After this Val went off to the University with a warm sense of his approaching manhood, and a new independence of feeling. He went to Balliol naturally, as the college of his country, and there fell into the hands of Mr Gerald Grinder, who had condescended to be the boy’s private tutor long ago, just before he attained to the glories of his fellowship. Boys were thus passed up along the line among the Grinder family, which had an excellent connection, and throve well. Val was not clever enough nor studious enough to furnish the ambitious heads of his college with a future first-class man; but as he had one great and well-established quality, they received him with more than ordinary satisfaction; for even at Balliol, has not the most sublime of colleges a certain respect for its place on the river? I have heard of such a thing as a Boating scholarship, the nominal examination for which is made very light indeed to famous oars; but anyhow, Val, though perhaps a very stiff matriculation paper might have floored him, got in upon comparatively easy terms. I will not say much about his successes, nor even insist on the fact that Oxford was an easy winner on the river that triumphant day when Lichen rowed stroke and Val bow in the University boat, and all the small Etonians roared so, under their big hats, that it was a mercy none of them exploded. Val did well, though not brilliantly, in his University career, as he had done at Eton. He had a little difficulty now and then with his hasty temper, but otherwise came to no harm; and thus, holding his own in intellectual matters, and doing more than hold his own in other points that rank quite as high in Oxford, as in the rest of the academical world, made his way to his majority. I believe it crossed Lord Eskside’s mind now and then to think that in Parliament it was very soon forgotten whether a man had been bow or even stroke of the ‘Varsity boat; and that it could count for little in political life, and for less than nothing with the sober constituency of a Scotch county; but then, as all the youth of England, and all the instructors of that youth, set much store by the distinction, even an anxious parent (not to say grandfather) is mollified. “What good will all that nonsense do him?” the old lord would growl, working his shaggy eyebrows, as he read in the papers, even the most intellectual, a discussion of Val’s sinews and breadth of chest and “form” before the great race was rowed. “At least it cannot do him any harm,” said my lady, always and instantly on the defensive; “and I don’t see why you should grudge our boy the honour that other folks’ boys would give their heads for.” “Other folks’ boys may be foolish if they like--I am concerned only for my own,” said Lord Eskside; “what does the county care for his bow-ing or his stroke-ing? it’s a kind of honour that will stand little wear and tear, however much you may think of it, my lady.”