CHAPTER II.

THE FALLING BLIGHT.

As soon as Charles had settled down in his rooms, it was nearly as clear to others as it was to his own mind, that he was not easily to be tempted to any course that was openly immoral or injudicious. He was set down, almost without an effort to draw him out, as one part Methodist and three parts fag. Not that he was morose or niggardly; on the contrary, he was just as gay as a light heart could make him, and as full of humour as a home-bred lad could be without making himself an absolute fool, and the laughing-stock of his companions. But from the first he had taken, as he thought, a very snug and very accurate survey of the whole field,—had familiarized his mind not only with the prizes, but with the tricks by which they were thought to be won, and the competitors who were preparing for the fierce and honourable strife. He had chosen to stake a large amount, perhaps all the happiness of the present passage in his life, on what seemed, to his sanguine temperament, a worthy and safe venture. He measured his competitors, compared his own proficiency with theirs, girt up all the passion and strength he had, and almost died to head them and to win. But many there, who lacked his ardent nature and would have smiled in pity had they looked into his heart and seen the turbulence of his contending feelings, had yet been drilled from infancy almost, just on purpose that they might win the prize of which he had only just caught sight. These took things leisurely-read hard, but made no sign-resignedly enough left their studies when they locked their study doors, and went back to practice their steps, and gallop over the course, with the assurance of men who had no doubt about the result, and who had made up their minds long ago that the prize should be their own. So this poor spirit chafed and wounded itself by prodigious and unhealthy efforts that were foredoomed to failure. His experienced tutor knew that his hope was futile, whatever might be the strength of purpose and the amount of labour

he might bring to bear, and he gently insinuated that, after all, it wasn't worth half the trouble-it could only be a nine days' wonder, and nobody in the whole world, out of Oxford, would ever hear, or if they heard by chance, ever care a pinch, who won what prize. But the boy-student had set his heart upon the prize his fancy endowed it with a value proportioned to the toil he had expended. As to the chances in his favour, he wouldn't take his tutor's word for thosehe was a slow, plodding old fellow, good enough in his way, but he had no blood in him-no notion how much a wellborn lad could and would sacrifice for any given end, in the way to which there was rivalry or strife; besides, no wonder the grim little grinder should despond if he imagined that his pupil did no more than fill up for a few hours each day the studies which he directed and sketched out. "He little knows," thought the aspirant, "and he sha'n't know till it's over, how many hours of the night I have given gladly and unweariedly to study when he thought I was asleep. He'd alter his mind, I rather fancy, if he could just peep in, some of these nights, about two in the morning, and see me with the lamp all trimmed and bright, the heavy little counterpane over the window, and a towel, with pints of water in it, wrapped round my brow to keep it cool. Shade of Mahomet! He'd take me for a Turk, and own that I looked very like winning heaven at the point of the sword." The wary tutor was not, however, altogether in the dark; for, though it was none of his business, and he had no particular inclination for prowling about at two A.M., he knew without telling, that, since the days of Erasmus, there never had been a lad of that stamp at Oxford, with a spice of ambition in his nature, who had not very early in his course played the fool, till he had half killed and half blinded himself, besides blunting his intellects for life, by scanning Greek at two o'clock in the morning.

One morning, as Charles was passing rather in a hurry from chapel to his room, he stumbled on young Malkin-a sprightly youth, though somewhat delicate, and known for a reading man, though nothing very much out of the way, and, as the examination was only a few days off, it was uppermost, as it happened, in both minds.

"Hallo, Barton, what's up? You look as if you'd been living on guineas for a month-lucky dog! but you shouldn't swallow them, they've given you the jaundice; better spend them, or give them to those who will. What makes you so yellow, and red, and spotty?"

"I don't know, I'm sure; perhaps swallowing too much guineas' worth, for they do go down somebody's throat, in some shape. I feel all right-seedy, you know-ha, ha, didn't get to bed till long after three-such a lark!”

The fibber, and he looked so ghostly and frightened at the fib, that Malkin didn't quite believe him-he knew well enough that Barton had other fish a-frying. So he said carelessly, "Well, I suppose we sha'n't have the honour of your competition next week? There's a good lot going in, I hear; I suppose you won't think of it?"

"But I do," said Barton, thrown off his guard, "you'll see what you shall see."

"What! you mean mischief, do you? Well, I'll give in ; not a bad kind of larking, either, though it does make you look uncommonly lemony all over. Are you well up, think you? Mind you don't leave anything out; for I'll tell you a bit of a secret, I'm going in too."

"You? well, what of that?”

"I go in to win, old buck; my stakes are too heavy to lose."

"Don't be too sure; others have worked hard when you little thought, and you may find yourself second, for all your stakes are so heavy."

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Oh, I haven't the slightest fear," said Malkin; “I haven't looked at a book for a fortnight, and don't mean to any more till the time comes."

"So much the worse for you and your stake, then; I mean to sit up till I drop, every night this week, and we'll see who'll come off first."

"So, so-ta, ta; do as you say, and I'm safer than ever; for I'll bet you a hundred to one, if you take it in coppers, you'll not be placed at all.”

All this was sufficiently mortifying, and ought to have had some salutary effect; for it was well-known that Malkin was

heavily backed, and that he ought to have won at the last examination in a canter, though then there were half-a-dozen men better up than anyone on the list at present. It had only the effect, however, of throwing young Barton into a fever of savage, unprofitable application all day and all night long; thus wilfully stupefying his brain by a systematic cramming, clogging his fine memory with a mass of matter sure not to be wanted, and which he couldn't have digested in time to make use of, even if it had been.

CHAPTER III.

STILL FALLING.

BEFORE the examination commenced, it was plain to the affectionate tutor that the health of his pupil was undermined, and that his whole nervous system was shaken; but the febrile glow was accounted by the young man as a real accession of strength and spirit for the great contest, and as an omen of brilliant success. In the slumbers which he snatched from his precious hours of preparation, he saw his father far off, gazing at him with a dull, almost reproachful look, but he leaped at one bound to his arms, and shouted, "Father, it is mine!" And often did he see, in the visions of the night, a shadowy presence, a form of beauty, an eye of fire, and heard, with swelling heart, a voice of tenderness and depth, bidding him on in his ambition, and conferring a proud reward. The remembrance of his ill-fated mother had never been kept alive by reference and remark. Through the years of giddy childhood and first youth, it had died out utterly; but since the fires of ambition had been kindled, he had often seen her figure in the flames, even in his waking hours. No wonder, then, that in his fitful sleep he should see her in that awful but inspiring, maddening beauty, which had flashed all around her when last he had been lifted to her arms, and had fallen asleep in her bosom. The eve of the contest was sleepless. He had stretched his thoughts too widely to call them home to rest; and in the morning he

rose and dressed himself with languor. Sickness, and headache, and unstrung nerves, and trembling hands, and wandering mind, all helped to depress his spirits. But he knew that a copious draught of wine would soon set all that to rights. He swallowed the tempting and reviving draught; he would have more, lest the influence of that already taken should pass off too soon; and then, with that strange patience which the soldier feels when all is ready, when nothing remains to be adjusted or altered, all perfectly ready except the word to move-he awaited the summons which was to be the knell of his turgid hopes, and to call his young heart down into the valley of humiliation and even to the slough of despond. There was no trepidation, no leak in that well-seasoned confidence, no misgiving in that firm step and erect bearing, no flinching in that wine-lit eye. The first part of the trial was courageously faced, and there was no failure yet; but it was not to continue thus. In little more than one hour, his mind became anxious, his memory became treacherous, confused, and halting—if it presented him with the right answer, as is likely enough, it was with hesitancy; he could not go on to trust it. He had lost self-confidence; for the spell of the wine-cup had gone away like a vapour. And so he buried his burning face in his hands-he knew that he was lost-he gave one melancholy glance to the calm, inquiring face of Malkin, and rushed from the room in an agony of shame. The tutor had foreseen a result something like this, and he had feared for the sequel. He had written to Arlton to urge Mr. Barton to come and comfort his son; for he was sure he would greatly need it. But even he, with his experience and his lengthened observation of college life, could form but a faint image of that disastrous sorrow which fell upon his pupil now. With the infatuation of his mother, he had nerved himself for a great triumph, had staked his all on one hazardous throw, and when he saw the blank, he gave himself up for lost. The native politeness of his manner, the suavity of his ever-welcome voice, the gentle fervent nature of his feelings, the light laughter and the cheerful smile, perished in the flames which false ambition had lighted, and in which pure ambition itself was utterly consumed.