As the time drew near, Julian became more and more feverish with eagerness, and his friends feared that he would hinder, by over reading, his real probability of success. Kennedy felt this most strongly, but being himself engaged in the competition, was afraid that any attempt to divert Julian’s thoughts would not have a disinterested look. Lillyston and De Vayne, unrestrained by such motives, did all they could to take him from his books, and amuse him by turning his attention to other subjects; but with such strong reasons for exertion, and so much depending on success or failure, the Clerkland scholarship continued ever the prominent subject of Julian’s thoughts.
At last the long looked for week arrived. After chapel, on the Sunday morning, De Vayne invited himself to breakfast with Julian, and continued in his company the greater part of the day, going with him to the University sermon. He entirely forbade Julian even to allude more than once to the coming examination, and managed in the evening to get him to come to his rooms, where, with some other Hartonians and Kennedy, they spent a very pleasant evening.
“Good-night,” he said to Julian, as he strolled with him to his stair-case across the starlight court; “don’t stay up to-night. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”
The examination was to last a week, and Julian rose for it refreshed and cheerful on Monday morning. The papers suited him excellently, and his hopes rose higher and higher as he felt that in each paper he had done to the utmost of his knowledge and ability. He had not been able to afford a private tutor during the term, with whom he might have discussed the papers, but he sent his Iambics and Latin verse to Mr Carden at Harton, who wrote back a most favourable and encouraging judgment of them, and seemed to regard Julian’s success as certain. Julian had implicit confidence in his opinion, for Mr Carden entered very warmly into all his hopes and wishes, and kept up with him an affectionate correspondence, which had helped him out of many intellectual difficulties, and lessened the force of many a temptation.
The papers usually lasted from nine till twelve in the morning, and from two to four in the afternoon. It was on the Friday morning, when only three more papers remained, that Julian found Mr Carden’s kind and hopeful letter lying on his breakfast-table at eight o’clock; he read it with a glow of pleasure, because he knew that he could rely thoroughly on the accuracy and truth of his old tutor’s judgment, and as he read and re-read it, his hopes rose higher and higher. Finishing breakfast, he began to build castles in the air, and to imagine to himself the delight it would be to write and tell the Doctor and Mr Carden of this new leaf to the Harton laurels. Never before had he a more reasonable ground for favourable expectation, and he began almost to run over in his mind the sort of letter he would write, and the kind of things he would say. Leaning over his window-sill, he enjoyed the cool feeling of the early spring breeze on his brow and hair, and then, finding by his watch that it was time to start, he took his cap and gown, and prepared to sally out to the senate-house.
It was the custom of the gyp, when he had laid breakfast, and put the kettle on the fire, to go away and “sport the oak,” (i e, shut the outer door), so as to prevent any one from coming into the rooms until their owner was awake and dressed. Julian therefore was not surprised to see his door “sported,” but was surprised to find that, when he lifted the latch, the door did not open to his touch. He pushed it with some force, and then kicked it with his foot to see if some stone or coal had not caught against it, but the door still remained obstinately closed; he put his shoulder against it, fancying that some heavy weight like the coal-box or water-pitcher might have been placed outside,—but all in vain; the thick door did not even stir, and then there flashed upon Julian the bitter truth that he had been screwed in. He understood now the stifled titter which he fancied he had heard after one of his most violent efforts to get out.
In one instant, before he had time to think, a fit of blind, passionate, uncontrollable fury had clouded and overpowered Julian’s whole mind. Almost unconscious of what he was doing, he kicked the door with all his might, and beat on it savagely with his clenched fists until his knuckles streamed with blood; he forgot everything but the one burning determination to get out at all hazards, and to wreak on Brogten, whom he felt to be the author of his calamity, some desperate and terrible revenge. But the thick oak door, screwed evidently with much care; and in many places, resisted all his efforts, and no one came to help him from outside. The gyp, who was usually about, happened to have gone on an errand; the stair-case was one of the most secluded in the college; the Fellow who was Julian’s nearest neighbour had “gone down” for a few days, and it was improbable that any one ever heard him except Brogten, to whom, he thought, every sound of his angry violence would be perfect music.
All was useless, and Julian, as he strode up and down the room, clenched his hands, and bit his lips in passionate excitement. Suddenly it struck him that he would escape by the window; but looking out for the purpose, he found that, when he had jumped on the sloping roof below him, he was still thirty feet above the ground, which, in that place, was not the turf of the bowling-green, but a hard gravel road. Giving up the attempt in despair he sat down, and covered his face with his hands; but instantly the picture of the senate-house, with the sixty candidates who were trying for the scholarship, all writing at some new paper—while he was thus cut off, (as he thought), from the long-desired accomplishment of all his hopes—rose before his eyes, and springing up once more he seized the poker, and raising it over his shoulder like a hammer, brought down the heavy iron knob with a crash on the oaken panels. He struck again and again, but, by a shower of fierce blows, could only succeed in covering the door with deep round dents. Finally he seized the heaviest chair in the room, and dashed it savagely with one heavy drive against the unyielding oak; a second blow shivered the chair to splinters, and Julian, a compulsory prisoner at that excited moment, flung himself on the sofa, furious and weary, with something that sounded like a fierce imprecation.
Full twenty minutes had been occupied by his futile and frantic efforts, and for a few moments longer he sat still in a stupor of grief and rage. Meanwhile, several of the other competitors for the Clerkland had noticed his absence in the senate-house, and Owen and Kennedy kept directing anxious glances to the door, and dreading that he was ill. At last half an hour had elapsed, and Kennedy, unable any longer to endure the suspense, went up to the examiner and said—
“One of the candidates is absent, sir. Would you allow me to go and inquire the reason?”