“Once won, won forever.”
(1) Sir Philip Sidney.
(2) Lord Hervey’s Memoirs of George II.
CHAPTER VII.
I rode home on a horse my host lent me; and Lord Castleton rode part of the way with me, accompanied by his two boys, who bestrode manfully their Shetland ponies and cantered on before us. I paid some compliment to the spirit and intelligence of these children,—a compliment they well deserved.
“Why, yes,” said the marquis, with a father’s becoming pride, “I hope neither of them will shame his grandsire, Trevanion. Albert (though not quite the wonder poor Lady Ulverstone declares him to be) is rather too precocious, and it is all I can do to prevent his being spoilt by flattery to his cleverness, which, I think, is much worse than even flattery to rank,—a danger to which, despite Albert’s destined inheritance, the elder brother is more exposed. Eton soon takes out the conceit of the latter and more vulgar kind. I remember Lord—(you know what an unpretending, good-natured fellow he is now) strutting into the play-ground, a raw boy, with his chin up in the air, and burly Dick Johnson (rather a tuft-hunter now, I’m afraid) coming up and saying, ‘Well, sir, and who the deuce are you?’ ‘Lord ——,’ says the poor devil unconsciously, ‘eldest son of the Marquis of ——.’
“‘Oh, indeed!’ cries Johnson; ‘then there’s one kick for my lord, and two for the marquis!’ I am not fond of kicking, but I doubt if anything ever did—more good than those three kicks. But,” continued Lord Castleton, “when one flatters a boy for his cleverness, even Eton itself cannot kick the conceit out of him. Let him be last in the form, and the greatest dunce ever flogged, there are always people to say that your public schools don’t do for your great geniuses. And it is ten to one but what the father is plagued into taking the boy home and giving him a private tutor, who fixes him into a prig forever. A coxcomb in dress,” said the marquis, smiling, “is a trifler it would ill become me to condemn, and I own that I would rather see a youth a fop than a sloven; but a coxcomb in ideas—why, the younger he is, the more unnatural and disagreeable. Now, Albert, over that hedge, sir.”
“That hedge, papa? The pony will never do it.”
“Then,” said Lord Castleton, taking off his hat with politeness. “I fear you will deprive us of the pleasure of your company.”