F. W. Farrar

“ Has life any pleasure—any deep, unspoken happiness—comparable to that which fills a young’s man whole soul when he stands beside the altar with such a bride as Violet or Eva was?—when he thinks that the fair, blushing girl, whose white hand trembles in his own, is to be the star of his home, the mother of his children, the sunbeam shining steadily on all his life? ”

“ As when in a hostile country one has laid aside his armour, and from unregarded ambush the enemy leaps on him, and, though he be strong and noble, stabs him with a festering wound, so this temptation to a base act sprang on poor Kennedy when he was unarmed and unprepared. In the gaieties of life, and the brightnesses of hope, and the securities of unbroken enjoyment, he had long been trusting in himself only, in his own high principle, his own generous impulses, his own unstained honour. ”

“ As long as he sought their society, they were always open to his company, however distasteful; and the advice they gave him was tendered in simple good-will—not as though from the haughty vantage-ground of a superior excellence. Even when Hazlet was at the worst—when to be seen with him, after the publicity of his vices, involved something like a slur on a man’s fair name—even in these his worst days neither Julian nor Lillyston would have refused, had he so desired it, to walk with him under the lime-tree avenue, or up and down the cloisters of Warwick’s Court. ”

“ Reconciled to the plan, of returning to Camford after the year of his rustication, he was now trying to settle his future profession. His way seemed by no means clear; he had never thought of being a clergyman, and now, more than ever, deemed himself unfitted for such a life. The long tedious delay of the bar to a man without any special interest; the sickness of hope deferred during the prime years of life the weariness of a distasteful study, and the heavy trial of dusky chambers in a city to a man who loved the sea and the country with a passionate love, deterred him from choosing the law. ”

“ Somehow Kennedy was looking at Violet while he repeated the lines.
A few minutes more brought them on to the great field of snow, through which they toiled along laboriously, treading as much as possible in the footsteps of the guide.
“This isn’t a glacier, is it?” asked Cyril.
“Oh dear, no! If it were, you wouldn’t find it such easy walking, for it would be full of hidden crevasses, and we should have to march much more carefully, occasionally poking our feet through the snow that lightly covers a fathomless depth.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Julian and Lillyston had never shunned his society, either when he breathed the odour of sanctity, or when he sank into the slough of wretchlessness. Both of them were sufficiently conscious of the heart’s weakness to prevent them from the cold and melancholy presumption which leads weak and sinful men to desert and denounce those whom the good spirits have not yet deserted, and whom the good God has not finally condemned. ”

“ The landlord of the Jungfrau treated them with the utmost consideration, and amused Kennedy by paying him as much deference as if he had been Tell or Arnold himself. Leaving in his hands all endeavours to discover the two scoundrels, who had entirely decamped, Kennedy gave him one of the guns, while he carried with him the other to keep as a trophy in his rooms at Camford.
There are few sights more pleasant than that of two families bound together by the ties of friendship and affection, and living together as though they were all brothers and sisters of a common home. ”

“ Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh.”
“True,” said Julian; for he had long observed that some heavy weight lay on Kennedy’s mind, and with deep sorrow noticed that their intercourse was less cordial, less frequent, less intimate than before. Not that he loved Kennedy, or that Kennedy loved him less than of old, for, on the contrary, Kennedy yearned more than ever for the full cherished unreserve of their old friendship; but, alas there was not, there could not be complete confidence between them, and where there is not confidence, the pleasure of friendship grows dim and pale. ”

“ Julian was sorry to hear him talk like this; it was the language of a disappointed and half-believing man.
“I don’t care for such aims,” he said. “A mere popular preacher I would not be, and as for preferment it doesn’t depend much on me, but for the most part on purely accidental causes. All I care for at present is to be useful and happy. Obscurity is no trial to me; neither success nor failure can make me different from what I am.”
“Well then, at least, write a book or something to keep yourself in men’s memory.” ”

“ With men like Hazlet—I mean the reformed and now sincere Hazlet—he either confined himself wholly to subjects on which differences were impossible, or, if questioned, stated his views with caution and consideration. It was only with the noisy and violent upholders of long-grounded error—error which they were too feeble to maintain except by mean invective or ignorant declamation—that Julian used the keen edge of his sarcasm, or the weighty sword of his moral indignation. He was not the man to bow down before the fool’s-cap of tyrannous and blatant ignorance. ”

“ His flushed countenance, and excited manner, joined to the harsh tones of his generally pleasant and musical voice, produced on Lillyston’s mind a feeling of deep pain and shame, and when with unsteady hand, Julian endeavoured to pour out for himself a fresh glass, and in doing so spilt the wine in great streams over the table, Lillyston saw that he was in an utterly unfit state to go to chapel, and that the attempt to do so would certainly draw upon him exposure and disgrace.
“Julian,” he said gently; “you are not in a condition to go to chapel; you must not think of it.” ”

“ He leaned over his window-sill, and stared stupidly at the great stone bears carved on the portals of Saint Margaret’s; his eyes wandered listlessly over the smooth turf of the Fellows’ bowling-green, and the trim parterres full of crocus and anemone and violet which fringed it; he watched the boats skim past him on the winding gleams of the Iscam, and shoot among the water-lilies by the bridge and then he stared upwards at the sun, trying to think of nothing until his eyes watered, and then the sight of a don in the garden below made him shrink back, to avoid observation, into his own room. ”

“ But if you are dead and indifferent to your own miserable soul, think that in this sin you cannot sin alone; think that you are dragging down to the nethermost abyss others besides yourself. Remember the wretched victims of your infamous passions, and tremble while you desecrate and deface for ever God’s image stamped on a fair human soul. Think of those whom your vileness dooms to a life of loathliness, a death of shame and anguish, perhaps an eternity of horrible despair. Learn something of the days they are forced to spend, that they may pander to the worst instincts of your degraded nature ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have a passionate ambition, whether known or unknown, so to live as to lead on the coming golden age, and prepare the next generation to be truer and wiser than ours. If it be my destiny never to be called to a wider sphere of work than Elstan, I shall be content to do it there.”
“And how will you occupy your time?” asked Mr Admer, who had long loved Julian too well even to smile at what were to himself mere unintelligible enthusiasms. ”

“ As a general rule, the best boys are by no means the most popular.
It was the great delight of Julian’s detractors to compare him unfavourably with their hero, Bruce. Bruce, as a fair scholar and a good cricketer, with no very marked line of his own—as a fine-looking fellow, anxious to keep on good terms with everybody, and with an apparently hearty “well met” for all the world—cut against the grain of no one’s predilections, and had the voice of popular favour always on his side. ”

“ In the endeavour to check or suppress the blush, he had grown ashy pale; but now that Brogten’s dark and cruel eye was upon him—now that the protruding underlip curled with a sneer that left no more room to doubt that he was master of Kennedy’s guilty secret—the effort was useless, and spite of will, the burning crimson of an uncontrollable shame burst and flashed over Kennedy’s usually clear and open face. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the beauty without was surpassed by the rarer sunshine of the life within and when children were born to them—when little steps began to patter along the hall, and young faces to shine beside the fire, and little strains of silvery laughter to ring through every room—there was a happiness in that bright family, for the sake of which an emperor might have been content to abdicate his throne. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In his hurry to make the first acquaintance with his new college, Julian hardly stopped to admire the smooth green quadrangle and lofty turrets of King Henry’s College, or Saint Mary’s, or the Senate House and Library, but strode on to the gate of Saint Werner’s. Entering, he gazed eagerly at the famous great court, with its chapel, hall, fountain, and Master’s lodge; and then made his way through the cloisters of Warwick’s Court to his tutor’s rooms. ”

“ It is a dreadful thing to be alone in charge of a human being—a being in human shape, who is, either by accident or constitution, incapable alike of responsibility and thought. Hazlet had been able to play draughts pretty well, so Julian got out a board and challenged him to a game, but instead of playing, Hazlet only scrabbled on the board, and pushed the pieces about in a meaningless confusion, while every now and then the sullen glare came into his eye which showed Julian the necessity of being on his guard if self-defence should be needed. ”

“ Disgusting that the young, and pure-hearted, and amiable De Vayne should be made the butt of the machinations of such men as Bruce and Brogten! But so it was. So it was; I could not invent facts like these. They never could float across my imagination, or if they did, I should reject them as the monstrous chimeras of a heated brain. I can conceive a man’s private wickedness,—the wickedness which he confines within his own heart, and only brings to bear upon others so far as is demanded by his own fancied interests ”

“ Upon my word, Vyvyan, your impudence is sublime.”
“You surprise me. What have I done?”
“Done!” retorted his father, with intense scorn. “You have been expelled from College; you have wasted your whole opportunities of education; you have thrown away the boundless sums which I have spent in your interest; you have lived the life of a puppy and a fool, and now you come back in the uttermost disgrace, with your name involved in I know not what infamy, and are as cool about it as if you returned to announce a triumph.” ”

“ These were the men whom he had despised as slow, yet what a contrast between their way of talking and the inanities of Fitzurse or the shallow flippancy of Bruce. As he sat there and listened, his very face became softer in its lines from the expression of a real and intelligent interest, and they all thought that he was a better fellow, on closer acquaintance, than they had been accustomed to suppose. Ah me! how often one remains unaware of the good side of those whom we dislike. ”

“ Clearly everybody is on the look out for something, though it is yet vacation time, and only a small section of the men are up.
The door opens, and out sail the Seniors, more than ever conscious of pride and power; they stream away in silk gowns, carrying on their faces the smile of knowledge even into their isolation, where no one can see it. For some reason or other they always meet in chapel, or, for all I know, it may be in the ante-chapel, to elect the Saint Werner’s scholars. ”

“ Next morning Mrs Home, with Julian and Violet, entered the room of death. Flowers were scattered on the bed, and on that face, calm as marble yet soft as life, the happy wondering smile had not yet even died away. And there Julian received from his mother a slip of paper, on which his father’s dying hand had traced the last messages of undying love and when they had left him there alone, he opened and read these words, written with weak and wavering pen—
“My own dearest boy, in this world we shall never meet again. ”

“ Dear, dear Eddy and Violet.”
Cyril lingered in the room.
“Do let me stay up with you, Julian. I couldn’t sleep—indeed, I couldn’t; and I might be of some use when morning comes, and when you go to look for them. Do let me stay, Julian.”
Julian could not resist his brother’s wish, though Mr Kennedy thought it best that the boy should go to bed.
So they compromised matters by getting him to lie down on the sofa, while they sat up, and stared out of the windows silently into the rain. How wearily the time goes by when you dread a danger which no action can avert. ”