o many parishioners--why, he might add to his income by taking
pupils, or even keeping a school, and then, say at thirty, he might
marry. It was not easy for Theobald to hit on any much more sensible
plan. He could not get Ernest into business, for he had no business
connections--besides he did not know what business meant; he had no
interest, again, at the Bar; medicine was a profession which subjected
its students to ordeals and temptations which these fond parents shrank
from on behalf of their boy; he would be thrown among companions and
familiarised with details which might sully him, and though he might
stand, it was "only too possible" that he would fall. Besides,
ordination was the road which Theobald knew and understood, and indeed
the only road about which he knew anything at all, so not unnaturally it
was the one he chose for Ernest.

The foregoing had been instilled into my hero from earliest boyhood, much
as it had been instilled into Theobald himself, and with the same
result--the conviction, namely, that he was certainly to be a clergyman,
but that it was a long way off yet, and he supposed it was all right. As
for the duty of reading hard, and taking as good a degree as he could,
this was plain enough, so he set himself to work, as I have said,
steadily, and to the surprise of everyone as well as himself got a
college scholarship, of no great value, but still a scholarship, in his
freshman's term. It is hardly necessary to say that Theobald stuck to
the whole of this money, believing the pocket-money he allowed Ernest to
be sufficient for him, and knowing how dangerous it was for young men to
have money at command. I do not suppose it even occurred to him to try
and remember what he had felt when his father took a like course in
regard to himself.

Ernest's position in this respect was much what it had been at school
except that things were on a larger scale. His tutor's and cook's bills
were paid for him; his father sent him his wine; over and above this he
had 50 pounds a year with which to keep himself in clothes and all other
expenses; this was about the usual thing at Emmanuel in Ernest's day,
though many had much less than this. Ernest did as he had done at
school--he spent what he could, soon after he received his money; he then
incurred a few modest liabilities, and then lived penuriously till next
term, when he would immediately pay his debts, and start new ones to much
the same extent