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But now and then the clamour of the outer world became too strong, and he had to face seriously the question of his children’s appetite.

It was on one of these occasions that the schoolmaster called his son to his study and said to him,–

‘Amyntas, you are now eighteen years of age. I have taught you all I know, and you have profited by my teaching; you know Greek and Latin as well as I do myself; you are well acquainted with Horace and Tully; you have read Homer and Aristotle; and added to this, you can read the Bible in the original Hebrew. That is to say, you have all knowledge at your fingers’ ends, and you are prepared to go forth and conquer the world. Your mother will make a bundle of your clothes; I will give you my blessing and a guinea, and you can start to-morrow.’

Then he returned to his study of an oration of Isocrates. Amyntas was thunder-struck.

‘But, father, where am I to go?’

The schoolmaster raised his head in surprise, looking at his son over the top of his spectacles.

‘My son,’ he said, with a wave of the arm; ‘my son, you have the world before you–is that not enough?’

‘Yes, father,’ said Amyntas, who thought it was a great deal too much; ‘but what am I to do? I can’t get very far on a guinea.’

‘Amyntas,’ answered Peter, rising from his chair with great dignity, ‘have you profited so ill by the examples of antiquity, which you have had placed before you from your earliest years? Do you not know that riches consist in an equal mind, and happiness in golden mediocrity? Did the wise Odysseus quail before the unknown, because he had only a guinea in his pocket? Shame on the heart that doubts! Leave me, my son, and make ready.’

Amyntas, very crestfallen, left the room and went to his mother to acquaint her with the occurrence. She was occupied in the performance of the family’s toilet.

‘Well, my boy,’ she said, as she scrubbed the face of the last but one, ‘it’s about time that you set about doing something to earn your living, I must say. Now, if instead of learning all this popish stuff about Greek and Latin and Lord knows what, you’d learnt to milk a cow or groom a horse you’d be as right as a trivet now. Well, I’ll put you up a few things in a bundle as your father says and you can start early to-morrow morning…. Now then, darling,’ she added, turning to her Benjamin, ‘come and have your face washed, there’s a dear.’

IV

Amyntas scratched his head, and presently an inspiration came to him.

‘I will go to the parson,’ he said.

The parson had been hunting, and he was sitting in his study in a great oak chair, drinking a bottle of port; his huge body and his red face expressed the very completest satisfaction with the world in general; one felt that he would go to bed that night with the cheerful happiness of duty performed, and snore stentoriously for twelve hours. He was troubled by no qualms of conscience; the Thirty-nine Articles caused him never a doubt, and it had never occurred to him to concern himself with the condition of the working classes. He lived in a golden age, when the pauper was allowed to drink himself to death as well as the nobleman, and no clergyman’s wife read tracts by his bedside….

Amyntas told his news.

‘Well, my boy’–he never spoke but he shouted–‘so you’re going away? Well, God bless you!’

Amyntas looked at him expectantly, and the parson, wondering what he expected, came to the conclusion that it was a glass of port, for at that moment he was able to imagine nothing that man could desire more. He smiled benignly upon Amyntas, and poured him out a glass.

‘Drink that, my boy. Keep it in your memory. It’s the finest thing in the world. It’s port that’s made England what she is!’