The Three BridesYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
General
The Three Brides
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Marriage -- Fiction
And the boy not out of him.--TENNYSON'S Queen Mary
Julius had only too well divined the cause of his summons. He found
Herbert Bowater's papers on the table before the Bishop, and there
was no denying that they showed a declension since last year, and
that though, from men without his advantages they would have been
passable, yet from him they were evidences of neglect of study and
thought. Nor could the cause be ignored by any one who had kept an
eye on the cricket reports in the county paper; but Herbert was such
a nice, hearty, innocent fellow, and his father was so much
respected, that it was with great reluctance that his rejection was
decided on and his Rector had been sent for in case there should be
any cause for extenuation.
Julius could not say there was. He was greatly grieved and
personally ashamed, but he could plead nothing but his own failure
to influence the young man enough to keep him out of a rage for
amusement, of which the quantity, not the quality, was the evil. So
poor Herbert was sent for to hear his fate, and came back looking
stunned. He hardly spoke till they were in the fly that Julius had
brought from Backsworth, and then the untamed school-boy broke
forth: "What are you doing with me? I say, I can't go back to
Compton like a dog in a string."
"Where will you go?"
"I don't care. To Jericho at once, out of the way of every one. I
tell you what, Rector, it was the most ridiculous examination I ever
went up for, and I'm not the only man that says so. There was
Rivers, of St. Mary's at Backsworth,--he says the questions were
perfectly unreasonable, and what no one could be prepared for. This
fellow Danvers is a new hand, and they are always worst, setting one
a lot of subjects of no possible use but to catch one out. I should
like to ask him now what living soul at Compton he expects to be the
better for my views on the right reading of--"
Julius interrupted the passionate tones at the lodge by saying, "If
you wish to go to Jericho, you must give directions."
Herbert gave something between a laugh and a growl.
"I left the pony at Backsworth. Will you come with me to Strawyers
and wait in the park till I send Jenny out to you?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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