Read Online The Elderbrook Brothers by Gerald Bullet - Free Book Online Page A

broke off to go to the sideboard and mix himself a whisky and soda. Having swallowed one glassful quickly at the sideboard, he poured out another to bring back with him to the hearthrug, where he stood straddled in front of an empty grate, in the attitude of a man warming his hindquarters.
    â€˜He wrote,’ said Mr Cowlin, ‘a beautiful thing on farming. You’ll like that, you a farmer’s son.’ Lodging his glass on the mantelpiece he began turning Virgil’s pages: jerkily, with a kind of fury, as though he owed it an obscure grudge. ‘Here you are:
Haec super arvorum cultu pecorumque canebam et super arboribus
. Thus, or so, I sang of the cultivation, or care, of fields, of cattle, and of trees. That’s what he says. And that’s what he did. Tilling, planting, cattle-rearing, beekeeping. That was before the Christian era began, if youplease. Country life doesn’t change much. Devilish long time ago: I was only a child at the time,’ said Mr Cowlin, with a sudden laugh. ‘You stick to it, my boy. Get a good grounding. I’ll see you do. I’ll help you. Then you’ll be able to read this for yourself, eh?’
    Mr Cowlin was excited: by whisky, by the Georgics, by his own expanding benevolence. He felt suddenly that all things were possible; that he was being given a blessed, belated chance to justify his unnecessary existence. Gratitude to the unconscious author of his happiness beamed from his moist eye.
    â€˜You see?’ said Mr Cowlin lyrically.
‘Quid faciat laetas segetes, quo sidere terram vertere
… Nice stuff, my boy. Nice, practical, beautiful stuff.’
    Guy said ‘Yes, sir!’ and did his best to sound rapturous. He was seeing an entirely new Mr Cowlin, and though but dimly understanding this enthusiasm he saw that it was likely to prove very useful to himself. It
was
queer, too, to think of things going on much the same all those years ago; but he did not in the least want to read any old book for its own sake. The important thing was to learn Latin, to show them all that he could.
    â€˜Get knowledge,’ said Mr Cowlin solemnly, his utterance thickening a little. ‘Get it while you ‘re young, young Elderbrook. Knowledge, the old boy said, is power. Don’t forget that. Don’t f’get it. Knowledge idge power.’
    Guy did not forget it. Knowledge was power. And power meant getting your own way and not playing second fiddle to anyone. Not Felix, not Matthew, not anyone.
§ 11
    The playground was transfigured. The yelling and the snowballing had been prodigious. Young Mr Surrey, the new master, said ‘It’s the sparkle of the snow, old chap: you’ll soon feel better.’ But it wasn’t the sparkle of the snow andFelix didn’t soon feel better. The sickness became a pain, and before morning school was over he was dizzy with it and had to be taken to Matron. Almost the next thing he knew, he was in bed, with three hot water bottles for company. The sparkle of the snow was in his mind still; the phrase itself ran among his thoughts; he wondered, now and again, what was going to happen to him, but did not trouble to ask. There were other boys in the long, green, unfamiliar dormitory. They seemed very far away. Felix did not want them and made no effort to communicate with them: he did not know what he wanted except his mother, or Faith, or someone from home: anyone from home would have been nice. Meanwhile there was this person called Sister, and presently there was the Doctor. Sister he knew, but only just. She was the one Matron sent you to when you had to have medicine. With her long nose and glazed complexion and severe manner she had seemed on those occasions a forbidding personage, but now she was different, friendly and comforting. She too said the pain would soon be better, and it was, a little, almost at once. Because he submitted without fuss to all her ministrations she said he was