Devereux — Volume 01 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (top 10 books to read .txt) 📕

for the best proficient at a very severe examination; two months before it took place we went home for a few days. After dinner my uncle asked me to walk with him in the park. I did so: we strolled along to the margin of a rivulet which ornamented the grounds. There my uncle, for the first time, broke silence.

"Morton," said he, looking down at his left leg, "Morton, let me see; thou art now of a reasonable age,—fourteen at the least."

"Fifteen, if it please you, sir," said I, elevating my stature as much as I was able.

"Humph! my boy; and a pretty time of life it is, too. Your brother
Gerald is taller than you by two inches."

"But I can beat him for all that, uncle," said I, colouring, and clenching my fist.

My uncle pulled down his right ruffle. "'Gad so, Morton, you're a brave fellow," said he; "but I wish you were less of a hero and more of a scholar. I wish you could beat him in Greek as well as in boxing. I will tell you what Old Rowley said," and my uncle occupied the next quarter of an hour with a story. The story opened the good old gentleman's heart; my laughter opened it still more. "Hark ye, sirrah!" said he, pausing abruptly, and grasping my hand with a vigorous effort of love and muscle, "hark ye, sirrah,—I love you,—'Sdeath, I do. I love you better than both your brothers, and that crab of a priest into the bargain; but I am grieved to the heart to hear what I do of you. They tell me you are the idlest boy in the school; that you are always beating your brother Gerald, and making a scurrilous jest of your mother or myself."

"Who says so? who dares say so?" said I, with an emphasis that would have startled a less hearty man than Sir William Devereux. "They lie, Uncle; by my soul they do. Idle I am; quarrelsome with my brother I confess myself; but jesting at you or my mother—never—never. No, no; /you/, too, who have been so kind to me,—the only one who ever was. No, no; do not think I could be such a wretch:" and as I said this the tears gushed from my eyes.

My good uncle was exceedingly affected. "Look ye, child," said he, "I do not believe them. 'Sdeath, not a word; I would repeat to you a good jest now of Sedley's, 'Gad, I would, but I am really too much moved just at present. I tell you what, my boy, I tell you what you shall do: there is a trial coming on at school—eh?—well, the Abbe tells me Gerald is certain of being first, and you of being last. Now, Morton, you shall beat your brother, and shame the Jesuit. There; my mind's spoken; dry your tears, my boy, and I'll tell you the jest Sedley made: it was in the Mulberry Garden one day—" And the knight told his story.

I dried my tears, pressed my uncle's hand, escaped from him as soon as I was able, hastened to my room, and surrendered myself to reflection.

When my uncle so good-naturedly proposed that I should conquer Gerald at the examination, nothing appeared to him more easy; he was pleased to think I had more talent than my brother, and talent, according to his creed, was the only master-key to unlock every science. A problem in Euclid or a phrase in Pindar, a secret in astronomy or a knotty passage in the Fathers, were all riddles, with the solution of which application had nothing to do. One's mother-wit was a precious sort of necromancy, which could pierce every mystery at first sight; and all the gifts of knowledge, in his opinion, like reading and writing in that of the sage Dogberry, "came by nature." Alas! I was not under the same pleasurable delusion; I rather exaggerated than diminished the difficulty of my task, and thought, at the first glance, that nothing short of a miracle would enable me to excel my brother. Gerald, a boy of natural talent, and, as I said before, of great assiduity in the orthodox studies,—especially favoured too by the instruction of Montreuil,—had long been esteemed the first scholar of our little world; and though I knew that with some branches of learning I was more conversant than himself, yet, as my emulation had been hitherto solely directed to bodily contention, I had never thought of contesting with him a reputation for which I cared little, and on a point in which I had been early taught that I could never hope to enter into any advantageous comparison with the "genius" of the Devereuxs.

A new spirit now passed into me: I examined myself with a jealous and impartial scrutiny; I weighed my acquisitions against those of my brother; I called forth, from their secret recesses, the unexercised and almost unknown stores I had from time to time laid up in my mental armoury to moulder and to rust. I surveyed them with a feeling that they might yet be polished into use; and, excited alike by the stimulus of affection on one side and hatred on the other, my mind worked itself from despondency into doubt, and from doubt into the sanguineness of hope. I told none of my design; I exacted from my uncle a promise not to betray it; I shut myself in my room; I gave out that I was ill; I saw no one, not even the Abbe; I rejected his instructions, for I looked upon him as an enemy; and, for the two months before my trial, I spent night and day in an unrelaxing application, of which, till then, I had not imagined myself capable.

Though inattentive to the school exercises, I had never been wholly idle. I was a lover of abstruser researches than the hackneyed subjects of the school, and we had really received such extensive and judicious instructions from the Abbe during our early years that it would have been scarcely possible for any of us to have fallen into a thorough distaste for intellectual pursuits. In the examination I foresaw that much which I had previously acquired might be profitably displayed,—much secret and recondite knowledge of the customs and manners of the ancients, as well as their literature, which curiosity had led me to obtain, and which I knew had never entered into the heads of those who, contented with their reputation in the customary academical routine, had rarely dreamed of wandering into less beaten paths of learning. Fortunately too for me, Gerald was so certain of success that latterly he omitted all precaution to obtain it; and as none of our schoolfellows had the vanity to think of contesting with him, even the Abbe seemed to imagine him justified in his supineness.

The day arrived. Sir William, my mother, the whole aristocracy of the neighbourhood, were present at the trial. The Abbe came to my room a few hours before it commenced: he found the door locked.

"Ungracious boy," said he, "admit me; I come at the earnest request of your brother Aubrey to give you some hints preparatory to the examination."

"He has indeed come at my wish," said the soft and silver voice of Aubrey, in a supplicating tone: "do admit him, dear Morton, for my sake!"

"Go," said I, bitterly, from within, "go: ye are both my foes and slanderers; you come to insult my disgrace beforehand; but perhaps you will yet be disappointed."

"You will not open the door?" said the priest.

"I will not; begone."

"He will indeed disgrace his family," said Montreuil, moving away.

"He will disgrace himself," said Aubrey, dejectedly.

I laughed scornfully. If ever the consciousness of strength is pleasant, it is when we are thought most weak.

The greater part of our examination consisted in the answering of certain questions in writing, given to us in the three days immediately previous to the grand and final one; for this last day was reserved the paper of composition (as it was termed) in verse and prose, and the personal examination in a few showy, but generally understood, subjects. When Gerald gave in his paper, and answered the verbal questions, a buzz of admiration and anxiety went round the room. His person was so handsome, his address so graceful, his voice so assured and clear, that a strong and universal sympathy was excited in his favour. The head-master publicly complimented him. He regretted only the deficiency of his pupil in certain minor but important matters. I came next, for I stood next to Gerald in our class. As I walked up the hall, I raised my eyes to the gallery in which my uncle and his party sat. I saw that my mother was listening to the Abbe, whose eye, severe, cold, and contemptuous, was bent upon me. But my uncle leaned over the railing of the gallery, with his plumed hat in his hand, which, when he caught my look, he waved gently,—as if in token of encouragement, and with an air so kind and cheering, that I felt my step grow prouder as I approached the conclave of the masters.

"Morton Devereux," said the president of the school, in a calm, loud, austere voice, that filled the whole hall, "we have looked over your papers on the three previous days, and they have given us no less surprise than pleasure. Take heed and time how you answer us now."

At this speech a loud murmur was heard in my uncle's party, which gradually spread round the hall. I again looked up: my mother's face was averted; that of the Abbe was impenetrable; but I saw my uncle wiping his eyes, and felt a strange emotion creeping into my own, I turned hastily away, and presented my paper; the head master received it, and, putting it aside, proceeded to the verbal examination. Conscious of the parts in which Gerald was likely to fail, I had paid especial attention to the minutiae of scholarship, and my forethought stood me in good stead at the present moment. My trial ceased; my last paper was read. I bowed, and retired to the other end of the hall. I was not so popular as Gerald; a crowd was assembled round him, but I stood alone. As I leaned against a column, with folded arms, and a countenance which I felt betrayed little of my internal emotions, my eye caught Gerald's. He was very pale, and I could see that his hand trembled. Despite of our enmity, I felt for him. The worst passions are softened by triumph, and I foresaw that mine was at hand.

The whole examination was over. Every boy had passed it. The masters retired for a moment; they reappeared and reseated themselves. The first sound I heard was that of my own name. I was the victor of the day: I was more; I was one hundred marks before my brother. My head swam round; my breath forsook me. Since then I have been placed in many trials of life, and had many triumphs; but never was I so overcome as at that moment. I left the hall; I scarcely listened to the applauses with which it rang. I hurried to my own chamber, and threw myself on the bed in a delirium of intoxicated feeling, which had in it more of rapture than anything but the gratification of first love or first vanity can bestow.

Ah! it would be worth stimulating our passions if it were only for the pleasure of remembering their effect; and all violent excitement should be indulged less for present joy than for future retrospection.

My uncle's step was the first thing which intruded on my solitude.

"Od's fish, my boy," said he, crying like a child, "this is fine work,—'Gad, so it is. I almost wish I were a boy myself to have a match with you,—faith I do,—see what it is to learn a little of life! If you had never read my play, do you think you would have done half so well?—no, my boy, I sharpened your wits for you. Honest George Etherege and I,—we were the making of you! and when you come to be a great man, and are asked what made you so, you shall say, 'My uncle's play;' 'Gad, you shall. Faith, boy, never