DULCE DOMUM
I must skip a few years; long years they were then to me; as I look back
upon them now, they seem to have fleeted away like a dream. Victor and
I are still at Everdon, but we are now the two senior boys in the
school. De Rohan has grown into one of the handsomest youths you will
often see. His blue eye is as clear and merry as ever, but the chestnut
curls have turned dark and glossy, and the light, agile form is rapidly
developing itself into a strong, symmetrical young man. He is still
frank, gay, and unsophisticated; quick enough at his studies, but
utterly without perseverance, and longing ardently for the time when he
shall be free to embark upon a course of pleasure and dissipation. I am
much altered too. With increasing growth and the assumption of the
_toga virilis_, or that manly garment which schoolboys abruptly
denominate "tails," I have acquired a certain degree of outward
equanimity and self-command, but still suffer much from inward
misgivings as to my own appearance and personal advantages. Hopelessly
I consult the glass in our joint bed-room--the same glass that daily
reflects Victor's handsome face and graceful figure--and am forced
unwillingly to confess that it presents to me the image of a swarthy,
coarse-featured lad, with sunken eyes and scowling eyebrows, sallow in
complexion, with a wide, low forehead overhung by a profusion of bushy
black hair; this unprepossessing countenance surmounting a short square
figure, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and possessed of great physical
strength. Yes, I was proud of my strength. I shall never forget the
day when first I discovered that nature had gifted me with one personal
advantage, that I, of all others, was disposed most to appreciate. A
lever had been left in the playground, by which the workmen, who were
repairing the wall, intended to lift the stem of the well-known tree
which had formerly constituted what we called "The Club." We boys had
come out of school whilst the men were gone to dinner. Manners, the
muscular, was delighted with such an opportunity of displaying his
prowess; how foolish he looked when he found himself incapable of moving
the huge inert mass--he said it was impossible; two boys attempted it,
then three, still the great trunk remained motionless. I asked leave to
try, amidst the jeers of all, for I was usually so quiet and
undemonstrative that no one believed Egerton had, in schoolboy parlance,
either "pith or pluck" in him. I laid my weight to it and heaved "with
a will"; the great block of timber vibrated, moved, and rolled along the
sward. What a triumph it was, and how I prided myself on it. I, too,
had my ideal of what I should like to be, although I would not have
confessed it to a soul. I wished to be like some _preux chevalier_ of
the olden time; my childish longing to be loved had merged into an
ardent desire to be admired; I would have been brave and courteous and
chivalrous and strong. Yes, in all the characters of the olden time
that I so loved to study, strength was described as one of the first
attributes of a hero. Sir Tristram, Sir Launcelot, Sir Bevis, were all
"strong," and my heart leapt to think that if the opportunity ever
arrived, my personal strength might give me a chance of distinguishing
myself, when the beautiful and the gallant were helpless and overcome.
But there was another qualification of which in my secret soul I had
hideous misgivings,--I doubted my own courage: I knew I was nervous and
timid in the common every-day pursuits of a schoolboy's life; I could
not venture on a strange horse without feeling my heart in my mouth; I
did not dare stop a ball that was bowled swiftly in to my wicket, nor
fire a gun without shutting both eyes before I ventured to pull the
trigger. What if I should be a coward after all? A _coward!_ the
thoughts of it almost drove me mad; and yet how could I tell but that I
was branded with that hideous curse? I longed, yet dreaded, to know the
worst.
In my studies I was unusually backward for a boy of my age. Virgil,
thanks to the picture of Dido, never to be forgotten, I had completely
mastered; but mathematics, arithmetic--all that are termed the exact
sciences--I appeared totally incapable of learning. Languages I picked
up with extraordinary facility, and this alone redeemed me from the
character of an irreclaimable dunce.
"You _can_ learn, sir, if you will," was March's constant remark, after
I had arrived at the exalted position of a senior boy, to whom flogging
and such coercive measures were inappropriate, and for whom "out of
bounds" was not. "You _can_ learn, or else why do I see you poring over
Arabic and Sanscrit during play-hours, when you had much better be at
cricket? You must have brains somewhere, but to save my life I can't
find them. You can speak half-a-dozen languages, as I am informed,
nearly as well as I can speak Latin, and yet if I set you to do a 'Rule
of Three' sum, you make more blunders than the lowest little dunce in
the school! Egerton, I can't make you out."
It was breaking-up day at Everdon. Victor and I walked with our arms
over each other's shoulders, up and down, up and down, in the old
playground, and as we paced those well-worn flags, of which we knew
every stone, my heart sank within me to think it was for the last,
_last_ time. What is there that we are not sorry to do for the last
time? I had hated school as much as any schoolboy could; I had looked
forward to my emancipation as the captive looks forward to the opening
of his prison-door; and now the time was come, and I felt grieved and
out of spirits to think that I should see the old place no more.
"You must write to me constantly, Vere," said Victor, with an
affectionate hug, as we took our hundredth turn. "We must never forget
each other, however far apart, and next winter you must come again to
Edeldorf; I shall be there when the shooting begins. Oh, Vere, you will
be very dull at home."
"No," I replied; "I like Alton Grange, and I like a quiet life. I am
not of your way of thinking, Victor; you are never happy except in a
bustle; I wish I were more like you;" and I sighed as I thought of the
contrast between us.
I do not know what brought it to my mind, but I thought of Constance
Beverley, and the first time we saw her when we were all children
together at Beverley Manor. Since then our acquaintance had indeed
progressed but little; we scarcely ever met except on certain Sundays,
when we took advantage of our liberty as senior boys to go to church at
Fleetsbury, where from the gallery we could see right into the Beverley
pew, and mark the change time had wrought on our former playfellow.
After service, at the door we might perhaps exchange a stiff greeting
and a few words before she and her governess got into the carriage; and
this transcendent pleasure we were content to purchase with a broiling
walk of some five miles on a dusty high-road, and a patient endurance of
the longest sermon from the worthy rector of Fleetsbury, an excellent
man, skilled in casuistry, and gifted with extraordinary powers of
discourse. Victor, I think, took these expeditions in his own
good-natured way, and seemed to care but little whether he went or not.
One hot Sunday, I recollect he suggested that we should dispense with
afternoon church altogether, and go to bathe instead, a proposal I
scouted with the utmost indignation, for I looked forward to our
meetings with a passionate longing for which I could not account even to
myself, and which I never for an instant dreamed of attributing to the
charms of Miss Beverley. I know not now what tempted me to ask the
question, but I felt myself becoming bright scarlet as I inquired of my
school-fellow whether he had not _other_ friends in Somersetshire
besides myself whom he would regret leaving. His reply ought to have
set my mind at ease, if I was disturbed at the suspicion of his
entertaining any _penchant_ for Miss Beverley, for he answered at once
in his own off-hand way--"None whatever that I care a sixpence about,
not even that prim little girl and her governess, whom you drag me five
miles every Sunday to see. No, Vere, if I could take you with me, I
should sing for joy the whole way from here to London. As it is, I
shall not break my heart: I am so glad to get away from this dull,
dreadful place."
Then he did not care for Miss Beverley, after all. Well, and what
difference could that possibly make to me? Certainly, I was likely to
see her pretty constantly in the next year or two, as our respective
abodes would be but a short distance apart; but what of that? There
could be nothing in common between the high-born, haughty young lady,
and her awkward, repulsive neighbour. Yet I was glad, too, that Victor
did not care for her. All my old affection for him came back with a
gush, and I wrung his hand, and cried like a fool to think we were so
soon to be parted, perhaps for years. The other boys were singing
_Dulce domum_ in the schoolroom, hands joined, dancing round and round,
and stamping wildly with the chorus, like so many Bacchanals; they had
no regrets, no misgivings; they were not going to leave for _good_.
Even Manners looked forward to his temporary release with bright
anticipations of amusement. He was to spend the vacation with a
clerical cousin in Devonshire, the cousin of whom we all knew so much by
report, and who, indeed, to judge by his relative's account, must have
been an individual of extraordinary talents and attainments. The usher
approached us with an expression of mingled pleasure and pain on his
good-looking, vacant countenance. He had nearly finished packing his
things, and was now knocking the dust out of those old green slippers I
remembered when first I came to Everdon. He was a good-hearted fellow,
and was sorry to lose his two old friends.
"We shall miss you both very much next half," said he; "nothing but
little boys here now. Everdon is not what it used to be. Dear me, we
never have such a pupil as Ropsley now. When you two are gone there
will be no one left for me to associate with: this is not a place for a
man of energy, for a man that feels he is a man," added Manners,
doubling his arm, and feeling if the biceps was still in its right
place. "Here am I now, with a muscular frame, a good constitution, a
spirit of adventure, and a military figure" (appealing to me, for
Victor, as usual, was beginning to laugh), "and what chances have I of
using my advantages in this circumscribed sphere of action? I might as
well be a weak, puny stripling, without an atom of nerve, or manliness,
or energy, for all the good I am likely to do here. I must cut it,
Egerton; I must find a career; I am too good for an usher--an usher," he
repeated, with a strong expression of disgust; "I, who feel fit to fight
my way anywhere--I have mistaken my profession--I ought to have been an
officer--a cavalry officer; that would have suited me better than this
dull, insipid life. I must consult my cousin about it; perhaps we shall
meet again in some very different scenes. What say you, De Rohan,
should you not be surprised to see me at the head of a regiment?"
Victor could conceal his mirth no longer, and Manners turned somewhat
angrily to me. "You seem to be very happy as you are," I answered,
sadly, for I was contrasting his well-grown, upright figure and simple
fresh-coloured face, with my own repulsive exterior, and thinking how
willingly I would change places with him, although he _was_ an usher;
"but wherever we meet, I am sure _I_ shall be glad to see you again."
In my own heart I thought Manners was pretty certain to be at Everdon if
I should revisit it that day ten years, as I was used to these visionary
schemes of his for the future, and had heard him talk in the same strain
every vacation regularly since I first came to school.
But there was little time now for such speculations. The chaises were
driving round to the door to take the boys away. March bid us an
affectionate farewell in his study. Victor and I were presented
respectively with a richly-bound copy of _Horatius Flaccus_ and
_Virgilius Maro_--copies which, I fear, in after life, were never soiled
by too much use. The last farewell was spoken--the last pressure of the
hand exchanged--and we drove off on our different destinations; my
friend bound for London, Paris, and his beloved Hungary; myself, longing
to see my father once more, and taste the seclusion and repose of Alton
Grange. To no boy on earth could a school-life have been more
distasteful than to me; no boy could have longed more ardently for the
peaceful calm of a domestic hearth, and yet I felt lonely and out of
spirits even now, when I was going home.