Hugh Kenrick Read Online Free PDF Page B

needling his brother for what he considered over-sentimentality.
    “No, dear brother,” answered Garnet. “A son of Hermes failed to coax reason from the skulls of cretins. He was extinguished by them and, like Prometheus, chained to a rock.”
    Hermes was the Greek god of commerce, invention, cunning, and theft. The brothers, who had both excelled in classics at Eton, had years agofallen into the habit of discussing the Skelly gang and related matters in these allusive terms, and Garnet, on an inspired whim, removed the statue from the dining hall and placed it in his study, “So that he might bless all the unimpeachable and crafty things done here in his name,” he had explained then.
    The Earl sniffed. “Prometheus was alive when he was chained. This son of Hermes is tarred and very dead.”
    “Still, someone’s liver is being eaten.”
    “Well, thank God for that, nevertheless. You will remember that some of the things said by these brigands at their trial were unsettling. Treasonable!”
    “Revolutionary,” remarked the Baron.
    “
Leveling
,” added the Earl with rancor. “This son of Hermes was shown mortal justice!”
    “But someday, I fear, Hermes himself will make an appeal to his friend Apollo, and then we shall know Olympian justice.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “That only the gods are immortal.” Garnet studied his brother for a moment. “Suppose they all went to the colonies—these sons and daughters of Hermes—and one day refused to deal with us mortals?”
    “We should teach them an awful lesson,” scoffed the Earl.
    Garnet shook his head. “One does not teach gods or their offspring lessons, dear brother.”

Chapter 3: The Rebel
    E IGHT-YEAR-OLD H UGH SAT IN SHADOW NEAR HIS FATHER’S DESK , listening intently to their cryptic exchange, but understanding little of it. He recognized the names from his tutor’s classics instruction, but could not grasp how his father and uncle were using them. His uncle had nodded curtly to him when he came in, then ignored him.
    Hugh had been summoned here to receive advice from his father on how to best conduct himself at Eton College, where he was to be sent in a few days on the stern recommendation of the vicar of St. Quarrell’s.
    “He’s a bright lad,” the vicar had said to his parents a week ago during an unexpected call, “but he needs the tonic of society of boys his own age. He is too, well,
imperial
for his own and others’ good. I cannot help but imagine that he leads a somewhat solitary life here, in his home, and I believe that this has had an unfortunate effect on his moral character.” The vicar paused to sip some of the sherry he had been offered, and continued his nervous pacing before the seated parents. “True, the masters of the College would better be able to impart the knowledge and mental exercise his keen mind needs and yearns for—better than a single tutor. At the same time, the rigors and demands of school life may work as an
aqua regia
on a peculiar, unattractive aspect of his character.”
    “What aspect?” Hugh’s mother had asked.
    “I would say rebelliousness, but then, every boy has that in him. This particular aspect defies category. I know only that if it is not restrained, it will bring him and you both a quantum of pain and unhappiness. A turn—perhaps even a career—at Eton may spare everyone concerned the nurturing of, well…an
incubus
.”
    The Baroness had gasped. Garnet Kenrick had risen from his chair. “
Incubus
? That’s a drastic term, Vicar,” he said with unusual sharpness. “You are speaking of our son!”
    “Indeed, I am,” replied the vicar with airy confidence. “It is the nearest thing I can think of.” Then he had lowered his voice and in menacing, embittered sympathy said, “Last Saturday, I saw him outside the vicarage, before he was to report to the curate for his Scriptures lesson, on his hands and knees on the church lawn, inviting a
hare
to eat some clover he had inhis