Julian Home | Page 3

stood still with a flush of exultation on his handsome face, in an attitude peculiar to him whenever he was undergoing an ovation.
"Pose plastique; King Bruce snuffing up the incense of flattery!" muttered a school Thersites, standing by.
"Green-minded scoundrel," was the reply; "that's because he beat you to fits in the Latin verse."
"How very popular he seems to be, Julian," said Miss Home to her brother, as they stood rather apart from the fashionable crowd.
"Very popular, and, on the whole, he deserves his popularity; how capitally he recited to-day," and Julian looked at him and sighed.
"And now, mother, will you come to lunch?" he said; "you're invited to my tutor's, you know."
They went and took a hasty lunch, heartily enjoying the simple and general good-humour which was the order of the day; and finding that there was still an hour before the train started which was to convey them home, Julian took them up to the old churchyard, and while they enjoyed the only breath of air which made the tall elms murmur in the burning day, he showed them the beautiful scene spread out at their feet, and the distant towers of Elton and Saint George. Field after field, filled with yellowing harvests or grazing herds, stretched away to the horizon, and nothing on earth could be fairer than that soft sleep of the golden sunshine on the green and flowery meadowland, while overhead only a few silvery cloudlets variegated with their fleecy lustre the expanse of blue, rippling down to the horizon like curves of white foam at the edges of a summer sea.
"No wonder a poet loved this view," said Mrs Home. "By the bye, Julian, which is the tomb he used to lie upon?"
"There, just behind us; that one with the fragments broken off by stupid picturesque tourists, with the name of Peachey on it."
"And so Byron really used, as a boy, to rest under these elms, and look at this lovely view!" said his sister.
"Yes, Violet. I wonder how much he'd have given, in after-life, to be a boy again," said Julian thoughtfully; "and have a fresh start--a rejuvenescence, beginning after a summer hour spent on Peachey's tomb;" and Julian sighed again.
"My dear Julian," said Violet, gaily rallying him, "what a boy you are! What business have you to sigh here of all places, and now of all times? That's the second time in the course of an hour that I've heard you. Imagine a Harton monitor sighing twice on Speech-day! You must be tired of us."
"Did I sigh? Abominably rude of me. I really didn't mean it," said Julian; and shaking off the influences which had slightly depressed him for the moment, he began to laugh and joke with the utmost mirth until it became time to meet the train. He accompanied his mother and sister to the station, bade them an affectionate farewell, and then walked slowly back, for the beauty of the summer evening made him loiter on the way.
"Poor Julian!" said Violet to her mother when the train started; "he lets the sense of responsibility weigh on him too much, I'm afraid."
But Julian was thinking that the next time he came to the station would probably be at the end of term, when his schoolboy days would be over. He leaned against a gate, and looked long at the green quiet hill, with its tall spire and embosoming trees, till he fell into a reverie.
A slap on the back awoke him, and turning round, he saw the genial, good-humoured face of one of his fellow-monitors, Hugh Lillyston.
"Well, Julian, dreaming as usual--castle-building, and all that sort of thing, eh?"
"No; I was thinking how soon one will have to bid good-bye to dear old Harton. How well the chapel looks from here, doesn't it?--and the church towering above it."
"The chapel being like a fair daughter seated at her mother's feet, as your poetical tutor remarked the other day. Well, Julian, I'm glad we shall leave together, anyhow. Come and have some tea."
Julian went to his friend's room. The fag brought the tea and toast, and they spent a merry evening, chatting over the speeches, and the way in which the day had gone off. At lock-up, Julian went to write some letters, and then feeling the melancholy thought of future days stealing over him, he plunged into a book of poems till it was bed-time, being disturbed a good deal, however, by the noisy mirth which resounded long after forbidden hours from Bruce's study overhead. Bruce was also to leave Harton in a month, and they were going up together to Saint Werner's College, Camford. But the difference was, that Bruce went up wealthy and popular; Julian, whose retiring disposition and refined tastes won him far fewer though truer friends, was going up