“Never mind, you must really work less. I won’t have that getting up at five in the morning. If you don’t take care, I shall forbid you to be higher than twentieth in your form under heavy penalties, or I shall get Dr Keith to send you home altogether, and not let you go in to the examination.”
“O! no, sir, you really mustn’t do that. I assure you that I enjoy work. An illness I had when I was a child hindered and threw me back very much, and you can’t think how eager I am to make up for that lost time.”
“The time is not lost, my dear Daubeny, if God demanded it in illness for His own good purposes. Be persuaded, my boy; abandon, for the present, all struggle to take a high place until you feel quite well again, and then you shall work as hard as you like. Remember, knowledge itself is valueless in comparison with health.”
Daubeny felt the master’s kind intention; but he could not restrain his unconquerable eagerness to get on. He would have succumbed far sooner, if Walter and Power had not constantly dragged him out with them almost by force, and made him take exercise against his will. But, though he was naturally strong and healthy, he began to look very pale, and his best friends urged him to go home and take a holiday.
Would that he had taken that good and kind advice!
Chapter Fourteen.
Appenfell.
To breathe the difficult air
Of the iced mountain top.
Manfred.
Fetzo auf den Schroffen Zinken
Hängt sie, auf dem höchsten Grat,
Wo die Felsen jah versinken,
Und verschwunden ist der Pfad.
Schiller.