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He moulded their minds after the model of his own, and stamped an impression upon them which was indelible in after- life; whatever else a Roughborough man might be, he was sure to make everyone feel that he was a God-fearing earnest Christian and a Liberal, if not a Radical, in politics. Some boys, of course, were incapable of appreciating the beauty and loftiness of Dr Skinner's nature.
Of course, they would have a grand opening, and the Bishop would come down, and perhaps young Figgins might be on a visit to them she must ask Ernest if young Figgins had yet left Roughborough he might even persuade his grandfather Lord Lonsford to be present. The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
Most boys soon discover the difference between noise and actual danger, but to others it is so unnatural to menace, unless they mean mischief, that they are long before they leave off taking turkey-cocks and ganders au serieux. Ernest was one of the latter sort, and found the atmosphere of Roughborough so gusty that he was glad to shrink out of sight and out of mind whenever he could.
He would therefore have to go back to Roughborough this half year with only five shillings' pocket money. If he wanted more he must earn more merit money. Ernest was not so careful about money as a pattern boy should be.
It appeared to her that to do him any real service she must devote herself almost entirely to him; she must in fact give up living in London, at any rate for a long time, and live at Roughborough where she could see him continually. This was a serious undertaking; she had lived in London for the last twelve years, and naturally disliked the prospect of a small country town such as Roughborough.
Before the end of the half year he had dropped from the estate to which he had been raised during his aunt's stay at Roughborough, and his old dejection, varied, however, with bursts of conceit rivalling those of his mother, resumed its sway over him. "Pontifex," said Dr Skinner, who had fallen upon him in hall one day like a moral landslip, before he had time to escape, "do you never laugh?
Dr Skinner had long left Roughborough, and had become Dean of a Cathedral in one of our Midland counties a position which exactly suited him. Finding himself once in the neighbourhood Ernest called, for old acquaintance sake, and was hospitably entertained at lunch. Thirty years had whitened the Doctor's bushy eyebrows his hair they could not whiten.
"My mamma's conscience has not left off speaking," said Ernest to one of his chums at Roughborough; "it's always jabbering." When a boy has once spoken so disrespectfully as this about his mother's conscience it is practically all over between him and her.
He did not find the work irksome: it was far more pleasant than making Latin and Greek verses at Roughborough; he felt that he would rather be here in prison than at Roughborough again yes, or even at Cambridge itself. The only trouble he was ever in danger of getting into was through exchanging words or looks with the more decent-looking of his fellow-prisoners.
He showed no aptitude for any particular branch of academic study, nevertheless he impressed his friends as being likely to make his mark. Just as he used reminiscences of his own schooldays at Shrewsbury for Ernest's life at Roughborough, so he used reminiscences of his own Cambridge days for those of Ernest.
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