Meanwhile, the Archdeacon had been watching his youngest son, and had observed that he had at least a taste for books.

Perhaps he might not be the absolute dolt that Hurrell pronounced him.

He had lost five years, so far as classical training was concerned, by the mismanagement of the Archdeacon himself.
Still, he was only seventeen, and there was time to repair the waste.

He was sent to a private tutor's in preparation for Oxford.
His tutor, a dreamy, poetical High Churchman, devoted to Wordsworth and Keble, failed to understand his character or to give him an interest in his work, and a sixth year was added to the lost five.
During this year his brother Hurrell died, and the tragic extinction of that commanding spirit seemed a presage of his own early doom.
Two of his sisters, both lately married, died within a few months of Hurrell, and of each other.

The Archdeacon, incapable of expressing emotion, became more reserved than ever, and scarcely spoke at all.
Sadly was he disappointed in his children.