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All the morning he had been occupied with a tedious piece of local business, wading through endless documents concerning a dispute between the head-master of a neighbouring grammar-school and his governing body, of which Aldous was one. The affair was difficult, personal, odious. To have wasted nearly three hours upon it was, to a man of Aldous's type, to have lost a day.
He was simply to visit the college as frequently as he could; 'and, writes Dr. Benson, the first head-master, 'he was received as an angel of God. 'It is not possible, he adds, 'for me to describe the veneration in which we all held him. Like Elijah in the schools of the Prophets, he was revered, he was loved, he was almost adored. My heart kindles while I write.
This was when Scott remarked in a dreamy voice, "You know, I'm told the old man has been spending a good lot of money lately...." To which the burden of Pillingshot's reply was that he would do anything in reason, but he was blowed if he was going to cross-examine the head-master. "It seems to me," said Scott sadly, "that you don't want to find that sovereign. Don't you like Evans, or what is it?"
He questioned a few, then gave the first medal to Derossi, and before giving the second, he stood for a few moments listening to the teacher and the head-master, who were talking to him in a low voice. All were asking themselves, "To whom will he give the second?" The superintendent said aloud:
To find the head-master making apologies to him was positively painful and embarrassing, and his countenance would have been fitter for a culprit receiving a lecture. It was pleasanter when the two other masters shook hands with him, Mr. Harrison with a free confession that he had done him injustice, and Mr.
Yesterday morning, during the lesson on religion, in the presence of the head-master, the teacher asked Derossi if he knew by heart the two couplets in the reading-book, "Where'er I turn my gaze, 'tis Thee, great God, I see." Derossi said that he did not, and Votini suddenly exclaimed, "I know them!" with a smile, as though to pique Derossi.
May's first feeling really seemed to be pity and sympathy for his old friend, the head-master, in the shock of such a discovery. Harry was vociferously telling his version of the story to Ethel and Mary. Tom stood transfixed in attention. Meta, forgotten and bewildered, was standing near Norman, whose colour rapidly varied, and whose breath came short and quick as he listened.
The blacksmith, who had stood there with open mouth listening to him, stared at the superintendent and the head-master, and then at his son, who was standing before him with downcast eyes and trembling; and as though he had remembered and comprehended then, for the first time, all that he had made the little fellow suffer, and all the goodness, the heroic constancy, with which the latter had borne it, he displayed in his countenance a certain stupid wonder, then a sullen remorse, and finally a sorrowful and impetuous tenderness, and with a rapid gesture he caught the boy round the head and strained him to his breast.
Pat was bringing his new religion to bear upon his work. He already had a devoted bunch of boys to whom he was dealing out wholesome truths beginning a new era in the school. The head-master looked on in amazement, for morality hadn't been one of the chief recommendations that the faculty of the university had given Pat.
This was the case, so far as regarded knowledge at least, not with myself only, for the two boys who jointly with myself composed the first form were better Grecians than the head-master, though not more elegant scholars.... I who had a small patrimonial property, the income of which was sufficient to support me at college, wished to be sent thither immediately.