Julian Home | Page 5

profoundest indifference a stupid calumny. But poisoned arrows like these quivered long and rankled painfully in Julian's heart.
Yet no sensible boy would have given Julian's reputation in exchange for that of Bruce; for in all except the mean and coarse minority, Julian excited either affection or esteem, and he had the rare inestimable treasure of some real and noble-hearted friends; while Bruce was too vain, too shallow, and too fickle to inspire any higher feeling than a mere transient admiration.
Latterly it had become known to the boys that Julian was going up to Saint Werner's as a sizar, and being ignorant of the reasons which decided him, they had been much surprised. But the little clique of his enemies made this an additional subject of annoyance, and there were not wanting those who had the amazing bad taste to repeat to him some of their speeches. There are some who seem to think that a man must rather enjoy hearing all the low tittle-tattle of envious backbiters.
"I knew he must be some tailor's son or other," remarked Brogten.
"I say, Bruce, we shall have to cut him at Saint Werner's," observed an exquisite young exclusive.
Such things--the mere lispings of malicious folly--Julian could not help hearing; and they galled him so much that he determined to have a talk on the subject with his tutor, who was a Saint Werner's man. It was his tutor's custom to devote the hour before lock-up on every half-holiday to seeing any of his pupils who cared to come and visit him; but as on the rich summer evenings few were to be tempted from the joyous sounds of the cricket-field, Julian found him sitting alone in his study, reading.
"Ha, Julian!" he exclaimed, rising at once, with a frank and cordial greeting. "Here's a triumph! A boy actually enticed from bats and balls to pay me a visit!"
Julian smiled. "The fact is, sir," he said, "I've come to ask you about something. But am I disturbing you? If so, I'll go and `pursue vagrant pieces of leather again,' as Mr Stokes says when he wants to dismiss us to cricket."
"Not in the least. I rather enjoy being disturbed during this hour. But what do you say to a turn in the open air? One can talk so much better walking than sitting down on opposite sides of a fireplace with no fire in it."
Julian readily assented, and Mr Carden took his arm as they bent their way down to the cricket-field. There they stopped involuntarily for a time, to gaze at the house match which was going on, and the master entered with the utmost vivacity into the keen yet harmless "chaff" which was being interchanged between the partisans of the rival houses.
"What a charming place this field is," he said, "on a summer evening, while the sunset lets fall upon it the last innocuous arrows of its golden sheaf. When I am wearied to death with work or vexation--which, alas! is too often--I always run down here, and it gives me a fresh lease of life."
Julian smiled at his tutor's metaphorical style of speech, which he knew was in him the natural expressions of a glowing and poetic heart, that saw no reason to be ashamed of its own warm feelings and changeful fancies; and Mr Carden, wrapped in the scene before him, and the sensations it excited, murmured to himself some of his favourite lines--
"Alas that one Should use the days of summer but to live, And breathe but as the needful element The strange superfluous glory of the air Nor rather stand in awe apart, beside The untouched time, and murmuring o'er and o'er In awe and wonder, `These are summer days!'"
"Shall we stroll across the fields, sir, before lock-up?" said Julian, as a triumphant shout proclaimed that the game was over, and the Parkites had defeated the Grovians.
"Yes, do. By the bye, what was it that you had to ask me about?"
"Oh, sir, I don't think I've told you before; but I'm going up to Saint Werner's as a sub-sizar."
Mr Carden looked surprised. "Indeed! Is that necessary?"
"Yes, sir; it's a choice between that and not going at all. And what I wanted to ask you was, whether it will subject me to much annoyance or contempt; because, if so--"
"Contempt, my dear fellow!" said Mr Carden quickly. "Yes," he added, after a pause, "the contempt of the contemptible--certainly of no one else."
"But do you think that any Harton fellows will cut me?"
"Unquestionably not; at least, if any of them do, it will be such a proof of their own absolute worthlessness, that you will be well rid of such acquaintances."
Julian seemed but little reassured by this summary way of viewing the matter.
"But I hope," he said, "that no one, (even if they don't