“Donʼt you know that the governor doesnʼt want you to get it? You are talking nonsense, Cradock, downright nonsense, to cover your own selfishness. And that frizzle–headed Amy, indeed”!
“I would rather talk nonsense than fraud, Clayton. And I canʼt help telling you that what you say about my father may be true, but is not brotherly; and your proposal does you very little honour; and I never could have thought it of you; and I will do my very utmost. And as for Amy, indeed, she is too good for you to speak of—and—and—— ” He was highly wroth at the sneer about Amyʼs hair, which he admired beyond all reason, as indeed he did every bit of her, but without letting any one know it. He leaned upon the table, with his thumb well into the mustard–pot. This was the first real quarrel with the brother he loved so much; and it felt like a skewer poked into his heart.
“Well, elder brother by about two seconds”, cried Clayton, twitching his plaits up well upon his coat–collar. “Iʼll do all I can to beat you. And I hope Brown will have it, not you. Thereʼs the cash for my commons. I know you canʼt afford it, until you get a scholarship”.
Clayton flung half–a–crown upon the table, and went down the stairs with a heavy tramp, knocking over a dish with the college arms on, wherein Corker was bringing the fowl and the tongue. Corker got all the benefit of the hospitable doings, and made a tidy dinner out of it, for Cradock could eat no breakfast. It was the first time bitter words had passed between the brothers since the little ferments of childhood, which are nothing more than sweetword the moment they settle down. And he doubted himself; he doubted whether he had not been selfish about it.
It was the third day of the examination, and when he appeared at ten oʼclock among the forty competitors, he was vexed anew to see that Clayton had removed to a table at the other end of the room, so as not to be even near him. The piece of Greek prose which he wrote that morning dissatisfied him entirely; and then again he rejoiced at the thought that Viley need not be afraid of him. He had never believed in his chance of success, and went in for the scholarship to please others and learn the nature of the examination. Next year he might have a fairer prospect; this year—as all the University knew—Brown, of Balliol, was sure of it.
Nevertheless, by the afternoon he was in good spirits again, and found a mixed paper which suited him as if Uncle John had set it. One of the examiners had been, some twenty years ago, a pupil of John Rosedew, and this, of course, was a great advantage to any successor alumnus; though neither of them knew the other. It is pleasant to see how the old ideas germinate and assimilate, as the olive and the baobab do, after the fires of many summers.
Clayton, a placable youth (even when he was quite in the wrong, as in the present instance), came to Craddyʼs rooms that evening, begged him not to apologise for his expressions of the morning, and compared notes with him upon the doings of the day.
“Bless you, Crad”, he cried, after a glass of first–rate brown sherry—not the vile molassied stuff, thick as the sack of Falstaff, but the genuine thing, with the light and shade of brown olives in the sunset, and not to be procured, of course, from any Oxonian wine–dealer;—“oh, Crad, if we could only wallop that Brown, of Balliol, between us, I should not care much which it was. He has booked it for such a certainty, and does look so cocky about it. Did you see the style he walked off, before hall, arm in arm with a Master of Arts, and spouting his own iambics”?
“First–rate ones, I dare say, Viley. Have a pipe, old fellow. After all, it doesnʼt matter much. Folk who have never been in them think a deal the most of these things. The wine–merchant laughs at beeswing; and so, I suppose, it is with all trades”. Cradock was not by any means prone to the discourse sententious; and the present lapse was due, no doubt, to the reaction ensuing upon his later scene with Viley, wherein each had promised heartily to hold fast by the brotherhood.
On the following Saturday morning, John Rosedewʼs face flushed puce–colour as he opened his letters at breakfast–time. “Hurrah! Amy, darling; hurrah, my child! Terque quaterque, et novies evoe! Eat all the breakfast, melimel; I wonʼt tell you till I come back”.