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At the end of those few weeks Bruce went back to take part in his mother's splendid theatricals and routs, with a consciousness of neglected opportunities and wasted times even if his conscience laid no worse sins to his charge. Brogten went back, cursing himself and all around him, with the violent self-accusations of a reprobate obstinacy, a man in vice, though hardly more than a boy in years.
Both of them had been in the Harton eleven, and now each of them was already in the second boat of their respective clubs; but with all these similarities Lillyston was beginning to be one of the men most liked and respected among all the best sets of his own year, and was reading for honours with a fair chance of ultimate success, while Brogten was looked on as a low and stupid fellow, whose company was discreditable, and whose doings were a disgrace to his old school.
But I bet you what you like that I make De Vayne drunk before a month's over." "Done! I bet you twenty pounds you don't." Disgusting that the young, and pure-hearted, and amiable De Vayne should be made the butt of the machinations of such men as Bruce and Brogten! But so it was. So it was; I could not invent facts like these.
Without being rude and uncivil, he had yet managed to hold aloof from him, and as Brogten was in some repute at Harton, when Home came, and was moreover an Hartonian of much longer standing, his sensitive pride had been stung by the fact that the "new fellow," whose pleasant face and manners had attracted his notice, did not at once and gratefully embrace his proffered friendship.
"I shouldn't wonder now if Home were to lose the Clerkland; he was sure of it before this morning," said one. "What a cursed shame!" echoed another. "I never in my life heard a more blackguard trick. That fellow Brogten has lost the Hartonians the scholarship; lucky if he hasn't lost it to Saint Werner's too. Perhaps that Benedict man will get it."
The man promised; but there was no need to have done so, for furious as Brogten was, he and his companions were too crestfallen to take any notice of the bargee in passing, except by contemptuous looks, which he returned with interest.
"Yes," answered Brogten slowly, while his voice shook with passion; "yes, he did horse-whip me, and I took it. And as for you, Home, listen to me. I came here solely to tell you that though I screwed you in, I never dreamt that such results would follow.
"I should think the testimony of a man who doesn't scruple secretly to read examination-papers before they are set, ought not to stand for much." Brogten, as we have already mentioned, had revealed to him the secret of Kennedy's dishonour. This remark fell quite dead: Kennedy sat unmoved, and Mr Norton replied "Pray don't introduce your personal altercations here, Mr Bruce, on irrelevant topics.
"By the bye, Mr Brogten," he continued sarcastically, "I hope that you don't, after this, expect to be paid any of the bets you have made against Home's getting the Clerkland?"
For, indeed, such practical jokes as Brogten attempted are now almost unknown at Camford, and every man's room is considered sacred in his absence. But although he desisted from this kind of malice, it was not long before Brogten was generally shunned by his former schoolfellows.
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