That chance the vicar had determined to give him.

He had made up his mind that his old friend's son should go to college and show what he was able to do.

It was not an easy thing to manage, but the vicar had friends in Cambridge and John had brains; moreover the vicar and John were both very obstinate people and had both determined upon the same plan, so that there was a strong probability of their succeeding.
John Short was eighteen years of age, neither particularly good-looking nor by any means the reverse.

He had what bankers commonly call a lucky face; that is to say he had a certain very prepossessing look of honesty in his blue eyes, and a certain look of energetic goodwill in his features.

When he was much older and wore a beard he passed for a handsome man, but at eighteen he could only boast the smallest of fair whiskers, and when anybody took the trouble to look long at him, which was not often, the verdict was that his jaw was too heavy and his mouth too obstinate.