By the door of the Saracen's Head, which was the old-fashioned name of his old-fashioned hostelry, two young men—mere4 overgrown schoolboys of the Oxford pattern—lounged, chatting and chaffing together, as if bent6 on some small matter of insignificant7 importance. Each swung a light cane8, and each looked and talked as if the town were his freehold. One was a fellow in a loose gray tweed suit and a broad-brimmed slouch-hat of affectedly9 large and poetical10 pretensions11; the other was a faster-looking and bolder young person, yet more quietly clad in a black cut-away coat and a billycock hat, to which commonplace afternoon costume of the English gentleman he nevertheless managed to give a touch of distinctly rowdy and rapid character.
As Dick passed them on the steps to go forth into the street, the young man in black observed oracularly: 'Lamb ten to the slaughter13 to which his companion answered with brisk good-humour in the self-same dialect: 'Lamb ten it is; these meadows pullulate; we shall have a full field of them.'
By a burst of inspiration Dick somehow gathered that they were referring to the field for the Durham Scholarships, and that they knew of ten candidates at least in the place who were also going in for them. He didn't much care for the looks of his two fellow-competitors, for such he judged them to be; but the mere natural loneliness of a sensitive young man in such strange conditions somehow' prompted him, almost against his will, to accost14 them.
'I beg your pardon,' he said timidly, in a rather soft voice, 'but I—that is to say—could you either of you tell me which is the nearest way to Durham College?'
The lad in the gray tweed suit laughed, and surveyed him from head to foot with a somewhat supercilious15 glance as he answered with a curious self-assertive swagger: 'You're going to call on the Dean, I suppose. Well, so are we. Durham it is. If you want to know the way, you can come along with us.'
Companionship in misery16 is dear to the unsophisticated human soul; and Richard, in spite of all his father's lessons in deportment, shrank so profoundly from this initial ordeal17 of the introductory visit that he was really grateful to the supercilious youth in the broad-brimmed hat for his condescending18 offer. Though, to be sure, if it came to that, nobody in England had a right to be either supercilious or condescending to a scion19 of the Plantagenets.
'Thank you,' he said, a little nervously20. 'This is my first visit to Oxford, and I don't know my way about. But I suppose you're not in for the Scholarship yourself?' And he gazed half unconsciously at his new acquaintance's gray tweed suit and big sombrero, which were certainly somewhat noisy for a formal visit.
The young man in the billycock interpreted the glance aright, and answered it promptly21.
'Oh, you don't know my friend,' he said, with a twinkle in his eye and a jerk of the head towards the lad in gray tweed; 'this is Gillingham of Rugby—otherwise known as the Born Poet. England expects every man to do his duty; but she never expects Gillingham to dress or behave like the vest of us poor common everyday mortals. And quite right, too. What's the good of being a born poet, I should like to know, if you've got to mind your P's and Q's just like other people?'
'Well, I'm certainly glad I'm not an Other Person,' Gillingham responded calmly, with a nonchalant air of acknowledged superiority.
'Other people, for the most part, are so profoundly uninteresting! But if you're going to walk with us, let me complete the introduction my friend has begun. This is Faussett of Rugby, otherwise known as the Born Philistine22. Congenitally incapable23 of the faintest tincture of culture himself, he regards the possession of that alien attribute by others as simply ridiculous.' Gillingham waved his hand vaguely24 towards the horizon in general. 'Disregard what he says,' he went on, 'as unworthy a serious person's intelligent consideration, and dismiss him to that limbo25 where he finds himself most at home—among the rowdy mob of all the Gaths and Askelons!'
Dick hardly knew how to comport26 himself in such unwonted company. Gillingham's manner was unlike anything else to which he had ever been accustomed. But he felt dimly aware that politeness compelled him to give his own name in return for the others'; so he faltered27 out somewhat feebly, 'My name's Plantagenet,' and then relapsed into a timid silence.
'Whew! How's that for arme?' Gillingham exclaimed, taken aback. 'Rather high, Tom, isn't it? Are you any relation to the late family so called, who were Kings of England?'
This was a point-blank question which Dick could hardly avoid; but he got over the thin ice warily28 by answering, with a smile:
'I never heard of more than one family of Plantagenets in England.'
'Eton, of course?' Gillingham suggested with a languid look. 'It must Le Eton. It was founded by an ancestor.'
To Dick himself the question of the Plantagenet pedigree was too sacred for a jest; but he saw the only way to treat the matter in the present company was by joking; so he answered with a little laugh:
'I believe there's no provision there for the founder's kin12, so I didn't benefit by it. I come only from a very small country grammar school—Chiddingwick, in Surrey.'
'Chiddingwick! Chiddingwick! Never knew there was such a place,' Gillingham put in with crushing emphasis. And he said it with an air which showed at once so insignificant a school was wholly unworthy a Born Poet's attention.
As for the Philistine, he laughed.
'Well, which are you going in for?' he asked, with a careless swing of his cane: 'The science, or the classics?'
'Neither,' Dick answered. 'My line's modern history.'
With a sudden little start, Gillingham seemed to wake up to interest. 'So's mine,' he put in, looking extremely wise. 'It's the one subject now taught at our existing Universities that a creature with a soul—immortal or otherwise—would be justified29 in bothering his head about for one moment. Classics and 'mathematics! oh, fiddlesticks! shade of Shelley, my gorge30 rises at them!'
'You won't have any chance against Gillingham, though, Faussett interposed with profound conviction. 'He's a fearful dab31 at history! You never knew such a howler. He's read pretty well everything that's ever been written in it from the earliest ages to the present time. Herodotus and York Powell alike at his finger-ends! We consider at Rugby that a man's got to get up uncommon32 early if he wants to take a rise out of Trevor Gillingham.'
'I'm sorry for that,' Dick answered quite earnestly, astonished, now he stood face to face with these men of the world, at his own presumption33 in venturing even to try his luck against them. 'For I can't have many shots at Scholarships myself; and, unless I get one, I can't afford to come up at all to the University.'
His very pride made him confess this much to his new friends at once, for he didn't wish to seem as if he made their acquaintance under false pretences34.
'Oh, for my part, I don't care twopence about the coin,' Gillingham replied with lordly indifference35, cocking his hat yet a trifle more one-sidedly than ever. 'Only, the commoner's gown, you know, is such, an inartistic monstrosity! I couldn't bear to wear it! And if one goes to a college at all, one likes to feel one goes on the very best possible footing, as a member of the foundation, and not as a mere outsider, admitted on sufferance.'
It made poor Dick's mouth water to hear the fellow talk so. What a shame these rich men—mere nouveaux riches, too, by the side of a Plantagenet—should come in like this, and take for pure honour and glory the coveted36 allowance that other men need as bare provision for their career at the University! He thought it quite unjustifiable. So he walked along in silence the rest of the way to the college gate, while Gillingham and Faussett, schoolboys out of school, continued to talk and chaff5 and swing their cherry canes37 in unconcerned good-humour. It was evident the ceremony meant very little to them, which to him meant more than he cared even to acknowledge. Faussett, indeed, had no expectation of a scholarship for himself at all. He went in for it for form's sake, at his father's desire—'just to satisfy the governor'—and in hopes it might secure him an offer of rooms from the college authorities.
The first sight of the walls and outer gate of Durham impressed and overawed Dick Plantagenet not a little. To boys brought up in one of our great public schools, indeed, the aspect of Magdalen or Merton or Oriel has in it nothing of the awesome39 or appalling40. It's only the same old familiar quads41 on a larger scale over again. But to lads whose whole ideas have been formed from the first at a small country grammar school, the earliest glimpse of University life is something almost terrifying. Richard looked up at the big gate, with its sculptured saints in shrine-like niches43, and then beyond again at the great quadrangle with its huge chapel44 window and its ivy-covered hall, and wondered to himself how he could ever have dreamt of trying to force himself in among so much unwonted splendour. A few lazy undergraduates, great overgrown schoolboys, were lounging about the quad42 in very careless attitudes. Some were in flannels45, bound for the cricket-field or the tennis-courts; others, who were boating men, stood endued46 in most gorgeous many-coloured blazers. Dick regarded them with awe38 as dreadfully grand young gentlemen, and trembled to fancy what they would say or think of his carefully-kept black coat, rather shiny at the seams, and his well-brushed hat preserved over from last season. His heart sank within him at the novelty of his surroundings. But just at that moment, in the very nick of time, he raised his eyes by accident, and caught sight—of what? Why the Plantagenet leopards48, three deep, upon the fa?ade of the gatehouse. At view of those familiar beasts, the cognisance of his ancestors, he plucked up courage again; after all, he was a Plantagenet, and a member of his own house had founded and endowed that lordly pile he half shrank from entering.
Gillingham saw where his eyes wandered, and half read his unspoken thought. 'Ah, the family arms!' he said, laughing a quick little laugh.
'You're to the manner born here. If any preference is shown to founder's kin, you ought to beat us all at this shop, Plantagenet!' And he passed under the big gateway49 with the lordly tread of the rich man's son, who walks this world without one pang50 of passing dread47 at that ubiquitous and unsocial British notice, 'Trespassers will be prosecuted51.'
Dick followed him, trembling, into the large paved quad, and up the stone steps of the Dean's staircase, and quivered visibly to Faussett's naked eye as they were all three ushered52 into the great man's presence. The room was panelled, after Clarence's own heart: severe engravings from early Italian masters alone relieved the monotony of its old wooden wainscots.
A servant announced their names. The Dean, a precise-looking person in most clerical dress, sealed at a little oak table all littered with papers, turned listlessly round in his swinging chair to receive them. 'Mr. Gillingham of Rugby,' he said, focussing his eye-glass on the credentials53 of respectability which the Born Poet presented to him. 'Oh, yes, that's all right. Sixth Form—h'm, h'm. Your headmaster was so kind as to write to me about you. I'm very glad to see you at Barham, I'm sure, Mr. Gillingham; hope we may number you among ourselves before long. I've had the pleasure of meeting your father once—I think it was at Athens. Or no, the Pir?us. Sir Bernard was good enough to use his influence in securing me an escort from the Greek Government for my explorations in Boetia. Country very much disturbed; soldiers absolutely necessary. These papers are quite satisfactory, of course; h'm, h'm! highly satisfactory. Your Head tells me you write verses, too. Well, well, we shall see. You'll go in for the Newdigate. The Keats of the future!'
'We call him the Born Poet at Rugby, sir,' Paussett put in, somewhat mischievously54.
'And you're going in for the modern history examination?' the Dean said, smiling, but otherwise not heeding55 the cheeky interruption. 'Well, history will be flattered.' He readjusted his eyeglass. 'Mr. Faussett: Rugby, too, I believe? H'm; h'm; well, your credentials are respectable—decidedly respectable, though by no means brilliant. You've a brother at Christ Church, I understand. Ah, yes; exactly. You take up classics. Quite so.—And now for you, sir. Let me see.' He dropped his eyeglass, and stared hard at the letter Richard laid before him. 'Mr.—er—Plantagenet, of—what is it?—oh, I see—Chiddingwick Grammar School. Chiddingwick, Chiddingwick? H'm? h'm? never heard of it. Eh? What's that? In Yorkshire, is it? Oh, ah, in Surrey; exactly; quite so. You're a candidate for the History Scholarship, it seems. Well, the name Plantagenet's not unknown in history. That'll do, Mr. Plantagenet; you can go. Good-morning. Examination begins in hall to-morrow at ten o'clock punctually.—Mr. Gillingham, will you and our friend lunch with me on Friday at half-past one? No engagement? Most fortunate.' And with a glance at the papers still scattered57 about his desk, he dismissed them silently.
Dick slunk down the steps with a more oppressive consciousness of his own utter nothingness in the scheme of things than he had ever before in his life experienced. It was impossible for him to overlook the obvious difference between the nature of the reception he had himself obtained and that held out to the son of Sir Bernard Gillingham and his companion from Rugby. He almost regretted now he had ever been rash enough to think of pitting his own home-bred culture against that of these rich men's sons, taught by first-class masters at great public schools, and learned in all the learning of the Egyptians.
As they emerged into Oriel Street, Faussett turned to him with a broad smile.
'I just cheeked him about the Born Poet, didn't I?' he said, laughing. 'But he took it like an angel. You see, they've heard a good bit about Gillingham already. That makes all the difference. Our Head backs Gillingham for next Poet Laureate, if Tennyson holds out long enough. He'll get this history thing slap off; you see if he doesn't. I could tell from the Dean's manner it was as good as decided56. They mean to give it to him.'
'But, surely,' Dick cried, flushing up with honest indignation, 'they wouldn't treat it as a foregone conclusion like that. They wouldn't bring us all up here, and put us to the trouble and expense of an hotel, and make us work three days, if they didn't mean to abide58 by the result of the examination!'
Faussett gazed at him and smiled.
'Well, you are green!' he answered, laughing.
'You are just a verdant59 one! What lovely simplicity60! You don't mean to say you think that's the way this world is governed? I've a father in the House, and I trust I know better. Kissing goes by favour. They'll give it to Gillingham; you may take your oath on that. And a jolly good thing, too; for I'm sure he deserves it!'
Gillingham himself was a trifle more modest and also more cautious. He made no prediction. Brought up entirely61 in diplomatic circles, he did credit to his teachers. He contented62 himself with saying in an oracular voice, 'The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,' and throwing back his head in his most poetical manner.
This was a safe quotation63, for it committed him to nothing. If he won, it would pass as very charming modesty64; if he lost, it would discount and condone65 his failure.
As for Dick, he strolled with his two chance acquaintances down the beautiful High Street and into the gardens at Magdalen, very heavy in heart at their dire66 predictions. The cloisters67 themselves failed to bring him comfort. He felt himself foredoomed already to a disastrous68 fiasco. So many places and things he had only read about in books, this brilliant, easy-going, very grown-up Trevor Gillingham had seen and mixed in and made himself a part of. He had pervaded69 the Continent.
The more Gillingham talked, indeed, the more Dick's heart sank. Why, the man knew well every historical site and building in Britain or out of it! History to him was not an old almanac, but an affair of real life. Paris, Brussels, Rome—Bath, Lincoln, Holyrood—he had known and seen them! Dick longed to go back and hide his own discomfited70 head once more in the congenial obscurity of dear sleepy old Chiddingwick.
But how could he ever go back without that boasted Scholarship? How cover his defeat after Mr. Plantagenet's foolish talk at the White Horse? How face his fellow-townsmen—and Mary Tudor? For very shame's sake, he felt he must brazen71 it out now, and do the best he knew—for the honour of the family.
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1
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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trepidation
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| n.惊恐，惶恐 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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chaff
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| v.取笑，嘲笑；n.谷壳 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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affectedly
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poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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accost
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| v.向人搭话，打招呼 | |
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supercilious
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| adj.目中无人的，高傲的；adv.高傲地；n.高傲 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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condescending
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scion
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nervously
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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philistine
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| n.庸俗的人；adj.市侩的，庸俗的 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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limbo
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| n.地狱的边缘；监狱 | |
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comport
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| vi.相称，适合 | |
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faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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dab
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| v.轻触，轻拍，轻涂；n.(颜料等的)轻涂 | |
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uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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pretences
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| n.假装( pretence的名词复数 )；作假；自命；自称 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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coveted
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| adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图 | |
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canes
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| n.（某些植物，如竹或甘蔗的）茎( cane的名词复数 )；（用于制作家具等的）竹竿；竹杖 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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awesome
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| adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的 | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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quads
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| n.四倍( quad的名词复数 )；空铅；（大学的）四周有建筑物围绕的方院；四胞胎之一 | |
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quad
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| n.四方院；四胞胎之一；v.在…填补空铅 | |
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niches
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| 壁龛( niche的名词复数 )； 合适的位置[工作等]； （产品的）商机； 生态位（一个生物所占据的生境的最小单位） | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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flannels
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| 法兰绒男裤； 法兰绒( flannel的名词复数 ) | |
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endued
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| v.授予，赋予（特性、才能等）( endue的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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leopards
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| n.豹( leopard的名词复数 )；本性难移 | |
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gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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prosecuted
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| a.被起诉的 | |
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ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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credentials
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| n.证明，资格，证明书，证件 | |
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mischievously
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| adv.有害地；淘气地 | |
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heeding
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| v.听某人的劝告，听从( heed的现在分词 ) | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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abide
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| vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受 | |
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verdant
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| adj.翠绿的，青翠的，生疏的，不老练的 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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64
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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65
condone
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| v.宽恕；原谅 | |
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66
dire
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| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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67
cloisters
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| n.（学院、修道院、教堂等建筑的）走廊( cloister的名词复数 )；回廊；修道院的生活；隐居v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的第三人称单数 ) | |
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68
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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69
pervaded
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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70
discomfited
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| v.使为难( discomfit的过去式和过去分词)；使狼狈；使挫折；挫败 | |
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71
brazen
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| adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的 | |
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