Born in Exile by George Gissing

of college competition. He ought now
to have been 'sweating' at his London subjects. Instead of that, he
procured works of general literature from a Twybridge library, and
shut himself up with them in the garret bedroom.
    A letter from Mr. Gunnery informed him that the writer would be
home in a day or two. This return took place late one evening, and
on the morrow Godwin set forth to visit his friend. On reaching the
house, he learnt that Mr. Gunnery had suffered an accident which
threatened serious results. Walking barefoot in his bedroom the
night before, he had stepped upon the point of a large nail, and
was now prostrate, enduring much pain. Two days elapsed before
Godwin could be admitted; he then found the old man a mere shadow
of his familiar self—bloodless, hollow-eyed.
    'This is the kind of practical joke that Fate likes to play upon
us!' the sufferer growled in a harsh, quaking voice, his
countenance divided between genial welcome and surly wrath. 'It'll
be the end of me. Pooh! who doesn't know that such a thing is fatal
at my age? Blood-poisoning has fairly begun. I'd a good deal rather
have broken my neck among honest lumps of old red sandstone. A
nail! A damned Brummagem nail!—So you collared the first prize in
geology, eh? I take that as a kindness, Godwin. You've got a bit
beyond Figuier and his Deluge , eh? His Deluge, bah!'
    And he laughed discordantly. On the other side of the bed sat
Mrs Gunnery, grizzled and feeble dame. Shaken into the last stage
of senility by this alarm, she wiped tears from her flaccid cheeks,
and moaned a few unintelligible words.
    The geologist's forecast of doom was speedily justified. Another
day bereft him of consciousness, and when, for a short while, he
had rambled among memories of his youth, the end came. It was found
that he had made a will, bequeathing his collections and scientific
instruments to Godwin Peak: his books were to be sold for the
benefit of the widow, who would enjoy an annuity purchased out of
her husband's savings. The poor old woman, as it proved, had little
need of income; on the thirteenth day after Mr. Gunnery's funeral,
she too was borne forth from the house, and the faithful couple
slept together.
    To inherit from the dead was an impressive experience to Godwin.
At the present stage of his development, every circumstance
affecting him started his mind upon the quest of reasons,
symbolisms, principles; the 'natural supernatural' had hold upon
him, and ruled his thought whenever it was free from the spur of
arrogant instinct. This tendency had been strengthened by the
influence of his friend Earwaker, a young man of singularly complex
personality, positive and analytic in a far higher degree than
Peak, yet with a vein of imaginative vigour which seemed to befit
quite a different order of mind. Godwin was not distinguished by
originality in thinking, but his strongly featured character
converted to uses of his own the intellectual suggestions he so
rapidly caught from others. Earwaker's habit of reflection had much
to do with the strange feelings awakened in Godwin when he
transferred to his mother's house the cabinets which had been Mr.
Gunnery's pride for thirty or forty years. Joy of possession was
subdued in him by the conflict of metaphysical questionings.
    Days went on, and nothing was heard of Uncle Andrew. Godwin
tried to assure himself that he had been needlessly terrified; the
eating-house project would never be carried out. Practically
dismissing that anxiety, he brooded over his defeat by Chilvers,
and thought with extreme reluctance of the year still to be spent
at Whitelaw, probably a year of humiliation. In the meantime,
should he or should he not present himself for his First B.A.? The
five pound fee would be a most serious demand upon his mother's
resources, and did the profit warrant it, was it really of
importance to him to take a degree?
    He lived as much as possible alone, generally avoiding the
society of his relatives, save at