“Right about—face!” cried my uncle, as erect as a column.
“No looking back, if we can help it.”
“Full in the front of the enemy. ‘Up, Guards, and at ‘em!’”
“‘England expects every man to do his duty!’”
“Cypress or laurel!” cried my uncle, waving the book over his head.
CHAPTER VII.
I went out, and to see Francis Vivian; for on leaving Mr. Trevanion I was not without anxiety for my new friend’s future provision. But Vivian was from home, and I strolled from his lodgings into the suburbs on the other side of the river, and began to meditate seriously on the best course now to pursue. In quitting my present occupations I resigned prospects far more brilliant and fortunes far more rapid than I could ever hope to realize in any other entrance into life. But I felt the necessity, if I desired to keep steadfast to that more healthful frame of mind I had obtained, of some manly and continuous labor, some earnest employment. My thoughts flew back to the university; and the quiet of its cloisters—which, until I had been blinded by the glare of the London world, and grief had somewhat dulled the edge of my quick desires and hopes, had seemed to me cheerless and unfaltering—took an inviting aspect. It presented what I needed most,—a new scene, a new arena, a partial return into boyhood; repose for passions prematurely raised; activity for the reasoning powers in fresh directions. I had not lost my time in London: I had kept up, if not studies purely classical, at least the habits of application; I had sharpened my general comprehension and augmented my resources. Accordingly, when I returned home, I resolved to speak to my father. But I found he had forestalled me; and on entering, my mother drew me upstairs into her room, with a smile kindled by my smile, and told me that she and her Austin had been thinking that it was best that I should leave London as soon as possible; that my father found he could now dispense with the library of the Museum for some months; that the time for which they had taken their lodgings would be up in a few days: that the summer was far advanced, town odious, the country beautiful,—in a word, we were to go home. There I could prepare myself for Cambridge till the long vacation was over; and, my mother added hesitatingly, and with a prefatory caution to spare my health, that my father, whose income could ill afford the requisite allowance to me, counted on my soon lightening his burden by getting a scholarship. I felt how much provident kindness there was in all this,—even in that hint of a scholarship, which was meant to rouse my faculties and spur me, by affectionate incentives, to a new ambition. I was not less delighted than grateful.
“But poor Roland,” said I, “and little Blanche,—will they come with us?”
“I fear not,” said my mother; “for Roland is anxious to get back to his tower, and in a day or two he will be well enough to move.”