A great round of applause from their ranks set everybody peering towards the door, only to encounter the stern gaze of the magnificent beadle, whose entry had prompted the salvoes, and who, arrayed in what appeared to be a rich red dressing-gown, showed like a Venetian color-study amid a collection of engravings.
A more general outburst of clapping, accompanied by a buzz of interest, greeted the arrival of the less picturesque “train” of Academicians, headed by the president. The procession, bowing and smiling, defiled slowly towards the dais, especial enthusiasm being reserved for the more popular or the newest Academicians and Associates, the students having a ruling hand or hands in the distribution of the noise. Matt craned forward eagerly to see these pillars of English Art, whose names flew from lip to lip. As they only looked like men, he had a flash of self-confidence.
The president takes his seat on the central chair, flanked and backed by the faithful forty and the trusty thirty, minus the absentees. The R.A.’s dispose themselves along the front bench, the A.R.A.’s occupy the rear--a younger set, on the whole, with more hair on their heads and less on their chins. The beadle solemnly slides the oak panels to, cloistering the scene from the world, and a religious silence spreads from him till it infects even the excited back rows. The president rises bland and stately. There is a roar of welcome, succeeded by a deeper hush. It is seen that he has papers on his desk, and is about to declare the results of the competitions, and to determine the destiny of dozens, if not the future of English Art. There is no vulgar sensationalism. With a simple dignity befitting the venerable self-sufficient institution, which still excludes great newspapers--and great painters--from its banquets, he disdains working up to a climax, and starts with the tidbit of the evening, “the gold medal and travelling studentship for £200,” awarded every two years for the best historical painting, the subject this year being “Daniel before Nebuchadnezzar.” The president pauses for a breathless instant. The ranks of black-and-white figures standing in the background have grown rigid with excitement. The president imperturbably announces “Herbert Strang.” There is a brief pause for mental digestion, then a great crash of applause--the harmonious cacophony of clapping hands, generous lungs, and frenzied feet. Matt, thrilling through and through with joy and excitement, shouting frantically, and applauding with all his limbs, turns to look for Herbert amid the students, but sees only rows of heaving shirt-fronts and animated black arms. Then he becomes aware of his cousin strolling leisurely along the near side of the room, through a mad tempest of cheering, towards the president’s desk, a faint smile playing about his beautiful boyish lips, which yet tremble a little. Matt feels proud of being the cousin of the hero of the moment, whose course he follows with tear-dimmed eyes. He sees him reach the presidential desk and receive a medal and an envelope from the great man, who shakes hands with him and evidently offers words of congratulation. He follows his passage back to his fellow-students through the undiminished tempest. Then his eye lights suddenly on Matthew Strang’s face, and sees great tears rolling down towards the Vandyke beard, while beside him Madame Strang, her face radiating sunshine, her eyes dancing, throws kisses towards the cynosure of all eyes, who, carrying his honors, and studiously avoiding the weakness of a glance in the direction of his parents, ploughs his way amid fraternal back-thumpings to his place among his cronies. There is a rapid exchange of criticism and gossip among the students, ejaculations of commiseration for Flinders, whose friends had convinced him that he would win, and for Rands, a poor devil of talent, the only hope of a desperately genteel family in Dalston. But comment must be hushed, for other prizes, some of them important enough, have to be announced. There is a steady succession of individual students, more or less blushing, moving to and from the president’s congratulatory hand, some stumbling nervously against the crimson step placed in front of his desk, probably by the beadle to disconcert the shy. Some fortunate prize-winners come up three times, and stumble three times. Sometimes they are girls. One wears spectacles and a yellow sash, and has the curved back of the student; another is pretty and _petite_, and causes a furore by her multiplex successes and her engaging charm; a third is handsome, but gawky, with bare red arms. A young man who wins two events attracts special attention by his poetical head and his rapt air of mystic reverie, and goes back winking.