you, Ethel, you know nothing about it. I have not got up half what I meant to have done. Here, do take this book--try me whether I know this properly."
So they went on, Ethel doing her best to help and encourage, and Norman in an excited state of restless despair, which drove away half his senses and recollection, and his ideas of the superior powers of public schoolboys magnifying every moment. They were summoned downstairs to prayers, but went up again at once, and more than an hour subsequently, when their father paid one of his domiciliary visits, there they still were, with their Latin and Greek spread out, Norman trying to strengthen all doubtful points, but in a desperate desultory manner, that only confused him more and more, till he was obliged to lay his head down on the table, shut his eyes, and run his fingers through his hair, before he could recollect the simplest matter; his renderings alternated with groans, and, cold as was the room, his cheeks and brow were flushed and burning.
The doctor checked all this, by saying, gravely and sternly, "This is not right, Norman. Where are all your resolutions?"
"I shall never do it. I ought never to have thought of it! I shall never succeed!"
"What if you do not?" said Dr. May, laying his hand on his shoulder.
"What? why, Tom's chance lost--you will all be mortified," said Norman, hesitating in some confusion.
"I will take care of Tom," said Dr. May.
"And he will have been foiled!" said Ethel
"If he is?"
The boy and girl were both silent.
"Are you striving for mere victory's sake, Norman?" continued his father.
"I thought not," murmured Norman.
"Successful or not, you will have done your utmost for us. You would not lose one jot of affection or esteem, and Tom shall not suffer. Is it worth this agony?"
"No, it is foolish," said Norman, with trembling voice, almost as if he could have burst into tears. He was quite unnerved by the anxiety and toil with which he had overtasked himself, beyond his father's knowledge.
"Oh, papa!" pleaded Ethel, who could not bear to see him pained.
"It is foolish," continued Dr. May, who felt it was the moment for bracing severity. "It is rendering you unmanly. It is wrong."
Again Ethel made an exclamation of entreaty.
"It is wrong, I know," repeated Norman; "but you don't know what it is to get into the spirit of the thing."
"Do you think I do not?" said the doctor; "I can tell exactly what you feel now. If I had not been an idle dog, I should have gone through it all many more times."
"What shall I do?" asked Norman, in a worn-out voice.
"Put all this out of your mind, sleep quietly, and don't open another book."
Norman moved his head, as if sleep were beyond his power.
"I will read you something to calm your tone," said Dr. May, and he took up a Prayer-book. "'Know ye not, that they which run in a race, run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.' And, Norman, that is not the struggle where the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; nor the contest, where the conqueror only wins vanity and vexation of spirit."
Norman had cast down his eyes, and hardly made answer, but the words had evidently taken effect. The doctor only further bade him good- night, with a whispered blessing, and, taking Ethel by the hand, drew her away. When they met the next morning, the excitement had passed from Norman's manner, but he looked dejected and resigned. He had made up his mind to lose, and was not grateful for good wishes; he ought never to have thought, he said, of competing with men from public schools, and he knew his return of love of vain-glory deserved that he should fail. However, he was now calm enough not to be likely to do himself injustice by nervousness, and Margaret hid hopes that Richard's steady equable mind would have a salutary influence. So, commending Tom's lessons to Ethel, and hearing, but not marking, countless messages to Richard, he set forth upon his emprise, while his anxiety seemed to remain as a legacy for those at home.
Poor Dr. May confessed that his practice by no means agreed with his precept, for he could think of nothing else, and was almost as bad as Norman, in his certainty that the boy would fail from mere nervousness. Margaret was the better companion for him now, attaching less intensity of interest to Norman's success than did Ethel; she was the more able to compose him, and cheer his hopes.
CHAPTER XXX.
Weary soul, and burdened sore, Labouring with thy secret load, Fear not all thy griefs to pour In this heart, love's true abode. Lyra Innocentium.
Tea had just been brought in on the eig
hth evening from Norman's departure, when there was a ring at the bell. There was a start, and look of expectation. "Only a patient," said the doctor; but it surely was not for that reason that he rose with so much alacrity and opened the door, nor was "Well, old fellow?" the greeting for his patients--so everybody sprang after him, and beheld something tall taking off a coat, while a voice said, "I have got it."
The mass of children rushed back to Margaret, screaming, "He has got it!" and then Aubrey trotted out into the hall again to see what Norman had got.
"A happy face at least," said Margaret, as he came to her. And that was not peculiar to Norman. The radiance had shone out upon every one in that moment, and it was one buzz of happy exclamation, query, and answer--the only tone of regret when Mary spoke of Harry, and all at once took up the strain--how glad poor Harry would be. As to the examination, that had been much less difficult than Norman had expected; in fact, he said, it was lucky for him that the very subjects had been chosen in which he was most up--luck which, as the doctor could not help observing, generally did attend Norman. And Norman had been so happy with Richard; the kind, wise elder brother had done exactly what was best for him in soothing his anxiety, and had fully shared his feelings, and exulted in his success. Margaret had a most triumphant letter, dwelling on the abilities of the candidates whom Norman had outstripped, and the idea that every one had conceived of his talent. "Indeed," wrote Richard, "I fancy the men had never believed that I could have a clever brother. I am glad they have seen what Norman can do."
Margaret could not help reading this aloud, and it made Norman blush with the compunction that Richard's unselfish pride in him always excited. He had much to tell of his ecstasy with Oxford. Stoneborough Minster had been a training in appreciation of its hoary beauty, but the essentially prosaic Richard had never prepared him for the impression that the reverend old university made on him, and he was already, heart and soul, one of her most loyal and loving sons, speaking of his college and of the whole university as one who had a right of property in them, and looking, all the time, not elated, but contented, as if he had found his sphere and was satisfied. He had seen Cheviot, too, and had been very happy in the renewed friendship; and had been claimed as a cousin by a Balliol man, a certain Norman Ogilvie, a name well known among the Mays. "And how has Tom been getting on?" he asked, when he returned to home affairs.
"Oh, I don't know," said Ethel. "He will not have my help."
"Not let you help him!" exclaimed Norman.
"No. He says he wants no girls," said Ethel, laughing.
"Foolish fellow!" said Norman. "I wonder what sort of work he has made!"
"Very funny, I should think," said Ethel, "judging by the verses I could see."
The little, pale, rough-haired Tom, in his perpetual coating of dust, softly crept into the room, as if he only wanted to elude observation; but Mary and Blanche were at once vociferating their news in his ears, though with little encouragement--he only shook them off abruptly, and would not answer when they required him to be glad.
Norman stretched out his arm, intercepting him as he was making for his hiding-place behind Dr. May's arm-chair.
"Come, August, how have things gone on?"
"Oh! I don't know."
"What's your place?"
"Thirteenth!" muttered Tom in his throat, and well he might, for two or three voices cried out that was too bad, and that it was all his own fault, for not accepting Ethel's help. He took little heed, but crept to his corner without another word, and Mary knew she should be thumped if she should torment him there.
Norman left him alone, but the coldness of the little brother for whom he had worked gave a greater chill to his pleasure than he could have supposed possible. He would rather have had some cordiality on Tom's part, than all the congratulations that met him the next day.
He could not rest contented while Tom continued to shrink from him, and he was the more uneasy when, on Saturday morning, no calls from Mary availed to find the little boy, and bring him to the usual reading and Catechism.
Margaret decided that they must begin without him, and poor Mary's verse was read, in consequence, with a most dolorous tone. As soon as the books were shut, she ran off, and a few words passed among the elder ones about the truant--Flora opining that the Andersons had led him away; Ethel suggesting that his gloom must arise from his not being well; and Margaret looking wistfully at Norman, and saying she feared they had judged much amiss last spring. Norman heard in silence, and walked thoughtfully into the garden. Presently he caught Mary's voice in expostulation: "How could you not come to read?"
"Girls' work!" growled another voice, out of sight.
"But Norman, and Richard, and Harry, always come to the reading. Everybody ought."
Norman, who was going round the shrubs that concealed the speakers from him, here lost their voices, but, as he emerged in front of the old tool-house, he heard a little scream from Mary, and, at the same moment, she darted back, and fell over a heap of cabbage-stumps in front of the old tool-house. It was no small surprise to her to be raised by him, and tenderly asked whether she were hurt. She was not hurt, but she could not speak without crying, and when Norman begged to hear what was the matter, and where Tom was, she would only plead for him--that he did not intend to hurt her, and that she had been teasing him. What had he done to frighten her? Oh! he had only run at her with a hoe, because she was troublesome; she did not mind it, and Norman must not--and she clung to him as if to keep him back, while he pursued his researches in the tool-house, where, nearly concealed by a great bushel-basket, lurked Master Thomas, crouching down, with a volume of Gil Bias in his hand.
"You here, Tom! What have you hidden yourself here for? What can make you so savage to Mary?"
"She should not bother me," said Tom sulkily.
Norman sent Mary away, pacifying her by promises that he would not revenge her quarrel upon Tom, and then, turning the basket upside down, and perching himself astride on it, he began: "That is the kindest, most forgiving little sister I ever did see. What possesses you to treat her so ill?"
"I wasn't going to hurt her."
"But why drive her away? Why don't you come to read?" No answer; and Norman, for a moment, felt as if Tom were really hopelessly ill- conditioned and sullen, but he persevered in restraining his desire to cuff the ill-humour out of him, and continued, "Come! there's something wrong, and you will never be better till it is out. Tell me--don't be afraid. Those fellows have been at you again?"
He took Tom by the arm to draw him nearer, but a cry and start of pain were the result. "So they have licked you? Eh? What have they been doing?"
"They said they would spiflicate me if I told!" sighed Tom.
"They shall never do anything to you;" and, by-and-by, a sobbing confession was drawn forth, muttered at intervals, as low as if Tom expected the strings of onions to hear and betray him to his foes. Looking on him as a deserter, these town-boys had taken advantage of his brother's absence to heap on him every misery they could inflict. There had been a wager between Edward Anderson and Sam Axworthy as to what Tom could be made to do, and his personal timidity made him a miserable victim, not merely beaten and bruised, but forced to transgress every rule of right and wrong that had been enforced on his conscience. On Sunday, they had profited by the absence of their dux to have a jollification at a little public-house, not far from the playing-fields; and here had Tom been dragged in, forced to partake with them, and frightened with threats that he had treated them all, and was liable to pay the whole bill, which, of course, he firmly believed, as well as that he should be at least half murdered if he gave his father any suspicion that the whole had not been consumed by himself. Now, though poor Tom's conscience had lost many scruples during the last spring, the offence, into which he had been forced, was too heinous to a child brought up as he had been to be palliated even in his own eyes. The profanation of Sunday, and the carousal in a public-house, had combined to fill him with a se
nse of shame and degradation, which was the real cause that he felt himself unworthy to come and read with his sisters. His grief and misery were extreme, and Norman's indignation was such as could find no utterance. He sat silent, quivering with anger, and clenching his fingers over the handle of the hoe.
"I knew it!" sighed Tom. "None of you will ever speak to me again!"
"You! Why, August, man, I have better hopes of you than ever. You are more really sorry now than ever you were before."
"I had never been at the Green Man before," said poor Tom, feeling his future life stained.
"You never will again!"
"When you are gone--"and the poor victim's voice died away.
"Tom, you will not stay after me. It is settled that when I go to Balliol, you leave Stoneborough, and go to Mr. Wilmot as pupil. Those scamps shall never have you in their clutches again."
It did not produce the ecstasy Norman had expected. The boy still sat on the ground, staring at his brother, as if the good news hardly penetrated the gloom; and, after a disappointing silence, recurred to the most immediate cause of distress: "Eight shillings and tenpence halfpenny! Norman, if you would only lend it to me, you shall have all my tin till I have made it up--sixpence a week, and half-a-crown on New Year's Day."
"I am not going to pay Mr. Axworthy's reckoning," said Norman, rather angrily. "You will never be better till you have told my father the whole."
"Do you think they will send in the bill to my father?" asked Tom, in alarm.
"No, indeed! that is the last thing they will do," said Norman; "but I would not have you come to him only for such a sneaking reason."
"But the girls would hear it. Oh, if I thought Mary and Margaret would ever hear it--Norman, I can't--"
Norman assured him that there was not the slightest reason that these passages should ever come to the knowledge of his sisters. Tom was excessively afraid of his father, but he could not well be more wretched than he was already; and he was brought to assent when Norman showed him that he had never been happy since the affair of the blotting-paper, when his father's looks and tones had become objects of dread to his guilty conscience. Was not the only means of recovering a place in papa's esteem to treat him with confidence?
The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations Page 43
