“Yes, that’s true. He’s a fellow that grinds, you know, and so he can’t help getting some. But Bruce, now, never opens a book, and yet he’s swept off no end of a lot, as you’ll see.”
“Humph! Walter, I don’t much believe in your boys that ‘never open a book,’ and, as far as I can observe, the phrase must be taken with very considerable latitude; I still believe that the boy who ‘grinds,’ as you call it, is the abler boy of the two.”
“Yes, Walter,” said his brother, an old Hartonian, “whenever a fellow, who has got a prize, tells you he won it without opening a book, set him down as a shallow puppy, and don’t believe him.”
By this time four of the monitors were standing up to recite a scene from the Merchant of Venice, and Home among them; his part was a very slight one, and although there was nothing remarkable in his way of acting, yet he had evidently studied with intelligence his author’s meaning, and his modest self-possession attracted favourable regards. But, a few minutes after, he had to recite alone a passage of Tennyson’s Morte d’Arthur, and then he appeared to greater advantage. Standing in a perfectly natural attitude, he began in low clear tones, enunciating every line with a distinctness that instantly won attention, and at last warming with his theme he modulated his voice with the requirements of the verse, and used gestures so graceful, yet so unaffected, that when with musical emphasis he spoke the last lines,—
“Long stood Sir Bedivere
Resolving many memories, till the hull
Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away,—”
he seemed entirely absorbed in the subject, and for half a minute stood as if unconscious, until the deep murmur of applause startled his meditations, and he sat down as naturally as he had risen.
“Well done, old Home,” said Walter; while Mr Thornley nodded rapidly two or three times, and murmured after him,—
“And on the mere the wailing died away.”
“Really, I think Julian did that admirably, did he not?” said a young and lovely girl to her mother, as Home sat down.
“By jingo,” whispered Walter, “I believe these people just by us are Home’s people.”