“It will be a lying prophet, if you so determine, Kennedy. The only enemy who has real power to hurt us is ourselves. Why should you be agitated by an idle forecast of uncertain calamity? Be brave, and honest, and pure, and God will be with you.”
“Don’t be surprised,” continued Julian, “if you’ve heard me say the same words before; they were my father’s dying bequest to his eldest son.”
“Be brave, and honest, and pure—” repeated Kennedy; “yes, you must be right, Julian. Look what a glorious sky, and what numberless ‘patines of bright gold.’”
Julian looked up, and at that moment a meteor shot across the heaven, plunging as though from the galaxy into the darkness, and after the white and dazzling lustre of the trail had disappeared, seeming to leave behind the glory of it a deeper gloom. It gave too true a type of many a young man’s destiny.
Kennedy said nothing, but although it is not the Camford custom to shake hands, he shook Julian’s hand that night with one of those warm and loving grasps, which are not soon forgotten. And each walked slowly back to his own room.
Chapter Nine.
The Boat-Race.
“And caught once more the distant shout,
The measured pulse of racing oars
Between the willows.”
In Memoriam.