“Oh, no. ‘Palmam qui meruit ferat.’ As Robertson said the other day in his odd, fantastic way of expressing his thoughts—‘In the amber of duty you must not always expect to find the curious grub success.’”
“Depend upon it, you’d be higher if you worked less, my dear fellow. Let me persuade you—don’t work for examination any more.”
“You all mistake me. It’s not for the place that I work, but because I want to know, to learn; not to grow up quite stupid and empty-headed as I otherwise should do.”
“What a love for work you have, Daubeny.”
“Yes, I have now; but do you know it really wasn’t natural to me. As a child, I used to be idle and get on very badly, and it used to vex my poor father, who was then living, very much. Well, one day, not long before he died, I had been very obstinate, and would learn nothing. He didn’t say much, but in the afternoon, when we were taking a walk, we passed an old barn, and on the thatched roof was a lot of grass and stonecrop. He plucked a handful, and showed me how rank and useless it was, and then, resting his hand upon my head, he told me that it was the type of an idle, useless man—‘grass upon the housetops, withered before it groweth up, wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that gathereth the sheaves his bosom.’ Somehow, the circumstance took hold of my imagination; it was the last scene with my poor father which I vividly remember. I have never been idle since then.”
Power mused a little, and then said—“But, dear Dubbs, you’ll make your brain heavy by the time examination begins; you won’t be able to do yourself justice.”
He did not answer; but a weary look, which Power had often observed, with anxiety, came over his face.
“I’m afraid I must turn back, Power,” he said; “I’m quite tired—done up.”
“I’ve been thinking so, too. Let me turn back with you.”
“No, no! I won’t spoil your day’s excursion. Let me go alone.”