“Well, I did not think Norman would have been before Forder and Cheviot. That is grand.”
“It was the verses that did it,” said Harry; “they had an hour to do Themistocles on the hearth of Admetus, and there he beat them all to shivers. ‘Twas all done smack, smooth, without a scratch, in Alcaics, and Cheviot heard Wilmot saying, ‘twas no mere task, but had poetry, and all that sort of thing in it. But I don’t know whether that would have done, if he had not come out so strong in the recitation; they put him on in Priam’s speech to Achilles, and he said it--Oh it was too bad papa did not hear him! Every one held their breath and listened.”
“How you do go on!” muttered Norman; but no one heeded, and Harry continued. “He construed a chorus in Sophocles without a blunder, but what did the business was this, I believe. They asked all manner of out-of-the-way questions--history and geography, what no one expected, and the fellows who read nothing they can help, were thoroughly posed. Forder had not a word to say, and the others were worse, for Cheviot thought Queen Elizabeth’s Earl of Leicester was Simon de Montfort; and didn’t know when that battle was, beginning with an E.--was it Evesham, or Edgehill?”
“But any one would know Leicester, because of Kenilworth,” said Harry; “and I’m not sixth form. If papa had but been there! Every one was asking for him, and wishing it. For Dr. Hoxton called me--they shook hands with me, and wished me joy of it, and told me to tell my father how well Norman had done.”
“I suppose you looked so happy, they could not help it,” said Flora, smiling at that honest beaming face of joy.
“Ay,” said Norman, looking up; “they had something to say to him on his own score, which he has forgotten.”
“I should think not,” said Harry. “Why, what d’ye think they said? That I had gone on as well as all the Mays, and they trusted I should still, and be a credit to my profession.”
“Oh! that is grand!” and, as the two elder girls made this exclamation, Mary proceeded to a rapturous embrace. “Get along, Mary, you are throttling one. Mr. Everard inquired for my father and Margaret, and said he’d call to-morrow, and Hoxton and Wilmot kept on wishing he was there.”
“I wish he had been!” said Ethel; “he would have taken such delight in it; but, even if he could have gone, he doubted whether it would not have made Norman get on worse from anxiety.”