"Oh, my frock! my frock! There 'tis--three stitches--go on, and I'll come," said Ethel, seizing a needle, and sewing vehemently at a little pink frock. "Go on, Miss Winter goes slowly up the hill, and I'll overtake you."
"Come, Norman, then; it is the only way to make her come at all."
"I shall wait for her," said Norman. "Go on, Flora, we shall catch you up in no time;" and, as Flora went, he continued, "Never mind your aims and fames and trumpery English rhymes. Your verses will be much the best, Ethel; I only went on a little about Mount Vesuvius and the landscape, as Alan described it the other day, and Decius taking a last look, knowing he was to die. I made him beg his horse's pardon, and say how they will both be remembered, and their self-devotion would inspire Romans to all posterity, and shout with a noble voice!" said Norman, repeating some of his lines, correcting them as he proceeded.
"Oh! yes; but oh, dear, I've done! Come along," said Ethel, crumpling her work into a bundle, and snatching up her gloves; then, as they ran downstairs, and emerged into the street, "It is a famous subject."
"Yes, you have made a capital beginning. If you won't break down somewhere, as you always do, with some frightful false quantity, that you would get an imposition for, if you were a boy. I wish you were. I should like to see old Hoxton's face, if you were to show him up some of these verses."
"I'll tell you what, Norman, if I was you, I would not make Decius flatter himself with the fame he was to get--it is too like the stuff every one talks in stupid books. I want him to say--Rome--my country--the eagles--must win, if they do--never mind what becomes of me."
"But why should he not like to get the credit of it, as he did? Fame and glory--they are the spirit of life, the reward of such a death."
"Oh, no, no," said Ethel. "Fame is coarse and vulgar--blinder than ever they draw Love or Fortune--she is only a personified newspaper, trumpeting out all that is extraordinary, without minding whether it is good or bad. She misses the delicate and lovely--I wished they would give us a theme to write about her. I should like to abuse her well."
"It would make a very good theme, in a new line," said Norman; "but I don't give into it, altogether. It is the hope and the thought of fame, that has made men great, from first to last. It is in every one that is not good for nothing, and always will be! The moving spirit of man's greatness!"
"I'm not sure," said Ethel; "I think looking for fame is like wanting a reward at once. I had rather people forgot themselves. Do you think Arnold von Winkelried thought about fame when he threw himself on the spears?"
"He got it," said Norman.
"Yes; he got it for the good of other people, not to please himself. Fame does those that admire it good, not those that win it."
"But!" said Norman, and both were silent for some short interval, as they left the last buildings of the town, and began to mount a steep hill. Presently Norman slackened his pace, and driving his stick vehemently against a stone, exclaimed, "It is no use talking, Ethel, it is all a fight and a race. One is always to try to be foremost. That's the spirit of the thing--that's what the great, from first to last, have struggled, and fought, and lived, and died for."
"I know it is a battle, I know it is a race. The Bible says so," replied Ethel; "but is not there the difference, that here all may win--not only one? One may do one's best, not care whether one is first or last. That's what our reading to-day said."
"That was against trumpery vanity--false elevation--not what one has earned for oneself, but getting into other people's places that one never deserved. That every one despises!"
"Of course! That they do. I say, Norman, didn't you mean Harvey Anderson?"
Instead of answering, Norman exclaimed, "It is pretension that is hateful--true excelling is what one's life is for. No, no, I'll never be beat, Ethel--I never have been beat by any one, except by you, when you take pains," he added, looking exultingly at his sister, "and I never will be."
"Oh, Norman!"
"I mean, of course, while I have senses. I would not be like Richard for all the world."
"Oh, no, no, poor Richard!"
"He is an excellent fellow in everything else," said Norman; "I could sometimes wish I was more like him--but how he can be so amazingly slow, I can't imagine. That examination paper he broke down in--I could have done it as easily as possible."
"I did it all but one question," said Ethel, "but so did he, you know, and we can't tell whether we should have it done well enough."
"I know I must do something respectable when first I go to Oxford, if I don't wish to be known as the man whose brother was plucked," said Norman.
"Yes," said Ethel; "if papa will but let you try for the Randall scholarship next year, but he says it is not good to go to Oxford so young."
"And I believe I had better not be there with Richard," added Norman. "I don't like coming into contrast with him, and I don't think he can like it, poor fellow, and it isn't his fault. I had rather stay another year here, get one of the open scholarships, and leave the Stoneborough ones for those who can do no better."
In justice to Norman, we must observe that this was by no means said as a boast. He would scarcely have thus spoken to any one but Etheldred, to whom, as well as to himself, it seemed mere matter-of- fact. The others had in the meantime halted at the top of the hill, and were looking back at the town--the great old Minster, raising its twin towers and long roof, close to the river, where rich green meadows spread over the valley, and the town rising irregularly on the slope above, plentifully interspersed with trees and gardens, and one green space on the banks of the river, speckled over with a flock of little black dots in rapid motion.
"Here you are!" exclaimed Flora. "I told them it was of no use to wait when you and Norman had begun a dissertation."
"Now, Mr. Ernescliffe, I should like you to say," cried Ethel, "which do you think is the best, the name of it, or the thing?" Her eloquence always broke down with any auditor but her brother, or, perhaps, Margaret.
"Ethel!" said Norman, "how is any one to understand you? The argument is this: Ethel wants people to do great deeds, and be utterly careless of the fame of them; I say, that love of glory is a mighty spring."
"A mighty one!" said Alan: "but I think, as far as I understand the question, that Ethel has the best of it."
"I don't mean that people should not serve the cause first of all," said Norman, "but let them have their right place and due honour."
"They had better make up their minds to do without it," said Alan. "Remember--
"The world knows nothing of its greatest men."
"Then it is a great shame," said Norman.
"But do you think it right," said Ethel, "to care for distinction? It is a great thing to earn it, but I don't think one should care for the outer glory."
"I believe it is a great temptation," said Alan. "The being over- elated or over-depressed by success or failure in the eyes of the world, independently of the exertion we have used."
"You call it a temptation?" said Ethel.
"Decidedly so."
"But one can't live or get on without it," said Norman.
There they were cut short. There was a plantation to be crossed, with a gate that would not open, and that seemed an effectual barrier against both Miss Winter and the donkey, until by persuasive eloquence and great gallantry, Mr. Ernescliffe performed the wonderful feat of getting the former over the tall fence, while Norman conducted the donkey a long way round, undertaking to meet them at the other side of the plantation.
The talk became desultory, as they proceeded for at least a mile along a cart-track through soft-tufted grass and heath and young fir- trees. It ended in a broad open moor, stony; and full of damp boggy hollows, forlorn and desolate under the autumn sky. Here they met Norman again, and walked on along a very rough and dirty road, the ground growing more decidedly into hills and valleys as they advanced, till they found themselves before a small, but very steep hillock, one side of which was cut away into a slate quarry. Round this stood a colony of roughly-built huts, of mud, turf, or large blocks of the slate. Many workmen were engaged in splitting up the slates, or loading wagons with them, rude wild-looking men, at the sight of whom the ladies shrank up to their protectors, but who seemed too busy even to spare time for staring at them.