Charlotte Yonge - The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations

“I am afraid I must not,” said Richard; who, to her surprise, did not look pleased or satisfied with the prosperous translation; “but come, Tom, you shan’t have many words, if you really know them.”

Tom twisted and looked rather cross, but when asked to parse the word viribus, answered readily and correctly.

“Very well, only two more—affuit?”

“Third person singular, praeter perfect tense of the verb affo, affis, affui, affere,” gabbled off Tom with such confidence, that though Ethel gave an indignant jump, Richard was almost startled into letting it pass, and disbelieving himself. He remonstrated in a somewhat hesitating voice. “Did you find that in the dictionary?” said he; “I thought affui came from adsum.”

“Oh, to be sure, stupid fool of a word, so it does!” said Tom hastily. “I had forgot—adsum, ades, affui, adesse.”

Richard said no more, but proposed the word oppositus.

“Adjective.”

Ethel was surprised, for she remembered that it was, in this passage, part of a passive verb, which Tom had construed correctly, “it was objected,” and she had thought this very creditable to him, whereas he now evidently took it for opposite; however, on Richard’s reading the line, he corrected himself and called it a participle, but did not commit himself further, till asked for its derivation.

“From oppositor.”

“Hallo!” cried Harry, who hitherto had been abstracted in his book, but now turned, raised himself on his elbow, and, at the blunder, shook his thick yellow locks, and showed his teeth like a young lion.

“No, now, Tom, pay attention,” said Richard resignedly. “If you found out its meaning, you must have seen its derivation.”

“Oppositus,” said Tom, twisting his fingers, and gazing first at Ethel, then at Harry, in hopes of being prompted, then at the ceiling and floor, the while he drawled out the word with a whine, “why, oppositus from op-posor.”

“A poser! ain’t it?” said Harry.

“Don’t, Harry, you distract him,” said Richard. “Come, Tom, say at once whether you know it or not—it is of no use to invent.”

“From op-” and a mumble.

“What? I don’t hear—op—”

Tom again looked for help to Harry, who made a mischievous movement of his lips, as if prompting, and, deceived by it, he said boldly, “From op-possum.”

“That’s right! let us hear him decline it!” cried Harry, in an ecstasy. “Oppossum, opottis, opposse, or oh-pottery!”

“Harry,” said Richard, in a gentle reasonable voice, “I wish you would be so kind as not to stay, if you cannot help distracting him.”

And Harry, who really had a tolerable share of forbearance and consideration, actually obeyed, contenting himself with tossing his book into the air and catching it again, while he paused at the door to give his last unsolicited assistance. “Decline oppossum you say. I’ll tell you how: O-possum re-poses up a gum tree. O-pot-you-I will, says the O-posse of Yankees, come out to ketch him. Opossum poses them and declines in O-pot-esse by any manner of means of o-potting-di-do-dum, was quite oppositum-oppotitu, in fact, quite contrairy.”

Richard, with the gravity of a victim, heard this sally of schoolboy wit, which threw Ethel back on the sofa in fits of laughing, and declaring that the Opossum declined, not that he was declined; but, in the midst of the disturbance thus created, Tom stepped up to her, and whispered, “Do tell me, Ethel!”

“Indeed I shan’t,” said she. “Why don’t you say fairly if you don’t know?”

He was obliged to confess his ignorance, and Richard made him conjugate the whole verb opponor from beginning to end, in which he wanted a good deal of help.

Ethel could not help saying, “How did you find out the meaning of that word, Tom, if you didn’t look out the verb?”

“I—don’t know,” drawled Tom, in the voice, half sullen, half piteous, which he always assumed when out of sorts.

“It is very odd,” she said decidedly; but Richard took no notice, and proceeded to the other lessons, which went off tolerably well, except the arithmetic, where there was some great misunderstanding, into which Ethel did not enter for some time. When she did attend, she perceived that Tom had brought a right answer, without understanding the working of the sum, and that Richard was putting him through it. She began to be worked into a state of dismay and indignation at Tom’s behaviour, and Richard’s calm indifference, which made her almost forget ‘Jane Sparks’, and long to be alone with Richard; but all the world kept coming into the room, and going out, and she could not say what was in her mind till after dinner, when, seeing Richard go up into Margaret’s room, she ran after him, and entering it, surprised Margaret, by not beginning on her books, but saying at once, “Ritchie, I wanted to speak to you about Tom. I am sure he shuffled about those lessons.”

“I am afraid he does,” said Richard, much concerned.

“What, do you mean that it is often so?”

“Much too often,” said Richard; “but I have never been able to detect him; he is very sharp, and has some underhand way of preparing his lessons that I cannot make out.”

“Did you know it, Margaret?” said Ethel, astonished not to see her sister looked shocked as well as sorry.

“Yes,” said Margaret, “Ritchie and I have often talked it over, and tried to think what was to be done.”

“Dear me! why don’t you tell papa? It is such a terrible thing!”

“So it is,” said Margaret, “but we have nothing positive or tangible to accuse Tom of; we don’t know what he does, and have never caught him out.”

“I am sure he must have found out the meaning of that oppositum in some wrong way—if he had looked it out, he would only have found opposite. Nothing but opponor could have shown him the rendering which he made.”

“That’s like what I have said almost every day,” said Richard, “but there we are—I can’t get any further.”

“Perhaps he guesses by the context,” said Margaret.

“It would be impossible to do so always,” said both the Latin scholars at once.

“Well, I can’t think how you can take it so quietly,” said Ethel. “I would have told papa the first moment, and put a stop to it. I have a great mind to do so, if you won’t.

“Ethel, Ethel, that would never do!” exclaimed Margaret, “pray don’t. Papa would be so dreadfully grieved and angry with poor Tom.”

“Well, so he deserves,” said Ethel.

“You don’t know what it is to see papa angry,” said Richard.

“Dear me, Richard!” cried Ethel, who thought she knew pretty well what his sharp words were. “I’m sure papa never was angry with me, without making me love him more, and, at least, want to be better.”

“You are a girl,” said Richard.

“You are higher spirited, and shake off things faster,” said Margaret.

“Why, what do you think he would do to Tom?”

“I think he would be so very angry, that Tom, who, you know, is timid and meek, would be dreadfully frightened,” said Richard.

“That’s just what he ought to be, frightened out of these tricks.”

“I am afraid it would frighten him into them still more,” said Richard, “and perhaps give him such a dread of my father as would prevent him from ever being open with him.”

“Besides, it would make papa so very unhappy,” added Margaret. “Of course, if poor dear Tom had been found out in any positive deceit, we ought to mention it at once, and let him be punished; but while it is all vague suspicion, and of what papa has such a horror of, it would only grieve him, and make him constantly anxious, without, perhaps, doing Tom any good.”