Of ambition he had at that time not one particle; greatness, or indeed superiority of any kind, seemed so far off and incomprehensible to him that the idea of connecting it with himself never crossed his mind.  If he could escape the notice of all those with whom he did not feel himself en rapport, he conceived that he had triumphed sufficiently.  He did not care about taking a good degree, except that it must be good enough to keep his father and mother quiet.  He did not dream of being able to get a fellowship; if he had, he would have tried hard to do so, for he became so fond of Cambridge that he could not bear the thought of having to leave it; the briefness indeed of the season during which his present happiness was to last was almost the only thing that now seriously troubled him.

Having less to attend to in the matter of growing, and having got his head more free, he took to reading fairly well—­not because he liked it, but because he was told he ought to do so, and his natural instinct, like that of all very young men who are good for anything, was to do as those in authority told him.  The intention at Battersby was (for Dr Skinner had said that Ernest could never get a fellowship) that he should take a sufficiently good degree to be able to get a tutorship or mastership in some school preparatory to taking orders.  When he was twenty-one years old his money was to come into his own hands, and the best thing he could do with it would be to buy the next presentation to a living, the rector of which was now old, and live on his mastership or tutorship till the living fell in.  He could buy a very good living for the sum which his grandfather’s legacy now amounted to, for Theobald had never had any serious intention of making deductions for his son’s maintenance and education, and the money had accumulated till it was now about five thousand pounds; he had only talked about making deductions in order to stimulate the boy to exertion as far as possible, by making him think that this was his only chance of escaping starvation—­or perhaps from pure love of teasing.

When Ernest had a living of 600 or 700 pounds a year with a house, and not too 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.