“Amy amata, peramata a me”, cried the parson to his daughter, now a lovely girl of sixteen, straight, slender, and well–poised; “how glad and proud we ought to be of Claytonʼs great success”!
“Pa, dear, he would never have got it, I am quite certain of that, if Cradock had been allowed to go in; and I think it is most unfair, shamefully unjust, that because he is the eldest son he is never to have any honour”. And Amy coloured brilliantly at the warmth of her own championship; but her father could not see it.
“So I am inclined to think” – John Rosedew was never positive, except upon great occasions – “perhaps I should say perpend, if I were fond of hybrid English. I donʼt mean about the unfairness, Amy; for I think I should do the same if I were in Sir Cradockʼs place. I mean that our Crad would have got it, instead of Clayton, with health and fortune favouring. But it stands upon a razorʼs edge, ἐπὶ ξυροῦς ἵσταται ἀκμῆς. You can construe that, Amy”?
“Yes, pa, when you tell me the English. How the green is coming out on the fir–trees! So faint and yet so bright. Oh, papa, what Greek sub–significance, as you sometimes call it, is equal to that composition”?
“Well, my poppet, I am so short–sighted, I would much rather have a triply composite verb – ”
“Than three good kisses from me, daddy? Well, there they are, at any rate, because I know you are disappointed”. And the child, herself more bitterly disappointed, as becomes a hot partisan, ran away to sit under a sprawling larch, just getting new nails on its fingers, for the spring was awaking early.
It was not more than a week after this, and not very far from All–Foolsʼ–day, when Clayton, directly after chapel, rushed into Cradockʼs garret, hot, breathless, and unphilosophical. Cradock, calm and thoughtful, as he usually was, poked his head through the open slide of the dusthole called a scoutʼs room, and brought out three willow–pattern plates, a little too retentive of the human impress, and an extra knife and fork, dark–browed at the tip of the handle. Then he turned up a corner of tablecloth, where it cherished sombre memories of a tearful teapot, and set the mustard–pot to control it. Nor long before he doubled the coffee in the strainer of the biggin, and shouted “Corker”! thrice, far as human voice would gravitate, down the well of the staircase. Meanwhile Master Clayton stood fidgeting, and doffed not his scholarly toga. Corker, the scout, a short fat man, came up the stairs with dignity and indignation contending. He was amazed that any freshman “should have the cheek to holler so”. Mr. Nowell was such a quiet young man, that the scout looked for some apology. “Corker, a commons of bread and butter, and a cold fowl and some tongue. Be quick now, before the buttery closes. And, as I see I am putting you out in your morning work, get a quart of ale at your dinner–time”. “Yes, sir, to be sure, sir; I wish all the gentlemen was as thoughtful”.
“No, Craddy, never mind that”, cried his brother, reddening richly, for Clayton was fair as a lady, “I only want to speak to you about – well, perhaps, you know what it is I have come for. Is that fellow gone from the door”?
“I am sure I donʼt know. Go and look yourself. But, dear Viley, what is the matter”?
“Oh, Cradock, you can so oblige me, and it canʼt matter much to you. But to me, with nothing to look to, it does make such a difference”.
Cradock never could bear to hear this – that his own twin–brother should talk, as he often did, so much in the pauper strain. And all the while Clayton was sure of 50,000l. under their motherʼs settlement. But Crad was full of wild generosity, and had made up his mind to share Nowelhurst, if he could do so, with his brother. He began to pull Claytonʼs gown off; he would have blacked his shoes if requested. He always thought himself Vileyʼs prime minister.
“Whatever it is, my boy, Viley, you know I will do it for you, if it is only fair and honourable”.
“Oh, it is no great thing. I was sure you would do it for me. To do just a little bit under your best in this hot scrimmage for the Ireland. I am not much afraid of any man, Crad, except you, and Brown, of Balliol”.
“Viley, I am very sorry that you have asked me such a thing. Even if it were in other ways straightforward, I could not do it, for the sake of the father, and Uncle John, and little Amy”.
“Donʼt you know that the governor doesnʼt want you to get it? You are talking nonsense, Cradock, downright nonsense, to cover your own selfishness. And that frizzle–headed Amy, indeed”!
“I would rather talk nonsense than fraud, Clayton. And I canʼt help telling you that what you say about my father may be true, but is not brotherly; and your proposal does you very little honour; and I never could have thought it of you; and I will do my very utmost. And as for Amy, indeed, she is too good for you to speak of – and – and – ” He was highly wroth at the sneer about Amyʼs hair, which he admired beyond all reason, as indeed he did every bit of her, but without letting any one know it. He leaned upon the table, with his thumb well into the mustard–pot. This was the first real quarrel with the brother he loved so much; and it felt like a skewer poked into his heart.
“Well, elder brother by about two seconds”, cried Clayton, twitching his plaits up well upon his coat–collar. “Iʼll do all I can to beat you. And I hope Brown will have it, not you. Thereʼs the cash for my commons. I know you canʼt afford it, until you get a scholarship”.
Clayton flung half–a–crown upon the table, and went down the stairs with a heavy tramp, knocking over a dish with the college arms on, wherein Corker was bringing the fowl and the tongue. Corker got all the benefit of the hospitable doings, and made a tidy dinner out of it, for Cradock could eat no breakfast. It was the first time bitter words had passed between the brothers since the little ferments of childhood, which are nothing more than sweetword the moment they settle down. And he doubted himself; he doubted whether he had not been selfish about it.
It was the third day of the examination, and when he appeared at ten oʼclock among the forty competitors, he was vexed anew to see that Clayton had removed to a table at the other end of the room, so as not to be even near him. The piece of Greek prose which he wrote that morning dissatisfied him entirely; and then again he rejoiced at the thought that Viley need not be afraid of him. He had never believed in his chance of success, and went in for the scholarship to please others and learn the nature of the examination. Next year he might have a fairer prospect; this year – as all the University knew – Brown, of Balliol, was sure of it.
Nevertheless, by the afternoon he was in good spirits again, and found a mixed paper which suited him as if Uncle John had set it. One of the examiners had been, some twenty years ago, a pupil of John Rosedew, and this, of course, was a great advantage to any successor alumnus; though neither of them knew the other. It is pleasant to see how the old ideas germinate and assimilate, as the olive and the baobab do, after the fires of many summers.
Clayton, a placable youth (even when he was quite in the wrong, as in the present instance), came to Craddyʼs rooms that evening, begged him not to apologise for his expressions of the morning, and compared notes with him upon the doings of the day.
“Bless you, Crad”, he cried, after a glass of first–rate brown sherry – not the vile molassied stuff, thick as the sack of Falstaff, but the genuine thing, with the light and shade of brown olives in the sunset, and not to be procured, of course, from any Oxonian wine–dealer; – “oh, Crad, if we could only wallop that Brown, of Balliol, between us, I should not care much which