CHAPTER I: COMMON ROOM FACES

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THE LOOM OF YOUTH

"Well, I mean there's Davenham now and--"

"Davenham!" came the scornful retort. "What does it matter what

happens to Davenham? He's absolutely useless to the House,

rotten at games and spends his whole time reading about

fossils. Who cares a curse about Davenham!"

"Oh I suppose you're right, but--"

"My dear ass, of course I am right. Meredith is a simply

glorious fellow. Do you remember the way he brought down

Freeman in the Two Cock? Why, the House simply couldn't get on

without him."

To Gordon all this conveyed very little. He had no idea who

Meredith or Davenham were. The only thing he realised was that

for those who wore a blue and gold ribbon laws ceased to exist.

It was apparently rather advantageous to get into the Fifteen.

He had not looked on athletics in that light before. Obviously

his preparatory school had failed singularly to keep level with

the times. He had always been told by the masters there that

games were only important for training the body. But at

Fernhurst they seemed the one thing that mattered. To the

athlete all things are forgiven. There was clearly a lot to

learn.

"To him who desireth much, much is given; and to him who

desireth little, little is given; but to neither according to

the letter of his desire."

GILBERT CANNAN

_The Loom of Youth_

ALEC WAUGH

Methuen

First published in Great Britain 1917

Reprinted July 1917, August 1917, September 1917 (twice)

November 1917, January 1918, March 1918, October 1918,

1919, 1921, 1930, 1933, 1945

Cassell's Pocket Library, 1928

Penguin Abridged Edition, 1942

New edition reset and revised 1955

Reprinted 1972

This edition published 1984

by Methuen London Ltd

11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Copyright (c) Alec Waugh 1917

ISBN 0 413 54970 4 (hardback)

ISBN 0 413 54980 1 (paperback)

Printed and bound in Great Britain

by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd

Bungay, Suffolk

This book is available in both a hardcover and paperback edition. The

paperback is solid subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of

trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated

without the Publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover

other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition

including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected in text. There is

one place where a subscript is used and is designated by an underscore

and curly brackets thus: H_{2}O.

* * * * *

_Dedicatory Letter to Arthur Waugh_

My Dear Father,

This book, which I am bringing you, is a very small return for all you

have given me. In every mood, in every phase of my shifting pilgrimage,

I have found you ever the same--loving, sympathetic, wise. You have been

with me in my success, and in my happiness, in my failures and in my

disappointments, in the hours when I have followed wandering fires.

There has never yet come to me a moment when I did not know that I had

but to stretch out my hand to find you at my side. In return for so

much, this first book of mine is a very small offering.

But yet I bring it to you, simply because it is my first. For whatever

altars I may have raised by the wayside, whatever ephemeral loyalties

may have swayed me, my one real lodestar has always been your love, and

sympathy, and guidance. And as in life it has always been to you first

that I have brought my troubles, my aims, my hopes, so in the world of

ideas it is to you that I would bring this, the first-born of my dreams.

Accept it. For it carries with it the very real and very deep love of a

most grateful son.

A.W.

CONTENTS

Preface _page_ 9

BOOK I: WARP AND WOOF

I Groping 15

II Finding his Feet 21

III The New Philosophy 31

IV New Faces 44

V Emerging 52

VI Clarke 62

VII When One is in Rome 69

BOOK II: THE TANGLED SKEIN

I Quantum Mutatus 79

II Healthy Philistinism 102

III Tin Gods 119

IV Through a Glass Darkly 130

BOOK III: UNRAVELLING THE THREADS

I Common Room Faces 134

II Carnival 169

III Broadening Outlook 179

IV Thirds 185

V Dual Personality 196

VI The Games Committee 200

VII Rebellion 208

VIII The Dawning of many Dreams 213

BOOK IV: THE WEAVING

I The Twilight of the Gods 226

II Setting Stars 239

III Romance 242

IV The Dawn of Nothing 249

V The Things that Seem 259

VI The Tapestry Completed 277

PREFACE TO NEW EDITION

Books have their fates and this one's has been curious. I wrote it

between January and March 1916, when I was seventeen and a half years

old and in camp at Berkhamsted with the Inns of Court O.T.C. I loathed

it there, everything about it, the impersonal military machine, the

monotonous routine of drills and musketry, the endless foot-slogging,

the perpetual petty fault-finding. I kept comparing my present life with

that which I had been leading ten, eighteen, thirty months ago at

Sherborne, as a schoolboy.

My four years there had been very happy. I was the kind of a boy who

gets the most out of a public school. I loved cricket and football and

was reasonably good at them. I was in the first XV and my last summer

headed the batting averages. My father had lit in me a love of poetry

and an interest in history and the classics. More often than not I went

into a class-room looking forward to the hour that lay ahead. I enjoyed

the whole competitive drama of school life--the cups and caps and form

promotions. As I marched as a cadet over Ashridge Park I remembered that

a year ago I had been bicycling down to the football field for a punt

about on Upper. As I listened to a lecture on the establishment of an

infantry brigade, I thought of the sixth form sitting under that fine

scholar and Wordsworthian Nowell Smith to a discussion of Victorian

poetry. In the evenings on my way to night operations, passing

Berkhamsted School and looking at the lighted windows, I would think,

"At Sherborne now they are sitting round the games study fire waiting

for the bell to ring for hall". Day by day, hour by hour, I pictured

myself back at school.

I was in a nostalgic mood, but I was also in a rebellious mood.

Intensely though I had enjoyed my four years at Sherborne, I had been in

constant conflict with authority. That conflict, so it seemed to me, had

been in the main caused and determined by authority's inability or

refusal to recognise the true nature of school life. The Public School

system was venerated as a pillar of the British Empire and out of that

veneration had grown a myth of the ideal Public School boy--Kipling's

Brushwood Boy. In no sense had I incarnated such a myth and it had been

responsible, I felt, for half my troubles. I wanted to expose it. Those

moods of nostalgia and rebellion fused finally in an imperious need to

relive my school days on paper, to put it all down, term by term,

exactly as it had been, to explain, interpret, justify my point of view.

I wrote the book in six and a half weeks, getting up at half past four

every morning and returning to my manuscript at night after the day's

parades. I posted it, section by section, to my father who corrected the

spelling and punctuation, interjected an occasional phrase and sent it

to be typed. I never revised it. As the manuscript shows, it was printed

as it was written, paragraph by paragraph.

The book after two or three refusals was accepted by Grant Richards and

published in July 1917 in the same week that I was posted as a

machine-gun second-lieutenant to the B.E.F. in France. It could not have

come out under luckier auspices. It had an immediate news value. There

was a boom in soldier poets. Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert

Nichols, W.J. Turner had recently made their debuts. Here was a soldier

novelist, the first and in his teens. As always in war-time there was a

demand for books and there was that summer a dearth of novels. A spirit

of challenge and criticism was in the air. The war after three years was

still "bogged down" and public opinion attributed allied failings in the

field to mismanagement in high places. The rebelliousness of _The Loom

of Youth_ was in tune with the temper of the hour. Finally I had the

immense advantage of being the son of Arthur Waugh. My father as a

critic and a publisher was one of the most loved and respected figures

in the world of letters. Many were anxious to give his son a chance.

The book had a flattering reception. Nothing of any particular interest

was being published at the moment and reviewers welcomed it. J.C.

Squire, Gerald Gould, Ralph Straus, C.K. Scott-Moncrieff, E.B. Osborn,

all made it their book of the week. Nor was it noticed only in the book

sections. Richards had suggested that Thomas Seccombe who was then

history professor at Sandhurst and had introduced the book to him,

should write a preface. That preface discussed the Public School system

in the light of contemporary events. The system, Seccombe wrote, "has

fairly helped, you may say, to get us out of the mess of August 1914.

Yes, but it contributed heavily to get us into it." The preface

encouraged and helped a journalist to use the book as the text for a

general article. Within a month it had received twenty-four columns of

reviews and was in its third impression. Grant Richards told my father

that with any luck he would sell five thousand copies.

That was at the end of the August. Three weeks later the schools went

back and half the housemasters in the country found their desks littered

with letters from anxious parents demanding an assurance that their

Bobbie was not subject to the temptations described in this alarming

book. In self-defence the schoolmasters hit back and by mid-November the

book had become the centre of violent controversy. In many schools the

book was banned and several boys were caned for reading it. Canon Edward

Lyttleton, the ex-headmaster of Eton, wrote a ten-page article in _The

Contemporary_--then an influential monthly--explaining how biased and

partial a picture the school gave. _The Spectator_ ran for ten weeks and

_The Nation_ for six a correspondence filling three or four pages an

issue in which schoolmaster after schoolmaster asserted that whatever

might be true of "Fernhurst", at his school it was all very different.

Grant Richards adeptly fanned the conflagration. He had initiated that

summer an original style of advertising. He inserted each week in the

_Times Literary Supplement_ a half column of gossip about his books and

authors. It was set in small heavy black type, and caught the eye.

Richards was a good writer and it was very readable. He was, I think,

the first publisher to exploit the publicity value of unfavourable

comment. Richard Hughes, at that time in the sixth form at Charterhouse,

wrote, as his weekly essay, an attack on _The Loom of Youth_. His form

master, Dames Longworth, a fine old Tory, sent it up to _The Spectator_,

as a counterblast to such "pernicious stuff". Next week Grant Richards

quoted him. Mr Dames Longworth called the book "pernicious stuff", but

Clement Shorter prophesied in _The Sphere_ that it would prove "the

Uncle Tom's Cabin of the Public School system". By Christmas the book

was a best seller.

A modern reader will wonder what all this fuss and indignation was

about. Two points are to be remembered. First that before World War I

Britain's imperial destiny was never questioned, and the Public School

system as a bulwark of Empire was held sacrosanct. Second that no book

before _The Loom of Youth_ had accepted as part of the fabric of School

life the inevitable emotional consequences of a monastic herding

together for eight months of the year of thirteen year old children and

eighteen year old adolescents. On that issue such a complete conspiracy

of silence had been maintained that when fathers were asked by their

wives, and schoolmasters by parents who had not themselves been at

public schools whether "such things really could take place", the only

defence was a grudging admission, "Perhaps in a bad house, in a bad

school, in a bad time."

I followed the controversy with mixed feelings. I was delighted of

course at the book's success. At the same time I was distressed at being

accused of having libelled the school where I had been so happy, to

which I was so devoted, and to so many of whose masters--in particular

its headmaster--I owed so much.

Well, that is all a long long time ago, and usually nothing is more dead

and dated than the book which once caused controversy. Yet _The Loom of

Youth_ has continued to sell steadily from one year to the next; in 1928

it was included in Cassell's Pocket Library; in 1942 it was issued as a

Penguin and now that the original plates are wearing out, Mr Martin

Secker and the directors of The Richards Press feel that it is worth

their while to reset the type and give the book another lease of life. I

hope that their confidence will be justified. If it is, it will be for

reasons very different from those which made _The Loom of Youth_ a best

seller in 1917. The modern reader will find nothing here to shock or

startle him. Several years ago a friend was reading the book in my

company. "When do I reach _the_ scene?" he asked. I looked over his

shoulder. "You've passed it, ten pages back," I told him. At the same

time the book is not presented as a "period piece". Though England

to-day is a different country, socially and economically, from what it

was in 1911 when I went to Sherborne, I do not think that in essentials

the life of the Public School boy has greatly changed. Most schools are

larger than they were, but they have retained the same traditions and

ideals; there is the same atmosphere of rivalry and competing loyalties;

youth has the same basic problems, is fired by the same ambitions, beset

by the same doubts. And if the modern reader, after turning a page or

two finds his attention held and wants to go on reading, it will mean

that this book has become at last what in fact it was always meant to

be--a realistic but romantic story of healthy adolescence set against

the background of an average English Public School.

April, 1954.

Alec Waugh

BOOK I: WARP AND WOOF

"While I lived I sought no wings,

Schemed no heaven, planned no hell;

But, content with little things,

Made an earth and it was well."

RICHARD MIDDLETON.

CHAPTER I: GROPING

There comes some time an end to all things, to the good and to the bad.

And at last Gordon Caruthers' first day at school, which had so combined

excitement and depression as to make it unforgettable, ended also.

Seldom had he felt such a supreme happiness as when he stepped out at

Fernhurst station, and between his father and mother walked up the

broad, white road that led past the Eversham Hotel to the great grey

Abbey, that watches as a sentinel over the dreamy Wessex town. There are

few schools in England more surrounded with the glamour of mediaeval days

than Fernhurst. Founded in the eighth century by a Saxon saint, it was

the abode of monks till the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Then after a

short interregnum Edward VI endowed it and restored the old curriculum.

The buildings are unchanged. It is true that there have sprung up new

class-rooms round the court, and that opposite the cloisters a huge

yellow block of buildings has been erected which provides workshops and

laboratories, but the Abbey and the School House studies stand as they

stood seven hundred years ago. To a boy of any imagination, such a place

could not but waken a wonderful sense of the beautiful. And Gordon

gazing from the school gateway across to the grey ivy-clad studies was

taken for a few moments clean outside himself. The next few hours only

served to deepen this wonder and admiration. For Fernhurst is prodigal

of associations. The School House dining-hall is a magnificent

oak-panelled room, where generations of men have cut their names; and

above the ledge on which repose the silver challenge cups the house has

won, is a large statue of King Edward VI looking down on the row of

tables. When he first entered the hall, Gordon pitied those in other

houses immensely. It seemed to him that though in "the outhouses"--as

they were called at Fernhurst--the eugenic machinery might be more up to

date, and the method of lighting and heating far more satisfactory, yet

it could not be the same there as in the School House; and he never

quite freed himself of the illusion that, if the truth were known, every

outhouse boy rather regretted that he had not chosen otherwise. For

indeed the bloods of other houses are very often found sitting over the

fire in the School House games study.

Until about six o'clock Gordon could not have been happier, his future

seemed so full of possibilities. But when his father and mother left him

to catch the afternoon train back to town, and the evening train brought

with it a swarm of boys in the most wonderful ties and socks, and all so

engrossed in their own affairs, and so indifferent to his, Gordon began

to feel very lonely. Supper was not till nine and he had three hours to

put in. Very disconsolately he wandered round the green slopes above the

town where was the town football ground and where in the summer term

those members of the Fifteen who despised cricket would enjoy their

quiet pipe and long for the rains of November. But that walk did not

take long, especially as he did not dare to go out of the sight of the

Abbey for fear of getting lost. When he returned to the House the court

was loud with shouts and laughter. Everyone had something to do. There

was the luggage to fetch from the day-room. The town porter, known

generally as Slimy Tim, was waiting to be tipped. Health certificates

had to be produced. There was a sporting chance of finding in Merriman's

second-hand bookshop--out of bounds during term-time--an English version

of Vergil and Xenophon. There were a hundred things to do for everyone

except Gordon. There were several other new boys, doubtless, to be found

among this unending stream of bowler hats. But he saw no way of

discovering them. He did, it is true, make one attempt. Very bravely he

walked up to a rather bored individual who was leaning against the door

that led into the studies and asked him if he was a new boy. His

reception was not friendly. The person in question was Sandham of the

Lower Sixth, who had been made a house prefect and was very conscious of

it, and who was also well aware of the fact that he was not very tall.

His friends called him "The Cockroach"; and Gordon was told politely to

go elsewhere. He did not, however, go where he was told, but sauntered

sadly down to the matron's room, only to find it full of people all with

some complaint. Some had lost their keys, others were furious that their

people should have been charged for biscuits and sultana cake that they

had never had, but the greater part were wanting to know why the old

bathroom had been turned into a study for the Chief's secretary, while

they had been given in exchange a lot of small zinc hip-baths. To the

smaller members of the House this change was rather popular. On the days

when there were only four baths among eighty, it did not matter very

much to them how large they were, if they were always occupied by the

bloods, while however small the new baths might be, there were

sufficient to go round. The bloods did not look on the matter in this

light.

Gordon walked from room to room utterly miserable. Nobody took the

slightest notice of him, only one person asked his name, and that was a

small person of one term's standing who wanted to show that he was a

power in the land. At last, however, the old cracked bell rang out for

supper, and very thankfully he took his place among the new boys at the

bottom of the day-room table. Evening prayers in the School House had

once been rather a festive occasion, and a hymn chosen by the head of

the House was sung every night. It had been the custom to choose a hymn

with some topical allusion. For instance, on the evening when the House

tutor had given a hundred lines to every member of the day-room for

disturbing a masters' meeting, by playing cricket next door, they chose

_Fierce raged the Tempest o'er the Deep_; and on one occasion when an

unpopular prefect had been unexpectedly expelled the House was soothed

with the strains of _Peace, Perfect Peace_. But those days were over. A

new headmaster had come with an ear for music, and the riot of melody

that surged from the V. A table seemed to him not only blasphemous, but

also inartistic. And so hymn-singing stopped, and only a few prayers

were read instead.

On this particular evening the Chief was in high spirits. It was

characteristic of his indomitable kindliness and optimism that, though

he ended every term in a state of exhaustion, having strained his energy

and endurance to the breaking-point, he invariably began the new term in

a spirit of geniality and hope. It was not till years later that Gordon

came to understand the depth of unselfish idealism that burned behind

the quiet modesty of the Chief; but even at first sight the least

impressionable boy was conscious of being under the influence of an

unusual personality. There was nothing of the theatrical pedagogue about

him; he surrounded himself with no trappings of a proud authority. His

voice was gentle and persuasive; his smile as winning almost as a

child's. The little speech with which he welcomed the House back, and a

passing allusion, half humorous, half appealing, to the changes in the

bath-rooms were perhaps too homely to impress the imagination of the

average inhuman boy. But they were the sincere expression of the man--an

idealist, with an unfailing faith in human nature, founded in an even

deeper faith in Christianity.

When he had gone, Gordon ventured to look round at the sea of faces. On

a raised dais was the Sixth Form table. In the middle, haughty,

self-conscious, with sleepy-looking but watchful eyes, sat the captain

of the House, Lovelace major, in many ways the finest athlete Fernhurst

ever produced, who had already got his County cap and played "Rugger"

for Richmond. Gordon had seen him bat at Lord's for the Public Schools

_v._ M.C.C., and before he had come to Fernhurst, Lovelace had been the

hero of his imagination; ambition could hardly attain a higher pedestal.

There were about twelve in all at the Sixth Form table, of whom the

majority were prefects; and no one could leave the hall till one of them

went out. After a few minutes' conversation, in which no one ate

anything, although plates of hot soup were busily provided, someone got

up and went out. Immediately there was a rush towards the door, and

Gordon was borne down the long winding passage to the foot of the

stairs that led to the dormitories. Here, however, for some reason,

everyone stopped and began to talk at the top of their voices. Gordon

saw no reason for the delay, but thought it better to follow the throng,

and waited. As a matter of fact, the last train up from town had just

come in. There are some who always demand the last ounce of flesh; there

are always those who return by the last possible train, although it

stops at every station on the way. Suddenly, however, the House tutor

shouted from the top of the stairs, "Lights out in the upper dormitories

by nine-thirty," and the procession moved upstairs.

The upper dormitories in the School House were, like most other school

dormitories, a dismal spectacle. There was a long passage running down

from the House tutor's room, and on the left were doors leading into

long, bare rooms, with the usual red-quilted beds and the usual

wash-hand basins. On the right-hand side was the bathroom. The upper

dormitories were occupied by the smaller boys of the House. Once a

prefect had been put in charge over each room, but the system did not

work very well, and soon came to an abrupt end, so that there was only

the House tutor to keep them in order till the prefects went to bed in

the lower dormitories an hour later; and then any sound was promptly

dealt with. Gordon had been placed in the largest room, which was known

as "the nursery." It contained ten beds, and only four of its

inhabitants were of more than one term's standing. Among other less

enviable claims to fame, it had the reputation of being the finest

football-playing dormitory, and every night its members would race up

from supper to play their game before the House tutor came to put out

lights at nine-fifteen. The new boys took it in turns to keep "cave,"

and it must be owned that for the first few weeks the sentinel rather

preferred the role of onlooker to that of player, and found it hard to

sympathise with those who were continually flinging abuse at the huge

football crowds at Stamford Bridge. This night there was, of course,

hardly any ragging. There was so much to talk about, and some faint

interest was even taken in the new boys, for two very important-looking

young people, Turner and Roberts, swaggered into the dormitories "just

to have a squint at the new kids," but after a casual inspection Turner

said in a lordly manner, "Good lord! what a crew," and the pair sought

better things elsewhere. Turner and Roberts were very insignificant

people during the daytime: they were little use at games, and even a

year's spasmodic cribbing had only managed to secure them a promotion

from the Second Form to the Third. But when the evening came they were

indeed great men, and ruled over a small dormitory that contained,

besides themselves, only four new boys who looked up to them as gods and

hung on their every word.

But very soon the wanderings of these two gentlemen ceased, and at the

sound of the House tutor's tread down the passage they fled very

ingloriously to their own abode. Mr Parkinson, the House tutor, was one

of the most popular masters in the school. He had only just missed his

blue at Oxford, and since he had gone down had devoted all his energies

to training on the junior members of the House at football and cricket.

He was in rather a hurry this particular evening, as he had to make out

the list of studies, but he shook hands with everyone, and asked all the

new boys their names before turning out the lights, with instructions

not to kick up too much row.

At last Gordon was at rest. For ten hours at least he would not have to

worry about anything. He lay back in bed contentedly and listened to the

conversation. As was natural, the talk was at first only about the

holidays, but it soon drifted round to school politics, and one Bradford

began to hold forth on the composition of the Fifteen, as if he was the

captain's bosom friend. To Gordon, of course, most of the names

mentioned signified nothing. He gathered that the great Lovelace was

going to be captain and was sure to have rows with Buller the games

master, but besides this he picked up very little. Gradually the

conversation turned on individuals, and especially on a certain

Meredith, who was apparently a double-first, with a reputation that did

not end on the cricket pitch.

"You know I think Meredith goes a bit too far at times," came a voice

from the middle of the room.

Bradford rose at once. "What the hell do you mean? Meredith go too far?

Why, he is a splendid wicket-keeper, and far and away the finest

half-back in the school. You must allow a good deal to a blood like

him."

"Oh, I know he is a magnificent athlete and all that, but don't you

think he does rather a lot of harm in the House?"

"Harm? Who to?"

"Well, I mean there's Davenham now and----"

"Davenham!" came the scornful retort. "What does it matter what happens

to Davenham? He's absolutely useless to the House, rotten at games and

spends his whole time reading about fossils. Who cares a curse about

Davenham!"

"Oh, I suppose you are right, but----"

"My dear ass, of course I am right. Meredith is a simply glorious

fellow. Do you remember the way he brought down Freeman in the Two Cock?

Why, the House simply couldn't get on without him."

To Gordon all this conveyed very little. He had no idea who Meredith or

Davenham were. The only thing he realised was that for those who wore a

blue and gold ribbon laws ceased to exist. It was apparently rather

advantageous to get into the Fifteen. He had not looked on athletics in

that light before. Obviously his preparatory school had failed

singularly to keep level with the times. He had always been told by the

masters there that games were only important for training the body. But

at Fernhurst they seemed the one thing that mattered. To the athlete all

things are forgiven. There was clearly a lot to learn.

CHAPTER II: FINDING HIS FEET

The new boy's first week at a Public School is probably the most

wretched he will ever pass in his life. It is not that he is bullied.

Boots are not shied at him when he says his prayers; he is not tossed in

a blanket; it is merely that he is utterly lonely, is in constant fear

of making mistakes, is never certain of what may happen next, and so

makes for himself troubles that do not exist. And when Gordon wrote

home to his people at the end of his second day it did not need a very

clever mother to read between the lines and see that her son was

hopelessly miserable.

His worries began at once. On the first day of term discipline is, of

course, very slack. There is only an hour's work, which is, for the most

part, spent in finding out what books are needed. There is no

preparation set for the evening, breakfast is at eight-thirty instead of

seven-forty-five, and it does not matter how late anyone comes in. And

so when, at eight o'clock, the School House butler, who had watched many

generations pass by with the same imperturbable smile, walked down the

dormitories ringing a horribly cracked bell, no one paid any attention.

There was tons of time. Ordinarily no one ever got up till the quarter,

and to-day--well, twenty past would be ample. A voice from the end of

the room muttered drowsily: "Damn that bell." But besides that nothing

happened. Gordon was fearfully perplexed. He had expected everyone to

leap out of bed, seize a towel and rush to the shower-bath, but no one

had moved. Could it be possible that they were still asleep and had not

heard the bell? It seemed incredible, but it might be so. And if it

were, ought he to wake them up? It seemed rather cheek for a new boy,

but then, supposing the whole dormitory were late.

Greatly daring, he stretched out a hand and touched the arm of the boy

sleeping next him. The individual in question merely turned over

subconsciously and said something fierce. Gordon relapsed into a state

of terror. During the next quarter of an hour he passed through all the

miseries of an unknown fear. Only twenty-four hours ago he had been at

breakfast with his father and mother in his home at Hampstead. It seemed

years ago. Here he was face to face with horrible, unexplained things.

The suspense grew unbearable. He was sure he heard someone moving next

door; the others were getting up; he would be late his first day. What a

start! But just as he was visioning the most dire punishments, James, an

insignificant person of one term's standing, slowly pushed back the

bed-clothes, picked up a towel and lethargically moved towards the door.

Gordon jumped up, happy at last, and made for the huge new bathroom. It

had an iron floor, sloped so as to allow water to drain off easily, and

contained six small baths and showers fixed above them. The room was

practically empty. He was glad of this; he did not want to have a shower

with a lot of people looking on. The water was very cold--he was used to

a tepid bath; but by the time he had begun to dry, the place was full of

boys all shouting at once. No one is more loud or insistent than he who

has just ceased to be labelled new. He likes everyone to know how

important he is, how free and how unfettered by rules, and the best way

to this end is to shout and curse everything. The room was filled with

shouts of "Good God! are we expected to get clean in babies' tubs?"

"What a fool the Chief is." "Oh, damn your eyes, that's my towel." "No,

there's yours, you blasted idiot." Gordon was immensely shocked at the

language. He had come from a preparatory school run by a master with

strong views on swearing, and for that matter on everything. He had been

kept thoroughly in order. He got out of the bathroom as quickly as

possible and made for his dormitory. It did not take long to dress.

There was indeed very little time, and as the half-hour struck, he was

carried down in the throng to the dining-hall.

Breakfast is always rather a scramble, and nowhere more so than at a

Public School. The usual Fernhurst breakfast lasted about ten minutes.

Hardly anyone spoke, only the ring of forks on plates was heard and an

occasional shout of "Tea" from the Sixth Form table. They alone could

shout at meals, the others had to catch the servant's eye. To-day,

however, there was a good deal of conversation. Those who had come by

the last train had not seen all their friends the night before. There

was much shaking of hands. In the middle a loud voice from the head of

the Sixth Form table shouted out: "Silence! I want to see all new boys

in my study at nine o'clock." It was Clarke, the head of the House, who

spoke. He was tall, with pince-nez, one of those brilliant scholars who

are too brilliant to get scholarships. He was a fanatic in many ways, a

militarist essentially, a firebrand always. There was bound to be

trouble during his reign. He could never let anything alone. He was a

great fighter.

Gordon looked up with immense awe. Clarke looked so powerful, so

tremendous; even Lovelace himself was not much greater. He wondered

vaguely what would be said to them.

And indeed Clarke was even more imposing in his own study. The back of

the room sloped down into a low alcove in which hung strange Egyptian

curtains. The walls were decorated with a few Pre-Raphaelite

photogravures. Behind the door was a pile of cases. Clarke sat with his

back to the window.

"Now you are all quite new to school life," he began, "entirely ignorant

of its perils and dangers, and you are now making the only beginning you

can ever make. You start with clean, fresh reputations. I don't know how

long you will remain so, but you must remember that you are members of

the finest house in Fernhurst. Last year we had the two finest athletes,

Wincheston and Lovelace, who played cricket for Leicestershire, and is

now captain of the House. We had also the two finest scholars, Scott and

Pembroke, both of whom won scholarships. Now we can't all be county

cricketers, we can't all win scholarships, but we can all work to one

end with an unfailing energy. You will find prefects here who will beat

you if you play the ass. Well, I don't mind ragging much and it is no

disgrace to be caned for that. But it is a disgrace to be beaten for

slacking either at games or work. It shows that you are an unworthy

member of the House. Now I want all of you to try. Some of you will

perhaps never rise above playing on House games, or get higher than the

Upper Fifth. But if you can manage to set an example of keenness you

will have proved yourselves worthy of the School House, which is beyond

doubt _the_ House at Fernhurst. That's all I have got to say."

That scene was in many ways the most vivid in Gordon's career. From that

moment he felt that he was no longer an individual, but a member of a

great community. And afterwards when old boys would run down Clarke, and

say how he had stirred up faction and rebellion, Gordon kept silent; he

knew that whatever mistakes the head of the House might have made, he

had the welfare of the House at heart and loved it with a blind,

unreasoning love that was completely misunderstood.

It is inevitable that a new boy's first few days should be largely taken

up in making mistakes, and though it is easy to laugh about them

afterwards, at the time they are very real miseries. At Fernhurst,

things are not made easy for the new boy. Gordon found himself placed in

the Upper Fourth, under Fleming, a benevolent despot who was a master of

sarcasm and was so delighted at making a brilliant attack on some

stammering idiot that he quite forgot to punish him. "Young man, young

man," he would say, "people who forget their books are a confounded

nuisance, and I don't want confounded nuisances with me." Gordon got on

with him very well on the whole, as he had a sense of humour and always

laughed at his master's jokes. But he only did Latin and English in the

Fourth room, for the whole school was split up into sets, regardless of

forms, for sharing such less arduous labours as science, maths, French

and Greek. So that Gordon found himself suddenly appointed to Mr

Williams' Greek set No. V. with no idea of where to go. After much

wandering, he eventually found the Sixth Form room. He entered; someone

outside had told him to go in there. A long row of giants in stick-up

collars confronted him. The Chief sat on a chair reading a lecture on

the Maccabees. All eyes seemed turned on him.

"Please, sir," he quavered out in trembling tones, "is this Mr Williams'

Greek set, middle school No. V?"

There was a roar of laughter. Gordon fled. After about five more

minutes' ineffectual searching he ran into a certain Robertson in the

cloisters. Now Robertson played back for the Fifteen.

"I say, are you one of the new boys for Williams' set?"

"Yes."

"Well, look here, he's setting us a paper, and I don't know much about

it, and I rather want to delay matters. So look here, hide yourself for

a few minutes. I am just going to find Meredith and have a chat."

For ten minutes Gordon wandered disconsolately about the courts. When at

last Robertson returned with his protege the hour was well advanced, and

there would be no need for Robertson to have to waste his preparation

doing an imposition.

On another occasion one of the elder members of his form told him to go

to "Bogus" for French. Now "Bogus" was short for the Bogus officer, and

was the unkind appellation of one Rogers. Tall, ascetic and superior,

with the air of a great philosopher, he had, like Richard Feverel's

uncle, Adrian Harley, "attained that felicitous point of wisdom from

which one sees all mankind to be fools." He was one of the happy few who

are really content; for in the corps as Officer Commanding he could

indulge continuously in his favourite pastime of hearing his own voice,

and as a clerk in orders the pulpit presented admirable opportunities

for long talks that brooked no interruptions. In the common room his

prolix anecdotes were not encouraged. But in the pulpit there was no

gainsaying him. His dual personality embodied the spirit of "the Church

Militant," a situation the humour of which the School did not fail to

grasp. But of all this Gordon, of course, knew nothing. After a long

search for this eminent divine, in perfect innocence he went up to a

master he saw crossing the courts.

"Please, sir, can you tell me where Mr Bogus' class-room is?" He did not

understand till weeks afterwards why the master took such a long time to

answer, and seemed so hard put to it not to laugh.

The story provided amusement in the common room for many days. Rogers

was not popular.

It was in this atmosphere of utter loneliness and inability to do

anything right that Gordon's first week passed. Of the other new boys

none of them seemed to him very much in his line. There was Foster,

good-looking and attractive, but plausible and insincere. There was

Rudd, a scholar who had passed into the Fifth, spectacled, of sallow

appearance, and with a strange way of walking. Collins was not so bad,

but his mind ran on nothing but football and billiard championships. The

rest were nonentities, the set who drift through their six years, making

no mark, hurting no one, doing little good. Finally they pass out into

the world to swell the rout of civilised barbarians whom it "hurts to

think" and who write to the papers, talk a lot about nothing and then

die and are forgotten. The Public School system turns out many of these.

For it loves mediocrity, it likes to be accepted unquestioningly as was

the Old Testament. But times change. The Old Testament and the Public

School system are now both of them in the melting-pot of criticism.

For the most part Gordon kept to himself. No one took any notice of him,

for he did nothing worthy of notice. He had rather looked forward to his

first game of football, for he had been quite a decent half-back at his

preparatory school. He might perhaps do something brilliant. But for his

first two days he wasn't allowed even to play a game. With the other new

boys he shivered in the autumn wind while Meredith, who rather

surprisingly seemed quite an ordinary sort of person, instructed them in

how to pack down. They were then told to watch the Upper game and see

how football should be played. It was here that Gordon first saw Buller,

the games master. He was indeed a splendid person. He wore a

double-breasted coat, that on anyone else would have looked ridiculous,

and even so was strikingly original. He had the strong face of one who

had fought every inch of his way. It was a great sight to see "the

Bull," as he was called, take a game; he rushed up and down the field

cursing and swearing. His voice thundered over the ground. It was the

first game after the summer holidays, and everyone felt rather flabby.

At half-time the great man burst out: "I have played football for

twenty-five years, I coached Oxford teams and Gloucestershire teams, led

an English scrum, and for fifteen years I have taught footer here, but

never saw I such a display! Shirking, the whole lot of you! Get your

shoulders down and shove. Never saw anything like it. Awful!" The Bull

said this to every team at least three times every season, but he was

every bit as generous with his praise as with his blame when things went

well, and he was a great man, a personality. Even a desultory Pick-Up

woke into excitement when the shrill, piping voice of a full-back came

in with, "'The Bull's' coming." There was only one man in Fernhurst who

was not afraid of him, and that was Lovelace, who was indeed afraid of

nothing, and who towered over his contemporaries by the splendour of his

athletic achievements, and the strength of an all-mastering

personality.

On the next day Gordon had to watch another Upper game. This time "the

Bull" was more or less quiet. Lovelace was at the top of his form, and

Meredith twice cut through brilliantly and scored between the posts.

Then life seemed to Buller very good. After the game he rolled up to his

house perfectly satisfied, whistling to himself. It was not until the

Saturday that Gordon actually played in a game. He was originally

performing on the Pick-Up; but after a few minutes he was fetched to

fill a gap in a House game. He was shoved into the scrum, was perfectly

useless, and spent his whole time trying to escape notice. Only once he

got really near the ball. Just before half-time the ball was rolling

slowly towards him, the opposing full-back had failed to reach touch.

Gordon, steadying himself as at soccer, took a tremendous kick at the

ball, which screwed off his foot, and landed in the hands of the outside

three-quarter, who easily outpaced the defence and scored.

"You bloody little fool," said someone. "For God's sake, no soccer

tricks here."

Gordon did not attempt to repeat the performance. He was supremely

wretched, and merely longed for the day to end. No one understood him,

or even wanted to. His home became a very heaven to him during these

days.

But sooner or later pain grows into a custom. The agonies of Prometheus

and Ixion must after a little while have ceased to cause anything more

than boredom. As soon as the mind is accustomed to what is before it,

there is an end of grief. It is the series of unexpected blows that

hurts. And so, Gordon after his first week found that life was not so

hard after all. He knew where his various class-rooms were: his

time-table was complete; he had slipped into the routine, and found that

there was a good deal of merriment for anyone with a sense of humour.

Fleming was a constant source of amusement. One day Mansell, a member of

the School House Fifteen, had forgotten his book. The usual penalty for

forgetting a book was a hundred lines. Mansell had been posted on the

Lower ground. If he did well, he might be tried for the Second Fifteen.

The book must be got at all costs.

"Please, sir, may I go and get a handkerchief?"

"Yes, young man, and hurry up about it."

After five minutes Mansell returns, blowing his nose vigorously in his

silk handkerchief of many colours, for Mansell is by way of being a nut.

The book is under his coat. He sits down.

Fleming fixes him with a stony glare--a long pause.

"Mansell, take that book from under your coat."

Reluctantly the miscreant does so. The dream of a Second's cap vanishes.

"Conjurer!"

The roar of laughter was sufficient to make Fleming forget all about

impositions. But Mansell did not perform very well on the Lower ground,

and Gordon overheard Lovelace remarking to Meredith that Mansell was

really rather a come-down for a School House cap.

But, whatever his football performances, Mansell was a continual source

of laughter. He and Gordon were in the same Greek set and studied under

Mr Claremont, a dry humorist, who had adopted schoolmastering for want

of something better to do, had apparently regretted it afterwards, and

developed into a cynic.

Mansell was easily the most popular man and the worst scholar in the

set, in which there were nineteen in all. Each week Claremont read out

the order. Gordon was usually about half-way up. Mansell fluctuated; one

week he "bagged" the translation Clarke was using for scholarship work.

He was second that week. But Clarke discovered the theft. There was a

fall. Many names were read in the weekly order, but Mansell's was not of

them. At last Claremont reached him.

"Greek Prose, Mansell 19th; Greek Translation, Mansell 19th; Combined

Order, Mansell 19th." A roar of laughter. "Well, Mansell, I don't think

that a titter from your companions is a sufficient reward for a week's

bad work."

The immediate result of this was that Mansell, realising that without

some assistance, printed or otherwise, his chances of a good report were

small, got leave from Clarke to fetch Gordon from the day-room to his

study in hall to prepare the work together. Gordon at once thought

himself a tremendous blood. There were advantages, after all, in being

moderately clever.

About this time another incident helped to bring Gordon a little more

before the public eye. There had been a match in the afternoon _v._

Milton A. Lovelace, as happens to all athletes at times, had an off day.

He missed an easy drop, fumbled two passes, and when the School were

leading by one point just before time, failed to collar his man, and

Milton A won by two points. "The Bull" raged furiously. Lovelace took

hall that night. He sat at the top of the table in the day-room and

gazed about, seeking someone on whom to vent his wrath. There was a dead

silence. Gordon was writing hard at a Latin prose. He looked up for a

second while thinking of a word.

"Caruthers, are you working?" Lovelace snapped out.

"Yes."

"You liar, you were looking out of the window, weren't you?"

"Yes, but----"

"I'll teach you to tell lies to me. Come and see me at nine o'clock."

Very miserably Gordon continued his work. After about a quarter of an

hour:

"Caruthers, will you take six, or a hundred lines?"

Gordon thought it was not the thing to take lines:

"Six."

"Will you have it now or afterwards?"

"Now."

"Hunter, go and get a cane from my study."

Trembling with fear, Gordon heard Hunter's feet ring down the stone

passage, saw him running across to the studies by the old wall. There

was silence again; then the sound of feet; Hunter returned.

"Come out here, Caruthers."

It hurt tremendously; he went back wishing he had taken the hundred

lines. But the others thought it amazingly brave of him. Lovelace minor,

handsome, debonair, a swashbuckler in the teeth of authority, came up

afterwards and said:

"Damned plucky of you. My brother's a bit of an ass at times."

It was not really plucky, it was merely the fear of doing the wrong

thing. But the House thought that, after all, there might be something

in at least one of those wretched new kids. One or two people looked at

him almost with interest that night in hall.

That was Gordon's first step. Afterwards things were not so hard.

Mansell began to think him rather a sport, as well as an indispensable

aid to classical studies, and Mansell counted for something. Meredith

smiled at him one day.... A public School was not such a bad hole after

all. And his cup of happiness seemed almost running over when one

afternoon after a game of rugger he overheard Lovelace minor say to

Hunter:

"That kid Caruthers wasn't half bad."

For he saw that the sure way to popularity lay in success on the field;

and because it was the weak as the strong point of his character that he

longed with a wild longing for power and popularity, it was already his

ambition to be some day captain of the House, and to lead his side to

glorious victories.

CHAPTER III: THE NEW PHILOSOPHY

"Of course 'the Bull' may be a jolly fine fellow and all that, but he

does exceed the limit at times."

Lovelace minor was speaking; it was the evening after the Dulbridge

Match. The school had been beaten by twenty-seven points to three, by a

much faster and heavier side. Meredith had been ill and could not play.

Lovelace major had sprained his ankle in the first half, and though he

had gone on playing was very little use. The match had all along been a

foregone conclusion. But "the Bull" had lost his temper entirely.

Hunter, Mansell and Jeffries, a Colt, who ran a good chance of getting

his House cap the next term, were discussing the matter. Gordon, who had

come in to do Thucydides, was sitting in the background, a little shy

and very interested.

"Is it true," said Jeffries, "that your brother threatened to resign the

captaincy if he did not keep quiet?"

"Yes. By Jove, my brother let him have it. That's what 'the Bull' wants;

he wants a fellow who's not afraid of him to stand up against him.

Fernhurst has been run by him long enough. He is a splendid fellow; and

when he's sane I almost love him. But he has become an absolute tyrant.

Thank God, he can't ride roughshod over my brother."

Mansell here broke in. Mansell was rather fond of summing up.

"It's like this. 'The Bull's' a gorgeous fellow, he loves Fernhurst, he

wants to love everyone in it. But he does not understand our House. We

are not going to sweat ourselves to win some rotten Gym Cup or House

Fives; we haven't time for that. We are amateurs. We play the hardest

footer and the keenest cricket of all the houses, and that's where we

stop. He wants us to train every minute, go for runs in the afternoon,

do physical exercises before breakfast so as to become strong,

clean-living Englishmen, who love their bodies and have some respect for

their mind." (A roar of laughter. It was as though 'the Bull' were

speaking.) "Well, I don't care a damn myself for my body or mind. All I

know is that the House is going to get the Two Cock somehow, and that

for six weeks we'll train like Hades, and then, when we've got the cup,

we'll have a blind. We aren't pros who train the whole year round; we're

amateurs!"

And Mansell was perhaps not far wrong.

"I say, you know," says Hunter, who had a cheerful way of suddenly

flying off at a tangent, "talking of 'the Bull,' have you heard of the

row in his house?"

Intense enthusiasm. Buller's was supposed to be "above suspicion."

"Oh, well, old Bull came round the dormitories last night and heard

Peters and Fischer and some other lads talking the most arrant filth. He

gave them all six in pyjamas on the spot, and Fischer is not going to be

allowed to be house captain next year. Rather a jest, you know. Old Bull

thought because his house was always in wonderful training that the

spirit of innocence ruled over the place."

"Well, he must be an ass then," said Mansell. "Why, look at Richmore,

and Parry; and even old Johnson has little respect for a bourgeois

morality."

Mansell was rather pleased with the last phrase; he was not quite

certain what it meant. G.K. Chesterton used it somewhere, probably in

his apology for George IV. It sounded rather nice.

"Well, it's obvious that a blood must be a bit of a rip; and Buller's is

merely an asylum for bloods!"

This rather perplexed Gordon. He ventured a question rather timidly:

"But is it impossible for a blood to be a decent fellow?"

"Decent fellow?" cried Jeffries. "Who on earth has said they were

anything else? Johnson's a simply glorious man. Only a bit fast; and

that doesn't matter much."

In a farewell lecture, Gordon's preparatory school master had given him

to believe that it mattered a good deal, but he was doubtless

old-fashioned. Times were changed; Gordon had ceased to be shocked at

what he heard; he was learning what life was, and how strange and

beautiful and ugly it was.

As the winter term drew to a close, Gordon grew more and more sure of

himself. He had passed by nearly all the other new boys. Foster, it is

true, had got on well according to his lights, and was on more than

friendly terms with Evans, the school slow bowler. But he was not much

liked by his equals. Rudd was looked on quite rightly as an absolute

buffoon; Collins got on fairly well, but was generally admitted to be a

bit eccentric. Gordon was, without doubt, the pick of the crew. His

position in form was a great help. Mansell's friends thought him a

cheerful, amusing and respectable-looking person, and were quite pleased

to have him about the place. Next term he was going to have a study with

Jeffries. The Chief thought he had got on rather too quick. But he was

usually among the first three in his form, and there was nothing

definite to find fault with, and, after all, his friends were excellent

fellows. There was nothing against them. Jeffries was genially selfish,

always ready for a rag, a keen footballer, and had, like most other

Public School boys, adopted a convenient broadmindedness with regard to

cribbing and other matters.

"If the master is such an arrant ass as to let you crib, it is his own

lookout; and, after all, we take the sporting chance."

Lovelace minor was rather a different sort of person. Very excitable, he

despised and deceived most of the masters; among his friends he was

unimpeachably loyal. He loved games, but never took them sufficiently

seriously to please "the Bull." He played for his own pleasure, not "the

Bull's." He was a splendid companion.

Hunter was rather a nonentity; his chief attraction was that he usually

had the last bit of scandal at his finger-tips; he was safe to be

consulted on any point of school politics. It was his boast that he had

sufficient evidence to expel half the Fifteen and the whole Eleven.

At this time Gordon found school life inexpressibly joyful. There were

minor troubles, but they were few. The only thing that really worried

him was Corps Parade. This infliction occurred once every week, and for

two hours Gordon passed through hell. He was in a recruits' section

under a man from Rogers' house, who was a typical product of his house.

He was oily, yellow and unpleasant to look upon. He also loathed Gordon.

There was a feud between the men from Rogers' and the School House.

Rogers was the captain in command of the corps. To Gordon he seemed

exactly like what Cicero must have been, loud, contentious, smashing

down pasteboard castles with a terrific din. He was amazingly arrogant

and conceited. In the pulpit and on the parade ground he was in his

element. The School House had for years been notorious for their

slackness on parade. In drill and musketry competitions they had

invariably come out bottom, and Rogers hated them for it. It was indeed

a great sight to see the School House half company at work. Everyone was

fed to death, and took no pains to hide the fact. Once Rogers had said

to the House colour-sergeant:

"Phillips, form up your men facing right."

Phillips looked round at them, thought for a second or two and then

drawled: "Look here, you fellows, shove round there." And the subsequent

sarcastic comment was quite lost on him. He was a good forward, but not

too clever. He was proof against epigram.

It was truly a noble sight to see Lovelace minor come on parade. Every

week exactly two seconds late, in the dead silence that followed the

sergeant-major's thundered "Parade!" he would dash through the school

gate, puffing and blowing, his drum knocking against his equipment, his

hat crooked, half his buttons undone. He would barge through two

sections, rush to the School House half-company, bang his rifle on the

ground, and say to his companion in a stage whisper: "I wasn't noticed,

was I?"

But these were only incidents. As a whole everything connected with the

corps was "a hell upon earth." Field days consisted of a long march, a

sublime mix-up, a speech from Rogers, a bad tea, then a long march home.

No one knew what was happening; no one cared. It was a sheer waste of

time. Only Rogers really enjoyed himself.

Then suddenly it occurred to Clarke that such a state of affairs was a

disgrace to the House. He had just been made a colour-sergeant, and

determined to wake things up. He made a long speech to the House,

pointing out the necessity for National Service, the importance of

militarism, and its effect on citizenship. He finished by a patriotic

outburst, telling them that they were wearing the King's uniform, and

that it must be kept clean, with the brass badges polished. The House

was mildly interested; its attitude was summed up in Turner's remark:

"The King's uniform will have to go buttonless as far as I am concerned.

Damned if I'll waste twopence to buy a rotten bone button."

On the next parade, however, Clarke inspected the company. Half the

House had to call him the next morning, dressed properly, at seven

o'clock. That would mean getting up at six-thirty. General

consternation.

"It's a crying scandal," said Lovelace minor. "If I had not been

reported for slacking at French I'd jolly well go and complain to the

Chief. How can anyone play football without proper sleep?"

Gordon laughed from the depths of his arm-chair. There were advantages

in being a recruit, even if one was ordered about by a man in Rogers'

who didn't wash. Hunter and Jeffries raged furiously; they swore that

they would not turn up. "Who is Clarke, damn his eyes, to take on the

privileges of a brigadier-general? It's a House tradition that no one

tries at parade."

Overnight Hunter was very full of rebellion; but seven o'clock saw him

in shining brass, meekly standing before Clarke, who examined them from

his bed with an electric torch. But Jeffries cut; he was ever "agin the

government." He got six. His tunic was clean next week. The House

growled and cursed inwardly, but its appearance on parade was very

different. Clarke was a man.

There is nothing so self-satisfying as to watch trouble from a safe

distance. Gordon was thoroughly happy. Mansell cursed heavily every

Monday night before the Tuesday parade. Clarke became to the House what

Cromwell was to Ireland; even the feeble Davenham thought it was a bit

thick. But Gordon was a recruit, and such things did not worry him. Life

was just then amazingly exciting. He was developing into quite a useful

forward. Mansell said he was certain for a place in the House Thirds

side. He was high up in form, and there was a good chance of his getting

a prize, but what perhaps counted more than anything else was the fact

that he was getting a position in the House. Prefects had ceased to ask

him what his name was. He was no longer a nonentity; he was looked on as

a coming man.

As the term wore on, the thought of exams. brought to Gordon only a

feeling of excitement. There was little likelihood of disaster; there

was the certainty of a good struggle for the first place between himself

and one Walford, a dull though industrious outhouse individual. But to

some of his friends exams. seemed as the day of reckoning. Lovelace

minor was frankly at his wits' end. He had slacked most abominably the

whole term. He had prepared none of his books, and his next-door

neighbour had supplied him with all necessary information. Now the news

was about that IV. B was going to sit with the Sixth Form for exams.

Terror reigned. There could be no cribbing under the Chief's nose.

Jeffries was in the same plight; but he was a philosopher. "If I get

bottled in every paper," he said, "it will only mean about two hours'

work on each subject. But if I am going to know enough to avoid being

bottled, it will mean a good eight hours' work at each subject: six

hours wasted on each. In these times of bustle it can't be done.

Caruthers, pass me that red-backed novel on the second shelf!"

Lovelace, however, was perturbed, and set out to prepare himself for the

ordeal. But his was a temperament that forbade application on any

subject other than horse racing. Every night he paced up and down the

study passages getting hints first from one person then another, and

always staying for a talk. By the end of preparation the result was

always the same--nothing done; and he and Jeffries both spent the last

Saturday in exactly the same way.

But with Mansell it was different. If he got a promotion his pater had

promised him a motor bike. At first sight this seemed impossible. Hunter

in fact laid a hundred to one against his chances. But for once Mansell

really tried at something besides games. For two halls he worked solidly

from seven till ten, preparing small slips of paper that contained all

the notes he could find in Gordon's notebook, and that could fit

conveniently into the back of a watch. Everything was in his favour.

Claremont was taking exams. The first paper was Old Testament history.

Mansell looked at his watch repeatedly; but suddenly he came to an

unexpected question. He endeavoured to extract an answer from the man on

his right.

Claremont spotted him.

"Well, Mansell, if I ask you if you are cribbing, I know you will deny

it, and I don't want you to tell me a lie; but I must beg of you not to

talk quite so loudly."

Any ordinary master would have torn up the boy's paper. But Claremont

was getting old.

At any rate for the rest of the exams. Mansell relied entirely on his

notes. The Greek translation paper, however, was more than he could do.

Promotion did not count on a set subject, but only on English and Latin;

so Greek had gone by the board. After writing the most amazing nonsense

for two hours, Mansell decided that it was wiser not to enter into

competition at all with those low tricksters who had prepared their

work. He showed up no papers at all.

Next day Claremont corrected the papers.

"Well, Mansell, I can't find your paper anywhere."

"I showed it up, sir."

"Well, I am sure I don't know where it is. You had better go and find Mr

Douglas, and ask him if he knows anything about it."

Mr Douglas was the mathematical master, to whom all marks were sent. He

added them up, and made out the orders.

After an unnecessarily long interval Mansell returned.

"I am sorry, sir; Mr Douglas has not seen them."

"Well, I suppose it must be all my fault. I shall have to give you an

average on your papers, which, strange to say, have been, for you,

remarkably good."

Mansell was averaged sixth for the paper. A real good bluff gives more

pleasure than all the honest exercises of one's life put together.

There was laughter in No. 16 Study that evening. A few weeks ago Gordon

would have been horrified at such a thing; but now it seemed a splendid

jest. He would not have cribbed himself. He preferred to beat a man with

his own brains, though Mansell would have protested that it was a

greater effort to pit one's brains against a master long trained in

spotting tricks than against some dull-headed scholar. The Public School

system, at any rate, teaches its sons the art of framing very ingenious

theories with which to defend their faults; a negative virtue, perhaps,

but none the less an achievement.

The last days of term were now drawing in. The House supper was only a

few days off and the holidays very close. Everyone was glad on the whole

to have finished the Christmas term, which is invariably the worst of

the three. And this year it had not been improved by Clarke's military

activities and the feeling of unrest that overhung the doings of the

Fifteen, because of Lovelace major's never-ending broils with "the

Bull." Two strong men both wanted their own way. On the whole, honours

were even, though, if anything, slightly in Lovelace's favour, since he

had filled up the scrum with a School House forward and a member of

Benson's, a small and rather insignificant House, instead of giving the

colours to men in Buller's.

But next term there would be fewer rows. There would be house matches,

and each house captain would run things in his own house as he wished.

The school captain did little except post up which grounds each house

was to occupy. The School House always longed for the Easter term. It

was their chance of showing the rest of the school what they were made

of. As they were slightly bigger than any other house, they claimed the

honour of playing the three best of the outhouses in the great Three

Cock House Match for the Senior Challenge Cup. This year, with Lovelace

and Meredith, a School House victory was looked on as almost certain.

Besides this big event there were the Two Cock and Thirds House Match.

In the "Thirds" the School House under sixteen house side played against

the two best of the outhouses under sixteen sides, for the Thirds

Challenge Cup. And in the Two Cock, the second House Fifteen--that is,

the House Fifteen minus those with first and second Fifteen

colours--played the two best of the outhouse second Fifteens for the

Junior Challenge Cup. The results of these last two matches were very

much on the knees of the gods. The House stood a fair chance, but the

general opinion was that Buller's would win the Thirds; and Christy's, a

house that was full of average players who were too slack to get their

seconds, would pull off the Two Cock. At any rate, there would be no

lack of excitement. There was always far more keenness shown about house

matches than school matches, a fact which worried Buller immensely. He

thought everything should be secondary to the interests of Fernhurst.

On the last Saturday of the term there was the House Supper. It was a

noble affair. The bloods wore evening dress; even the untidiest junior

oiled his hair and put on a clean collar. At the Sixth Form table sat

the Chief, some guests, Lovelace, Clarke, and a certain Ferguson, who

edited _The Fernhurst School Magazine_, and was to propose the health of

the old boys, of whom about twenty had come down, several having helped

to defeat the school by twenty points to sixteen in the afternoon. Never

had so much food been seen before. Turner had boasted that he always

went into training a week before the event, so as to enjoy it more. But

the real triumph was the hot punch. As soon as dessert had begun the old

boys trooped out, and brought in a huge steaming bowl of punch, from

which they filled all the glasses. Gordon did not like it much. It

seemed very hot and strong. But everyone else seemed to. Jeffries got a

little excited.

Then speeches followed. The Chief proposed the fortune of the House,

Clarke answered him. There was the usual applause and clapping. But the

real event was Lovelace's speech. It had been a year of great success.

The Three Cock had been lost by only a very small margin. The Two Cock

had been won in a walk-over, and the Thirds by two points. The Senior

Cricket and the Sports Cup had also been won. It was very nearly a

record year. Lovelace was received with terrific applause; he

congratulated the House on its performance; he mentioned individual

names; each was the signal for a roar of cheering; and then, at the end,

he said:

"And now I have a message to the House from the old boys. Let us have

the Three Cock Cup back again on the School House sideboard. It is the

place where it should be, and that's the place where we are going to put

it! Gentlemen, The Three Cock!"

Amid a deafening noise the toast was drunk, and a voice from the back

yelled out: "Three cheers for Lovelace!" His health, too, was drunk, and

they sang _For he's a Jolly Good Fellow_.

After this all else seemed tame. Ferguson made a speech that was meant

to be very funny, but rather missed fire. He had read _Dorian Gray_ the

whole of the evening before, underlining appropriate aphorisms. But to

the average boy Oscar Wilde is (rather luckily perhaps) a little too

advanced. The evening finished with _Auld Lang Syne_. Everyone stood on

the table and roared himself hoarse. The score in damage was twenty

plates broken beyond repair, sixteen punch glasses in fragments,

fourteen cracked plates, two broken gas mantles. When the revellers had

departed the hall looked rather gloomy, as probably Nero's did when his

guests fled after the murder of Britannicus.

Next morning there was early service for communicants. But the School

House was entirely pagan. Hardly a man went. On Sunday there was a great

feed in Study 16. Somehow or other ten people got packed into as many

square feet of room. Gordon was there; and Mansell, of course; Collins

came to act as general clown; Fitzroy, a small friend of Jeffries, sat

in a far corner looking rather uncomfortable. Spence, Carey and Tiddy

made up the number; the last were quite the ordinary Public School type,

their conversation ran entirely on games, scandal and the work they had

not done. Lovelace was mildly bored.

"It's pretty fair rot, you know. Here have I been fair sweating away at

the exams, every minute of my time, and Jeffries, who has not done a

stroke, is above me."

Jeffries was bottom but one.

"Oh, rotten luck," said Mansell. "You should do like me. Old fool

Claremont said I had done damned well!"

"He hardly put it that way," came from Gordon; "but I believe Mansell

has managed more or less to deceive the examiners."

"Oh, I say, that's a bit thick, you know," said Mansell. "Oh, damn, who

is that at the door?"

There was a feeble knock. "Come in!" shouted at least six voices

simultaneously.

Davenham came in looking rather frightened.

"I'm sorry.... Is Caruthers in here?"

"Yes, young fellow, he is."

"Oh, Caruthers, Meredith wants you!"

"Damn him," said Gordon. "What a nuisance these prefects are."

Very unwillingly he got up and strolled upstairs.

He was away rather a long time. After twenty minutes' absence he

returned rather moodily.

"Hullo, at last; you've been the hell of a long time," said Hunter.

"What did he want?"

"Oh, nothing; only something about my boxing subscription."

"Well, he took long enough about it, I must say. Was that all?"

"Of course. Cake, please, Fitzroy!"

The subject was dropped.

But just before chapel Jeffries ran into Gordon in the cloister.

"Look here, Caruthers, what did Meredith really want you for? I swear I

won't tell anyone."

"Oh, well, I don't mind you knowing.... You know what Meredith is,

well--I mean--oh, you know, the usual stuff. He wanted me to meet him

out for a walk to-morrow. I told him in polite language to go to the

'devil.'"

"Good Lord, did you really? But why? If Meredith gets fed up with you he

could give you the hell of a time."

"Oh, I know he could, but he wouldn't over a thing like that. Damn it

all, the man is a gentleman."

"Of course he is, but all the same he is a blood, and it pays to keep on

good terms with them."

"Oh, I don't know; it's risky--and well, I think the whole idea is

damned silly nonsense."

Jeffries looked at him rather curiously.

"Yes," he said, "I suppose that is how the small boy always looks at

it."

It was only for an hour or so, however, that Gordon let this affair

worry him. The holidays were only forty-eight hours off and he was

longing to hear the results of the exams., and to know whether he had a

prize.

Prize-giving was always held at five o'clock on the last Monday. And the

afternoon dragged by very slowly. Mansell assumed a cheerful

indifference. He thought his motor bike fairly certain. Rumour had it

there were going to be at least twelve promotions into the Lower Fifth.

Jeffries and Lovelace had also nothing to worry about; there was little

doubt as to their positions. Hunter specialised in chemistry, and had

done no examination papers. But for Gordon the suspense was intolerable.

He could find nothing to do; he climbed up the Abbey tower, and wrote

his name on the big hand of the clock; he roped up his playbox, tipped

the school porter; and still there was an hour and a half to put in.

Disconsolately he wandered down town. He strolled into Gisson's, the

school book-seller's: it contained nothing but the Home University

Library series and numerous Everymans. It was just like his first day

over again. But at last five o'clock came, and he sat with his four

friends at the back of the big schoolroom. He grew more and more tired

of hearing the lists of the Second and Third Forms read out. What

interest did he take in the doings of Pappenheim and Guttridge tertius?

IV. A was reached at length. The list was read from the bottom.

Not placed--Hunter.

Slowly the names were read out; the single figures were now reached:

Mansell--term's work, eighteen. Exams., one. Combined order, four.

This difference of position caused a titter to run round among those of

the School House who knew the cause of it. The third name and then the

second was reached:

Caruthers--Term's work, one. Exams., three. Combined order, one.

Term's Prize--Caruthers. Exams.--Mansell.

The latter's performance was the signal for an uproarious outburst of

applause, in which laughter played a large part. There was still more

merriment when it was discovered that he had got as a prize _Sartor

Resartus_. As he crudely put it: "What the bloody hell does it mean?"

Gordon got the _Indian Mutiny_, by Malleson. Both books now repose, as

do most prizes, in the owners' book-cases, unread.

"Congrats, Mansell, old fellow," yelled Lovelace minor, as the school

poured out at the end of the prize-giving. "Glorious! What a School

House triumph."

"Yes, you know," said Mansell. "But it doesn't seem quite fair, and I am

damned if I want this book. It looks the most utter rot. I say, shall I

give it to that little kid in Buller's, I forget his name, who was

second? He looks a bit upset. Shall I, I say?"

"Don't be a silly fool, Mansell," said Lovelace major, who happened to

overhear the conversation. "You've just got the only prize you're ever

likely to get for work; stick on to it."

The rest of the day was pure, unalloyed joy to Gordon. He rushed off

after tea to wire the news home; then he sat in the gallery and listened

to the concert. He had expected to enjoy it rather; but the seats were

uncomfortable, the music too classical, and he soon stopped paying any

attention to the choir, and began a long argument with Collins as to the

composition of the Two Cock scrum.

The next morning as the train steamed out of Fernhurst, and he lay back

in the carriage smoking a cigarette, outwardly with the air of a

connoisseur, inwardly with the timid nervousness of a novice, he

reflected that, in spite of the Rev. Rogers, school was a pretty decent

sort of place.

CHAPTER IV: NEW FACES

"I say, it _is_ true; Lovelace major has left."

"Good Lord, no; is it?"

"He's not on the House list?"

"I heard he'd passed into the army at last."

"I wonder who he was sitting next."

"And we shall have that silly ass Armour captain of the House."

"Ye gods!"

A small crowd had gathered in front of the studies on the first night of

the Easter term. Consternation reigned. The almost impossible had

happened. Lovelace major had passed into Sandhurst at his fifth attempt,

and Armour would take his place as house captain. It was a disaster.

Armour was doubtless a most worthy fellow, a thoroughly honest,

hard-working forward. But he had no personality. When he passed by, fags

did not suddenly stop talking, as they did when Clarke or Meredith

rolled past them. The term before, he had not even been a house prefect.

The Three Cock, which had once seemed such a certainty, now became a

forlorn hope.

"It's rotten," said Lovelace minor that night in the dormitory. "My

brother didn't think he had the very ghost of a chance of passing. He'd

mucked it up four times running, only the silly ass had done both the

unseens with "the Bull" the week before, and he was too damned slack to

alter them, and write them down wrong. He always was an ass, my

brother."

Everyone was sorry. Even "the Bull" regarded him with a sort of

indulgent sentimentality. He never saw very much good in a School House

captain as long as he was there; but as soon as he left, all his faults

were forgotten and virtues that he had never possessed were flung at him

in profusion. The result was that "the Bull" said to the School House

captain of each generation: "I have had more trouble with you than any

Fernhurst boy I have ever met. You can't see beyond the length of your

own dining-hall. See big. See the importance of Fernhurst, and the

insignificance of yourself."

But no one was more sorry than Armour. He did not want responsibility;

he had not sought for it. He wished to have fought in the School House

battles as a private, not as an officer. He loved the House, and longed

for its success, and trembled to think that he might ruin its chances by

a weak and vacillating captaincy. Moreover, he felt that he had no one

to back him up. Meredith, Robey and Simonds, the other members of the

First Fifteen in the House, were all grousing and wondering how large a

score the outhouses would run up in the Three Cock. No one placed any

confidence in his abilities. He was entirely alone.

The next day was pouring wet; the ground was under water. Most house

captains would have sent their houses for a run. But Armour wanted to

make his start as early as possible. He couldn't bear to delay. That

afternoon the probable Thirds side played against the rest of the House,

with the exception of the Second colours. Armour had never felt so

nervous before; it was actually the first time he had refereed on a

game. Jeffries was captain of the Thirds, and kicked off. It was, of

course, a scrappy game. On such a day good football was impossible. The

outsides hardly touched the ball once. But the forwards, covered in mud

from head to foot, had their full share of work. Jeffries was

ubiquitous; he led the "grovel" (as the scrum was called at Fernhurst),

and kept it together. Gordon had very little chance of distinguishing

himself; but he did one or two dribbles, and managed to collar Mansell

the only time he looked like getting away. Lovelace minor, who played

fly-half, had nothing to do except stop forward rushes, was kicked all

over his body, got very cold and never had a chance once. He was

utterly miserable the whole hour. All this was in favour of Armour. He

knew nothing about three-quarter work, but he had played forward ever

since he had gone to the Fernhurst preparatory at ten years of age, and

could always spot the worker and the slacker, which Lovelace major never

could. On the whole, taking a house game was not so terrifying after

all; by half-time he had forgotten his nervousness in his excitement at

watching how his side was going to shape.

"You know, I don't think Armour so rotten as people said he would be,"

said Gordon, as they came up after the game. "I thought he was all

right."

"Oh yes, he's not so bad; but he does not seem much when you shove him

next to Lovelace major."

"Well, you know," said Jeffries, "he does know something about forward

play, which I am damned if Lovelace did."

"Perhaps so; but all the same Lovelace was the man to win matches."

Mansell was an outside, and loved dash and brilliance, but the forwards

were not sorry to have someone in command who understood them. Armour

had begun well.

* * * * *

There are still people who will maintain that the ideal schoolboy in

school hours thinks only about Vergil and Sophocles, and in the field

concentrates entirely on drop kicks and yorkers. But that boy does not

exist; and in the Easter term it is impossible to think of anything but

house matches. Those who were in the power of some form martinet had a

terrible time this term. But Gordon and Mansell found themselves safely

at rest in Claremont's form and Greek set, and made up their minds just

to stay there and do only enough work to avoid being bottled.

For the Lower Fifth was certainly the refuge of many weather-beaten

mariners. Pat Johnstone had laboriously worked up from the bottom form,

led on only by the hope that one day he would reach V. B, and there

repose at the back of the room, living his last terms in peace. Ruddock

had once set out with high hopes of reaching the Sixth; his first term

he had won a Divinity prize in the Shell. But under Claremont he had

discovered the truth, learnt long ago in the land of Lotus Eaters, "that

slumber is more sweet than toil!" The back benches of that room were

strewn with shattered hopes. Small intelligent scholars came up and

passed by on their way to Balliol Scholarships; but the faces at the

back of the room remained terribly somnolent and happy. A certain

Banbury had been there for three years and had earned the nickname of

"old Father Time," and Mansell, too, swore he would enrol himself with

the Lost Legion, while even Gordon said that nothing would shift him

from there for at least a year.

Claremont had many strange ideas, the most striking of which was the

belief that boys felt a passionate love for poetry. The average boy has

probably read all the poetry he will ever read terms before he ever

reaches the Fifth Form. By the time he is in Shell he has learnt to

appreciate Kipling, the more choice bits of _Don Juan_ and a few

plain-spoken passages in Shakespeare. If English Literature were taught

differently, if he were led by stages from Macaulay to Scott, from Byron

to Rossetti, he might perhaps appreciate the splendid heritage of song,

but as it is, swung straight from _If_ to the _Ode to the Nightingale_

he finds the "shy beauty" of Keats most unutterable nonsense. Claremont,

however, thought otherwise, and ran his form accordingly. In repetition

this was especially noticeable. Kennedy, a small boy with glasses, who

was always word-perfect, would nervously mumble through Henry V's speech

(they always learnt Shakespeare) in an accurate but totally uninspired

way. Mansell would stand at the back of the form and blunder out blank

verse, much of which was his own, and little of which was Shakespeare,

but which certainly sounded most impressive.

"Well, Kennedy," Claremont would say, "you certainly know your words

very well, but I can't bear the way you say them. Five out of twenty.

Mansell, you evidently have made little attempt to learn your repetition

at all, but I love your fervour. One so rarely finds anyone really

affected by the passion of poetry. Fifteen out of twenty."

During his two years in the Lower Fifth Mansell never once spent more

than five minutes learning his "rep," yet on no occasion did he get less

than twelve out of twenty. A bare outline was required, a loud voice

supplied the rest.

In this form it was that Gordon first began to crib. He did not do it

to get marks. He merely wished to avoid being "bottled." Some

headmasters, and the writers to _The Boy's Own Paper_, draw lurid

pictures of the bully who by cribbing steals the prize from the poor

innocent who looks up every word in a big Liddell and Scott; but such

people don't exist. No one ever cribbed in order to get a prize: they

crib from mere slackness. Mansell's exam. prize in IV. A is about the

only instance of a prize won by cribbing. Besides, cribbing is an art.

Ruddock, for instance, when he used to go on to translate, was

accustomed to take up his Vergil in one hand and his Bohn in the other.

"What is that other book, Ruddock?" Claremont asked once.

"Some notes, sir," was the perfectly truthful answer.

Ruddock was, moreover, an altruist; he always worked for the good of his

fellow-men. One day, when Mansell was bungling most abominably with his

Euripides, he flung his Bohn along the desk, Mansell picked it up,

propped it in front of him and read it off. Claremont never noticed.

This was the start of a great system of combination. Everyone at the

beginning of the term paid twopence to the general account with which

Ruddock bought some _Short Steps to Accurate Translations_. As each

person went on to translate, the book was passed to him and he read

straight out of it. The translating was, in consequence, always of a

remarkably high standard. Claremont never understood why examinations

always proved the signal for a general collapse. History, however, was a

subject that had long been a worry to the form. Dates are irrevocable

facts and cannot be altered, they must be learnt. At one time, when

Claremont said, "Shut your book. I will ask a few questions," everyone

shut their Latin grammars loudly and kept their history books open; but

this was rather too obvious a ruse; Claremont began to spot it.

Something had to be done. It would be an insult to expect any member of

the form to prepare a lesson. It was Gordon who finally devised a plan.

"Please, sir," he said one day, "don't you think we should find history

much more interesting if we could bring in maps."

"Well, perhaps it would," said Claremont sleepily. "I am sure the form

is very much indebted to you for your kind thought. Anyone who wants to,

may bring in a map."

Next day everyone had found a huge atlas which he propped up on the

desk; and which completely hid everything except the student's actual

head. There was now no fear of an open book being spotted, it was so

very simple to shut it when Claremont began to walk about, and besides

... it made the lesson so much more interesting.

And so Gordon and Mansell were able to discuss football the whole of

evening hall, never do a stroke of work, and yet get quite a respectable

half-term report.

The interest in the Thirds was now becoming intense. As was expected,

Buller's easily beat all the outhouses, with Claremont's house as

runners-up. Claremont's house had once been the great athletic house,

but when a house master takes but little interest in a house's

performances, that house is apt to get stale, and soon Claremont's

became a name for mediocrity. As a house it was like V. B, a happy land

where no one worried about anything, and it was quite safe to smoke in

the studies on a Sunday afternoon. A side made up of two houses that had

never played together before was bound to lack the combination of a side

that had played together for several weeks. But the School House was

always playing against superior weight and strength, and more than once

had found itself unable to sustain their efforts, and after leading up

to half-time went clean to pieces in the last ten minutes. It is pretty

hard to hold a "grovel" several stones heavier for over an hour, and

this year even Armour was a little doubtful about the lightness of his

side. To Gordon and Jeffries, of course, defeat seemed impossible. Last

year Jeffries had played in a winning side and Gordon had yet to see the

House lose a match. But Mansell smiled sadly; he had played in a good

many losing sides. Gordon dreamed football night and day. He saw himself

securing wonderful last-minute tries, and bringing off amazing collars

when all seemed lost. But all his hopes were doomed to disappointment.

Two days before the game he slipped coming downstairs, fell with his

wrist under him, and with his arm in splints and sling had to watch from

the touch-line an outhouse victory of ten points to nothing. The usual

thing happened--the House was just not strong enough. Jeffries played a

great game, and fought an uphill fight splendidly; Lovelace only missed

a drop goal by inches; Fletcher, an undisciplined forward, did great

damage till warned by the referee. But weight told, and during the whole

of the last half the House were penned in their twenty-five, while the

school got over twice. Very miserably the House sat down to tea that

evening. It added insult to injury when an impertinent fag from Buller's

walked in in the middle and demanded the cup. Armour managed to keep his

temper, but that fag did not forget for weeks the booting Gordon gave

him the next day. Still it was a poor revenge for a lost cup.

Whatever little chance there had ever been of Gordon getting a place in

the Two Cock was, of course, quite destroyed by his accident. The doctor

said he ought not to play again for at least three weeks. And so it was

that, as far as football was concerned, Gordon found himself rather out

of it. All his friends were in the thick of everything. Mansell was

captain of the Two Cock, Jeffries was leading the scrum, Hunter was

being tried as scrum half, and Lovelace was in training as a reserve. He

alone was doing nothing. For a few days the afternoons seemed unbearably

long. But Gordon had a remarkable gift for adapting himself to

circumstances. And he had very little difficulty in striking up new

acquaintances. So far, he had had very little to do with those outside

his actual set; with the majority of the House he was hardly on speaking

terms, and of Archie Fletcher he knew little except the name.

Archie Fletcher was a great person; "great" in fact was the only

adjective that really fitted him. He had only two real objects in life,

one was to get his House cap, the other was to enjoy himself. And his

love of pleasure usually took the form of ragging masters. Ragging with

him did not consist in mere spasmodic episodes of bravado which usually

ended in a beating. He had reduced it to a science. It was to him the

supreme art. At present he was suffering from a kick on the knee which

he had received in the Thirds, and he and Gordon found themselves

constantly thrown together.

Archie (no one ever called him anything else), was a splendid companion.

He had an enormous repertoire of anecdotes which he was never tired of

telling, and every one finished in exactly the same way: "Believe me,

Caruthers, some rag." Oh, a great man, forsooth, was Archie! He had

cynically examined every master with whom he had anything to do, picked

him to pieces, found out his faults, and then played on his weaknesses.

Sometimes, however, he went a little too far. On one occasion he was

doing chemistry with a certain Jenks, a very fiery little man, who

really believed in the educational value of "stinks." So did Archie; it

gave him scope to exercise his genius for playing the fool. But this day

he overstepped the bounds. In the distance, he saw Blake, his pet

aversion, carefully working out an experiment. A piece of glass tubing

was at hand; Jenks was not looking; Archie fixed the tube to the

waterspout, turned the tap; a cascade of H_{2}O rose in the air and fell

on Blake's apparatus; there was a crash of falling glass. Jenks spun

round.

"Oh, is that you, Fletcher, you stupid fellow? Come over here. I shall

have to beat you. Now then, where's my cane gone! Oh, then I shall have

to use some rubber tubing--stoop down, stoop down!"

Laboriously Archie bent down; Jenks bent a piece of india-rubber tubing

double--its length was hardly a foot--and gave Archie a feeble blow. It

could not possibly have hurt him. But the victim leapt in the air,

clutching the seat of his trousers.

"Oh!" he screamed. "Oh, sir, oh, sir! You have hurt me, sir. You are so

strong, sir."

"Oh, then you are coward, too, are you?" said the delighted Jenks.

"Stoop down again; stoop down!"

The form rocked with laughter.

Archie received four strokes in all, and after each he went through the

same performance. Jenks thought himself a second Hercules; he repeated

the story in the common room. Archie repeated it also, in the studies:

"Believe me, you fellows, some rag!"

A great man, and after Gordon's own heart!

On a bleak, rainy afternoon Gordon and Fletcher watched the overwhelming

defeat of the House in the Two Cock. The score was over thirty points;

Mansell played only moderately; Jeffries was off his game. A gloom

settled down over the House, everyone became peevish and discontented.

It was said that the great days of House footer were over. To lose both

the Thirds and the Two Cock was a disgrace. No one expected anything but

a rout in the Three Cock. There were bets in the day-room as to whether

the score would be under fifty. Interest centred entirely on who would

get their House caps. With Lovelace away, the three-quarter line would

be innocuous: the forwards always had been weak. The House were bad

losers, they had grown accustomed to victories.

CHAPTER V: EMERGING

"Jeffries was pretty hot stuff to-day, wasn't he?"

"Good Lord! yes. If he plays half as well as that in the Three Cock

he'll get his House cap."

It was just after tea. Mansell was lying back in an easy-chair with his

feet on the table; he was dead tired after a strenuous game. Gordon was

sitting on the table. Hunter reclined in the window seat.

"Where is he, by the way?" said Gordon. "I didn't see him in to tea."

"Oh, I believe someone asked him out. Isn't he rather a pal of the

Jacobs in Cheap Street?"

"I heard that there was a bit of a row on," said Hunter. "I couldn't

quite make out what about.... Oh, by Jove, that's him."

Jeffries' voice was heard down the passage: "Mansell."

A voice answered him: "Here, No. 34."

Jeffries was heard running upstairs; he entered looking very dejected.

"Hullo! Cheer up!" shouted Mansell. "I shouldn't have thought you could

have run like that after this afternoon's game. Where've you been?"

"I say ... I'm in the deuce of a row."

There was a shriek of laughter. Jeffries was always in a row; and he

always exaggerated its importance.

"Don't laugh. It's no damned joke. I've got bunked."

Silence suddenly fell on the group.

"But ... what the hell have you been doing?"

"Chief's found out all about me and Fitzroy, and I've got to go!"

"But I never thought there was really anything in that," said Gordon. "I

thought----"

"Oh, well, there was. I know I'm an awful swine and all that----Oh, it's

pretty damnable; and the Three Cock, too! I believe I should have got my

House cap!... I wasn't so dusty to-day--and I heard Armour say, as he

came off the field----Damn, what the bloody hell does it matter what

Armour said? It's over now. I just got across for a minute to see you

men.... I said I wanted a book.... Lord, I can't believe it...."

When he stopped speaking there was again a dead silence. None of the

three had been brought face to face with such a tragedy before. Never,

Gordon thought, had the Greek idea of Nemesis seemed so strong.

Hunter broke the silence.

"What are you going to do now?"

"I don't know. I shall go home, and then, I suppose, I shall have to go

to France or Germany, or perhaps some crammer. I don't know or care ...

it's bound to be pretty rotten...."

He half smiled.

"My God, and it's damned unfair," Mansell said suddenly. "There are

jolly few of us here any better than you, and look at the bloods, every

one of them as fast as the devil, and you have to go just because----Oh,

it's damned unfair."

Then Jeffries' wild anger, the anger that had made him so brilliant an

athlete, burst out: "Unfair? Yes, that's the right word; it is unfair.

Who made me what I am but Fernhurst? Two years ago I came here as

innocent as Caruthers there; never knew anything. Fernhurst taught me

everything; Fernhurst made me worship games, and think that they alone

mattered, and everything else could go to the deuce. I heard men say

about bloods whose lives were an open scandal, 'Oh, it's all right,

they can play football.' I thought it was all right too. Fernhurst made

me think it was. And now Fernhurst, that has made me what I am, turns

round and says, 'You are not fit to be a member of this great school!'

and I have to go. Oh, it's fair, isn't it?"

He dropped exhausted into a chair. After a pause he went on:

"Oh, well, it's no use grousing. I suppose if one hits length balls on

the middle stump over square leg's head one must run the risk of being

bowled; and I didn't believe in sticking in and doing nothing. 'Get on

or get out,' and, well, I've got out." He laughed rather hysterically.

Again silence.

Slowly Jeffries got up.

"Well, good-bye, you men." He shook hands. As he opened the door he

paused for a second, laughed to himself: "Oh, it's funny, bloody funny,"

he murmured. "Not fit for Fernhurst.... Bloody funny." He laughed again,

bitterly. The door closed slowly.

Jeffries' footsteps could be heard on the stairs. They grew fainter; the

door leading to the Chief's side of the House slammed. Down the study

passage a gramophone struck up _Florrie was a Flapper_.

In Study 34 there was an awful stillness.

That evening on the way down to supper Gordon overheard Armour say to

Meredith:

"What a fool that man Jeffries is, getting bunked, and mucking up the

grovel. Damned ass, the man is."

Meredith agreed.

Gordon didn't care very much just now about the result of a House match.

He had lost a friend. Armour had lost a cog in a machine.

* * * * *

As was expected, the Three Cock proved a terribly one-sided game. The

House played pluckily, and for the first half kept the score down to

eight points; but during the last twenty minutes it was quite impossible

to keep out the strong outhouse combination. The side became

demoralised, and went absolutely to pieces. Armour did not give a single

House cap.

After the Three Cock there was a period of four weeks during which the

best athletes trained for the sports, while the rest of the school

played hockey. It was generally considered a sort of holiday after the

stress of house matches. Usually it served its purpose well, but for the

welfare of the House this year it was utterly disastrous. The whole

house was in a highly strung, discontented state; it had nothing to work

for; it had only failures to look back upon. The result was a general

opposition to authority. For a week or so there was a continuous row

going on in the studies. Window-frames were broken; chairs were smashed;

nearly every day one or other member of the House was hauled before the

Chief, for trouble of some sort. But things did not reach a real head

till one night in hall, just before Palm Sunday. There was a lecture for

the Sixth Form; Armour was taking hall; and the only prefect in the

studies was Sandham, who had a headache and had got leave off the

lecture. It did not take long for the good news to spread round the

studies that only "the Cockroach" was about.

The first sign of trouble was a continual sound of opening doors. Archie

was rushing round, stirring up strife; then there came a sound of many

voices from the entrance of the studies, where were the fire hose and

the gas meter. Suddenly the gas was turned out throughout the whole

building, and pandemonium broke out.

It would be impossible to describe the tumult made by a whole house that

was inspired by only one idea: the desire to make a noise. The voice of

Sandham rose in a high-pitched wail over and again above the uproar; but

it was pitch dark, he could see none of the offenders. Then all at once

there was peace again, the lights went up, and everyone was quietly

working in his study. It had been admirably worked out. Archie was

"some" organiser.

For the time being the matter ended; but in a day or two rumours of the

rebellion had reached Clarke. Strong steps had to be taken; and Clarke

was not the man to shirk his duty.

That evening after prayers he got up and addressed the House.

"I have been told that two nights ago, when I was absent, there was a

most unseemly uproar in the studies. I am not going into details; you

all know quite well what I mean. I want anyone who assisted in the

disturbance to stand up."

There was not a move. The idea that the Public School boy's code of

honour forces him to own up at once is entirely erroneous. Boys only own

up when they are bound to be found out; they are not quixotic.

"Well, then, as no one has spoken, I shall have to take forcible

measures. Everyone above IV. A (for the Lower School did their

preparation in the day-room) will do me a hundred lines every day till

the end of the term. Thank you."

That night there was loud cursing. Clarke had hardly a supporter, the

other prefects, with the exception of Ferguson, who did not count for

much in the way of things, agreed with Meredith, who said:

"If the Cockroach can't keep order, how can Clarke expect there should

be absolute quiet? It's the Chief's fault for making such prefects.

Damned silly, I call it."

The term did not end without a further row. There had been from time

immemorial a system by which corps clothes were common property.

Everyone flung them in the middle of the room on Tuesday after parade;

the matron sorted them out after a fashion; but most people on the next

Tuesday afternoon found themselves with two tunics and no trousers, or

two hats and only one puttee. But no one cared. The person who had two

tunics flung one in the middle of the floor, and then went in search of

some spare trousers. Everyone was clothed somehow in the end. There was

always enough clothes to go round. There was bound to be at least ten

people who had got leave off. It was a convenient socialism.

But one day FitzMorris turned up on parade in a pair of footer shorts, a

straw hat, and a First Eleven blazer. He was a bit of a nut, and finding

his clothes gone, went on strangely garbed, merely out of curiosity to

see what would happen. A good deal did happen.

As soon as the corps was dismissed there was a clothes inspection. And

the garments of FitzMorris were found distributed on various bodies.

Clarke again addressed the House. Anyone in future discovered wearing

anyone else's clothes would be severely dealt with. But the House was

not to be outdone. Every single name was erased from every single piece

of clothing: identification was impossible. FitzMorris turned up at the

next parade with one puttee missing, and a tunic that could not meet

across his chest. There was another inspection, but this time it

revealed nothing. Everyone swore that he was wearing his own clothes;

there was nothing to prove that he was not. For the time Clarke was

discomfited.

FitzMorris set out on his Easter holidays contented with himself and the

world, in the firm belief that he had thoroughly squashed that blighter

Clarke. The head of the House returned to his lonely home on the moors,

very thoughtful--the next term would be his last.

On the first Sunday of the summer term the Chief preached a sermon the

effect of which Gordon never forgot. He was speaking on the subject of

memory and remorse. "It may be in a few months," he said, "it may be not

for three or four years; but at any rate before very long, you will each

one of you have to stand on the threshold of life, and looking back you

will have to decide whether you have made the best of your Fernhurst

days. For a few moments I ask you to imagine that it is your last day at

school. How will it feel if you have to look back and think only of

shattered hopes, of bright unfulfilled promises? Your last day is bound

to be one of infinite pathos. But to the pathos of human sorrow there is

no need to add the pathos of failure. Oh, I know you are many of you

saying to yourselves: 'There is heaps of time. We'll enjoy ourselves

while we have the chance. It is not for so very long!' No, you are right

there: it is not for so very long; it is only a few hours before you

will have to weigh in the balance the good and the bad you have done

during your Fernhurst days. For some of you it will be in a few weeks;

but for the youngest of you it cannot be more than a very few years. Let

me beg each of you ..." The sermon followed on traditional lines.

Almost subconsciously Gordon rose with the others to sing: _Lord, behold

us with Thy Blessing_.... What would it feel like to him if this were

his last Sunday, and he had to own that his school career were a

failure? He sat quite quiet in his study thinking for a long time

afterwards. He had a study alone this term.

In the big study that it has ever been the privilege of the head of the

House to own, Clarke also sat very silent. He was nerving himself for a

great struggle.

* * * * *

To the average individual the summer term is anything but the heaven it

is usually imagined to be. The footer man hates it; the fag has to field

all day on a house game and always goes in last; there is early school;

in some houses there are no hot baths. On the first day the studies are

loud with murmurs of:

"Oh! this rotten summer term."

"No spare time and cricket."

"Awful!"

For Fernhurst was primarily a footer school. Buller had captained

England and had infused much of his own enthusiasm into his Fifteens;

but the cricket coach, a Somerset professional, lacked "the Bull's"

personality and force, and so for the last few years the doings of the

Eleven had been slight and unmeritable. Even Lovelace major had been

unable to carry a whole side on his shoulders. As soon as he was out the

school ceased to take any interest in the game. Fernhurst batting was of

the stolid, lifeless type, and showed an almost mechanical subservience

to the bowling.

But for Gordon this term was sheer joy. He loved cricket

passionately--last season at his preparatory school he had headed the

batting averages, and kept wicket with a certain measure of success. As

a bat he was reckless in the extreme; time after time he flung away his

wicket, trying to cut straight balls past point; he was the despair of

anyone who tried to coach him; but he managed to get runs.

For cricket the School House was divided into A-K and L-Z, according to

which division the names of the boys fell into. Meredith was captain of

the House and of L-Z, while FitzMorris captained A-K. For the first half

of the term there were Junior House Single-Innings matches played in the

American method, and afterwards came the Two-Innings Senior matches on

the knock-out system. A-K Junior this year had quite a decent side.

Foster was not at all a bad slow bowler, and was known to have made

runs. Collins had a useful but unorthodox shot which he applied to every

ball, no matter where it pitched, and which landed the ball either over

shortslip's head or over the long-on boundary. In the nets it was a

hideous performance, but in Junior House matches, where runs are the one

consideration it was extremely useful. A certain Betteridge captained

the side, not because of any personal attainments, but because he was on

the V. A table, and had played in Junior House matches with consistent

results for three years. He went in tenth and sometimes bowled.

These matches began at once, as Stewart, the captain of the Eleven, was

anxious to spot useful men for the Colts, the under sixteen side, who

wore white caps with a blue dragon worked on them. And so on the second

Saturday of the term A-K drew Buller's in the first round. Before the

game FitzMorris had the whole side in his study to fix the positions in

the field. Some of the side had played little serious cricket before.

Brown, in fact, asked if he might field middle and leg. But at last they

were placed more or less to their own satisfaction, and FitzMorris gave

them a short "jaw" on keenness. Cricket was about the one thing he

really cared for; as a chemistry specialist he spent most of his day

adoze in the laboratory. It was only in the cricket field that he really

woke up.

With great solemnity Betteridge walked forward to toss with Felsted, the

Buller's captain. A few seconds later he returned to announce that

Buller's had won the toss and put them in. The captain of a Junior House

side is always very fond of putting the other side in first. P.F. Warner

would demand rain overnight, a drying ground, a fast wind and a baking

sun before he would dare do such a thing. But Felsted was made of

sterner stuff.

Gordon was sent in first with Collins. The idea was to try and knock the

bowlers off their length early. Gordon was very nervous. "The Bull" was

umpire at one end and FitzMorris at the other. Meredith had strolled

over to watch, as L-Z had drawn a bye. Mansell was in the Pavilion

eating an ice. All eyes seemed on him. He had made Collins take the

first ball. The start was worthy of the best School House traditions.

The first ball was well outside the off-stump; it landed in the National

School grounds that ran alongside of the school field. A howl of

untuneful applause went up. This was the cricket anyone could

appreciate, and this was the cricket that was always seen on a School

House game. Its only drawback was that could not last. Collins made a

few more daring strokes. In the second over he made a superb drive over

shortslip's head to the boundary, and his next shot nearly ended

FitzMorris' somnolent existence. It was great while it lasted, but, like

all great things, it came to an end. He gave the simplest of chances to

cover point, and Buller's rarely missed their catches.

It was so with nearly all the other members of the side. Three or four

terrific hits and then back under the trees again. Gordon alone seemed

at all comfortable. Either the novelty of the surroundings (it was only

his second innings at Fernhurst), or else the presence of "the Bull,"

quieted his customary recklessness. At any rate, he attempted no

leg-glides on the off-stump, and in consequence found little difficulty

in staying in. The boundaries, as was natural on a side ground, were

quite close. Runs came quite easily. During the interval after Foster's

dismissal "the Bull" walked across to him:

"How old are you, Caruthers?"

"Thirteen and a half, sir."

"Oh, good thing to come young. I did myself. Keep that left foot well

across and you'll stop in all day. Well done. Stick to it."

Gordon was amazingly bucked up. He had always heard "the Bull" was

anti-School House, and here he was encouraging one of his enemies. What

rot fellows did talk. Splendid man "the Bull"! He would tell Mansell so

that night.

And his opinion was even more strengthened when, after he had been clean

bowled for forty-three without a chance, "the Bull" stopped him on the

way out and said:

"Well done, Caruthers! Plucky knock. Go and have a tea at the tuck-shop,

and put it down to my account."

The School House innings closed for one hundred and forty-eight.

"Nothing like big enough," said Foster.

FitzMorris overheard him.

"Rot! Absolute rot! If you go on the field in that spirit you won't get

a single man out. Go in and win."

And a very fine fight the House put up. Foster bowled splendidly,

Betteridge was fast asleep at point and brought off a marvellous

one-handed catch, while Gordon stumped Felsted in his third over. After

an hour's play seven men were out for about ninety. The scorers were at

variance, so the exact score could not be discovered. There seemed a

reasonable chance of winning. And to his dying day Gordon will maintain

that they would have won but for that silly ass of an umpire,

FitzMorris. Bridges, the Buller's wicket-keep, was run out by yards;

there was no doubt about it. Everyone saw it. But long hours at the

laboratory had made it very hard for FitzMorris to concentrate his brain

on anything for a long time; he was happily dreaming, let us hope, of

carbon bisulphate, when the roar, "How's that?" woke him up. He had to

give the man "not out"; there was nothing else to do. Twenty minutes

later, with a scandalous scythe-stroke, Bridges made the winning hit.

"Never mind, your men put up a good fight; the luck was all on our

side," said "the Bull" to Caruthers. "Let's see, it's Sunday to-morrow,

isn't it? Well, on Monday, then, come round to the nets; you want to

practise getting that left foot across. Look here, just get your bat and

I'll toss you up one or two now at the nets!"

That night "the Bull," talking over the game with his side in the

dormitories, said: "That Caruthers, you know, he's a good man; sort of

fellow we want in the school. Can fight an uphill game. Got grit. He'll

make a lot of runs for the school some day."

On Monday Gordon saw his name down for nets with the Colts Eleven. Life

was good just then. If only Jeffries were there too....

CHAPTER VI: CLARKE

"Ferguson, the House is getting jolly slack; something's got to be

done."

Ferguson sat up in his chair. Clarke had been quiet nearly the whole of

hall; there was obviously something up.

"Oh, I don't know. Why, only a quarter of an hour ago I came across

Collins and Brown playing stump cricket in the cloisters instead of

studying Thucydides. That's what I call keenness."

"What did you say to them?"

"Oh, I've forgotten now, but it was something rather brilliant. I know

it was quite lost on them. The Shell can't appreciate epigram. They

ought to read more Wilde. Great book _Intentions_. Ever read it, Clarke?

"Oh, confound your Wildes and Shaws; that's just what I object to. Here

are these kids, who ought to be working, simply wasting their time,

thinking of nothing but games. Why, I was up in the House tutor's room

last night and was glancing down the list of form orders. Over half the

House was in double figures."

"But, my good man, why worry? As long as the lads keep quiet in hall,

and leave us in peace, what does it matter? Peace at any price, that's

what I say; we get so little of it in this world, let us hang on to the

little we have got."

"But look what a name the House will get."

"The House will get much the same reputation in the school as England

has in Europe. The English as a whole are pleasure-loving and slack.

They worship games; and, after all, the Englishman is a jolly sight

better fellow than the average German or Frenchman."

"Yes, of course he's a better fellow, but the rotten thing is that he

might be a much better fellow still. If as a country we had only

ourselves to think about, let us put up a god of sport. But we have not.

We have to compete with the other nations of the world. And late cuts

are precious little use in commerce. This athleticism is ruining the

country. At any rate, I am not going to have it in the House. In hall

they've got to work; and if their places in form aren't better next week

there's going to be trouble."

"Yes there'll most certainly be trouble. I can't think why you won't

leave well alone. Lord Henry Wootton used to say----"

But Clarke was paying no attention.

That evening he got up after prayers to address the House.

"Will nothing stop this fellow's love of oratory?" murmured Betteridge.

"I have to speak to the House on a subject which I consider important,"

began Clarke. ("Which probably means that it's most damnable nonsense,"

whispered Mansell.) "The position of the members of the House in form

order is not at all creditable. In future every week the senior member

of each form will bring me a list with the places of each School House

member of the form on it. I intend to deal severely with anyone I find

consistently low. I hope, however, that I shall not have need to. This

is the best house socially and athletically; there is no reason why we

should not be the best house at work too."

"As I prophesied," said Mansell, "most damnable nonsense!"

On the Second and Third Forms this speech had a considerable effect. For

the first time in his life Cockburn did some work, and at the end of the

week he was able to announce that he had gone up two places--from

seventeenth to fifteenth. There were seventeen in the form.

The Shell and the Lower Fourth were, of course, too old to consider the

possibility of actually working. It was a preposterous idea. Something

had to be done, however, so Collins bought excellent translations of the

works of Vergil and Xenophon. A vote of thanks proposed by Foster and

seconded by Brown was very properly carried _nem. con._

But in V. B and IV. A there were some strong, rebellious spirits who

would not bow down under any tyranny. In Study No. 1, at the end of the

passage on the lower landing, Mansell addressed a meeting of delegates

with great fervour.

"From time immemorial," he thundered out, "it has been the privilege of

the members of this House" (he had been reading _John Bull_ the day

before) "to enjoy themselves, to work if they wanted to, to smoke if

they wanted to, to do any damned thing they wanted to. The only thing

they'd got to do was to play like hell in the Easter term, and here's

that ---- Clarke trying to make us do work, and, what is more, to work

for Claremont! Gentlemen, let us stand by our traditions." (Mr Bottomley

is useful at times.)

"That's all very jolly," said the practical Farrow, "but what are you

doing?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter what we do, as long as we stand up for our

rights. Who ever heard of School House men working?"

"Now look here, my good fellows," said the ingenious Archie, "it's quite

simple, if you will only do as I tell you. Clarke told us to bring him a

form list; the obvious thing to do is not to bring one at all."

"But, you silly ass, the fellow who ought to have brought it will get

into the very Hades of a row."

"Exactly. But who is the responsible person? Clarke said the senior man.

Well, now, in IV. A I am, as far as work is concerned, the senior man in

the form. But Hasel has been in the form a term longer than me, while

Farrow, a most arrant idiot, who has only just reached the form, has

been in the House a year longer than either of us. There is no senior

man. We have all excellent claims to the position, but we waive them in

favour of our inferiors."

Archie was at once acclaimed as the Napoleon of deceit. That week Clarke

found no form order either from IV. A or V.B. After prayers that evening

he asked to see all those in IV. A and V.B.

When the conspirators arrived at his study Clarke found that everything

had been elaborately prepared. There was not a single hitch in the

argument. No one was at fault. There had been a general

misunderstanding. They were, of course, very sorry. Clarke listened in

silence.

"Well, I'm sorry this has happened. But when I say that I want a thing

done, I expect it to be done. None of you are to blame particularly; but

you are all equally guilty. I shall be forced to cane the lot of you."

There was a gasp. They had known Clarke was a strong man, but they had

hardly expected this. Mansell was indignant.

"But look here, Clarke, you can't beat me, I'm a House cap."

"Can't I?"

"It has been a House tradition for years that a House cap can't be

beaten."

"I am sorry, Mansell, but I have little respect for traditions. Will you

all wait for me in the Sixth Form room?"

"All right, I shall go to the Chief then."

"I don't think you will, Mansell."

The Chief was not very fond of receiving complaints about his House

prefects.

It was, of course, obvious that Clarke, when he had started on a job

like this, had to carry it through. If he had gone back, his position

would have been impossible; but there could be no doubt that it was a

disastrous campaign as far as the unity of the House was concerned. At

once the House was divided into sides, and nearly the whole of the Sixth

Form was against Clarke.

"It's not the duty of the head of the House to see how people are

working. That is a House master's job," pointed out FitzMorris. "All

Clarke has got to do is to see that the kids don't rag in hall, and at

other times more or less behave themselves."

The House was in a state of open rebellion.

And the worst of it was that none of the other prefects made any attempt

to keep order. Now there was a rule that in hall only three people might

be allowed in one study, the idea being that, if more got in, work would

be bound to change into conversation. One evening, however, a huge crowd

slowly congregated in Mansell's study. Lovelace dropped in to borrow a

book, and stayed. Hunter and Gordon came for a chat, and stayed too.

Archie Fletcher had, as was usual with him, done all his preparation in

half-an-hour, and was in search of something to do. Betteridge heard a

noise outside, walked in, and stopped to give his opinion on the chances

of A-K beating L-Z that week. In a few minutes the conversation got

rather heated. The noise could be heard all down the passage.

Meredith came down to see what was going on.

"Ah, 'some' party! Well, Mansell, got over your beating yet?"

There was subdued laughter.

"I say, Meredith, have A-K the slightest chance of beating us on

Thursday?" Lovelace was captain of L-Z Junior, and had laid rather

heavily on a victory.

"Of course not, my good man, I'm going to umpire."

This time the laughter was not subdued.

In his retreat at the far end of the studies Clarke heard it. Down the

passage he thundered, knocked at the door, and came in.

"What's the meaning of this? You know quite well that not more than

three are allowed in here at one time. Come to my study, the lot of

you."

All this time Meredith was being jammed behind the door.

"When you have quite finished, Clarke," he said.

"I am sorry, Meredith. Are you responsible for this?"

"In a way, yes. I was rather afraid that the House was getting slack

about their work. A very bad thing for a house, Clarke! So I took this

opportunity of holding a little viva voce examination. We were studying

'The Sermon on the Mount,' a singularly beautiful and impressive

passage, Clarke. Have you read it?"

Clarke had read it that day as the lesson in chapel. He had also read it

rather badly, having a cold in his head.

"You seem to have rather a large class, Meredith," he said

sarcastically.

"Yes; like our good Lord, I have beaten the by-ways and the hedges, and

I am almost afraid I shall also have to beat Mansell. He has singularly

failed to appreciate the full meaning of that passage about 'humility.'"

Clarke saw he was beaten, and turned away. As he walked down the passage

he heard a roar of laughter coming from Study No. 1.

The story was all round the House in half-an-hour, and on his way down

to prayers Clarke heard FitzMorris say before a whole crowd:

"You are a great fellow, Meredith. That's the way to keep these upstarts

in order."

That night there was merriment in the games study, and Ferguson advised

Clarke to let the matter drop.

"After all, you know, it's not your business."

And perhaps Clarke realised that Ferguson was for once right. But he had

to go on; it was very hard, though. He had been quite popular before he

was head of the House. He wished he had left a year ago. For it is hard

to be hated where one loves. And Clarke, well as he loved Fernhurst,

loved the House a hundred times more.

* * * * *

"Well played, Caruthers; jolly good knock."

"Well done, Caruthers!"

Lovelace and Mansell banged excitedly into Gordon's study the evening

after the Colts match _v._ Murchester. Gordon had made thirty-seven on a

wet wicket, and a defeat by over a hundred runs was no fault of his. He

had gone in first wicket down, and stayed till the close.

"It was splendid! You ought to be a cert. for your Colts' cap. 'The

Bull' was fearfully bucked."

"Oh, I don't know; it was not so very much." In his heart of hearts

Gordon was pretty certain he would get his cap; but it would never do to

show what he thought.

"Oh, rot, my good man," burst out Lovelace. "You didn't give a chance

after the first over. And, by Jove, that was a bit of luck then."

"Yes, you know, I have a good deal of luck one way and another. I

haven't got in a single row yet; and I am always being missed."

"And some fellows have no luck at all. Now Foster was batting

beautifully before he was run out; never saw such a scandalous mix-up.

All the other man's fault. He bowled well, too. I shouldn't be a bit

surprised if he didn't get his Colts' cap. I know 'the Bull' likes him."

"Do you think so?" said Gordon. He did not know why, but he rather hoped

Foster would not get his cap. He himself would be captain of A-K Junior

next year. It would be better if he was obviously senior to Foster. He

was going to be the match-winning factor; and, so far as seniority goes,

there is not much to choose between men who get their colours on the

same day.

"Of course he won't if you don't," Mansell said, "but I think he's

worth it. I say, let's have a feed to-night. There's just time before

hall to order some stuff. Lovelace, rush off to the tuck-shop, and put

it down to my account."

Gordon found it impossible to work during hall; he fidgeted nervously.

He felt as he had felt on the last day of his first term before

prize-giving. He knew if he was going to get his Colts' cap he would get

it early that night. Stewart always gave colours during first hall. He

sat and waited nervously; work became quite impossible. He looked

through _The Daily Telegraph_ and flung it aside; then picked up _The

London Mail_; that was rather more in his line.

There was a sound of talking down the passage. He heard Clarke's voice

saying:

"Yes, down there, third study down, No. 16."

A second later there was a knock on the door. He managed to gulp out:

"Come in."

"Gratters on your Colts' cap, Caruthers. Well played!"

Stewart shook hands with him. The next minute Gordon heard him walking

to the school notice-board in the cloister. He was pinning up the

notice.

Gordon sat quite still; his happiness was too great....

No one is allowed to walk about in the studies before eight dining-hall.

For a quarter of an hour there was silence in the passage.

Eight struck; there was an opening of doors.

A few minutes later Hunter dashed in.

"Well done, Caruthers. Hooray!"

"Well done, Caruthers!" "Good old A-K!" "I am so glad!" Everyone seemed

pleased.

Just before prayers, as he sat at the top of the day-room table,

FitzMorris came over to him. "Jolly good, Caruthers. Well done." His cup

was full.

Foster did not get his cap....

The next day as Gordon was walking across the courts in break "the Bull"

came up to him.

"Gratters, Caruthers; wasn't your fault you lost. I like a man who can

fight uphill. You have got the grit--well done, lad."

"And yet," said Gordon to Mansell, as they passed under the school

gate, "you say that man cares only for his house. Why, he only loves his

house because it's a part of Fernhurst; and Fernhurst is the passion of

his life!"

CHAPTER VII: WHEN ONE IS IN ROME ...

Generalisations are always apt to be misleading, but there was surely no

truer one ever spoken than the old proverb: "When one is in Rome, one

does as Rome does!" Parsons and godmothers will, of course, protest

that, if you found yourselves among a crowd of robbers and drunkards,

you would not copy _them_! And yet it is precisely what the average

individual would do. When a boy leaves his preparatory school he has a

conscience; he would not tell lies; he would be scrupulously honest in

form; he would not borrow things he never meant to return; he would say

nothing he would be ashamed of his mother or sister overhearing.

But before this same innocent has been at school two terms he has learnt

that everything except money is public property. The name in a book or

on a hockey stick means nothing. Someone once said to Collins:

"I say, I want to write here, are those your books?"

"No, they are the books I use," was the laconic answer.

The code of a Public School boy's honour is very elastic. Masters are

regarded as common enemies; and it is never necessary to tell them the

truth. Expediency is the golden rule in all relations with the common

room. And after a very few weeks even Congreve would have had to own

that the timid new boy could spin quite as broad a yarn as he. The

parents do not realise this. It is just as well. It is a stage in the

development of youth. Everyone must pass through it. Yet sometimes it

leads to quite a lot of misunderstanding.

There were one or two incidents during this summer term that stood out

very clearly in Gordon's memory as proofs of the way masters may fail to

realise the boy's point of view.

One morning just after breakfast Gordon discovered that he had done the

wrong maths for Jenks. He rushed in search of Fletcher.

"I say, Archie, look here, be a sport. I have done the wrong stuff for

that ass Jenks. Let's have a look at yours."

In ten minutes four tremendous howlers in as many sums had been

reproduced on Gordon's paper. The work was collected that morning, and

nothing more was heard of it till the next day. Gordon thought himself

quite safe and had ceased to take any interest in the matter. The form

was working out some riders more or less quietly. Suddenly Jenks's tired

voice murmured:

"Caruthers, did you copy your algebra off Fletcher?"

"No, sir."

Jenks was rather fond of asking such leading questions.

Caruthers had got tired of it. The man was a fool; he must know by this

time that he was bound to get the same answer.

"Fletcher, did you copy off Caruthers?"

"No, sir."

"Caruthers, did you see Fletcher's paper?"

"No, sir."

How insistent the ass was getting.

"Fletcher, did you see Caruther's paper?"

"No, sir."

"Oh, you silly fellows. Then I shall have to put both your papers before

the Headmaster. I'm afraid you will both be expelled."

Jenks had a strange notion of the offences that merited expulsion. Every

time he reported a boy he expected to see him marching sadly to the

station to catch the afternoon train. Once Collins had stuck a pin into

a wonderful mercury apparatus and entirely ruined it.

"Oh, Collins, you stupid boy. I shall have to report you to the

Headmaster, and you know what that means. We sha'n't see you here any

more."

Gordon had, of course, not the slightest fear of getting "bunked." But

still it was a nuisance. He would have to be more careful next time.

"Now look here, you two," Jenks went on, after a bit. "If either of you

cares to own up, I won't report you at all. I will deal with you

myself."

Slowly Gordon rose. It was obviously an occasion where it paid to own

up.

"I did, sir."

"Oh I thought as much. You see yours was in pencil, and if possible a

little worse than Fletcher's. Sit down."

Betteridge afterwards said that to watch Jenks rushing across the courts

to see the Chief during the minute interval between the exit of one

class and the arrival of the next was better than any pantomime. He was

very small; he had a large white moustache; his gown was too long; it

blew out like sails in the wind. Besides, it was the first time Jenks

had ever been seen to run.

In due time Caruthers and Fletcher appeared before the Chief. The result

was only a long "jaw" and a bad report. The Chief could not perhaps be

expected to see that a lie was any the less a lie because it was told to

a master. But in the delinquents any feeling of penitence there might

have been was entirely obscured by an utter scorn of Jenks.

"After all, the man did say he wouldn't report us," said Fletcher.

"Oh, it's all you can expect from these 'stinks men.' They have no sense

of honour."

It did not occur to Gordon that in this instance his own sense of honour

had not been tremendously in evidence. The Public School system had set

its mark on him.

The other incident was the great clothes row. All rows spring from the

most futile sources. This one began with the sickness of one

Evans-Smith, who was suddenly taken ill in form. It was a hot day, and

he fainted. Now Evans-Smith was an absolute nonentity. It was only his

second term, but he had already learnt that anything that was in the

changing-room was common property; and so when the matron took off his

shoes before putting him to bed she saw Rudd's name inside. The matter

was reported to the Chief. The Chief made a tour of the changing-room

during afternoon school, and his eyes were opened. For instance, it was

quite obvious that Turner had changed. His school suit was hung on his

peg, his blazer was presumably on him, and yet his cricket trousers were

lying on the floor, with Fischer's house scarf sticking out of the

pocket. There were many other like discoveries.

In hall that night the Chief asked Turner whose trousers he was wearing

that afternoon. The wretched youth had not the slightest idea; all he

knew was that they were not his own. He thought they might be

Bradford's.

After prayers the Chief addressed the House on the subject. He pointed

out how carelessness in little things led to carelessness in greater,

and how dangerous it was to get into a habit of taking other people's

things without thinking. He also said that it was most unhealthy to wear

someone else's clothes. He was, of course, quite right; but the House

could not see it, for the simple reason that it did not want to see it.

It would be an awful nuisance to have to look after one's own things.

Besides, probably the man next to you had a much newer sweater. The

House intended to go on as before. And indeed it did.

One day Ferguson thought he wanted some exercise. It was a half-holiday,

and Clarke was quite ready for a game of tennis. Ferguson went down to

the changing-room. The first thing he saw was that his tennis shoes were

gone. He thought it quite impossible that anyone should dare to bag his

things. Fuming with wrath, he banged into the matron's room.

"I say, Matron, look here; my tennis shoes are gone."

And then, suddenly, he saw the Chief standing at the other end of the

room, glancing down the dormitory list.

"Oh, really, Ferguson, I must see about this. Matron, do you know

anything about Ferguson's shoes?"

"No, sir! Never touch the boys' shoes. George is the only person who

looks after them; and he only cleans _black_ boots and shoes."

"Oh, well, then, Ferguson, you'd better come with me, and we will make a

search for them."

Ferguson cursed inwardly. This would mean at least half-an-hour wasted;

and he could so easily have found another pair. The School House

changing-room is a noble affair. It is about seventy feet long and sixty

wide. All round it run small partitioned-off benches; in the middle are

stands for corps clothes. At one end there is what was once a piano.

Laboriously the Chief and Ferguson hunted round the room. In the far

corner there was an airing cupboard. It was a great sight to see

Ferguson climb up on the top of this. He was not a gymnast, and he took

some time doing it. Hunter sat changing at one end of the room,

thoroughly enjoying himself.

Down the passage a loud, tuneless voice began to sing _Who were You with

Last Night?_ and Mansell rolled in. He saw the Chief, and stopped

suddenly, going over to Hunter.

"What does the old idiot want?"

"He's hunting for Ferguson's tennis shoes."

"Good Lord! and I've got them on."

"Well, get them off, then, quick."

In a second, while the Chief was looking the other way, Mansell stole

across to the middle of the room and laid them on the top of the

hot-water pipes.

About two minutes later Ferguson burst out:

"Look, sir, here they are!"

"But, my dear Ferguson, I'm sure we must have looked there."

"Yes, sir. I thought we had."

"Er, 't any rate there are your shoes, Ferguson, and I hope you'll have

a good game!" The Chief went out, rather annoyed at having wasted so

much time. At tea that evening there was mirth at the V. B table.

On this occasion trouble was avoided. But one day Willing, a new boy,

lost his corps hat. He was certain it had been there before lunch. The

Corps Parade was already falling in. Seeing no other hat to fit him, he

very idiotically went on without a hat at all. It would have been far

better to have cut parade altogether. Clarke asked him where his hat

was, but his ideas on the subject were very nebulous. The whole corps

was kept waiting while School House hats were examined. Ten people had

got hats other than their own.

They each got a Georgic....

The pent-up fury of the House now broke loose. Everyone swore he would

murder Clarke on the last day, bag his clothes, and hold him in a cold

bath for half-an-hour. If half of the things that were going to be done

on the last day ever happened, how very few heads of houses would live

to tell the tale! It is so easy to talk, so very hard to do anything; a

head of the House is absolutely supreme. If he is at all sensitive, it

is possible to make his life utterly wretched by a silent demonstration

of hatred, but if he is at all a man, threats can never mature, and

Clarke was a man. During his last days at Fernhurst he was supremely

miserable. The House was split up into factions: he himself had no one

to talk to except Ferguson and Sandham. But he carried on the grim joke

to its completion. In the last week he beat four boys for being low in

form, and gave a whole dormitory a hundred lines daily till the end of

the term for talking after lights out. The Chief was sorry to lose him;

Ferguson would make a very weak head. The future was not too bright.

* * * * *

"I say, you know, I think I had better get a 'budge' this term." Gordon

announced this fact as the Lower Fifth were pretending to prepare for

the exam. Mansell protested:

"Now don't be a damned ass, my good man; you don't know when you are

well off. You stop with old Methuselah a bit longer. He is a most

damnable ass, but his form is a glorious slack."

"Oh, well, I don't know. I think the Sixth is slacker still. I am going

to specialise in something when I get there. I am not quite sure what.

But it's going to mean a lot of study hours."

At Fernhurst there was a great scheme by which specialists always worked

in their studies. To specialise was the dream of every School House boy.

It is so charming to watch, from the warm repose of your own study,

black figures rushing across the rain-swept courts on the way to their

class-rooms (it always rained at Fernhurst), and Gordon was essentially

a hedonist.

"Yes, I suppose the higher you go up the less work you do," said

Mansell. "When I was with old 'Bogus' I used to prepare my lessons

sometimes, and, what's more, with a dictionary."

"Oh, _Quantum mutatus ab illo_," sighed Gordon.

"Yes, you know," said Betteridge, "the higher you get up the school the

less you need worry about what you do. The prefect is supposed to be the

model of what a Public School boy should be. And yet he is about the

fastest fellow in the school. If I got caught in Davenham's study by

the Chief, even if I said I was only borrowing a pencil, I should get in

the deuce of a row. But Meredith can sit there all hall and say he's

making inquiries about a boxing competition. He's trusted. The lower

forms aren't allowed to prepare in their studies. They might use a crib,

so they have to work in the day-room or big school. The Fifth is trusted

to work, so it can spend school hours in its studies. Of course the

Third works the whole time, while the Fifth just writes the translation

between the lines and then plays barge cricket. It's no use trusting a

Public School boy. Put faith in him and he'll take advantage of it; and

yet there are still some who say the Public School system is

satisfactory!"

"And I am one of them," said Mansell. "I've had a damned good term so

far, and next term, when I get that big study, I shall have a still

finer time. School may be bad as a moral training, but I live to enjoy

myself. Here's to the Public School system. Long may it live!"

Betteridge smiled rather sadly; he was not an athlete.

* * * * *

The summer exams turned out a lamentably dull affair. Claremont

superintended the Shell and the Lower Fifth. Anyone who wished to crib

could have done so easily. But hardly anyone took the trouble. Mansell

swore he would stay where he was. Ruddock, Johnstone and the other old

stagers were all of the same opinion. Gordon had determined to get high

enough for a promotion, but no higher; tenth would do; and it was easy

to get up there. The small boys in the front bench were all Balliol

scholars in embryo; it would not pay them to crib. The great law of

expediency overhung all proceedings. The result was that they were as

lifeless and dull as most other virtuous things.

There were, however, a few bright incidents, the foremost of which was

the Divinity exam. Claremont, we know, was a parson and a lover of

poetry, and that term the form had been reading Judges and Samuel and

Kings. As the Divinity exam. came first, it would be wise to put the old

man in a good temper. Ruddock introduced Mr ffoakes Jackson's work on

the Old Testament disguised as a writing-pad.

There is nothing easier than to write down correct answers to one-word

questions, if you have the answer-book in front of you. Ruddock's

writing-pad passed slowly round the back and centre benches. Next day

the result was announced.

"Well," said Claremont, "I must own that I was agreeably surprised by

the results of the Divinity papers. The lowest mark was seventy-nine out

of a hundred, and that was Kennedy." (Kennedy was invariably top in the

week's order.) "Ruddock did a really remarkable paper, and scored a

hundred out of a hundred. Johnstone and Caruthers both got ninety-nine,

and several others were in the nineties. In fact, the only ones in the

eighties were those who usually excel. I have taken the form now for

over thirty years, and this is quite unparalleled. I shall ask the

Headmaster if a special prize cannot be given to Johnstone. He certainly

deserves one."

But the Chief was very wise. As he glanced down the mark list he

realised that Johnstone's marks could hardly be due to honest work. But

the Chief was also very tactful. He thought, on the whole, that in case

of such general merit it would be invidious to single any individual out

for special distinction, and, of course, he could not give prizes to

everyone. He would, however, most certainly mention the fact at

prize-giving. When he did, the applause was strangely mingled with

laughter.

But this was only one incident in many dull hours. As a whole, the

week's exam. failed to provide much to look back on afterwards with any

satisfaction. Even the Chemistry exam. fell flat. FitzMorris picked up a

copy of the paper on Jenks's desk and took a copy of it. The marks here

also were above the average.

* * * * *

It is inevitable that the end of the summer term should be overhung with

an atmosphere of sadness. When the new September term opens there are

many faces that will be missing; the giants of yester-year will have

departed; another generation will have taken their places. But for all

that these last days are not without their own particular glory. Rome

must have been very wonderful during the last week of Sulla's

consulship. And in the passing of Meredith there was something

essentially splendid; for it happens so seldom in life that the

culminating point of our success coincides with the finish of anything.

We are continually being mocked by the horror of the second best. We do

not know where to stop; we cling too long to our laurels; and when the

end finally comes they have begun to wither. Death is an anti-climax.

The heart that once loved, and was as grass before the winds of passion,

has grown cold amid a world of commonplace. But at school there is no

dragging out of triumphs. All too soon the six short years fly past, and

we stand on the threshold of life in the very flush of our pride. "Just

once in a while we may finish in style." It is not often; the roses

fade.

The final of the Senior House matches was drawing to a close on the last

Friday of the term. Buller's were beating the School House L-Z easily.

There had never been any doubt about the result. L-Z was entirely a

one-man side, that Meredith had managed to carry it on his shoulders

through the two first rounds.

The House had only two wickets in hand, and still wanted over eighty

runs to avoid an innings' defeat. But Meredith was still in. It had been

a great innings. He had gone in first with Mansell, and watched wicket

after wicket fall, while he had gone on playing the same brilliant game.

Every stroke was the signal of a roar from the pavilion. The whole House

was looking on. It was a fitting end to a dazzling career. It was like

his life, reckless and magnificent. At last he mis-hit a half-volley and

was caught in the deep for seventy-two.

As he left the wicket the whole House surged forward in front of the

pavilion, and formed up in two lines, leaving a gangway. Amid tremendous

applause Meredith ran between them. The cheering was deafening.

After prayers that night the Chief said a few words about the match.

"I am sorry we did not win; but, then, I don't think many of us dared to

hope for that. At any rate, we were not disgraced, and I wish to take

the opportunity of congratulating Meredith, not only on his superb

innings this afternoon, but also on his keen and energetic captaincy

throughout the term."

This was the signal for another demonstration. Everyone beat with their

fists upon their table. It was a great scene.

The giants of our youth always appear to us much greater than those of

any successive era. In future years Gordon was to see other captains of

football, other captains of cricket, but with the exception of the

tremendous Lovelace, Meredith towered above them all. He was at that

moment the very great god of Gordon's soul. He seemed to be all that

Gordon wished to be, brilliant and successful. Surely the fates had

showered on him all their gifts.

On the last Monday there was a huge feed in the games study. Over twenty

people were crowded in. Armour was there, Mansell, Gordon, Simonds,

Foster, Ferguson, everyone except Clarke. There was no one who was not

sorry to lose Meredith; his achievements so dazzled them that they could

see nothing beyond them. They were proud to have such a man in the

house. It was all sheer happiness.

Somehow on the last day the following notice appeared on the House

board:--

In Memoriam

MALEVUS SCHOLARUM

In hadibus requiescat

Quod non sine ignominia militavit

No one knew who was responsible for it. Clarke looked at it for a second

and turned away with a face that expressed no emotion.

By the Sixth Form green Simonds was shouting across to Meredith:

"Best of luck, old fellow, and mind you come down for the House

supper...."

On the way down to the station Archie Fletcher burst out:

"Well, thank God, that swine Clarke's gone. He absolutely mucked up the

House." Gordon agreed.

"If we had a few more men like Meredith now!" Rather a change had come

over the boy who a year before had been shocked at the swearing in the

bathroom. "When one is in Rome...."

BOOK II: THE TANGLED SKEIN

"Et je m'en vais

Au vent mauvais

Qui m'emporte

Deca dela

Pareil a la

Feuille morte."

PAUL VERLAINE.

CHAPTER I: QUANTUM MUTATUS

If Gordon were given the opportunity of living any single year over

again, exactly as he had lived it before, he would in all probability

have chosen his second year at Fernhurst. He had then put safely out of

sight behind him the doubts and anxieties of the junior; he had not yet

reached any of the responsibilities of the senior. It was essentially a

time of light-hearted laughter, of "rags," of careless happiness. Every

day dawned without a trace of trouble imminent; every night closed with

a feed in Mansell's big study, while the gramophone strummed out

rag-time choruses. And yet these three terms were very critical ones in

the development of Gordon's character. Sooner or later everyone must

pass through the middle stage Keats speaks of, where "the way of life is

uncertain, and the soul is in a ferment." Most boys have at their

preparatory schools been so carefully looked after that they have never

learnt to think for themselves. They take everything as a matter of

course. They believe implicitly what their masters tell them about what

is right and wrong. Life is divided up into so many rules. But when the

boy reaches his Public School he finds himself in a world where actions

are regulated not by conscience, but by caprice. Boys do what they know

is wrong; then invent a theory to prove it is right; and finally

persuade themselves that black is white. It is pure chance what the

Public School system will make of a boy. During the years of his

apprenticeship, so to speak, he merely sits quiet, listening and

learning; then comes the middle period, the period in which he is

gradually changing into manhood. In it all his former experiences are

jumbled hopelessly together, his life is in itself a paradox. He does

things without thinking. There is no consistency in his actions. Then

finally the threads are unravelled, and out of the disorder of

conflicting ideas and emotions the tapestry is woven on the wonderful

loom of youth.

The average person comes through all right. He is selfish, easy-going,

pleasure-loving, absolutely without a conscience, for the simple reason

that he never thinks. But he is a jolly good companion; and the

Freemasonry of a Public School is amazing. No man who has been through a

good school can be an outsider. He may hang round the Empire bar, he may

cheat at business; but you can be certain of one thing, he will never

let you down. Very few Public School men ever do a mean thing to their

friends. And for a system that produces such a spirit there is something

to be said after all.

But for the boy with a personality school is very dangerous. Being

powerful, he can do nothing by halves; his actions influence not only

himself, but many others. On his surroundings during the time of

transition from boyhood to manhood depend to a great extent the

influence that man will work in the world. He will do whatever he does

on a large scale, and people are bound to look at him. He may stand at

the head of the procession of progress; he may dash himself to pieces

fighting for a worthless cause; and by the splendour of his contest draw

many to him. More likely he will be like Byron, a wonderful,

irresponsible creature, who at one time plumbed the depths, and at

another swept the heavens--a creature irresistibly attractive, because

he is irresistibly human. Gordon was a personality. His preparatory

school master said of him once: "He will be a great failure or a great

success, perhaps both," and it was the truest thing ever said of him. At

present the future was very uncertain. During his first year he had been

imbibing knowledge from his contemporaries; he had been a spectator; now

the time had come for him to take his part in the drama of Fernhurst

life. All ignorant he went his way; careless, arrogant and proud.

It must be owned that during this year Gordon was rather an

objectionable person. He was very much above himself. For five years he

had been tightly held in check, and when freedom at last came he did not

quite know how to use it. He was boisterous and noisy; always in the

middle of everything. If ever there was a row in the studies, it would

be a sure assumption that Caruthers was mixed up in it. Everything

combined to give him a slack time.

Ferguson was head of the House. But he took only a casual interest in

its welfare.

"My dear Betteridge," he used to say, "if you were aware of the large

issues of art and life, you would see that it would be a mere waste of

time worrying about such a little thing as discipline in a house. You

should widen your intellectual horizon. Read Verlaine and Baudelaire and

then see life as it is."

Ferguson was a poet; twice a term the school magazine was enriched with

a poem from his pen. His last effort was called _Languor_, and opened

with the line:

"In amber dreams of amorous despair."

"The Bull" had asked someone in his house what the thing meant. To

Ferguson that seemed a high compliment. To be incoherent was a great

gift. Swinburne often meant very little, and in his heart of hearts

Ferguson thought _Languor_ was, on the whole, more melodious than

_Dolores_. But that was, of course, purely a matter of opinion. At any

rate, it was a fine composition; and a poet must not dabble in the

common intrigues of little minds.

He let the House go its own sweet way; and the House was grateful, and

gave Ferguson the reputation of being rather a sport. There were no more

weekly orders; no more cleaning of corps clothes. There was at last

peace in Jerusalem, and plenteousness within her palaces.

Simonds was captain of the House. He was working hard for a History

scholarship, and could not spend much time in looking after House games.

There would be tons of time in the Easter term to train on House sides.

So he, too, let things slide, and the House lived a happy life. Those

who wanted to play footer, played; those who wanted to work, worked;

those who wished to do nothing, did nothing. A cheerful philosophy. For

a week it worked quite well.

Gordon was lucky enough to find himself in the position of not only not

wanting to work, but also not having to. He had got his promotion into

V. A, and found it a land of milk and honey. Macdonald, his form master,

was one of the most splendid men Fernhurst has ever owned on its staff.

For over forty years he had sat in exactly the same chair, and watched

generation after generation pass, without appearing the least bit older.

He grew a little stout, perhaps. But his heart was the same. It took a

lot to trouble him. He realised that the world was too full of sceptics

and cynics, and swore that he would not number himself among them. He

was now the senior assistant master and the best scholar on the staff.

"You know, these young men aren't what we were," he used to say to his

form; "not one of them can write a decent copy of Latin verses. All

these Cambridge men are useless--useless!" In his form it was

unnecessary to work very hard; but in it the average boy learnt more

than he learnt anywhere else. For Macdonald was essentially a scholar;

he did not merely mug up notes by German commentators an hour before the

lesson. For him the classics lived; and he made his form realise this.

To do Aristophanes with him was far better than any music hall. Horace

he hated. One day when they were doing _Donec gratus eram tibi_, he

burst out with wrath:

"Horrible little cad he was! Can't you see him? Small man, blue nose

with too much drinking. Bibulous little beast. If I had been Lydia I

would have smacked his face and told him to go to Chloe. I'd have had

done with him. Beastly little cad!"

But it was in history that he was at his best. It was a noble sight to

see him imitate the weak-kneed, slobbering James I; and he had the

private scandals of Henry VIII at his finger-tips. For all commentators

he had a profound contempt. One day he seized Farrar's edition of _St

Luke_, and holding it at arm's-length between his finger and thumb,

shook it before the form.

"Filth," he cried, "filth and garbage; take it away and put it down the

water-closet." He had a genius for spontaneous comments. Kennedy was

very nervous; and whenever he said his rep. he used to hold the seat of

his trousers.

"Man, man!" Macdonald shouted out, "you won't be able to draw any

inspiration from your stern."

His form would be in a continuous roar of laughter all day long; and

when particularly pleased it always rubbed its feet on the floor, a

strange custom that had lasted many years. Claremont's form-room was

situated just above him, and he could often hardly hear himself speak.

He used to complain bitterly.

"How I wish my jovial colleague down below would keep his form a little

more in order."

But Macdonald got his revenge one day when Claremont was reciting

Macbeth's final speech fortissimo to his form.

"Hush!" said Macdonald. "We must listen to this." Suddenly he chuckled

to himself: "And do you think he really imagines he is doing any good to

his form by giving that nigger minstrel entertainment up there?"

The roar of laughter that followed quite spoilt the effect of the

recitation. Work became quite impossible in V.B.

It was about this time that the House began to interest itself in the

welfare of Rudd. Rudd was the senior scholar of the year before, and he

looked like it. He was fairly tall and very thin. His legs bore little

relation to the rest of his body. They fell into place. He was of a

dusky countenance, partly because he was of Byzantine origin, partly

because he never shaved, chiefly because he did not wash. His clothes

always looked as if they had been rolled up into a bundle and used for

dormitory football. Perhaps they had. Rudd was not really a bad fellow.

He was by way of being a wit. One day the Chief had set the form a

three-hour Divinity paper, consisting of four longish questions. One

was: "Do you consider that the teaching of Socrates was in some respects

more truly Christian than that of St Paul?" Rudd showed up a whole sheet

with one word on it: "Yes." Next day his Sixth Form privileges were

taken away. But the House took little notice of his academic audacities.

Rudd did not wash; he was an insanitary nuisance; moreover, he did not

play footer.

"That man Rudd is a disgrace to the House," Archie announced one evening

after tea; "he's useless to the House; he slacks at rugger and is

unclean. Let's ship his study." There was a buzz of assent. There was a

good deal of rowdyism going on in the House just then; and at times it

would have been hard to draw the exact borderline between ragging and

bullying. A solemn procession moved to Study No. 14. Rudd was working.

"Hullo, Byzantium," said Mansell. "How goes it?"

"Oh, get out, you; I want to work!"

"Gentlemen, Mr Rudd wishes to work," Betteridge announced. "The question

is, shall he be allowed to? I say 'No!'" He suddenly jerked away the

chair Rudd was sitting on: the owner of the study collapsed on the

floor.

Archie at once loosed a tremendous kick at his back.

"Get up, you dirty swine! Haven't you any manners? Stand up when you are

talking to gentlemen."

Rudd had a short temper; he let out and caught Mansell on the chin. It

is no fun ragging a man who doesn't lose his temper. But, as far as

Mansell was concerned, proceedings were less cordial after this. He

leapt on Rudd, bore him to the ground, and sat on his head. Foul

language was audible from the bottom of the floor. Rudd had not studied

Euripides for nothing. Lovelace picked up a hockey stick. "This,

gentlemen," he began, "is a hockey stick, useful as an implement of

offence if the prisoner gets above himself, and also useful as a means

of destroying worthless property. I ask you, gentlemen, it is right

that, while we should have only three chairs among two people, Rudd

should have two all to himself? Gentlemen, I propose to destroy that

chair."

In a few minutes the chair was in fragments. A crowd began to collect.

"I say, you men," shouted Gordon, "the refuse heap is just opposite;

let's transfer all the waste paper of the last ten years and bury the

offender."

Just across the passage was a long, blind-alley effect running under the

stairs, which was used as a store for waste paper. It was cleaned out

about once every generation. In a few minutes waste-paper baskets had

been "bagged" from adjoining studies, and No. 14 was about a foot deep

in paper.

"That table is taking up too much room, Lovelace," Bradford bawled out;

"smash it up."

The table went to join the chair in the Elysian Fields. Rudd was now

almost entirely immersed in paper. The noise was becoming excessive.

Oaths floated down the passage.

At last Ferguson moved. In a blase way he strolled down the passage. For

a minute he was an amused spectator, then he said languidly: "Suppose we

consider the meeting adjourned. I think it's nearly half-time."

Gradually the crowd began to clear; Rudd rose out of the paper like

Venus out of the water. A roar of laughter broke out.

"Well, Rudd, I sincerely hope you are insured," murmured Ferguson.

What Rudd said is unprintable. In his bill at the end of the term his

father found there was a charge of ten shillings for damaged property in

Study No. 14. Rudd got less pocket-money the next term.

* * * * *

"I say, you fellows, have you heard the latest? 'The Bull' has kicked me

out of the Colts."

Lovelace came into the changing-room, fuming with rage. There had been a

Colts' trial that afternoon. Buller had cursed furiously and finally

booted Lovelace off the field, with some murmured remarks about "typical

School House slackness."

"It's damned rot," said Bradford. "Because Simonds has made rather an

ass of himself in the last two matches, Bull thinks the whole House is

slack. He gave Turner six to-day just because he hadn't looked up one

word. I hope he doesn't intend to judge the whole House by Simonds."

The House was getting fed up with Simonds. It was all very well working

in moderation for scholarships, but when it came to allowing games to

suffer, things were getting serious. Private inclination cannot stand in

the way of the real business of life. And no one would hesitate to own

that he had come to Fernhurst mainly to play footer.

"But, you know, I don't think 'the Bull's' that sort," Gordon protested;

"he may lose his temper and all that, but I think he's fair."

"Do you?" said Hunter drily.

There was a laugh. As a whole, the House was certain that "the Bull" was

against them.

In a week's time Lovelace was back again in the Colts, and Gordon was

telling his friends what fools they were not to trust "the Bull."

* * * * *

Gordon was confirmed this term. He was rather young; but it was

obviously the thing to do, and, as Mansell said: "It's best to take the

oath when you are more or less 'pi,' and there is still some chance of

remaining so. You can't tell what you will be like in a year or so."

As is the case with most boys, Confirmation had very little effect on

Gordon. He was not an atheist; he accepted Christianity in much the same

way that he accepted the Conservative party. All the best people

believed in it, so it was bound to be all right; but at the same time it

had not the slightest influence over his actions. If he had any religion

at this time it was House football; but for the most part, he lived

merely to enjoy himself, and his pleasures were, on the whole,

innocuous. They very rarely went much beyond ragging Rudd.

"Do you think," said Gordon, the evening after his first confirmation

address, "that the masters really believe confirmation has any effect on

us? Because you know it doesn't."

"I don't think it matters very much what masters think," said Hunter;

"most of them here have got into a groove. They believe the things they

ought to believe; they are all copies of the same type. They've clean

forgotten what it was like at school. Hardly any of them really know

boys. They go on happily believing them 'perhaps a little excitable, but

on the whole, perfectly straight and honest.' Then a row comes. They are

horrified. They don't realise all of us are the same. They've made

themselves believe what they want to believe."

"Yes, and when they are told the truth, they won't believe it," said

Betteridge. "You know, I was reading an article in some paper the other

day, by an assistant master at Winchborough, called Ferrers. He was

cursing the whole system. I showed it to Claremont, just for a rag; told

him I thought it was rather good. The old fool looked at it for some

time, and then said: 'Well, Betteridge, don't form your style on this.

It is very perfervid stuff. Not always grammatical.' All the ass thinks

of is whether plurals agree with singulars; he does not care a damn

whether the material is good."

"That's it," said Gordon. "Masters try to make you imitate, and not

think for yourself. 'Mould your Latin verses on Vergil, your Greek prose

on Thucydides, your English on Matthew Arnold, but don't think for

yourself. Don't be original.' If anyone big began to think he'd see what

a farce it all is; and then where would all these fossils be? It's all

sham; look at the reports. Bradford gets told he's a good moral

influence. Mansell works hard and deserves his prize. It is hoped that

confirmation will be a help to me. Rot, it all is!"

"Oh, I'm not so certain confirmation is a farce," broke in Bradford. "If

you don't believe in it, you won't get to heaven."

"But who the hell wants to get there," said Mansell. "Sing hymns all day

long. I can imagine it. Fancy having Caruthers singing out of tune in

your ear for ever. It's bad enough in chapel once a day. But for

ever----!"

"My good lads, you don't know what heaven's like," whispered Bradford

confidentially. "Claremont was gassing away about Browning the other

day, and said that he believed that in heaven you could do all the

things you wanted to do on earth! And by Jove I would have a hot

time--some place, heaven!"

"By Jove, yes; but you know, Bradford, there won't be much left for you

to do in heaven; at the rate you are going you will have done most

things on earth."

"Oh, I am going to reform, and then I shall write to Claremont and tell

him how I, a wandering sheep, was brought home by his interpretation of

Andrew Dol Portio--I think that's what the thing was called."

"Of course, that is an idea," said Mansell, "but I am not so sure of

what's going to happen when we're dead. I am going to have a jolly good

time, and then take the risk. I never hedge my bets."

"Well, you may go on your way to the eternal bonfire," said Bradford,

"but I am for righteousness. Now, listen to this, it's in the book we

have to read for confirmagers, _Daily Lies on the Daily Path_: '... If

you think that in your house things are being talked about that would

shock your mother or sister, don't merely shun it as something vile. It

is your duty to fight against it; reason with the boys. They probably

have some grain of decency left in them. If that fails, report the

matter to your house master. He will take your side. The boys will

probably be expelled, but you will have done your duty, as Solomon says

in Proverbs....' There now, Mansell. I am one of the children of light.

So you know what to expect from me. Shall I reason with you, lad? Have

you a grain of decency left in you, or must I----"

At this point a well-aimed cushion put an end to the fervour of the new

child of light. Betteridge sat on his head.

"Look here, Bradford," he began, "you may be a convert and all that, but

don't play John the Baptist in here. It does not pay. Very shortly I

shall carry your head to the dustbin in a saucer. Let me tell you the

story of one Stevenson in Mr Macdonald's house. He was, like you, about

to be confirmed, and was, like you, very full of himself. And being, as

Lovelace, a lover of the race-course, he walked about in his study in

hall, chanting us a dirge out of sheer religious fervour: 'My name is

down for the confirmation stakes.' Macdonald passed the door and, on

hearing him, entered and said: 'Well you are scratched now at any rate!

'Take that to heart, and be not as the seeds that are sown on stony

ground, who spring up in the night and wither in the morning."

Betteridge intoned the whole lecture. The story was in a way true, but

the Stevenson in question had shouted down the passage: "Hurrah, no

prep. to-night; my name is down for the confirmation stakes." With the

result as above. Gordon burst out:

"By the way, talking of Macdonald, he made a priceless remark to-day.

Kennedy, that little cove in Christy's, came in late and began

stammering out that it was only a minute or two over time; Macdonald

looked on him for a minute, and then said: 'Your excuse is just about as

good as the woman's who, having had an illegitimate baby, protested that

it was only a small one.'"

"By Jove, he's some fellow. Now he's a man," said Mansell. "He's a boy

still; he can see our side of the question, and he knows what footling

idiots half of the common room are. If we had more like him." ...

"And it would be a jolly good thing, too," said Betteridge, "if we could

get a really young master like that Winchborough man, Ferrers, I was

telling you about. He'd stir things up a bit."

At that moment the Abbey sounded half-past eight.

"Good Lord," said Hunter, "only quarter of an hour more, and we've done

nothing the whole of hall. Let's rout out Lovelace and go and rag Rudd."

In three minutes Rudd was under the table, with Mansell seated on his

chest.

It was rather unfortunate that Gordon should have chosen Tester to have

a study with. Tester was over sixteen, was in the Lower Sixth, and had

got his Seconds at cricket. He was a House blood. Gordon did not care

for him particularly. But he had a good study, No. 1, at the far end of

the lower landing, and Gordon wanted a big study. It was so very fine to

sit chatting to Foster or Collins in one of the small studies for a

little time and then to say suddenly, in a lordly manner: "Oh, look

here, there's no room here at all. Come down to my study, there are

several arm-chairs there!"

It is always pleasant to appear better than one's equals. But Tester was

a dangerous friend to have at a time when the mind is so open to

impressions. For Tester had not risen to his position on his own merits

alone. Lovelace major had always said he was not much good, and the year

before had not given him his House cap. But Tester was a very great

friend of Stewart's, the captain of the Eleven. Stewart gave him his

Seconds for making twenty against the town, so Meredith had to give him

his House cap. It is a school rule that a "Seconds" must have his House

cap. Tester was not improved by his friendship with Stewart, and the

pity was that he was really clever. He could always argue his case.

"I never asked to be brought into this world," he said, "I am just

suddenly put here, and told to make the best of things; and I intend to

make the best of things. I am going to do what I like with my life.

Wrong and right are merely relative terms. They change to fit their

environment. Baudelaire would not have been tolerated in the Hampstead

Garden Suburb; Catullus would not have been received in Sparta. But at

Paris and Rome customs were different. We only frame philosophies to

suit our wishes. And I prefer to follow my own inclinations to those of

a sham twentieth-century civilisation."

Gordon did not like this; but if one lives daily in the company of a man

who is clever and a personality, one is bound to look at life, at times,

at any rate, through his spectacles. Gordon began to look on things

which he once objected to as quite natural and ordinary.

"I say, Caruthers, I hope you don't mind clearing out of here for a

bit," Tester would say. "Stapleton is coming in for a few minutes. You

quite understand, don't you?"

As soon as we begin to look on a thing as ordinary and natural, we also

begin to think it is right. After a little Gordon ceased to worry

whether such things were right or wrong. It was silly to quarrel with

existing conditions, especially if they were rather pleasant ones.

Gordon had a study with Tester till the end of the summer.

One day, towards the end of the Easter term, Gordon asked Tester, rather

shyly, if he would leave him alone a little. "I've often cleared out for

you, you know."

"Of course, that's quite all right, my dear fellow. Any time you like, I

understand!" Tester smiled as he walked down the passage.

But during the winter term Gordon worried about little except football;

when he was not playing, he was ragging. Form he looked on as a glorious

recreation. He was learning more than he ever learned afterwards without

making much effort. Macdonald was a scholar; he did not teach people by

making them work, he taught them by making it impossible for them to

forget what he told them. No one who has ever been through the Upper

Fifth at Fernhurst would have the slightest difficulty in writing a

character sketch of any English king, even though he might never have

read a chapter about him. Macdonald made every man in history a living

character; not a sort of rack on which to hang dates and facts.

Football, however, was not going quite so satisfactorily. Gordon was

never tried for the Colts Fifteen, although he subsequently proved

himself better than most of the other forwards in it, and had to play in

House games every day. Once a week a House game is a thundering good

game, but more often it is one-sided, and for a person who really cares

for footer, such afternoons are very dull. On the Upper or Lower a good

game was certain; the captain of the school always chose sides that

would be fairly level. But House sides were different. Nothing depended

on their results. Sometimes bloods would play, sometimes not; it was a

toss up. And worst of all, Simonds was abominably slack. For a few weeks

the House thought it rather funny, and the smaller members of the House

secretly rejoiced; but the games-loving set waxed furious.

"Damn it all," said Mansell, "the man's here to coach us, not to sit in

his study sweating up dates!"

The result of it was that Mansell and his friends got filled with an

enormous sense of their own importance; they considered themselves the

only people in the House who were keen. And they let the rest of the

House know it. They groused about "the great days of Lovelace," and gave

people like Rudd a most godless time. There is no more thoroughly

self-satisfied person than the second-class athlete; and when he also

imagines himself an Isaiah preaching repentance, he wants kicking badly.

Unfortunately no one kicked Gordon or Lovelace; and they went on their

way contented with themselves, though with no one else.

* * * * *

One of the easiest ways of discovering a person's social status at

school is by watching his behaviour in the tuck-shop. The tuck-shop or

"Toe," as it is generally called, is a long wooden building with

corrugated iron roof, situated just opposite Buller's house, not far

from the new buildings. It is divided by a wooden partition into two

shops; at each end of the outer shop run two counters. On the right-hand

counter, which is connected with a small kitchen, cakes, muffins and

sausages are sold; on the left-hand side there are sweets and fruit. The

inner and larger room is filled with tables, and round the room are

photographs of all the school teams. At the far end, in huge green

frames, are hung photographs of the two great Fernhurst Fifteens who

went through the season without losing a match. The "Toe" is the

noisiest place in the whole school. It is superintended by five

waitresses, and they have a very poor time of it.

The real blood is easily recognised. He strolls in as if he had taken a

mortgage on the place, swaggers into the inner room, puts down his books

on the top table in the right-hand corner--only the bloods sit here--and

demands a cup of tea and a macaroon. A special counter has been made by

the bloods' table, so that the great men can order what they want

without going back into the outer shop. No real blood ever makes a noise

in the outer shop. When he is once inside the inner shop, however, he

immediately lets everyone know it. If he sees anyone he knows, he bawls

out:

"I say, have you prepared this stuff for Christy?"

The person asked never has.

"Nor have I. Rot, I call it."

No blood is ever known to have prepared anything.

The big man then sits down. If a friend of his is anywhere about, he

flings a lump of sugar at him. When he gets up he knocks over at least

one chair. He then strolls out, observing the same magnificent dignity

in the outer shop. No one can mistake him.

But the only other person who makes no row in the outer shop is the

small boy, who creeps in, and creeps out, unnoticed. Everyone with any

claim to greatness asserts his presence loudly. The chief figures at

this time were the junior members of Buller's, and especially the two

Hazlitts. Their elder brother was the school winger, and an important

person; but they had done nothing but make a noise during their two

years at Fernhurst. Athleticism had had a disastrous effect on them.

Because their house had won the Thirds, Two Cock and Three Cock, they

thought themselves gods. In the tuck-shop they acted as avenging angels

sent to punish a wicked world. Their chief amusement was to see a person

leaning over a counter, kick his backside when he was not looking, and

then run away. It was their class that were the real nuisance in the

"Toe." They persecuted the girls in charge most damnably. Very often

only one girl was in charge. The younger Hazlitt would at once seat

himself on the other counter and shriek out:

"Nellie, when are you coming over here? I shall bag these sweets if you

don't buck up." He would then seize a huge glass jar of peppermints, and

roll it along the zinc counter.

"Oh, Mr Hazlitt, do leave that alone," the wretched Nellie would

implore. But it was no use. When there was a big crowd waiting to be

served, the Hazlitt brethren would take knives and beat on the zinc

counter, shouting out: "Nellie, come here!" They were a thoroughly

objectionable pair. Whenever Mansell saw them, he kicked them hard, and

they got rather frightened of the School House after a bit.

It is not to be thought, however, that the behaviour of the School House

was exemplary. Mansell usually kicked up an almighty row, but he left

"Nellie" alone. He was not going to lower himself to the Hazlitt level.

It is an amazing thing that the half-blood very rarely gets into a row;

and yet he always talks as if expulsion hung over his head. Probably he

thinks it draws attention to himself. Mansell would always enter the

shop in exactly the same way; he banged his books on the counter and,

sighting Hunter, fired off at once.

"I say, look here, give me a con. I am in the hell of a hole. I prepared

the wrong stuff for old Claremont, and the man's getting awfully sick

with me; he may report me to the Chief. Do help me out!"

"Sorry, old cock," said Hunter, "but I specialise in stinks!"

"Oh, do you! Well, I suppose I shall have to chance it; that's all. He

may not shove me on."

The small boys thought Mansell's daring very fine. But strangely

enough, although he was always in a state of fearful agitation, he had

so far singularly managed to avoid getting reported. But still it kept

up appearances to talk a lot.

Gordon, of course, had to be fairly quiet in the tuck-shop. He was not

yet known among the school in general; and it was only in Buller's that

small boys gave tongue in the tuck-shop. But then Buller's were, in

their own opinion, to the rest of the School as Rome was to Italy.

Fernhurst was merely a province of Buller's. They kept this view to

themselves, however. "The Bull" would have dealt very summarily with

such assumptions.

And so, when Lovelace and Tester and Mansell were there Gordon was

generally to be found contributing his share to the general disorder,

but when alone, he sat quite quietly with Collins and Foster. He rather

longed for the day when he could start a row all on his own. A strange

ambition for any candidate for immortality!

* * * * *

About the middle of the term was the field day at Salisbury Plain. Most

of the Public Schools were present; it was a noble affair from the

general's point of view. The school, however, considered it a putrid

sweat. For hours they pounded over ploughed fields and the day dragged

slowly on to its weary close and two hundred very tired privates at last

fell into a six-fifty train.

Two days later a notice was brought round by the school _custos_: "Roll

for all those who went to Salisbury Plain on Wednesday in the big

schoolroom at six P.M." There is nothing quite so enjoyable as

the sensation that a big row is on, in which you yourself have no part.

Gordon trembled with excitement. He whispered excitedly to the man on

his left, Lidderdale, a man in Rogers': "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing much. Some silly ass put his bayonet through a carriage

window. Rogers was gassing about it in the dormitories last night."

"Oh!" said Gordon. Very disappointedly he returned to his academic

activities. He had had hopes of some splendid row, and after all, it was

only about a silly ass and a bayonet. Rotten! Fancy being made late for

tea because of that. But, as it turned out, his hopes were satisfied.

When he reached the big schoolroom, everything certainly looked most

formal. In front of the big dais where the choir stood during the

concerts sat all the masters in a half-circle. The Chief sat in the

centre.

"Are they all here, Udal?" the Chief asked the senior sergeant.

"Yes, sir."

The Chief rose.

"I have to address you to-night on a very serious subject. During the

field day last Wednesday, someone in this room disgraced not only his

school, but the King's uniform. An officer from another school has

written to tell me that he overheard two of you talking outside the

canteen in language that would disgrace a costermonger. I sincerely wish

he had taken their names at once. As it is, I do not know their names.

The officer in question said that both boys were over seventeen, and

that the shorter of the two said nothing at all, as far as he could

hear. Now I want the names of both those boys. If they own up to me

to-night, I shall most certainly deal very severely with one at least of

them. If they do not come to me of their own free will, I may be forced

to ask the officer to come down and identify the boys, in which case

both will from that instant cease to be members of Fernhurst School."

In a state of high excitement the school poured down to tea.

"I bet it's someone in Christy's," said Bradford.

Christy believed in leaving his house entirely to his prefects. It was a

good way of avoiding responsibility; but his choice of prefects was not

altogether wise.

"Do you think the men will own up?" said Gordon.

"Not unless they're most abandoned fools," replied Lovelace.

There was only one topic of conversation at tea, and afterwards

Lovelace, Hobson and Gordon discussed the affair keenly in No. 1. They

all agreed that the men would not own up, and the general opinion was

that someone in Christy's was responsible. Discussion raged fiercely as

to who it was. Gordon was all for it being Isaacs, Lovelace for

Everington, Hunter for Mead. The point was being debated, when Tester

and Bradford came in.

"Hullo, come in," shouted Gordon, "we are having a great fight about

this. I say Isaacs is the most likely man. What do you think?"

Tester looked round carefully, and then began anxiously:

"Look here, you men; swear you won't tell a soul if we tell you

something."

The oath was taken.

"Well, it's us!"

There was a hush. "Good Gawd!" said Hunter. Silence ensued; but

curiosity soon overcame surprise.

"What did you say, by the by?" asked Gordon.

Tester repeated as far as he could remember the exact words.

"Yes, you know; it was a bit hot, wasn't it? I expect you opened the

blighter's eyes a bit. He wasn't used to that sort of literature."

In spite of themselves Tester and Bradford laughed. They had been

vaguely aware of a tired-looking figure in a Sam Browne as they left the

canteen. He had looked "some ass." But Gordon soon became serious again.

"What are you men going to do? Of course you won't own up."

"We can't very well. I am in the Sixth and Bradford's had one row this

term, and of course, I was the criminal. I am supposed to be a

responsible personage."

"Of course, owning up's out of the question."

"But do you think anything will happen?" Bradford was a little

frightened. "I mean will there be a sort of general inspection?"

"You bet there won't. When a master begs men to own up, it means that

he's up the spout. It's much more fun catching a fellow red-handed. And,

after all, you two are the last people anyone would think of."

"Of course, it's all right," said Lovelace; "there's only one thing to

do. You talk of nothing else but this rotten affair; talk about it in

the Toe, in the changing-room, in form, in chapel, if you like. Ask

people you meet if they've owned up. Treat the whole thing as a glorious

rag."

"Yes," shouted Gordon, "let's go down to Rudd and tell him if he doesn't

own up we'll give him hell."

And in truth the next half-hour was for Rudd very hell of very hell. His

existence just now was not very pleasant. If he had been good at footer

all his domestic failings would have been forgiven him. But he was not;

he loathed the game, though at times he would have given anything to be

of some use. Strangely enough, at Oxford he found people respected his

brains, and no one hated him because he could not drop goals from the

twenty-five. Life is full of compensations.

Lovelace and Tester were both supreme actors. That night in the

dormitory they were full of the subject. After lights out, they kept the

whole place in a roar of laughter. Bradford joined in a bit, but he was

still nervous; visions rose up before him of an officer passing down the

ranks, suddenly seizing him, and saying: "This is the man." It was

hardly a ravishing thought; but it was useless to go back on a lie.

Tester realised this. As Ferguson came through he called out:

"I say, Ferguson, you know you'd better go up to the Chief and tell him

you did it."

Ferguson was, like the Boy Scout, always prepared.

"My good man, you don't surely imagine I am so devoid of good feeling

and have such a hazy conception of the higher life as not to inform the

Headmaster. I have just returned from breaking the news to him. He took

it quite well on the whole. It was a touching scene. I nearly wept."

Betteridge then arose, and gave an imitation of a Rogers' sermon.

"Well, Ferguson, I must own that I am sorry to lose you. I would give

much to retain you here. But _dis aliter visum_: you must go. You are

expelled. Between the Scylla of over-elation and the Charybdis of

despair you have a long time steered the bark of the School House. But

one failing wipes away many virtues. And we must not discriminate

between the doer and the deed, the actor and the action, the sinner and

the sin. The same punishment for all. But in that paradisal state where

suns sink not nor flowers fade, there will be a sweet reunion."

It was pure Rogers. The dormitory rocked with laughter. Tester began to

give his impressions of what the officer must have looked like. There

was a heated argument as to whether he was a parson. Mansell thought

not.

"A fellow who knows his Bible well would not be shocked with a little

swearing. I bet some of the bits in Genesis and Samuel are hotter than

anything the blighter said. It was probably some dotard who reads

Keats."

This seemed a sound piece of reasoning.

Next day the rumour spread round the school that a half-holiday was

going to be stopped, as no one had owned up.

"Safety," said Tester. "That means the chase is given up."

But the school, which, up to now, had treated the affair as a joke,

began to get annoyed. Tolerance and broadmindedness were all right as

long as their own interests were secure; but when it came to a

half-holiday being stopped because some blighter had not the decency to

own up----

"It's a scandal," said Fletcher, in front of the House studies. "First

this blighter does the school a lot of harm by swearing; and then he is

in too much of a funk to own up, and we get in a row for it. Man must be

a colossal swine."

He forgot that last night he had been treating the whole thing as a

joke. Rogers was passing by up the Headmaster's drive on the way to his

class-room, and overheard this outburst of righteous indignation. His

heart was rejoiced to see such a good moral tone in the school. As he

said in the common room: "It makes one proud to see what a sane,

unprejudiced view the school takes of this unsavoury incident."

Lovelace now hit on a great plan. "Let's organise a strike. Why should

we go into school to-morrow? If we can get enough to cut, we can't be

punished. Let's canvass."

The fiery cross of rebellion was flung down the study passages. With

lists of paper in their hands, Hunter, Mansell, Lovelace and Gordon

(Tester thought himself too big a blood for such a proceeding) dashed

into study after study urging their inhabitants to sign on for the great

strike.

"Come on, you men," Hunter said. "It is the idea of a lifetime. If

enough don't turn up, nothing can happen. You can't sack the whole

school."

A few bright rebels like Archie Fletcher signed on at once. Rudd, too,

thought it safer to put his name down. But the average person was more

cautious.

"How many have you got down?"

"Oh, about fifteen."

"Well, look here, if you get over fifty I'll join in."

As nearly everyone said this, the hopes of successful operations seemed

unlikely.

But still it all helped to disarm any trace of suspicion.

"I say, Ferguson, what do you think of all this?" said Mansell.

"I think a great creed has gone down. I shall no longer believe that

conscience and cowardice are synonymous; only conscience is the trade

name of the firm."

Mansell laughed. It was probably meant to be funny. He never quite

understood Ferguson. On the next afternoon everyone sat down to two

hours' extra school. There was much swearing at tea. But in a day or two

it was all forgotten.

To this day no one at Fernhurst knows who the two boys were. The secret

was well kept.

* * * * *

As the term drew to its close, with the Fifteen filled up and all the

big matches over, interest was centred mainly in House football and

House affairs. Mansell, it is true, was still worrying whether he would

get his Seconds. But Lovelace and Gordon talked of nothing but the

Thirds. The Colts' matches were over, and on House games one of the two

House sides was always a trial Thirds. Edwards, a heavy, clumsy

scrum-half, was captain of the side; Gordon led the scrum.

"If only we had Armour back as House captain," Hunter used to complain,

"that side couldn't lose."

"And we sha'n't lose either," said Gordon; "we are going to sweep the

field next term, and we are going to drive the ball over the line

somehow, and God save anyone who gets in the light."

No House side ever imagines it is going to be beaten. Three Cocks have

been lost by over fifty points; yet on the morning of the match half the

"grovel" would be quite ready to lay heavy odds on their chance of

winning, and whenever there is a good chance of victory, the House is

absolutely cocksure. The result of this is that the House is magnificent

in an uphill fight, but is rather liable to fling away a victory by

carelessness.

But this side was certainly "pretty hot stuff." It took a lot to stop

Stewart when once he got the ball, and Lovelace was brilliant in attack.

The grovel was light, and was a little inclined to wing, but in the

loose it was a big scoring combination. In the last week of the term

there was a House game on, the Lower _v._ Buller's. Simonds turned out

the Thirds side. It was a terrific fight. Buller's had two Seconds

playing and a House cap; but the House had had the advantage of having

played together. There was, at this time, a good deal of bad blood

between the House and Buller's, and the play was not always quite clean.

There was a good deal of fisting in the scrum. Gordon was in great form;

he scored the first try with a long dribble, and led the pack well.

Lovelace dropped a goal from a mark nearly midway between the

twenty-five and the half-way line. Collins scrambled over the corner

from a line out. Buller's only scored once, when Aspinall, their wing

three, who had his Seconds, got a decent pass, and ran practically the

whole length of the field. Towards the end, however, the light House

grovel got tired and was penned in its own half. "Come on, House,"

Gordon yelled. "One more rush; let the swine have it!" The House was

exhausted, it managed to keep Buller's out; but no more. This was an

ominous sign. It had not been a long game.

"The Bull" had been watching the game. As the players trooped off the

field, he called back Gordon. "Caruthers, here a second. You know, I

don't want to interfere where it's not my business, but I don't think

you should call another house 'swine.' To begin with, it's not the

English idea of sport, and if there's any ill feeling between two houses

in a school, especially the two biggest, it's not good for the school.

Do you see what I mean?"

"Oh yes, sir. I didn't mean----"

"Of course you didn't, my dear chap.... By the way; will you be young

enough for the Colts' next year? You will. Good. Then it won't be at all

a bad side. Collins and Foster were quite good; and you played a really

good game."

"What did 'the Bull' want, Caruthers?" Lovelace asked as Gordon walked

into the changing-room.

"Oh, nothing much. He didn't like me calling his fellows 'swine.'"

"But why the devil not? They are swine, aren't they?"

"Of course they are; but you can hardly expect 'the Bull' to realise

it."

"No, perhaps not; but, my God, they are the last thing in swine, those

Hazlitts and their crowd."

The House supper this year was not much, compared with the one of the

year before. Simonds was not an R.D. Lovelace, and Ferguson again spoke

miles above his audience. However, he was a sport, and let them do as

they liked; so they drank his health and sang: _He's a Jolly Good

Fellow!_ Several old boys came down, FitzMorris with an eyeglass and a

wonderful tie; Sandham, as usual, quite insignificant; Armour wearing

the blue waistcoat of a Wadham drinking club. Meredith had been

expected, but at the last moment he had found his debts so much in

excess of a very generous allowance that he would have to retrench a

little. It was a pity; but in the Bullingdon living is not cheap and

Meredith was a great blood.

The prize-giving this term afforded little comfort to Gordon; he was

easily bottom of V.A. Rather a collapse, but still one has to keep up

with things. It does not do to lose sight of the really important issues

of life, and Gordon had certainly been a social success. He travelled up

to London with Ferguson and Tester, and felt no small part of a giant

when Collins entered their carriage, suddenly saw Ferguson, and with

inaudible apologies vanished quickly down the corridor. Olympus was not

so very far off.

CHAPTER II: HEALTHY PHILISTINISM

During the Christmas holidays there appeared in a certain periodical one

of the usual attacks on the Public School system. It repeated all the

old arguments about keeping abreast of the times, and doing more modern

languages and less classics. The writer had nothing new to say, and,

like most other such attacks, his jeremiad was in an hour or two

forgotten. But at Fernhurst it did have some effect, for it gave Henry

Trundle the idea of forming a special class for French enthusiasts.

Henry Trundle was one of the French masters. He was entirely English,

had won his Blue for golf at Oxford, and had got a Double First. He also

was quite incapable of teaching anything. His form made no pretence of

keeping order; the noise that proceeded from his class-room could be

heard anywhere within a radius of a hundred yards. And yet he was not a

bad fellow; he was a good husband, and his children were very fond of

him. His domestic virtues, however, were sadly lost on Fernhurst, who

looked on him as a general buffoon, a hopeless ass. His class-room was

considered a sort of Y.M.C.A. entertainment hall, where there was

singing and dancing, and a mild check on excessive rioting.

At the beginning of the new term the Chief announced that in the upper

school one hour every day would be devoted to the study of either

French, maths or Latin. Each boy would choose his subject. Mr Reddon

would superintend the maths, Mr Trundle the French; for Latin each boy

would go to his own form master. To the hard-working, who had prizes

before their eyes, this scheme presented few attractions; as scholars it

would not be to their advantage to miss any classical hours, and French

was useless in scholarships. Macdonald, when he took down the names of

those who were to do Latin, found all those in front staying with him,

and all those behind going elsewhere. Macdonald laughed up his sleeve.

Indeed Trundle's class-room was filled with the most arrant collection

of frauds that have ever sat together this side of the Inferno. It was

largely a School House gathering. Lovelace was there; Hunter, Mansell,

Gordon, Archie and Collins. Christy's house supplied Dyke, a fine

footballer and a splendid ragger; Claremont's sent two typical dormice

in Forbes and Scobie; Buller's provided no one. Briault hailed from

Rogers. It was his boast that he could imitate any kind of animal from a

dog to a hyena. Benson, the only member of Abercrombie's, was entirely

insignificant, and actually did some work for the first two lessons. But

it was impossible to work long in such surroundings; and tales of the

extra French set are still told in whispers, after lights out, in the

upper dormitories.

The opening was sensational. No sooner had Trundle taken his seat than

Dyke leapt to his feet, jumped on the desk, jumped off it into the vast

paper basket, upset that, charged up to Trundle, shook him by the hand,

and began to pour out words: "My dear sir, how are you? How is Mrs

Trundle, and the little Trundles? Have you had a pleasant Christmas? I

have, sir. This, sir, is your extra French set. The French set--Mr

Trundle; Mr Trundle--the French set." Amid a beating of desks Dyke

returned to his seat. Trundle was used to this. But he had rather hoped

his new set would be composed for the most part of honest young

scholars. It was a disappointment; still, he had grown used to it. Life

had not been too kind to him.

"Now, let me see," he began, "who's the senior man here?"

Immediately everyone except Benson stood up. "I am, sir."

"But you can't all be the senior."

"Yes, sir; we are," was the unanimous answer.

"You see, sir," Gordon explained, "I am the cleverest and should be the

senior, but Mansell there, that dolt with the tie-pin, has been longer

in the school, and he's got his Seconds, and rather fancies himself.

Dyke has taken longer to reach IV. A than anyone else in the school's

history, and thinks that a sufficient claim to be senior. Lovelace, oh,

well, he's--well, I don't know what he is. Lovelace, you swine, what are

you?"

"Confound you, man!" shouted the enraged three-quarter. "Who the

hell----"

"Lovelace," broke in Trundle, "I think you may keep your reflections on

the future life till afterwards. We will sit in alphabetical order."

It is incredible how long it takes for ten boys to change their places.

It was a long process. Books fell to the right and to the left. There

were murmurs of "Damn you, man, that's my grammar!" or "Confound you,

Benson!" "Where the hell is my dictionary?" Twice Benson had been sent

flying into the waste-paper basket; three times had Dyke driven a

compass into the backside of Forbes, who looked like going to sleep. To

crown everything, Briault gave his celebrated imitation of a dog-fight.

Consternation reigned. Lovelace tried to hide under Trundle's desk;

Gordon endeavoured to get through a window that was hardly a foot

square. Macdonald's class-room was just the other side of the V. A

green; he chuckled to himself. "I hoped Caruthers would enjoy himself. I

think we shall have to put him on to construe when he returns. If he

goes to music-hall shows in school time he must pay for it, you know."

There was an immense scuffling of feet, but much louder rang the noise

of the French students. A question had arisen as to what book they

should read that term. Everyone was shouting the name of his favourite

author. "Let's do _The Little Thing_," yelled Dyke. "No; de Maupassant,"

shouted Mansell, adding, in an undertone: "I saw one of his books in a

shop in Villiers Street, looked pretty hot stuff." Then louder again:

"Let's have de Maupassant." "No; _The Black Tulip_," Lovelace implored,

and went on in a stage whisper: "Now don't be silly fools, I have got a

crib of this. Have some sense." "You don't imagine we're going to

prepare the stuff, do you?" was Hunter's retort. Above the uproar

Forbes' voice drawled: "I say, if there's a French translation of _Five

Nights_, let's read that. I know the book pretty well by heart."

It was ultimately decided to read _six contes_ by Francois Coppee; but

by the time the decision had been reached, the hour had been exhausted.

Rather sadly Trundle watched the set pour out into the cloister,

shouting and laughing. Even masters have souls. Boys don't realise this.

Every day till the end of the term that farce continued. Sometimes

Trundle lost his temper. One day, Archie was singing: _Meet me under the

Roses_, while Gordon was giving a lively if inaccurate translation.

"Fletcher, stop that singing!"

"Mayn't I sing, sir?"

"Of course not. This is a class-room."

"Is it, sir? I thought it was a place of amusement."

"Fifty lines, Fletcher."

"But, sir, it is, you know----"

"One hundred lines, Fletcher."

"Really, sir----"

"One hundred and fifty lines, Fletcher."

Fletcher collapsed. Next morning a magnificent blue envelope, sealed at

every corner, arrived at Mr Trundle's house. It contained a vast

quantity of blank paper.

"But, sir, I really thought I put in the lines. Hunter, you swine, that

is your fault. Sir, I believe Hunter stole them. He had a big imposition

for the Chief. You dirty dog, Hunter. May I kick him, sir?"

"No; sit down, Fletcher."

The lines were never done.

One day Collins was put on to construe. Of course he had made no attempt

to prepare it. This was at once evident.

"Collins, have you prepared this?"

"No, sir."

"But why not?"

Collins had seen _Charley's Aunt_ in the holidays. "Ah, why?" was his

laconic answer.

Trundle foamed with wrath. He snatched a cane from under his desk and

advanced on Collins. The prospective victim leapt back and pointed at

him with theatrical calm: "Look, he is coming at me with cane in hand.

Ha! he comes! he comes! see how he comes."

Trundle launched a fierce blow at Collins, and only narrowly missed

Benson's eyes. Collins delivered a short lecture on the danger of losing

one's temper. Trundle returned to his desk.

As the term went on the ragging became more elaborate. At first the set

was content with giving a sort of low comedian, knockabout performance.

But they soon wearied of such things. After all, they were real

artistes. And Archie Fletcher could not bear being ordinary. But still

there was a good deal of sport to be got out of quite common place

manoeuvres. The introduction of electric snuff, for instance, may not

be very original; but it was remarkably successful.

Trundle had a habit of leaving his mark-book in his desk, and Lovelace

had a key that fitted it. The rest was simple. During evening hall

Hunter and Lovelace got leave to fetch a book from their class-room.

There was no one about. In five minutes Trundle's mark-book was filled

with snuff. Next morning the set assembled. Forbes was asleep, Benson

was furtively looking up a word in his dictionary, the School House

contingent was uncommonly quiet.

"Well," said Trundle, "who shall we start off with this morning? Let me

see, ah!" he opened his mark-book.

The roar of laughter was heard the other side of the court. For a full

three minutes Trundle was utterly, gorgeously prostrate with coughing

and sneezing.

Mansell was very sympathetic.

"Have you a cold, sir? I hope it's nothing serious, sir. I find the east

wind a little trying myself. Do you ever use Fletcher's cough lozenges?

Very efficacious, sir," he babbled on.

At last Trundle recovered his wind if not his temper. He glowered at the

form.

"Fletcher, translate, please."

Fletcher began. But he did not get very far. Hunter let loose another

wave of snuff. The whole form was now coughing and sneezing certainly

considerably more than was necessary.

"Next boy who sneezes I shall give a hundred lines to, and report him to

the Headmaster."

Temporary peace ensued. It is not pleasant to be sent up to the Chief;

and weak masters have not the slightest scruple in doing so. The strong

men need not report. But a man like Archie could not be kept in order

long. He gave vent to a most unpleasant snort.

"Fletcher, if you do that again I shall have to beat you."

A slight pause.

"Please, sir, may I blow my nose if I mayn't sniff?"

"Yes, Fletcher; don't be stupid."

Immediately there rose a chorus of "Mayn't we blow our noses, too, sir?

Why should Fletcher be the only one allowed to. It isn't fair."

Trundle gave way, and the rest of the hour was spent entirely in

coughing, shouting and sneezing. No work was done. But that was no

unusual occurrence in the extra French set.

This was, of course, the sort of amusement that could be only indulged

in once. It would grow stale a second time. But Briault's idea of fancy

dress was one that presented infinite opportunities and gave full scope

for originality. At first nothing very startling occurred. On a freezing

cold day the whole set would assemble without waistcoats and with their

coats wide open would complain bitterly of the heat; on a warm day they

would go in arrayed as for an Antarctic expedition in wonderful scarves

and huge gloves.

"It's disgraceful, sir, how cold this room is," Gordon complained. "I am

very sensitive to cold, and there are two windows open. They must be

shut."

"Well, Caruthers, if you find this room too cold," replied Trundle

sarcastically, "you may return to the warmth of your own study and write

me out the lesson ten times. Do you prefer that?"

Trundle thought that rather smart, but Gordon was never beaten.

"Sir, I do prefer an unfairly long imposition to an attack of

pneumonia," and with that he sailed out of the room; the "impot" was, of

course, never done. Only Benson did things for Trundle.

From this day on to discover a new kind of dress was the aim of Archie's

life. What he advised the form always copied. One day the Chief gave out

an order that, owing to the extreme cold, woollen waistcoats would be

allowed, provided they were of a quiet colour. That night Archie

searched the studies. For sixpence he purchased from a new boy a

threadbare carpet that had not been brushed or cleaned for generations.

This he cut up into six parts, and each School House member of the set

somehow or other made for himself a waistcoat out of them. Next day,

garbed in these, they rolled sedately to Trundle's, their coats flung

open, their hands in their trouser pockets.

Trundle sat speechless. At last he found words.

"What is the meaning of this confounded impertinence? Collins, Mansell,

Caruthers, Hunter, Lovelace, and you Fletcher, take off that filthy

stuff."

"That stuff, sir," drawled out Forbes. "What stuff?"

"Don't interfere, Forbes," rapped out Trundle. "Take them off, I say."

"Oh, do you mean our waistcoats, sir?" asked Hunter, in superbly feigned

surprise. "We couldn't take them off; we should catch a cold. The

Headmaster has just given out a notice about them. He said we could wear

them."

"He never gave you permission to garb yourselves in the refuse of the

neighbourhood."

"Refuse?" said Forbes. "Those waistcoats are of a most fashionable cut.

It's extremely hard to get that particular brand of cloth; my brother,

who is a member of the Bullingdon, told me----"

"I don't want to know anything about your brother, Forbes. Take off

those things. The Headmaster would never allow them."

"But, sir," insisted Archie. "He only said that they must be of a quiet

colour, and they are of a quiet colour, aren't they, sir?"

In truth they were. There was not a trace of colour visible anywhere.

Trundle gave in. He murmured something about asking the Headmaster, and

then put on Archie to con. He never asked the Chief; and there was no

need for him to do so. It is not pleasant wearing dust-laden carpets for

an hour. Such jests can only be undertaken at rare intervals.

But the culminating point was not reached till the last Thursday of the

term. It was boat-race day, and the set unanimously backed Oxford. At

ten o'clock the set was due to appear. But when Trundle arrived all he

found was Benson, who was in nervous apprehension lest he should have

come to the wrong room. If he had, he might lose some marks; and marks

were more to him than many boundaries. He smiled happily at Trundle.

"Ah, where are the rest, Benson?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Oh, well, I suppose we must wait, but it is a great nuisance. I wanted

to finish the book to-day, it's our last lesson, you know."

The next day was Good Friday.

For ten minutes they sat in silence. It takes a long time to prepare a

big rag; the curtain very seldom goes up punctually on the first night;

and there had been no dress rehearsal. There was a sound of scuffling

from the door in the cloister which led into the School House studies.

Then came the tread of measured feet. The door opened, and the great

procession entered.

At the head was Gordon in Ferguson's dressing-gown (a great white

confection with pale pink frogs) with a white Colts' cap on his head; he

beat time with a small swagger cane. Then came the trumpeters, Crosbie

and Forbes, who were producing strange harmonies on two pipes that they

had bagged from the armoury. Behind them Mansell walked in corps clothes

and a Second Fifteen cap. He was chanting a low dirge. On each side of

him marched the choristers, Lovelace and Hunter, in white sheets and

enormous psalters that they had borrowed from the chapel. They also sang

in a strange outlandish tongue. But the _piece de resistance_ was the

banner. It consisted of a long piece of white calico on which was

inscribed in red ink: "Up, Up, Oxford. Down with the Cantabs." (Trundle

hailed from Emmanuel.) It was fastened at each end to a hockey stick,

and Fletcher and Collins bore it in solemnly. In the rear, Briault gave

his impressions of a cow being ill. Dyke was the showman.

"I will now present, gentlemen," he began, "my circus of touring

artistes, who are raising a fund for the endowment of the Oxford boating

club. I must beg you all----"

But Trundle cut short the oration. Seizing a cane, he rushed into the

cavalcade of Isis, and smote out full lustily. Pandemonium broke forth.

No battle-field was more rich in groans; no revue chorus produced so

much noise. It took a quarter of an hour to obtain quiet. But at last a

motley crowd sat down to study Francois Coppee.

And then came the _denouement_. It was entirely unexpected and entirely

unrehearsed. There was a knock outside. The door opened and an amazing

apparition appeared on the threshold. Betteridge was in the Sixth. Very

enviously the night before he had listened to the preparations and plans

of the extra French set; cursing inwardly, he had sat down at ten

o'clock to do prose with the Chief. Faintly across the court were borne

the sounds of strife. He groaned within him. Suddenly the Chief stood

up.

"I find I shall have to leave you for a little. Some parents are coming

to interview me. I want you all to return quietly to your studies, and

continue the prose there."

Joyfully the Sixth trooped out. Betteridge rushed across the courts to

Trundle's class-room. For a second he listened outside, then a great

idea struck him. There was still half-an-hour left. Madly he tore up to

the dormitories. Luckily they were not locked. Five minutes later he

appeared before Mr Henry Trundle entirely changed. He had on a very

light brown suit, a pair of check spats, a rainbow-coloured waistcoat, a

heliotrope bow tie; a bowler was balanced on his head at an angle of

forty-five degrees, a camera was slung round his neck, in his hand he

had a notebook and pencil.

"Mr Trundle, I believe," he said. "I am the reporter of _The Fernhurst

Gazette_. We have received a wire that there has been a great pro-Oxford

demonstration in here, and we want to get an account of it in the stop

press news before our sister journal, _The Western Evening Transcript_.

Can you give me some notes?"

As he stopped, the set, that had remained spellbound, burst into a

hilarious shriek of joy. Everyone heard it; even Claremont woke up and

asked what it was. Arthur, the school _custos_, talks of it to this day.

And at this point the Chief comes into the story. He was showing the

parents in question round the studies when he heard an uproar proceeding

from somewhere near the cloisters. He excused himself from the parents,

ran downstairs, and tracked the noise to Trundle's class-room. He

entered. Never before had he seen disorder on such a generous scale. He

looked round.

"Mr Trundle--er--what er--set is this?"

"The extra French set, Headmaster."

The Chief half smiled. He walked out without another word.

Next term there was no extra French set.

The ragging of Trundle, however, was merely regarded relaxation from the

serious business of life. In an Easter term football is the only thing

that any respectable man will really worry about. And Gordon, judged on

these grounds, and his friends with him, would most certainly pass into

the most select society circle. The Thirds this year was a terribly

perplexing problem. Simonds had not taken enough trouble with his

juniors the term before. This term he was working hard enough, but it

was a bit late in the day to begin. On the first Saturday of the term a

scratch side took sixty-five points off the prospective Thirds side.

"If you play as badly as that on the day you'll lose by forty points,"

growled Simonds, "and you'll damned well deserve a beating, too."

"Curse the man," muttered Lovelace. "Whose bloody fault is it but his, I

should like to know? He is a disgrace to the House, working for some

rotten scholarship when he ought to be training on our juniors. Rotten

swine."

"Well, he's pretty well all right this term, at any rate," said Gordon.

"For the Lord's sake don't go grousing about; or we sha'n't keep the

score under eighty, let alone ninety. If we lose, we lose; and, my God,

we'll make 'em play for it."

The side certainly tried hard, and Simonds did his best, but all the

same, on the day of the match, Buller's were backing their chances of

running up a score of over thirty points at three to one.

"The swine!" said Gordon. "Swanking it about how they are going to lick

us to bits. My word, I would give something to smash them to

smithereens. I have taken on a bet with every man in Buller's whom I

found offering long odds. I stand to win quite a lot. And I shall win

it."

"God's truth," said Mansell, "do they think there's no guts left in the

House at all? They may go gassing about the number of Colts' badges they

have got, but they are not used to our way of playing. We go for the

ball, and if a man's in the light we knock him out of it. School House

footer is not pretty to look at; but it's the real thing, not a sort of

nursery affair. We go in to win."

Just before lunch a typical telegram from Meredith was pinned up on the

House board:

"Go it House. And give them ----"

The blank was left to the imagination. The House remembered Meredith and

filled it in accordingly.

Nothing is more horrible than the morning before a first House match.

Gordon woke happy and expectant, but by break he had begun to feel a

little shivery, and at lunch-time he was done to the world. He ate

nothing, answered questions in vague monosyllables, and smiled half

nervously at everyone in general. He was suffering from the worst kind

of stage fright. And after all, to play in an important match before the

whole school is a fairly terrifying experience. As he sat trembling in

the pavilion, waiting for the whistle to blow, Gordon would have

welcomed any form of death, anything to save him from the ordeal before

him. The whistle blew at last. As he walked out from the pavilion in his

magenta-and-black jersey, an unspeakable terror gripped him; his knees

became very weak; his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, and then

something seemed to snap in his brain. He walked on quite cheerfully. He

was as a spectator. It seemed that it was not really he, but his ghost

that was walking on to the field. Subconsciously he lined up with the

rest. The School side in their white jerseys, the Colts with their red

dragons, seemed miles away. Collins kicked off. Gordon did not know he

was playing. A roar of "House" rose from the touch-line. Involuntarily

he joined it, thinking himself a looker-on, then suddenly Livingstone,

the Buller's inside three-quarter, caught the ball and ran towards him.

At once Gordon was himself. He forgot the crowd on the touch-line,

forgot his nervousness, forgot everything except that he was playing for

the House, and somehow or other had to drive the ball over that line. He

crashed into Livingstone, and the pair rolled into touch. A cheer

rippled down the line. Gordon did not hear it.

_The Fernhurstian_ described this match as "perhaps the finest ever

witnessed on the School ground," and the reporter was not far wrong.

Certainly that first mad rush of the House forwards was the most

glorious moment in Gordon's football career. It was all so unexpected,

so essentially wonderful. On the touch-line Mansell shouted himself

hoarse. The cries of "House" completely drowned those of "School." For

the first quarter of an hour the School pack never got the ball out of

their half. It seemed that the House must score. Time after time, the

School were forced to touch down. Stewart was brought down just the

wrong side of the line. Lovelace performed prodigies of valour. A gloom

descended over Buller's. On the Masters' side of the line "the Bull"

fumed and ground his teeth: "Go low, Reice, you stinking little funk.

Get round, forwards, and shove; you are slacking, the lot of you. Buck

up, Philson." Up and down he stamped, cursing at his men. Lovelace could

hardly refrain from laughing.

"Now, lads," shouted Stewart, "fair or foul; shove the ball over the

line!" Like a sledge-hammer Gordon crashed into the scrum. Wilkinson was

in his light, but Gordon was seeing red, his feet stamped on Wilkinson,

and found the ball. His elbows swung viciously, as he cut his way

through the scrum. Then someone caught him by the ankle. He went down

hard. A boot caught him on the side of the head. He got up blind with

wrath. "Fight! Fight!" he yelled. The House grovel swarmed in; the

outhouse pack shivered for a moment, then gave way. Collins and Gordon

burst through, the ball at their toes; Wilkinson dashed across and dived

for the ball; he clawed it for a second, Gordon's feet smashed it from

his hands, and Collins steered it past the back, and kicked it just over

the line and fell on top of it.

From the touch-line there burst a roar that must have been heard five

miles away. "Well done, laddie!" bawled Mansell. Even Ferguson waved his

stick in the air. It was a great moment.

As the School lined up behind their line, "the Bull" strode behind them.

"What are you doing? Put some life into your game. Buck up, all of you;

it is a filthy show. Guts!"

Lovelace took the kick. It was far out: the ball hardly rose from the

ground. In a state of feverish panic Livingstone dropped out. For a

second or two the School pressed. But it was impossible to withstand the

wild attack of the House for long. Collins, elated by his success,

brought off a magnificent dribble, and was forced into touch only a few

yards from the line. Half-time was not far off. And the House struggled

fiercely to get over the line once more. Up and down between the goal

line and the twenty-five the two scrums fought. It seemed only a matter

of time for another try to send the House across with a lead of six

points; but there is as much luck in rugger as in any game. The House

had heeled perfectly, Foster cut past one man, and passed out to

Richards. A roar of "House!" went up. A try was imminent, Richards

passed to Lovelace. But Livingstone was one of those three-quarters who

will miss an easy kick one minute and bring off a superb collar the

next. As Richards passed, he dashed between him and Lovelace,

intercepted the pass, and raced up the field. Collins caught him only a

foot away from the line, and from the line out Grienburg, a heavy Buller

forward, caught the ball and fell over the line by the flag, just as the

whistle was about to blow for half-time. It was very far out, and the

kick failed. The sides crossed over 3-3.

Simonds came on during the interval almost incoherent with excitement.

"Splendid, you fellows! Magnificent! Never saw anything like it. Stick

to it and you're bound to win. Simply putrid luck that last try ... keep

it up!"

On the touch-line there was no doubt as to the final result. "We shall

walk away with the Cup," said Mansell, and in a far corner Jones-Evans

was laying ten to one on the House in muffins. But a bit of good luck is

capable of making a side play in a totally different spirit, and the

combined Buller's and Claremont's side started off like a whirlwind.

Livingstone kicked off, and the outhouse scrum was on the ball in a

minute. For a second the House pack was swept off its feet, and during

that second Fitzgerald had dribbled to within ten yards of the line.

Foster made a splendid effort to stay the rush, and flung himself on the

very feet of the opposing forwards. But the check was only momentary;

the forwards rolled on, and it was only on the very line that Lovelace

rushed across, and falling on the ball, held it to him, till the House

forwards had time to come round. But the rules lay down that a player,

as soon as he has fallen on the ball, must get off it at once. Lovelace

realised that if he did so, a try would be inevitable. He hung on like

grim death, praying that the referee would not see. Before half the

House forwards had formed round, the whistle blew.

"Free kick to the School. You musn't lie on the ball like that,

Lovelace." The referee was not blind.

Anxiously the House lined up and waited for the kick. Livingstone had

converted nearly every goal on the Colts' games the term before. It was

a trying moment. He seemed to take hours placing the ball correctly.

There was an absolute hush as he ran up; then a great sigh, half of

relief, half of disappointment, burst from the touch-line. The ball rose

hardly six feet from the ground, and sailed harmlessly towards the

School House line. And then Turner made a mistake that he cursed himself

for ever afterwards. All that was necessary to do was to let the ball

bounce, and then touch down. But as the ball sailed towards him, Turner

was suddenly possessed with the longing to do something brilliant. He

was last man on the list, and had only been put into the side at the

last moment, owing to another forward stopping out. It was not

unnatural. He caught the ball.

"You blasted fool," yelled out Richards, "for God's sake find touch."

Turner lost his head. He gave a mild punt down field, and before the

House had realised what was happening, Wilkinson had caught the ball,

and dashed over the line between the posts. This time Livingstone made

no mistake. 8-3.

For the next five minutes the House side was entirely demoralised.

Nothing went right. The forwards did not keep together. Gordon cursed

foully, and only made matters worse. Lovelace's kicks only found touch a

few feet down the line. Richards rushed up and down fuming, and upset

everyone. It was due only to a miracle and some fine work by Foster that

the School did not score at least three times. Foster did everything

during those awful minutes. Rush after rush he stopped, just as

Fitzgerald was looking dangerous, and he brought down his fly-half

every time. Gordon was amazed at his performance; he had always rather

looked down on him before. He had never imagined he was so plucky.

But it takes more than two unexpected tries to throw a School House side

off its balance for long. Soon the forwards began to reassert

themselves. Burgess the wing three-quarter, a self-satisfied member of

Buller's, who was in VI. B, and whose conceit far excelled his

performances, got away and began to look dangerous. But Gordon came up

behind him. He loathed Burgess, and flinging aside all the Fernhurst

traditions about collaring low, he leapt in the air, and crashed on top

of him. Burgess collapsed like paper. A great howl went up from the

School House. New life seemed to enter into the side. The grovel flocked

round, and Collins, heaving Burgess off the ball with a flying kick,

dribbled the ball to the half-way line. A scrum formed up and from the

heel Richards got the ball to Lovelace, who broke through the defence

and with a clear field ahead made for the line.

"Run like hell!" shouted Simonds from the touch-line. He was standing on

the masters' side of the ground, just in front of the Chief's wife. But

he was past caring about social etiquette. All he wanted was to see the

House ahead once more. "Faster, man, run--oh, damn!"

Just on the line the ubiquitous Livingstone caught him up, and the pair

rolled into touch. If, as some say, there is nothing much finer to watch

in football than an uphill fight, then the Thirds of 1913 was most

certainly the greatest game ever played on the Lower. Lighter and slower

than their opponents, the House kept them on the defensive for the rest

of the afternoon. Collins was a splendid sight, his hair fell in a

cascade over his eyes, his nose was bleeding, his jersey was torn half

off his back, but he did not care. His feet were everywhere, and anyone

who got in his light was sorry for it. Turner, with the thought that he

was the cause of Wilkinson's try, fought heroically. Once when

Williamson, a Claremont's forward, began to dribble, he rushed into him

sideways and with a "soccerbarge" knocked him flying into touch, and

took the ball back inside the twenty-five. It was a great fight. But no

one can strive successfully against the will of the gods, and certainly

the stars in their courses fought against the House. Ten minutes before

time Livingstone, who had been systematically starved the whole game,

got a pass about the half-way line. He was the fastest man in the field.

No one could touch him; he made straight for the corner flag, and scored

amid the tumultuous applause of Buller's. There could be no doubt about

the result now. Before the eyes of Jones-Evans there rose a prospect of

eternally treating outhouse men to muffins. Mansell swore violently.

"The Bull" walked up and down the touch-line beaming with delight.

Simonds was silent.

"Well, you men," said Richards, "we've been beaten, but by heaven we'll

shove them the last few minutes. Go for them, tooth and nail."

The House did so. In hall that night Burgess announced that there was

not a single gentleman in the School House, a remark which resulted in a

rather unpleasant half-hour with "the Bull" two days later. For these

last minutes produced one of the most glorious charges of the day. From

the twenty-five right in to the School half, the ball was carried.

Nothing could stop that wild rush. Livingstone and Wilkinson went down

before it, but they were passed by. Burgess made a half-hearted attempt

to fall on the ball, but did not get up for several seconds, and the

House was well in the School half when Gordon kicked a little too hard

and the School back, fielding the ball, managed to find touch. But the

House was still undaunted. From the line out, the ball was flung to

Richards, who, putting his head down, literally fought his way through

the scrum and tottered out the other side. He handed off Wilkinson,

dodged the fly-half, and made for the centre of the ground. Livingstone

came across at him. "With you, Richards," yelled Lovelace.

As Livingstone brought Richards crashing to the ground, the ball was

safely in Lovelace's hands. Lovelace was about half-way between

mid-field and the twenty-five. He ran a few yards, steadied himself, and

took a drop.

In deadly silence the School watched the flight of the ball. It sailed

high and straight towards the goal. "It's over," murmured the Chief

excitedly. But as the ball neared the posts it travelled slower, a

slight breeze caught it, blew it over to the right. It hit the right

post and fell back into play. As the full-back returned it to mid-field

the whistle blew for no-side.

"School, three cheers for the House!" shouted Livingstone.

"House, three cheers for the School!" responded Richards.

And then everyone poured over the ropes on to the field.

"Never mind, you men," said Simonds; "it was a damned fine show and

better than fifty wins."

The House was proud of its side. As the Fifteen trooped across the

courts on the way to the changing-room the House lined up by the chains

of the Sixth Form green, and cheered them.

"Well played, Caruthers!" shouted someone.

It was Gordon's first taste of real success.

That night there was a big feed in No. 19. They were all out of training

for three days; and they made the most of it. During the last fortnight

they had been allowed only fruit between meals.

"It's the finest performance since I've been in the House," Mansell

declared. "Meredith's Two Cock wasn't in it. Their side was twice as

strong on paper, and my Lord, we gave it them."

"Yes," said Lovelace, "and you wait till this side is the Three Cock;

there'll be a bit of a change then."

"You're right there," shouted Mansell. "We sha'n't pull it off this

year, nor the year after that; but you wait and see what'll happen in

1915. That's the year when the House will revive the great days of Ross.

My lads, we sha'n't regret the lean years when the years of plenty come;

and the Three Cock Cup is back on the old oak sideboard. Our day will

come."

That night Gordon dreamt of the great future that was opening out for

the House; and he was thankful that he would see it. Like the runners in

the torch race many would have prepared the way for victory; but it was

to him and his friends that the glory of the final triumph would belong.

For he would win the race: he would carry home the torch.

CHAPTER III: TIN GODS

After this match a new phase in Gordon's life may be said to have begun.

He had for the first time felt what it was to be really successful. When

he had got his Colts' cap the world had seemed at his feet; but it was

nothing to what he experienced now. For he had borne the brunt of the

House's battle. He had played a principal part in a wonderful

achievement. The House looked on him as one of its chosen defenders. He

was in the limelight, and he had no intention of ever drifting out of

it. When we have experienced the really great, the things that pleased

once charm no more. After basking in the blaze of a summer afternoon

there is something poignantly pathetic in watching the amber beams of a

December sun filter through the trees. Gordon had his fingers on the

pedestal of fame, and he intended never to loose his grasp. His position

had been obtained by brilliant football, and if he had been able to

retain it in the same way all would have been well. But the gods willed

it otherwise.

It was generally admitted that the House stood no chance of winning the

Two Cock, and when the House agreed on its own defeat, prospects were

certainly very gloomy. So Gordon only interested himself in his own

performances. He began to wonder if there was any chance of his getting

a place in the Three Cock. Simonds was undoubtedly pleased with him, and

Henry, the only forward senior to him, had been doing rather badly

lately. In the trial games he played with a mad enthusiasm. On the

Friday evening the Two Cock side was posted. He was above Lovelace and

Richards. Henry was only one above him.

Just before lunch on the day of the match Mansell came up to him.

"I say, I have got some good news for you."

"What is it?" Gordon was feverish with impatience.

"Well, I don't think I had better tell you."

"Oh, I say, do; don't be a swine."

"No, I don't think I shall; it would make you too bucked with life."

Mansell smiled at him kindly. Gordon was rather annoyed.

But on the way down to hall, he overheard Mansell talking to Tester in

the door of the changing-room.

"Simonds is going to play Caruthers in the Three Cock instead of Henry,

if he plays at all decently to-day," Mansell was saying.

"Oh, I am glad of that," Tester answered. "He's a good kid."

The earth swayed dizzily as Gordon made his way down to hall. He did not

feel at all nervous. He was quite certain of himself. The day was bound

to end with him a member of the House Fifteen. All he had to do was to

play his average game. Mansell had said so.

As he stepped on to the field, he was perfectly aware of his own

personality. He did not feel a sort of spectator, as he had done in the

Thirds. It was all so clear. He even smiled at Tester as he lined up.

But a Two Cock is very different from a Thirds. Men from Christy's were

playing who were shining lights on Senior Leagues, and who would easily

have got their Seconds if they had tried, but who, because they were in

Christy's, did not take the trouble. Christy's should have beaten

Buller's, but they were too slack to go into proper training, and in

spite of the brilliance of Dyke and Pemberton, Buller's won by six

points after being ten points behind at half-time. As individuals,

however, Christy's were a formidable lot, and when combined with

Buller's formed a much heavier and larger side than any Gordon had

played against before. He was not very large, and was used to Junior

Leagues. For an hour he was swept off his feet. He could not keep pace

with the game. He was flung from one position into another; he followed

after the scrum; he felt like a new boy playing for the first time. At

half-time Simonds came up thoroughly fed up with life. The score was

fifteen-nothing.

"For heaven's sake, Caruthers, get in and shove, if you can't do

anything better. You haven't done a thing the whole game."

The game was a nightmare. Mansell looked at him curiously that evening

at tea.

Gordon muttered something about a kick on the head, and being unable to

see anything.

On Sunday evening a list of those in training for the Three Cock was put

up. There were ten forwards down. Gordon was bottom on the list; both

Henry and Collins were above him. In the football world his claim to

fame for the moment faded away. If he was to remain in the public gaze,

he would have to attract attention some other way.

And so, at the most critical point in the development of his character,

Gordon began all unconsciously to seek for new ways of making himself

conspicuous. He did not know what he was doing. If someone had told him

that he was doing absurd things merely to get talked about, he would

have laughed. But all the same, it would have been true. His preparatory

schoolmaster said of him once: "There is some danger of his becoming the

school buffoon." At his prep, the boys were too closely looked after and

kept down for any one person to become pre-eminent at anything. And so a

subconscious love of notoriety drove Gordon on to play the fool for a

whole term most damnably.

It was during the end of the Easter and the whole of the summer term

that Gordon earned a reputation for reckless bravado and disregard of

all authority that stuck to him through his whole career. Up till now he

had done things merely because he had wanted to. He followed the

inclination of the moment, but now it was different. It is pleasant to

be talked of as a mixture between Don Juan and Puck; and Gordon was

sufficiently good at games to make himself an attractive and not a

repulsive figure. The Public School boy admires the Meredith type; he

despises the man who is no good at games, and who plays fast and loose

in his house. Gordon was not unpopular, and indeed some of his escapades

were really funny, as, for instance, when he cut through the string of

the chapel organ on which a weight is attached to show whether the organ

is full of air or not. The next morning in chapel the choir began but

the organ was mute. The hymn broke off into a miserable wail. The whole

service was one silent ripple of merriment. Rogers was taking the

service, and was quite at sea without the help of music. Gordon earned a

considerable measure of notoriety for the performance. On his way to the

tuck shop, Ben, the captain of the Fifteen, came up and spoke to him.

"Caruthers, I say, are you the man who made the organ mute?"

"Yes."

"By Jove, you are a sportsman."

Gordon was thus encouraged to continue on his road to buffoonery, and

when the summer term came, he found no reason to pursue any other

course. On the cricket field he could not get a run; first he hit

wildly, then he began to poke; but all without the least success. After

a few weeks he almost ceased to try, except in House matches. "The Bull"

got furious.

"Look here, Caruthers," he said, "I don't know if you are slack, or

merely incompetent. But when I see you make fifty against my house in a

Junior House match, and then play inside half-volleys on the upper, I

begin to think all you care about is your house. Don't you care for

Fernhurst, boy?"

Gordon was genuinely worried about this. He admired "the Bull"

immensely: indeed, "the Bull" was about the only person at Fernhurst

whose opinion he valued at all. He made strenuous efforts to get runs,

but it was no use. He was clean out of form. His fifty _v._ Buller's was

his only score during the season, but "the Bull" did not know this. He

thought Caruthers tried for his house and slacked with the Colts. The

climax was reached during the Milton Match. Gordon went in first with

Foster. In five minutes he and Lovelace and a man from Claremont's were

out for four runs. "The Bull" chewed grass in a far corner of the field.

And then, to crown everything, Gordon missed the easiest of catches. He

caught Lovelace's eye. It was really rather funny. The two of them burst

into sudden laughter. Lovelace was nearly doubled up. "The Bull" thought

they were laughing at him.

"I can't think what's gone wrong with Caruthers this term," he said to

Fry, the captain of the School House. "He was so promising once; he

doesn't seem to be trying this term."

Next day Gordon was left out of the Colts' side. The day after the chair

in Trundle's class-room suddenly collapsed. The leg had been sawn half

through, and Trundle fell over on the floor.

Gordon was riding for a fall, and two days before Commemoration, to use

his own phrase, he "fairly put his foot in it." This term he had a

double dormitory with one Davenport, a scholar who was a year junior to

Gordon; but was in the same form. The Chief had thought Gordon a bit big

for the Nursery, but there was no room for him down below; so he and

Davenport lived at the end of the passage in glorious isolation. It was

a great luxury; they were allowed several privileges; they could keep

their light on till ten; they could go to bed when they liked, and it

was here that they usually did their preparation. Davenport, however,

suddenly contracted measles; and Gordon, who had grown too slack to do

his work alone, used to get leave for Sydenham, a rather insignificant,

self-righteous member of V. A, who had come a term before him, to come

and prepare his work in the double room. Leave was always granted, and

when Davenport returned, the scheme was still continued. On this

particular night, Davenport had got a headache. He said he was going to

stop out next day, and refused to prepare Thucydides. It also happened

that the House tutor was away that night, and so the Chief went round

the dormitories, putting out the lights. He did not know of the custom

by which Sydenham came up to do the con. He was not very pleased, but

after a little hesitation gave leave. The door was shut. Sydenham

perched himself on the chest of drawers, Gordon produced an aid to quick

translation, Davenport turned over the pages of _Nash's_. The Abbey

bells also happened to be ringing that night. It was quite impossible to

hear any normal sound down the passage; and so Gordon was quite unaware

of the Chief's intention to revisit them and see if they were really

working, till the door opened and the Chief walked in. Gordon lost his

head; he sat up in bed and gaped. Thucydides lay on one side of the bed,

the crib on the other.

The Chief picked up the book.

"Ah, does Mr Macdonald allow you to use this?"

In the really dramatic moments of our lives it is always the inane that

first suggests itself. It was so likely that Macdonald would have given

them permission.

"No, sir."

"Er, Davenport, are you preparing--er yes, Thucydides with Caruthers,

too?"

"No, sir." Davenport thanked heaven that he had a headache. He had

helped in the work of deceit every night the whole term. The Chief

thought he must be a boy of strong moral courage; and in many ways he

was, but cribbing, after all, was part of the daily routine.

The Chief took up the book.

"Sydenham, go back to your study."

He turned down the light and went out. His footsteps died out down the

passage.

"Damn!" said Gordon.

"_In excelsis gloria_," said Davenport.

"And it was a rotten crib, too," said Gordon.

By next morning the story was all round the school.

"You will be birched for certain," was Tester's cheerful comment, "and

serve you right for getting caught."

"I sha'n't be such a fool again," growled Caruthers.

And certainly he profited by his experience. A year later the House

Tutor came into his study when he was preparing Vergil with the aid of

Dr Giles' text. He put a piece of blotting-paper over the crib, and

chatted for a few minutes quite easily about the chances of the Eleven

_v._ Tonford.

But when we are in trouble, there are few of us who can see so far ahead

as to feel thankful at the thought that we have learnt something that

will be a help to us in the future. Gordon was thoroughly fed up. But it

was not his game to show his feelings. He went about laughing as though

nothing had happened at all; he treated the whole thing as a colossal

joke. Sydenham was, however, very nervous, and showed it. Gordon ragged

him mercilessly.

"My good man, what the hell does it matter? Chief's not much of a

bircher, and don't gas about disgrace, and such muck. This isn't a St

Winifred's sort of school. It will only mean a bad report."

In School that day Gordon was in great form. By the end of the morning

he had accumulated in all three hundred lines from various sources for

ragging.

"That man, Caruthers, is some fellow," said Ferguson to Simonds at

lunch. "He looks as if he enjoyed being in rows."

"Perhaps he does," was the answer. "He is certainly always doing his

best to get into them. But he is in for a birching this time."

But Simonds was wrong. The Chief was too utterly fed up to do anything;

moreover, he saw that a birching would do Gordon no good. He would only

boast about it.

It was not until a week later that Gordon was called up before the

Chief.

"Caruthers, I want to know where you got hold of that crib."

As a matter of fact he had obtained it by means of Rudd, who had a large

stock of such articles, and let them out on loan for the term. It was a

paying business. Gordon, of course, could not divulge this.

"I got it in the holidays, sir."

The Chief was surprised and shocked at this. He could quite easily

understood that a boy should buy a crib at some second-hand bookshop in

the town, during term time, when surrounded with the general atmosphere

of Public School dishonesty; but it did seem unnatural that a boy, while

living in the clean surroundings of his home, should be scheming to

cheat his fellows and masters. The Chief said as much; Gordon did not

quite follow him. Besides everyone cribbed.

"What I can't understand, Caruthers," the Chief went on, "is that you

always assume a tremendous keenness on the School and House, of which

you give absolutely no proof in your actions except on the field. This

is the second time I have had to speak to you on this subject. Do you

imagine that the good reputation of the House depends solely on its

performance in the Thirds, or that of the School on its number of

victories in School matches?"

Gordon thought it did. But he knew that "Yes" was hardly the answer the

Chief expected. He held his peace. It was no use arguing the subject.

When he came out of the study, he met Rudd palpitating with funk.

"You didn't say anything about my lending you that crib, did you?" Rudd

was very frightened of the Chief.

"Of course not, you bloody-looking fool. The best thing you can do is to

go and get me a better crib with all possible speed, my friend. And mind

it's a decent one. The last one was rotten; and I can't do without one.

I was bottled yesterday."

In three days Rudd's agent from town had procured him a fine edition of

the Sicilian expedition. Davenport and Gordon did some superb construe

during the remainder of the term.

It is, of course, very easy to run down any existing system; and the

Public School system has come in for its fair share of abuse. Yet it

must be remembered that no one has yet been able to devise a better. And

after all, for the average man it is not such a bad training. It is

inclined to destroy individuality, to turn out a fixed pattern; it

wishes to take everyone, no matter what his tastes or ideas may be, and

make him conform to its own ideals. In the process, much good is

destroyed, for the Public School man is slack, easy-going, tolerant, is

not easily upset by scruples, laughs at good things, smiles at bad, yet

he is a fine follower. He has learnt to do what he is told; he takes

life as he sees it and is content. So far so good. With the average

individual the system is not so very unsatisfactory.

But take the case of the boy who has it in him to be a leader, who is

not merely content to follow, but wishes to be at the head, in the

forefront of the battle. What of him? Gordon went to Fernhurst with the

determination to excel, and at once was brought face to face with the

fact that success lay in a blind worship at the shrine of the god of

Athleticism. Honesty, virtue, moral determination--these mattered not at

all. The author of _Eric_ and such others who have never faced, really

faced, life and seen what it is, talk of the incalculable good one boy

can do, who refuses to be led astray by temptations, and remains true to

the ideals he learnt in the nursery. If there does come into any school

such a boy, he is merely labelled as "pi," and taken no notice of. He

who wishes to get to the front has to strive after success on the field,

and success on the field alone. This is the way that the future leaders

of England are being trained to take their proper place in the national

struggle for a right and far-sighted civilisation. On this alone the

system stands condemned. For the history of a nation is the history of

its great men, and the one object of the Public School is to produce not

great men, but a satisfactory type.

Gordon found that, as soon as he was recognised as a coming athlete,

popularity was his, and that on the strength of his physical abilities

he could do pretty well what he liked. For there is no strong feeling in

schools on the subject of honesty and morality. And it is not unnatural

that a boy, finding that no one will object if he follows the call of

pleasure, drifts with the stream. And then Gordon went off suddenly at

games, as the best athlete must at some time or other. Like many others,

he loved popularity and fame. So, in order to keep in the limelight, he

flung aside all pretences of conscience, and got the reputation of being

"the devil of a sport"--a reputation that is a passport to Public School

society, but is damning to any man's character. Only a few realise this.

Betteridge was one. He was not an athlete, but was clever and in the

Sixth. He enjoyed a rag, but saw the difference between liberty and

licence. He was a freethinker, and saw life with a wide vision that

embraced the whole horizon.

"Look here, Caruthers," he said one evening, during hall, in the last

half of the summer term, "I don't want to say anything; but you know you

are making a most awful ass of yourself."

"What do you mean?"

"You know quite well what I mean. I don't think it's your fault; it is

the fault of this rotten system under which we live. You are not what

you were when you first came. Of course, it is natural to crib and fool

about, but you are going a bit far. One day you will be captain of this

House. You'll be sorry then."

"Oh, don't be a damned ass, Betteridge, preaching to me. I know what I

am doing. It's not long that I shall have to enjoy myself. I shall be in

the Sixth soon, and shall have to slow down then. But at present I shall

do damned well what I like. After all, what does it matter if I do rot

all day and muck about generally? It makes no difference to you or the

House. It's my own damned business, and besides, everyone else does it!"

It was useless to reason with him. The argument that "others do it" is

impossible to combat. And, after all, environment is what counts, and it

is a fairly dangerous environment with which to surround any but the

average sensual being who eats, drinks, laughs and is merry, and never

thinks at all. And yet masters are surprised when they find the big man

whom they thought impregnable following the accepted customs. They say:

"What a pity! A fine fellow gone to the dogs, and after all we've done

for him, too!" and yet whose fault is it?

But this is by the wayside. For better or for worse the character of

Gordon Caruthers was developing on its own lines. Criticism should be

withheld till the last threads are woven, and we can judge of the

complex whole.

* * * * *

The summer term was drawing to a close. It had not been very successful

as far as Gordon was concerned. His cricket had frankly been a failure,

and the prominence he had gained in his House hardly compensated for the

misgivings with which the Chief and Buller regarded his future. It

seemed as if he could not help running up against "the Bull."

A-K was knocked out of the Senior House competition at once. They drew

Christy's and were beaten by an innings. Gordon made eleven and fifteen,

and was missed three times while making them. Foster, however, got a

very sturdy thirty-three not out, and took three wickets. He got his

House cap. Gordon was furious, and swore that he was jolly well not

going to try any more that term.

During the final senior he was strolling round the field with Tester,

both of them in cloth suits, unchanged for games. "The Bull" came up

behind them.

"Caruthers, why aren't you changed this afternoon?"

"Well sir, we only had a House game this afternoon, so Tester and I got

leave off to watch the match."

"But your House is not playing in it."

"No, sir."

"Well, then, what on earth do you mean by slacking about the field like

this? It's your duty to be training yourself too, so that some day you

may be of some use to Fernhurst, and here are you slacking about,

instead of asking the pro. to give you a net. Slackness! filthy

slackness! I don't know what's wrong with you this term; you were quite

keen once."

He strolled off, scratching the back of his head. "The Bull" always did

this when in a bad temper.

"Poor old chap," murmured Tester, "he takes these little things so much

to heart. He loathes me because I don't sweat myself to death all day at

the nets. He never said anything to me; he has given me up as a bad job.

Poor old chap!"

"Well, I suppose we ought to have been at the nets," said Gordon.

"If we did everything that we ought to do in this world, we should never

have a moment's time to do the things we liked."

"I suppose so," said Gordon, "but still, you know--oh, well, what the

hell does it matter? By Jove, well hit, Dyke!"

The conversation turned again to the match.

Next term Gordon had arranged to have a study with Lovelace. Tester was

going to be a prefect, and wanted to himself the big upstairs study that

Clarke had had. Gordon was staying in No. 1.

He was not sorry. He did not quite understand Tester; he was too clever,

and Gordon never knew exactly what he was driving at. Lovelace, on the

other hand, was his best friend; they had played together in several

sides, and next term Lovelace would captain the footer Colts. The future

seemed very roseate. Moreover, he was certain to get into the Sixth, and

that meant many privileges. He did not have to attend rolls, he could be

late for tea, there was no need for him to get leave to speak to anyone

in hall. It meant many study hours, and it would also bring him into

contact with the Olympians. There was Garter, who had been in the Sixth

four terms, and was in the Second Fifteen. He would meet Betteridge.

There was Rudd to rag. Prothero had reduced his time-table to one hour

in school a day, and was an authority to consult on any subject

regarding avoiding work. Davenport would be promoted, too. Gordon's day

of power was beginning to dawn. Next term he would be distinctly a House

blood. It was a ravishing thought.

One evening in exam. week Hunter announced casually after tea: "I say,

do you remember Betteridge talking once about a man called Ferrers?

Well, he is coming here as a master next term."

"Oh, Lord, is he really?" said Fletcher. "I suppose he will be full of

rotten new theories, and he will probably want to make us work."

"Well, I always give a master a good fortnight's trial before I do any

work for him," said Tester; "at the end of that, I usually find his

keenness has worn off. I bet he will be the same as all the rest."

"I doubt it," said Betteridge; "he is a man."

"Well, whatever he is, he is going to have no effect on me," said

Gordon, with a finality that quite closed the question.

CHAPTER IV: THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

As often as not, it is mere chance that provides the most essentially

important moments in our lives. It is easy to talk of the inevitable

march of Fate, but more usually a chance word or look alters our entire

outlook on life. And so it was that the course of Gordon's whole career

was suddenly changed into a different channel, at a moment when he was

drifting placidly on the stream of a lax conventionality, and was

frittering away all his opportunities for sheer lack of anything that

would spur him on to a clearer conception of what life means.

During the whole of the term, Tester and Gordon had done their early

morning preparation on the V. A green. As they had answered their names

at roll, they would take out deck-chairs and cushions and luxuriously

pass the three quarters of an hour before breakfast reclining back,

putting the finishing touches to the evening's work. It is a very

beautiful spot, the V. A green. On three sides it is flanked with

buildings; on the fourth is a low wall, which is used as an exit for

nocturnal expeditions. It was under the V. A class-room that Gordon and

Tester put their chairs. Opposite them was the grey library; beyond rose

the Abbey, solemn and austere; on the left was the chapel and the long

cloister leading to big school. In the early morning a great hush

pervaded the place. The only sound was the faint tolling of the

Almshouse bell. Between the Abbey and the library the sun rose in a

blaze of glory.

On the last morning of the term Gordon and Tester lolled back in their

comfortable chairs. Gordon was trying to learn his rep. for the exam.

that morning. Tester was reading _The Oxford Book of English Verse_; the

exams for the Sixth were over.

"Oh, damn this," said Gordon. "I can't learn the stuff."

He flung the book down, and lay back watching the first rays of the sun

flicker on the cold bronze of the Abbey.

"This has been a rotten term, you know," he said at last.

"Yes?" said Tester. He was engrossed in poetry.

"Well, I got into the deuce of a row with Chief, and I never got my

House cap, and I've broken it off with Jackson."

Tester put down his book and sat up.

"Caruthers, you know you are wasting your time. Here are you with all

your brilliance and your personality worrying only about House caps and

petty intrigues, and little things like that. What you want to realise

is that there is something beyond the aim of a Fernhurst career. You are

clever enough; but poetry and art mean nothing to you."

"Oh poetry, that's all right for Claremont and asses like that, but

what's the use of it?"

"Oh, use, use! Nothing but this eternal cry about the use of a thing.

Poetry is the sort of beacon-light of man. What's wrong with you is that

you've read the wrong stuff. It is all very well for a middle-aged man

to worship Wordsworth and calm philosophy. But youth wants colour, life,

passion, the poetry of revolt. Now look here, let me read you this, and

then tell me what you think of it."

"Oh, all right. Is it long?"

"No, not very."

In a low, clear voice, Tester began to read the great spring Chorus in

_Atalanta_, into which Swinburne has crowded all that he ever knew of

joy and happiness. In everyone there lies the love of beauty--"we needs

must love the highest when we see it"--but the pity is that so few of us

are ever brought face to face with the really lovely, or perhaps, if we

are, we come to it too late. Our power of appreciation has lain too long

dormant ever to be aroused. And at school it is the common thing for

boys to pass through their six years' traffic without ever realising

what beauty is. They are told to read Vergil, Tennyson and Browning, the

philosophers, the comforters of old age, poets who "had for weary feet

the gift of rest." But boys never hear of Byron, Swinburne and Rossetti,

men with big flaming hearts that cried for physical beauty and the

loveliness of tangible things. As a result they drift out into the

world, to take their place with the dull, commonplace Philistine who has

made the House of Commons what it is.

But as Gordon heard Tester reading the wonderful riot of melody, which

conjures up visions of rainbows, and far-receding sunsets, of dew

gleaming like crystals in the morning, of water gliding like forgotten

songs, a strange peace descended on him. He had not known that there

could be anything so intensely beautiful. Over the great Abbey the sun

was rising heavenwards; down the street past the Almshouses he heard the

happy sound of a young girl laughing. The world was full of strange new

things; there was a new meaning in the song of the blackbird, in the

rustle of the leaves, in the whispering of the warm wind. And suddenly

there came over him a sensation of how far he himself was below the

splendour of it all. He had walked through life with blinded eyes; with

dulled senses he had stared at the ground, while all the time the great

ideal of beauty was shining from the blue mountains of man's desire.

Tester had finished reading.

"Well what do you think of it?"

"Oh, it's wonderful. I never dreamt of such music."

"Yes, you see, masters grow old; they forget what it was like to be

young; they want us to look at life through their spectacles, and, of

course, we can't. Youth and age is an impossible combination; we have to

cut a way for ourselves, Caruthers, sometimes we fail, sometimes we

succeed. I've made a pretty fair mess of things, because I have gone on

my own way; because I have had no one to guide me. I found little

consolation in mature thought, and I am not one of the fools who has

just taken things for granted; I strike out by myself. I want to find

what beauty really is, and I shall find it by sifting out everything

first. I have probed a good many things one way and another, some ugly,

some beautiful. I have followed the course of Nature. After all, Nature

is more likely to be right than an artificial civilisation. I follow

where my inclinations lead me. I hate laws and regulations. As I've

often said, I did not ask to come into this world, so I shall do as I

please, and I think that I shall reach home all right in the end.

Literature is a great sign-post!"

"Yes," said Gordon simply. "I never imagined it before. Who wrote that,

by the way?"

"Swinburne, the great pagan who was sick of the sham and pretence of his

day, and cried for the glories of Rome. Look here, Caruthers, come down

to Gisson's afterwards, and as a memento of our year together in Study

1, just let me give you Swinburne's _Poems and Ballads_. It's great

stuff; you'll like it, and you'll find there something a bit better than

your caps and pots."

Gordon did not answer. The sun had now risen high above the Abbey.

Across the silence was wafted the cracked notes of the School House

bell; there was a rush of feet from the studies. For a few minutes

Gordon lay back in his chair quite quiet. A new day had broken on his

life. The future opened out with wide promises, with possibilities of

great things. For he had heard at last the call which, if ever a man

hears it, he casts away the nets and follows after--the call of

beauty--"which is, after all, only truth, seen from another side."

BOOK III: UNRAVELLING THE THREADS

"... and drank delight of battle with my peers."

TENNYSON.

"Yet would you tread again

All the road over?

Face the old joy and pain--

Hemlock and clover?

Yes. For it still was good,

Good to be living,

Buoyant of heart and blood;

Fighting, forgiving."

AUSTIN DOBSON.

"Oh! the hardest day was never then too hard."

LINDSAY GORDON.

CHAPTER I: COMMON ROOM FACES

Miracles do not happen, nor do sudden conversions. Man very rarely

changes. What he is at the beginning, he is at the end; all that occurs

is that at various stages of his journey he looks at life from a

different point of view, or rather through a different pair of

spectacles, for never on this earth do we really see things as they are.

When Gordon found new influences at work upon him, when he discovered

through literature that there is something higher than the ignoble

monotony of the average individual routine, he did not suddenly change

his whole way of life, and, "like a swimmer into cleanness leaping," put

out of sight behind him the things that had pleased him once. Right and

wrong are merely relative terms. What was considered right in the days

of Caesar spells social ostracism to-day. And there are a few who prefer

to see life as the Romans saw it, and to follow the ideals of power and

physical beauty. For such life is not easy. Yet we are not so much

better than "when Caesar Augustus was Egypt's Lord!" The question of what

is really right and what is really wrong will never be satisfactorily

decided, on this earth at any rate, for we cannot all wear the same

spectacles for long. Temperament is all-powerful.

And Gordon made no attempt to settle the question. He did not suddenly

feel a loathing for his former pleasures, but during the long summer

holidays, as he bathed in the waters of English poetry, it seemed to him

as if he had outgrown them, and cast them aside. Perhaps in the future

they might momentarily appear beautiful once more, but he did not think

that he would ever again wear them for very long, for they were, after

all, little, insignificant, trivial, and contrasted poorly with the

white heat of Byron's passion, and the flaming ardour of Swinburne, that

cried for "the old kingdoms of earth and their kings." As he read on,

while the summer sun sank in a red sea behind the gaunt Hampstead firs,

read of the proud, domineering soul of Manfred, visualised the burst of

passion that had prompted the murder in _The Last Confession_, felt the

thundering paganism of the _Hymn to Proserpine_, he was overcome with a

tremendous hatred for the system that had kept literature from him as a

shut book, that had offered him mature philosophy instead of colour and

youth, and tried to prevent him from seeking it for himself. So this is

the way, he thought, the youth of England is being brought up. Masters

tell us to fix all our energies on achieving school successes, and think

of calf-bound prizes and tasselled caps all day long. No wonder that, if

they bind us down to trivial things, we become like the Man with the

Muck-Rake, and drift on with low aims, with nothing to help us to live

differently from cattle. No wonder the whole common room is repeatedly

shocked by the discovery of some sordid scandal.

Gordon's soul was very arrogant and very intolerant, and it was rather

unfortunate that, at a time when he was bubbling over with rebellion,

Arnold Lunn's novel, _The Harrovians_, should have been published, as no

previous school story had done it stripped school life of sentiment, and

a storm of adverse criticism broke out. Old Harrovians wrote to the

papers, saying that they had been at Harrow for six years, and that the

conversation was, except in a few ignoble exceptions, pure and manly,

and that the general atmosphere was one of clean, healthy

broadmindedness. Gordon fumed. What fools all these people were! When

they were told the truth, they would not believe it. Prophets must

prophesy smooth things, or else were not prophets. How was there ever

going to be any hope of improvement till the true state of affairs was

understood?

And then a sudden doubt came to Gordon. What if these old Harrovians

were right? What if this man Lunn had depicted the life of the

exceptional, not of the average boy? What then of Fernhurst? He had

judged the book by his own experiences. Was it possible that his school

was worse than other schools, and what was usual there, would be

exceptional at Rugby, Eton and Winchester? He had been so proud of

Fernhurst, with its grey cloisters and dreaming Abbey, with its

magnificent Fifteen and fine boxers. He had cursed at the Public School

system because he thought it had done harm to Fernhurst. What if

Fernhurst and not the system were at fault? For several days this

worried him.

One evening, however, during the last week of the holidays, a Mr Ainslie

came to dinner. He had been a contemporary of Lunn's at Harrow, and had

himself been head of his house for two years. The conversation had

drifted to a discussion of recent books: _The Woman Thou Gavest Me_,

_Sinister Street_, _The Devil's Garden_, _Round the Corner_.

"By the way, Gordon," said Ainslie, "read that book, _The Harrovians_?"

"Oh yes, sir."

"What did you think of it?"

"I liked it very much--thought it was the finest school story I had ever

read." Gordon felt rather nervous. He was aware that he was on thin ice,

and timidly blurted out: "But, sir, was it true to Harrow life?"

"Absolutely; and it's as true to the life of any other Public School.

They are all much the same, you know, at the root."

An immense weight was lifted from Gordon's mind.

"I thought so, sir, but such a lot of fellows wrote to the papers saying

it was all rot, and I began to wonder if----"

"My dear Gordon, don't you make any mistake about it. Lunn knows what he

is talking about. But old Public School men shroud their school life in

a mist of sentiment; so they forget what they really did. All they

remember is how they ragged the 'stinks' master, and pulled off the

Senior cricket cup. Why, when that new house master--oh, what's his

name, Lee? Well, at any rate, when he came to Lunn's house he was slowly

getting rid of undesirables for terms, actually for terms. Cayley was

not the only one who had to go, and, of course, no one thought of

anything but games. I got a schol. there from my prep., and I literally

had to live it down. It took me some time, too. We want a good deal of

improvement in this rusty old system."

So after all it was the system that was at fault, not Fernhurst....

Fairly contentedly he went back by the three-thirty from Waterloo; but

as he saw the evening sun steeping the gravel courts in shadows, and

watched the lights flickering behind the study panes, it came home to

him with a poignant vividness that Fernhurst, which should have been a

home of dreams and of ideas, had, by the inefficiency of a vacillating

system, become immersed in petty intrigues, and was filled with a

generation that was being taught to blind itself to the higher issues.

But in a moment he was caught up in the tear and bustle of an opening

term. There was the rush to the notice-board to see what dormitory he

was in, who were the prefects; then the hurried interview with the

Chief, and the inevitable Health certificate. The meeting of the

eight-ten from Exeter; prayers; the arrival of the last train; and

finally sleep. The hold of tradition is very strong; in a few moments

Gordon had flung aside his doubts and scruples. Arm-in-arm with Collins

he rolled down to the day-room to look at the new boys. There were

twelve of them in all, very frightened, very timid, huddled round the

day-room fire, wondering what was before them.

"Well, Caruthers, what do you think of that lot?" said Collins, as they

swaggered back again to the studies.

"Oh, not much; that fellow second from the left was not bad. What's his

name, oh yes, Morcombe. Believe me, he is some stuff."

"Oh, I thought him rather a washed-out specimen, but, I say, that fat

fellow looks rather a sport. You know, the man like a dormouse."

"Oh yes, that podgy lad. Morgan, he is Welsh, I know about him. He was

captain of the prep, last year at football--not a bad forward, I

believe. Oh, but there's Lovelace--Lovelace."

"Hullo, Caruthers."

In a huge brown coat, Lovelace charged across from the porter's lodge.

"Had any cricket? What price Middlesex--below Hants, rotten county--you

should watch Leicester now."

"Oh, dry up, Middlesex has had bad luck this year." The defeat at Lord's

by Worcester and Kent in the same week was a sore point with Gordon.

"Oh, did they? I call them rotten players. But, look here, who are

pres?"

"Oh, Tester, Betteridge, Clarke, Mansell, all the whole crowd."

"Good God, 'some' pres! Wait a sec. for me. I am only going to see Chief

for a second. I am going to get confirmed, I think. I heard you get off

some work for it. Half a sec."

Back to the old life again. Nothing was changed. The same talk, the same

interests, all the old things the same. Only he was altered. He felt as

if he wanted to stand on the Abbey tower, and shout aloud that the

School was wasting its opportunities, and was struggling blindly in the

dark, following will-o'-the-wisps. And yet, for all that, he would not

have Lovelace, or Mansell or any other of his friends the least bit

different. He did not know what he wanted. It was better to let them go

on as they were. As it had been, it would be. He could not do much, and

at the moment he decided that, whatever he might think or feel, he would

outwardly remain the same. The world was not going to look at his soul.

He would go on as he had begun, putting things behind him as he outgrew

them, and as they appeared childish to him. Only a very few should ever

see him as he really was. The rest would not understand him, they would

think him strange, unnatural; and he did not want that.

The first few days passed quickly. The entrance of Ferrers, the new

master, into the placid Fernhurst atmosphere caused a mild sensation.

The school first saw him walking across the courts after the masters'

meeting on the first day of term. His walk was a roll; he talked at the

top of his voice; his left arm sustained a pile of books; his right arm

gesticulated wildly.

"Good Gawd," said Tester, "what a bounder."

"Maybe, but he's the sort of man to wake up the school," said

Betteridge.

"Isn't it rather like applying a stomach-pump to a man who is only fit

for a small dose of Eno's Fruit Salt?"

"_Nous verrons._"

And in the bustle of a new term Ferrers was forgotten.

Gordon was in the Sixth, and its privileges were indeed sweet. He felt

very proud as he sat in the same room with Harding, a double-first, and

head of the House, and with Hazelton, the captain of the House. Though

it was an ordeal to go on to "con" before them, it was very magnificent

to roll down to the football field just before the game began without

attending roll.

"I say, Caruthers," Lovelace would yell across the changing-room, "do

buck up; it's nearly twenty-five to three, and roll is at a quarter to."

"I don't go to roll," came the lordly answer.

And he felt the eyes of admiring juniors fixed on him. It was sheer joy,

too, to wear the blue ribbon of the Sixth Form and to carry a

walking-stick; to stroll into shops that were to the rest of the school

out of bounds; to go to the armoury and the gym. after tea without a

pass. But it was in hall that the new position meant most.

While the rest of the house had to stay in their studies and make some

pretence of work, he would wander indolently down the passage and pay

calls. When he paused outside a study he heard the invariable sound of a

novel flying into the waste-paper basket, of a paper being shoved under

the table, or a cake being relegated to the window-seat. Then he came

in.

A curse always greeted him.

"Oh, damn you, Caruthers, I thought it was a prefect. Foster, hoist out

that cake; we were just having a meal."

He now had the freedom of studies that had before been to him as holy

places. Where once Clarke had dealt out justice with a heavy hand,

Tester and he sat before the fire discussing books and life. In the

games study, where once he trembled before the rage of Lovelace major,

he sat with Carter in hall preparing Thucydides. Steps would sound down

the passage, a knock on the door.

"Come in," bawled Carter.

"Please, Carter, may I speak to Smith?" a nervous voice would say. No

one could talk without leave from a prefect during hall.

"Yes; and shut the outer door," Carter answered, without looking round.

The prefectorial dignity seemed in a way to descend on Gordon; just then

life was very good. But there were times when he would feel an

uncontrollable impatience with the regime under which he lived. One of

these was on the second Sunday of term. It was Rogers' turn to preach,

and, as always, Gordon prepared himself for a twenty minutes' sleep till

the outburst of egoistic rhetoric was spent. But this time, about

half-way through, a few phrases floated through his mist of dreams and

caught his attention. Rogers was talking about the impending

confirmation service. With one hand on the lectern and the other

brandishing his pince-nez, as was his custom when he intended to be more

than usually impressive, he began the really vital part of the sermon.

"In the holidays there appeared as, I am sorry to say, I expect some of

you saw, a book pretending to deal with life at one of our largest

Public Schools. I say, pretending, because the book contains hardly a

word of truth. The writer says that the boys are callous about religious

questions and discuss matters which only grown-up people should mention

in the privacy of their own studies, and still more serious, the purport

of the book was to attack not only the boys but even the masters who so

nobly endeavour to inculcate living ideas of purity and Christianity. I

am only too well aware when I look round this chapel to-night--this

chapel made sacred by so many memories--that nearly every word of that

accusation is false. Yet perhaps there are times--in our mirth, shall we

say?--when we are engaged in sport, or genial merriment, when we are

inclined to treat sacred matters not with quite that reverence that we

ought. Perhaps----"

Rogers prosed on, epithet followed epithet, egotism and arrogance vied

with one another for predominance. The school lolled back in the oak

seats and dreamt of house matches, rags, impositions, impending rows. At

last the Chief gave out the final hymn. Into the cloisters the school

poured out, hustling, shouting, a stream of shadows. Contentedly Rogers

went back to his house, ate a large meal, and addressed a little homily

to the confirmation candidates in his house on the virtues of sincerity.

"What a pitiable state of mind old 'Bogus' must be in," sighed Tester,

when the scurry of feet along the passage had died down kind of quiet,

and he and Gordon were sitting in front of a typically huge School House

fire.

"I don't think I should call it a mind at all," muttered Gordon, who was

furious about the whole affair. "The man's an utter fool. When he is

told the truth he won't believe it, but stands there in the pulpit

rambling on, airing his rotten opinions. Good God, and that's the sort

of man who is supposed to be moulding the coming generation. Oh, it's

sickening."

"Well, my good boy, what more can you expect? The really brilliant men

don't take up schoolmastering; it is the worst paid profession there is.

Look at it, a man with a double-first at Oxford comes down to a place

like Fernhurst and sweats his guts out day and night for two hundred

pounds a year. Of course, the big men try for better things. Rogers is

just the sort of fool who would be a schoolmaster. He has got no brain,

no intellect, he loves jawing, and nothing could be more suitable for

him than the Third Form, the pulpit, and a commission in the O.T.C. But

perhaps he may have a few merits. I have not found any yet."

"Nor I. But, you know, some good men take up schoolmastering."

"Oh, of course they do. There is the Chief, for instance, a brilliant

scholar and _the_ authority on Coleridge. But he is an exception; and

besides, he did not stop an assistant master long; he got a

headmastership pretty soon. Chief is a splendid fellow. But I am talking

of the average man. Just look at our staff: a more fatuous set of fools

I never struck. All in a groove, all worshipping the same rotten tin

gods. I am always repeating myself, but I can't help it. Damn them all,

I say, they've mucked up my life pretty well; not one of them has tried

to help me. They sit round the common room fire and gas. Betteridge

swears Ferrers is a wonderful man; personally, I think he is an

unmitigated nuisance. But at any rate, he is the only man who ever

thinks for himself. Oh, what fools they all are."

For the rest of the evening Gordon and Tester cursed and swore at

everyone and everything, and on the whole felt better for having got it

off their chests. At any rate, next day Gordon was plotting a rag on an

enormous scale with Archie Fletcher; and in a House game assisted in the

severe routing of Rogers' house by seventy-eight points to nil. It takes

a good deal to upset a boy of fifteen for very long. And the long

evenings were a supreme happiness.

* * * * *

It must be owned that during hall Lovelace was rather unsociable. It was

not that he studied Greek or Latin; he had a healthy contempt for

scholastic triumphs; horse-racing was the real interest of his life.

"This is my work," he used to scoff, brandishing _The Sportsman_ in

Gordon's face. "I am not going to be a classic scholar, and I sha'n't

discover any new element, or such stuff as that. I am going on the turf.

This is my work."

For an hour every evening he laboured perseveringly at "his work" with

form books, _The Sportsman_, and huge account books. For every single

race he chose the runners, and laid imaginary bets; each night he made

out how much he had lost or made; and it must be confessed that if he

had really laid money on the horses, he would most certainly have done a

good term's work. By Christmas he was one hundred and seventeen pounds

up. This pursuit, of course, rather militated against his activities in

the class-room; but, as he said, "It was only Claremont, the old

Methuselah--and they had a damned good crib." Lovelace did his work from

seven to eight, and during this time Caruthers, who seemed to be in the

happy condition of never having any work to do at all, wandered round

the studies. And during his peregrinations many who had been to him

before merely units in a vast organisation detached themselves from the

rest, and became to him living characters; especially was this so with

Foster. He had played with Foster for two years in the Colts and in A-K

sides, but there had never been anything in common between them; their

interests had been far apart; neither stood for anything to the other.

But now, when Gordon found himself frequently dropping into Foster's

study for half-an-hour or so, he realised how many qualities Foster had.

Foster was strong-willed, obstinate almost, quite regardless of

tradition, in his own way slightly a rebel, and a past master in the art

of deceiving masters. There are two ways of making a master look a fool:

one is by introducing processions and coloured mice; the other by bowing

before him, making him think you are hard-working and industrious, and

all the while laughing at him behind his back. Gordon preferred the

former, because he had the love of battle; but Foster held to the second

method, in its way equally effective, and anyone who shook a spear

against authority was sure of sympathy from Gordon.

It was a great sight to see Foster bamboozle Claremont. With the

greatest regularity Foster was ploughed in his con., failed to score in

Latin prose, and knew nothing of his rep. And yet he never got an

imposition. He would point out how hard he worked; he often stayed

behind after school for a few seconds to ask Claremont a point in the

unseen. Such keenness was unusual, and Claremont could not connect it

with the slovenly productions that he had learnt to associate with

the name of Foster. For a long time it was a vast enigma. At

half term Foster's report consisted of one word, typically

Claremontian--"Inscrutable." But manners always win in the end. Foster

showed so much zeal, such an honest willingness to learn, that Claremont

finally classed him as a hard-working, keen, friendly, but amazingly

stupid boy. The Army class, which Foster honoured with his presence,

always did Latin and English with Claremont, and for over two years

Foster sat at the back of Claremont's room, scoring marks by singles

when others scored by tens. Yet his reports were invariably good; he

never had an imposition; he never needed to prepare a line of anything.

"Well, Foster," Claremont used to say, as he returned a prose entirely

besmirched with blue pencil, "I believe you really try, but the result

is most disheartening."

Foster always looked profoundly distressed; and at the end of the hour

he would go up, prose in hand, and ask why the subject of an active verb

could not be in the ablative. Two minutes later he would emerge with a

broad grin on his face, and murmur to whoever might be near that

Claremont was "a most damnable ass, but none the less a pleasant

creature." And in the evening hall he and Gordon would discuss how one

or other of them had advanced a step further into the enemy's country,

and taken one more pawn in the gigantic game of bluff. They were both in

their own fashion working to the same end.

But at this point the serene calm of Gordon's life was suddenly rudely

interrupted by an incursion on the part of "the Bull." About three weeks

after the term had begun the Colts played their first game, and like

most sides at the beginning of a season, they were terribly

disorganised. Lovelace, who had been in under-sixteen teams for years,

was the Senior Colts badge and was captain. Burgoyne led the scrum; he

was a rough diamond, if indeed a diamond at all, and was not too popular

with the side. Foster was scrum half; Collins and Gordon were in the

scrum. It was really quite a decent side, but this particular afternoon

it started shakily. "The Bull" raged so madly and cursed so furiously

that the side became petrified with funk, and could do nothing right.

Once and only once did the Colts look like scoring, and then Lovelace

knocked on the easiest pass right between the posts.

"Never did I see anything like it," bellowed Buller. "For eighteen years

I have coached Fernhurst; and before that I coached Oxford and

Gloucestershire; and I am not going to stand this. Lovelace, you are not

fit to be captain of a pick-up, let alone a school Colts side. Burgoyne,

skipper the side. Now then, two minutes more to half-time; do something,

Colts."

The Colts did do something. They let the other side score twice. At

half-time Buller poured forth a superb torrent of rhetoric. And suddenly

there came over Gordon an uncontrollable desire to laugh. "The Bull"

looked so funny, with his hair ruffled, and his eyes flaming with wrath.

Gordon had to look the other way, or he would have burst into paroxysms

of laughter. When one is overexcited and worried, hysteria is not far

absent. Gordon turned away.

Then suddenly he felt a terrific assault on his backside. Someone had

booted him most fiercely, and turning round he saw the face of Buller

still more distorted with rage.

"Never saw such rudeness! Here am I trying to coach the rottenest side

that has ever disgraced a Fernhurst ground, and you haven't the manners

to listen to me. Good man, are you so perfect that you can afford to pay

no attention to me? For heaven's sake, don't make your footer like your

cricket, the slackest thing in the whole of Fernhurst. Come on, we'll go

on with this game."

For ten more minutes "the Bull" watched the Colts making feverish

endeavours to do anything right. But his powers of endurance were not

equal to the strain.

"Here," he shouted, as Harding was going up to change after

superintending a pick-up, "you might referee for about ten more minutes

here, will you? I can't bear the sight of the little slackers any

longer."

A sigh of relief went up as the figure of Buller rolled out through the

field gate. Strangely enough, the Colts did rather better after this,

and Collins scored a really quite fine try. But the side left the field

glowing with resentment. None more than Gordon and Lovelace.

"What does the fool mean by making a little ass like Burgoyne captain?"

complained Gordon. "Dirty little beast, who does not wash or shave. And

he hacked me up the bottom, too, the swine. I'm getting a bit sick of

'The Bull.'"

"So am I. What we really want is my brother back again. He kept him in

order all right. My brother was a strong man, and did not stand any rot

from Buller or anyone else."

"Hullo, you two, you look about fed up! What's the row?"

They turned round; Mansell was coming up behind them. Lovelace burst out

perfervidly:

"It's that fool Buller. He cursed the Colts all round, and he made

Burgoyne captain instead of me, and he hacked Gordon's bottom, and told

him he had no manners. Believe me, we have had a jolly afternoon."

"And I suppose he said that he had captained Oxford, Cambridge, New

Zealand and the Fiji Islands, and that in his whole career he had never

seen anything like it."

"Oh yes, he fairly rolled out his qualifications, like a maid-servant

applying for a post."

"Oh, well, never mind," said Mansell; "he is a good chap, really, only

he can't keep his temper. He'll probably apologise to you both before

the end of the day. I remember Ferguson said once: 'All men are fools

and half of them are bloody fools.' Not so bad for Ferguson that! Cheer

up!"

"Yes; but, damn it all, it is a bit thick," said Lovelace. "And a tick

like Burgoyne to boot."

As they were changing, a fag from Buller's made a nervous entry; he

looked very lost, but finally summoned up enough courage to ask

Davenport if he knew where Caruthers was.

"Yonder, sirrah, lurking behind the piano."

The fag came up.

"Oh--I say--er--Caruthers. 'The Bull'--er, I mean Mr Buller wants to see

you as soon as you are changed."

"Right," said Gordon.

"I said so," said Mansell; "he will weep over you and shake your hand

like a long-lost brother; and after you will follow Lovelace, who will

once more lead the lads with white jerseys and red dragons to victory

against Osborne. Good-bye; you needn't stop, you know," he informed the

fag, who was giving a stork-like performance, by gyrating first on one

foot then on another.

"That means I shall miss my tea," said Gordon.

"I fear so," answered Mansell. "I don't really think you can expect 'the

Bull' to receive you with crumpets and muffins and other goodly

delights. Of course to-morrow is Sunday; you might manage to work a

supper-party, but don't rely on it. Come and tell me the result of your

chat; you will find me in my study; don't knock; just walk in; you are

always welcome."

As Gordon walked across the courts to Buller's study he had not the

slightest doubt as to how the interview would end. "The Bull" was often

like this. Only yesterday Foster had told him some long yarn of how he

had beaten a lad in Christy's and had hit his hand by mistake; and to

kick a person was, after all, a far more undignified method of assault.

It was almost actionable. Quite contentedly he knocked on the door and

went in. He was not, however, welcomed with open arms. "The Bull" stood

with his back to the door, facing the fireplace, his hands behind his

back. He did not speak for a minute or so. Gordon wondered if it would

be correct to take a chair. "The Bull" broke the silence.

"Well, Caruthers, are you sorry for what happened this afternoon?"

This took Gordon by surprise: it was hardly the interview he had been

led to expect. He murmured "Yes, sir" rather indistinctly.

"Are you, though? Because if you are going to come in here and say you

are sorry, when you are not, simply to smooth things over, you would be

a pretty rotten sort of fellow."

"Yes, sir." Gordon had recovered his self-control and was ready for a

fight.

"Well, this is the way I look at things. I am here to coach Fernhurst

sides; it is my life's work. I love Fernhurst, and I have devoted all my

energy and care to help my old school, and it seems to me that you are

trying--you and Lovelace between you--to ruin my work and stand in my

light. Both of you as individuals are well worth your places in both

under-sixteen sides, football and cricket. As individuals, I say; and

you think you are indispensable to the side, and that we can't do

without you. You can afford to laugh when you miss catches, and not pay

attention to me when I am trying to give you the benefits of my

experience."

"I heard every word----"

"Will you kindly wait till I have finished. Fernhurst has done very well

in the past without you and Lovelace, and five years hence it will have

to do without you, and I am not going to have you interfere with the

present. You hate me, I dare say; from all I hear of you, you hate my

house; and you stir up sedition against me. You show the others how

much you care for me. And you are both people who have some influence in

your house, and wherever you are, for that matter. And are you using it

for the good of Fernhurst? You ruined all my pleasure in the cricket

Colts; but I don't care about myself. All I care for is Fernhurst. Why

did I stop Lovelace being captain? Because I want a man who is going to

back me up, who is going to play for the side and not for himself. And I

tell you I am going to drop Lovelace; he plays for himself; he gives

rotten passes; he upsets combination; and I won't have him on my side."

Gordon could stand it no longer.

"Sir, I am not going to hold a brief for myself. But you have not

treated Lovelace fairly. Last year on a trial game you kicked him out of

the side, only to find in a week that you could not do without him. And

to-day, sir, on a trial game you deposed him from the captaincy."

"Do you mean to say that after playing Rugby football for twenty-five

years I don't know what I am talking about?"

Gordon saw he had said too much.

"And I am not talking about his play, I am talking about his general

attitude. Now, didn't you two rag about a good deal at the nets last

term?"

"Well, sir, it was hardly ragging, sir----"

"Oh, hardly ragging.... There must be no ragging.... If we are going to

turn out good sides we must be in dead earnest the whole time. You

imagine you are loyal to Fernhurst. My old sides followed me implicitly.

I loved them, and they loved me. We worked together for Fernhurst; now,

are you doing your best for Fernhurst?"

Gordon was overwhelmed. He wanted to tell "the Bull" how mistaken he

was; that he and Lovelace did not hate him at all; that they were doing

their best; but that their sense of humour was at times too strong. But

it was useless. "The Bull" would not give him a chance. And he had

learnt from Mansell and Tester that "the Bull" could only see one point

of view at a time. And yet he was filled with an immense admiration for

this man who thought only of Fernhurst, who had worked for Fernhurst all

his life, who made Fernhurst's interests the standard for every

judgment and action. There was something essentially noble in so

unswerving a devotion. If only his love of Fernhurst had not made him so

complete an egoist.

"Well, what is it to be, Caruthers?" Buller went on. "Are you going to

work with me or against me? When you first came you were keen and

willing. You are still keen, but you think too much of yourself now; you

imagine you know more than I do. Is all this going to stop? Are we going

to work together?"

There was nothing to be gained by arguing.

"Sir, I shall do my best to."

"Well, I hope so, Caruthers. It is not for my own sake I mind; you see

that, don't you? It is Fernhurst that matters. We must all do our best

for Fernhurst. I hope we sha'n't have any more trouble, you will be a

power in the school some day, we must work together--for Fernhurst."

"Yes, sir."

Gordon walked to the door; as he put his hand on the knob he paused for

a second, then turned round.

"Good-night, sir."

"Good-night, Caruthers."

He was out in the street again. There was a tremendous noise going on in

one of the Buller's studies. From the courts came sounds of barge

football. He did not feel as if he wanted to go and discuss everything

with Mansell for a minute or so. Slowly he wandered round the shrubbery,

past the big school, past the new buildings into the Abbey courtyard. He

sat down on a seat and tried to think. A girl came and sat beside him

and smiled at him invitingly. He took no notice. She sat there a minute

or so, then got up and walked off stiffly. The Abbey clock boomed out

the quarter to six. In a minute or so he would have to go back to tea.

He was worried. He liked "the Bull," admired him intensely; and yet "the

Bull" thought he hated him, thought him disloyal. Why could not Buller

keep his temper? Why must he rush to conclusions without weighing the

evidence? And "the Bull" was such a splendid man; he was one of the very

few masters Gordon respected in the least. He wanted "the Bull" to like

him. And then there was Lovelace. Why couldn't "the Bull" try to see

life as Lovelace saw it? Why must he want everyone to share the same

views as he, look at everything through the same spectacles? It wouldn't

have mattered if he was merely an insignificant busybody like Christy.

He was such a splendid fellow, such a man. It was all such a pity. And

yet he realised that he would have to try and bend his will to that of

Buller; he must endeavour to work side by side with him. It would not do

to have Fernhurst split up into two camps. In the past he had thought he

was doing his best; but "the Bull" wanted absolute subservience. And

what "the Bull" wanted he usually got.

Lovelace, however, took quite a different view. He was mad with Buller.

"Damn it all, it is not the first time the swine has done the dirty on

me. Look at the way he kicked me out of the side last year."

"I know, that's what I told him. And he owned that both of us as

individuals were worth our places, but that we upset the side and rotted

about, and were always up against him."

"Silly ass the man must be. We are keen enough, aren't we? But I damned

well don't see why we should treat footer and cricket like a chapel

service. We can laugh in form if anything funny happens; then why the

hell shouldn't we laugh on the field? And, my God, Caruthers, you did

look an ass when you missed that catch." Lovelace roared with laughter

at the thought of it. "The way you juggled with it, and old Bull tearing

his hair, oh, it was damned funny."

"But, you see, 'the Bull' thinks games are everything, and, damn it all,

they are the things that really matter. We each may have our own private

interests. But games are the thing. Only personally I don't see why we

should not see the funny side of them. To 'the Bull' a dropped catch is

an everlasting disgrace."

"Oh, let 'the Bull' go to blazes, I am sick of him. If he wants to kid

me out of the Colts, he can; and I'll go and enjoy myself on House

games. But look here, there is a Stoics debate to-night and it's nearly

roll-time. You had better go down and bag two seats."

The Stoics society was of elastic proportions, including everyone above

IV. A, for a life subscription of sixpence, and during the winter term

it held meetings every other week in the School House reading-room. The

actual membership was over a hundred, but rarely more than fifty

attended, and of those who went only fifty per cent. paid any attention

to the proceedings. The rest looked on it as a good excuse for getting

off work. Three quarters of the society were from the School House, and

these arrived with deck chairs, cushions and a novel, and thoroughly

enjoyed themselves. Christy was the president, and this was to a great

extent the reason for so general an atmosphere of boredom and

indifference. For Christy was the typical product of conventionality and

pharisaism. He was so thoroughly contented with anything he

superintended that he refused to believe any improvement was possible.

But this year Betteridge was honorary secretary and had tried to infuse

a little life into the society. The subject for the first debate of the

term was "Classical and Modern Education," and Ferrers was going to

speak for the modern side. Ferrers was always writing to the papers, and

was already well known in the common room as a feverish orator. A good

deal had been rumoured about him, and the school were rather anxious to

hear him. There was quite a large audience. At about twenty past seven

Christy came in, and everyone stood up till he had sat down. Burgess was

to open the debate for the classics, and Christy was to second him.

Ferrers and Pothering, the head of Claremont's, were for the moderns.

The debate was supposed to open at twenty past the hour. But Ferrers had

not arrived. There was an awkward pause. At last Christy got up.

"I really think it is useless to wait any longer for Mr Ferrers. We will

proceed. The motion before the House is: That in the opinion of this

House a classical education is more efficacious than a modern one. I

will call on Mr Burgess to open the motion."

There was a little clapping as Burgess got up with a customary display

of conceit. He ran his hand through his hair and took a glance at his

notes, and then began with the blase air of Mercury addressing a

Salvation Army meeting.

"Of course those in favour of modern education will defend themselves on

the grounds of general utility. They will point out the uselessness of

Greek in business; all I can say to that is that the Public School man

should be too much of a gentleman to wish to succeed in business. He

should aim higher; he should follow the ideals set before him by the

classics. Nearly all the poets and politicians of to-day are Public

School men; nearly all ..."

He went on rolling off absurdly dogmatic statements that were based

solely on ignorance and arrogance. He was of the Rogers' school of

oratory. He believed that a sufficient amount of conceit and

self-possession would carry anyone through. About half-way through his

speech he was interrupted by the approach of a whirlwind. There was a

sound of feet on the stone passage, something crashed against the door,

and in rolled Ferrers in a most untidy blue suit, a soft collar, an

immense woollen waistcoat, and three books under his arm. These he

slammed on the table, in company with his cap.

"Awfully sorry, Christy, old fellow ... been kept ... new lot of books

from Methuen's ... had to take one up to my wife ... rather ill, you

know.... Fire away, Burgess."

All his remarks were flung off in jerks at a terrific rate. The abashed

orator concluded rather prematurely and rather wildly; such an incursion

was most irregular and very perplexing.

"I will now call on Mr Ferrers to speak."

Up leapt Ferrers and began at once firing off his speech at the pace of

a cinematograph. He was full of mannerisms. He would clap his hand over

his eyes when he wanted to think of something, and would then spread it

out straight before him. It was rather dangerous to get close. He would

pick up one of his books and shake it in the face of Christy.

"This is what Mackenzie says ... in _Sinister Street_ ... fine book ...

smashes up everything, shows the shallowness of our education ... this

is what he says...."

After he had read a few words, he would bang the book down on the table

and continue pouring forth inextricable anacolutha. Everyone was

listening; they had never heard anything like this before. It was a

revelation. Christy chewed his finger-nails. Burgess assumed an air of

Olympian content. The flood of rhetoric rolled on:

"It is like this, you see; the classical education makes you imitate all

the time ... Greek Prose like Sophocles ... Latin Verse like

Petronius.... I don't know if I have got the names right ... probably

not ... never could stick doing it. There is no free thought. Classics

men do very well in the Foreign Offices, but they can't think.... What

do classics do in the literary world? Nothing. Bennett, Lloyd George,

Wells--the best men never went to a Public School.... We want

originality; and the classics don't give it. They are all right for a

year or so to give a grounding of taste ... though they don't give that

to the average boy ... but no more. What did I learn from

classics?--only to devise a new way of bringing a crib into form.... Is

that an education? No, we want French, jolly few cribs to be got of

Daudet that are any use to the Lower Fifth ... Maths, that's the stuff

... makes them think.... Riders ... get them out your own way--not

Vergil's way or Socrates' way--your own way--originality...."

In this strain he talked for a quarter of an hour, and held the audience

spellbound. He had really interested them. Here was something new,

something worth listening to. He was received with a roar of clapping.

After his speech everything else fell flat. Christy made one or two

super-subtle remarks which no one understood. There was nothing left for

Pothering to say; the motion was then put before the House and the

debate developed into a farce. Idiot after idiot got up and made some

infantile qualification of an earlier statement--all of them talked off

the point. So much so, in fact, that Turner was beginning a tale of a

fight he had had with a coster down Cheap Street when Christy called him

to order.

Gordon at once rose in protest.

"Gentlemen, I address the Chair. It is preposterous that Mr Turner

should have been refused a hearing. We may have lost what would perhaps

have thrown new light on the subject. Doubtless he had carefully

selected this particular anecdote out of a life, alas, too full of

excitement" (a roar greeted this, Christy had beaten Turner that very

morning for eating chocolates in German), "with the express view of

pointing out the superiority of the classics. Doubtless the rough in

question, not knowing the custom in Homeric contests, had failed to

propitiate the gods, while he, the narrator, had rushed into Back Lane

behind Mother Beehive's charming old-world residence, and having offered

a prayer to Mars, waited for his burly antagonist in the darkness, and

as the vile man, clearly one of St Paul's 'god haters'" (that time the

Sixth were reading the "Romans") "thundered by, he smote him with a

stone above the eye, and left him discomfited and, like OEdipus, well

nigh blind. Here we see----"

But the meeting never found out what they really saw. Gordon was called

to order, and sat down amid a tumult of applause. One or two more

speakers brought fresh evidence to bear on the subject; and then there

was the division. The moderns won by a huge majority. As the rabble

passed into the passage Gordon heard Ferrers say to Christy in his most

patronising manner:

"Rather wiped the ground with you, didn't we?... Well, never mind, you

stood no earthly.... Days of the classics are over. Still, you fought

well.... Third line of defence--_ad triarios_.... I remember a bit of my

classics."

Gordon was borne out on the stream past the matron's room to the end of

the passage, and the rest of Ferrers's speech was lost.

From this day the Stoics underwent a complete change. The whole nature

of the society was altered. Ferrers was so absolutely different from

anything that a master had appeared to be from time immemorial. He was

essentially of the new generation, an iconoclast, a follower of Brooke

and Gilbert Cannan, heedless of tradition, probing the root of

everything. At the end of the term Christy resigned his presidency. He

could not keep pace with the whirlwind Ferrers.

"You know, Caruthers," said Tester in second hall, "whatever our

personal feelings may be, we have got to allow that this man Ferrers has

got something in him."

"Something! Why, I thought him simply glorious. Here he is bursting in

on the prude conventionality of Fernhurst full of new ideas, smashing up

the things that have been accepted unquestionably for years. By Jove,

the rest of the staff must hate him."

"There was a thing by him in the _A.M.A._ the other day that caused

considerable annoyance, I believe. I didn't read the thing myself, but I

heard 'the Bull' saying it was disgraceful that a Fernhurst master

should be allowed to say such things. I suppose he said something

against games."

"Well, damn it all, if he did, he is in the wrong. Games are absolutely

necessary. What on earth would the country be like without them?"

"A damned sight better, I should think."

"Oh, don't be an ass. Just look at the fellows who don't play games,

Rudd and Co. What wrecks they are! Utterly useless. We could do

perfectly well without them. Could not we now?"

At this point Betteridge strolled in very leisurely. Authority had made

him a dignified person. The days of ragging Trundle seemed very distant.

He did not go about with Mansell so much now. He was more often with

Carter and Harding.

"Betteridge, come in and sit down," said Tester; "we were arguing on the

value of games. Don't you agree with me that it's about time a man like

Ferrers made a sensible attack on them?"

"Yes; though I doubt if Ferrers is quite the man to do it. He is such a

revolutionary. He would want to smash everything at once. A gradual

change is what is needed. I look at it like this. Games are all right in

themselves. A man must keep himself physically fit; but games are only a

means to an end. The object of all progress is to get a clear,

clean-sighted race, intellectual and broadminded. And I think physical

fitness is a great help in the production of a clear, clean mind. The

very clever man who is weak bodily is so apt to become a decadent; and

because he himself can't stand any real exertion, despises those who

can. Games are necessary as a means to an end. But Buller and all the

rest of the lot think games are the actual end. Look at the way a man

with his footer cap is idealised and worshipped. He may be an utter

rake; probably is, most likely he has no brains at all. If he ever had

them, he soon ceased to use them, and devotes all his energies to

athletic success. Why should we worship him? Merely because he can kick

a rotten football down a rotten field. It is this worship of athletics

that is so wrong."

"Oh, you are talking rot," burst out Gordon angrily; "the English race

is the finest in the whole world and has been bred on footer and

cricket. I own the Public School system has its faults; but not because

of games. It stamps out personality, tries to make types of us all,

refuses to allow us to think for ourselves. We have to read and pretend

to like what our masters tell us to. No freedom. But games are all

right. We all have our own interests. Poetry is my chief one at present.

But that doesn't blind me to the fact that games are what count. Where

should we be without them? And I damn well hope the House is not going

to get into a finicky, affected state of mind, despising them because

they are too slack to play them. That's why you hate them, Betteridge,

because you are no good at them. My great ambition is to be captain of

this House and win the Three Cock. Of course the worship of sport is all

right. Our fathers worshipped it, and damned good fellows they were,

too. I can't stand you when you talk like this. I am going to find

Lovelace; he has got a bit of sense."

The door slammed noisily behind him.

"He is very young," said Betteridge.

"Yes; and full of hopes," murmured Tester. "It is a pity to think he

will have to be so soon disillusioned. Very little remains the same for

long. Pleasure is very evanescent."

Betteridge looked at him a little curiously.

"I should not have thought you would have found that out," he said.

Tester shrugged.

"Oh, well, you know, even the fastest of us get tired of our licence at

times. Byron would have become a Benedictine monk if he had lived to be

fifty."

Betteridge smiled, and picking up a Browning from the table sank into an

easy-chair to read.

Tester remained looking into the fire. What a fool he had been to give

himself away just then. It was his great object never to let anyone see

into his soul. He had once shown Caruthers what he was, because he could

not bear to see a person of ability wasting himself for want of high

ideals. He had tried to show him that there was something above the

commonplace routine of life. And in a way he had succeeded. Caruthers

often came in in the evenings to discuss poetry with him, and those were

some of the happiest moments of his life. He was not sorry that he had

poured out his heart to him. Of course Caruthers was still young, was

still under the influence of environment. But in time he was sure to

realise that athletics were not the aim of life, but only a tavern on

the wayside, where we may rest for a little, or which we may pass by,

just as our fancy takes us. If Caruthers saw this at last, he would then

have done at least something not altogether vain.

For, after all, what a useless life his had been. The road he had

travelled seemed white with the skeletons of broken hopes. In the

glowing coals he saw the pageant of his past unroll itself. He had never

been quite the normal person. His father was a minor poet, and for as

long as he could remember his house had been full of literary people.

Arthur Symons and George Moore had often discussed the relations between

art and life across his fireplace. Yeats had told him stories of strange

Irish myths; Thomas Hardy had read to him once or twice. He had spent

his whole life with men who thought for themselves, who had despised the

conventions of their day, and he himself had ceased to believe in

anything except what personal experience taught him. He had resolved to

find out things for himself. And what, after all, had he discovered?

Little except the vanity of mortal things. In his friendship with

Stapleton he had for a term or so found a temporary peace, but it had

not been for long. As soon as he achieved anything it seemed to collapse

before him. He had at times sought to forget his failures in blind fits

of passion, but when the fire was burnt out the old world was the old

world yet! In books alone he found a lasting comfort. The school looked

on him as "quite a decent chap, awfully fast, of course, doesn't care a

damn what he does, just lives to enjoy himself and have a damned good

time." He smiled at the irony of it all. If they only knew! But they

could never know. He had made a mistake in saying so much to Betteridge;

he must not do it again. He must go on probing everything to discover

where, if anywhere, was that complete peace, that perfect beauty that he

had set out to find. In the meantime the destiny of his life would

unfold itself. He would follow where his inclinations led him.

The evening bell broke into his reverie.

He stretched himself.

"Come on, Betteridge. Let us have a rag to-night."

"Oh, I don't think I will, I am rather sleepy." Betteridge was aware of

his position. To Tester being a prefect signified very little.

That night Carter's dormitory was submitted to a most fearful raid.

Water flowed everywhere. Two sheets were ripped and a jug broken. Rudd's

bed was upset on the floor with Rudd underneath.

"By Jove, Caruthers," said Lovelace, from Harding's well-behaved

dormitory, "that man Tester is some lad."

And Gordon thought, as he saw him laying about him full lustily with a

pillow, that all his talk about games must be merely a damned

affectation. He was really like any ordinary fellow.

When peace was at last restored, and he had led home his victorious

forces, Tester laughed quietly to himself, as he watched the moonlight

falling across a huge pool of water. He had played his part pretty well.

* * * * *

For the rest of the term life flowed easily with Gordon. There were no

further rows with "the Bull"; in fact their row seemed, for a time at

any rate, to have brought them closer together. Both seemed anxious to

be friends with one another, and on the football field Gordon's play

gave really very little cause for complaint. For this term his football

reached his highest level. In following seasons he played good games on

occasions, but he never equalled the standard he set himself in the

Colts. It was one of Gordon's chief characteristics that he usually did

well while others failed, and this term the Colts for some reason or

other never properly got together. The side kept on being altered. For

a week after the row Lovelace was kept out of the side; but it was soon

obvious that his presence was absolutely necessary.

"What did I say," said Gordon. "You see, 'the Bull's' madness doesn't

last for long. He got a bit fed up with you, Lovelace, so he made

himself imagine your football was bad. He can always make himself think

what he likes."

"Yes; but it is rather a nuisance," Mansell remarked, "when you realise

it is always House men who have to do the Jekyll and Hyde business."

"Good Lord! Mansell, you are becoming literary," laughed Gordon. "How

did you hear of Jekyll and Hyde?"

"Claremont has been reading the thing on Sunday mornings; not so bad for

a fool like Stevenson. It rather reminded me of _The Doctor's Double_,

by Nat Gould; only, of course, it is not half so good."

"No, that is a fact," said Lovelace. "Nat Gould is the finest author

alive. I read some stuff in a paper the other day about books being true

to life. Well, you could not get anything more true than _The Double

Event_; and race-horsing is the most important thing in life, too. I

sent up the other day for six of his books; they ought to be here

to-morrow."

"Well, for God's sake, don't bring them in here," said Gordon, "there is

enough mess as it is with _The Sportsmans_ of the last month trailing

all over the place."

"Oh, have some sense, man; you don't know what literature is."

Gordon subsided. All his new theories of art collapsed very easily

before the honest Philistinism of Lovelace and Mansell; for he was not

quite sure of his own views himself. He loved poetry, because it seemed

to express his own emotions so adequately. Byron's "Tempest-anger,

Tempest-mirth" was as balm to his rebellious soul. Rebellion was, in

fact, at this time almost a religion with him. Only a few days back he

had discovered Byron's sweeping confession of faith, "I have simplified

my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments," and

he found it a most self-satisfying doctrine. That was what his own life

should be. He would fight against these masters with their

old-fashioned and puritanic notions; he would be the preacher of the new

ideas. It was all very crude, very impossible, but at the back of this

torrid violence lay an honest desire to better conditions, tempered, it

must be owned, with an ambition to fill the middle of the stage himself.

In his imagination he became a second Byron. He saw, or thought he saw,

the mistakes of the system under which he lived; and--without pausing to

consider its merits--wished to sweep away the whole foundation into the

sea, and to build upon some illusory basis a new heaven and new earth.

He had yet to read the essay in which Matthew Arnold says that "Byron

shattered, inevitably shattered himself against the black rock of

British Philistinism." He was at present full of hope. The Poetry of

Revolt coloured his imagination to such a degree that he saw himself

standing alone and triumphant amid the wreck of the world he had

overthrown. He was always protesting that Swinburne's finest line was in

the _Hymn to Proserpine_:

"_I neither kneel nor adore them, but standing look to the end._"

It raises a wonderful picture to a young imagination: Swinburne standing

on a mountain, looking across the valley of years in which man fights

feverishly for little things, in which nations rise to empire for a

short while, in which constitutions totter and fall, looking to where,

far away behind the mountains, flickered the faint white streamers of

the dawn. Oh, he was very young; very conceited too, no doubt; but is

there anyone who, having lived longer, having seen many bright dreams go

down, having been disillusioned, and having realised that he is but a

particle in an immense machine, would not change places with Gordon, and

see life once more roseflushed with impossible loyalties?

* * * * *

In its passage school life seems very long; in retrospect it appears but

a few hours. There is such a sameness about everything. A few incidents

here and there stand out clear, but, as a whole, day gives place to day

without differing much from those that have gone before it. We do not

realise this till we can look back on them from a distance; but it is

none the less true.

In the Sixth Gordon's scholastic career took the way of all other

fugitive things. It had once given promise of leading somewhere, of

resulting in something, but it wanted more than ordinary perseverance to

overcome the atmosphere of the deep-rooted objection to work that

overhung all the proceedings in the Sixth Form room. And that

perseverance Gordon lamentably lacked.

The Lower Sixth was mainly under the supervision of Mr Finnemore; and it

was a daily wonder to Gordon why a person so obviously unfitted should

have been entrusted with so heavy a responsibility. Finally he came to

the conclusion that the last headmaster had thought that the Sixth Form

would probably make less fun and take fewer liberties with him than any

other form, and that when the present Chief had come he had not had the

heart to remove a school institution. Mr Finnemore was an oldish man,

getting on for sixty, and his hair was white. He had a long moustache,

his clothes carried the odour of stale tobacco, his legs seemed hung on

to his body by hooks that every day appeared less likely to maintain the

weight attached to them. His face wore a self-depreciatory smile. He was

most mercilessly "ragged."

The day when he took exams in big school will never be forgotten. Gordon

was then in V.A. The Sixth, the Army class and the Upper Fifth were all

supposed to be preparing for some future paper. All three forms had, of

course, nothing to do. The Chief was in London.

At four-fifteen Finnemore was observed to be moving in his strange way

across the courts. With an almost suspicious quietness the oak desks

were filled.

"What are you doing to-day, Lane?" Finnemore asked the head of the

school.

"I believe, sir, we are supposed to be preparing something."

"Ah, excellent; excellent, a very good opportunity for putting in some

good, hard work. Excellent! Excellent!"

For about three minutes there was peace. Then Ferguson lethargically

arose. He strolled up the steps to the dais, and leaning against the

organ loft began to speak:

"Gentlemen, as not only the Sixth Form, but also the Army class and

Upper Fifth, are gathered here this afternoon with no very ostensible

reason for work, I suggest that we should hold, on a small scale, a

Bacchic festival. This will, of course, be not only entertaining but

also instructive. 'Life consists in knowing where to stop, and going a

little further,' once said H.H. Monro. Let us follow his advice--and

that of the Greeks. First, let us shove the desks against the wall and

make ready for the dance."

It had all been prepared beforehand. In a few minutes several hundred

books had been dropped, several ink-pots lay smashed on the floor. There

was a noise of furious thunder, and at last all the desks somehow got

shoved against the wall.

Finnemore was "magnificently unprepared." He lay back nervously in his

chair, fingering his moustache.

"This must now cease," he said.

"No, really, sir" protested Ferguson; "everything is all right. Mr

Carter, will you oblige us by playing the piano. I myself will conduct."

The floor of the big school is made of exquisitely polished oak, and is

one of the glories of Fernhurst. It was admirably suited for the dance

which within five minutes was in progress. It was a noble affair.

Finnemore sat back in his chair powerless, impotent; Carter hammered out

false notes on a long-suffering piano. Ferguson beat time at the top of

the dais, with a pen gently waving between his fingers, as gracefully as

the pierrots of Aubrey Beardsley play with feathers. Down below heavy

feet pretended to dance to an impossible tune. Someone began a song,

others followed suit, and before long the austere sanctity of the room

was violated by the flat melodies of _Hitchy-Koo_. It was indeed an act

of vandalism. But the rioters had forgotten that they were distinctly

audible from without. In the Chief's absence they had thought a row out

of the question.

Unfortunately, however, "the Bull's" class-room was only a few yards

off. When first he heard the strains of revelling borne upwards he

thought it must be the choir practising for the Christmas concert. But

it did not take long for him to appreciate that such a supposition was

out of the question. The noise was deafening. He could hardly hear

himself talk; investigation must be made. He got up and walked out into

the courts, made his way to the big school, and opening the door

revealed the scene that has just been described. For a second or so he

stood speechless. He felt much as Moses might have felt, if he had seen

a tribe of Gentiles invading the Holy of Holies. Then his voice rang

out:

"What is the meaning of this unseemly disturbance?"

A sudden silence fell over the revellers, as in Poe's story of the red

death when the stranger entered the room.

Buller looked around.

"My form, the Army class, will follow me."

Disconsolately his form found their books and moved out of the room,

fully aware that they would shortly have to pay full price for their

pleasure. Over the remainder there fell a chill feeling of uncertainty.

A few spasmodic efforts were made to carry on, but the light-heartedness

was gone. The laughter was forced. Finally noise subsided into

whispering, and whispering into silence and the scratching of pens.

There loomed before the Sixth Form visions of a very unpleasant

interview with the Chief, and their expectations were not disappointed.

The whole form had to stay back on the last day and write out a Georgic.

Only the Fifth got off scot-free. Macdonald was told to deal with them,

but he saw the humour of the affair too strongly to do anything but

laugh.

"These Cambridge men--can't keep order. No good at all. Can't think why

the Chief took him." And then, after a pause; "I wish I had been there!"

The result of this was that for the future Finnemore was treated with a

little more respect. The Sixth decided that dances did not pay, and so

contented themselves with less noisy but little less aggravating

amusements. For instance, Finnemore's hatred of Browning was a byword;

so one day the entire form decided to learn _The Lost Leader_ for

repetition. For a while Finnemore bore it patiently, but when a burly

chemistry specialist walked up to within two feet of him and began to

bawl so loudly that his actual words were distinguishable in the School

House studies, the master covered his face with his hands and murmured:

"Oh, heaven spare me this infliction!"

On another occasion Betteridge walked quietly up to him, handed him a

Shelley, and without any warning suddenly shrieked out:

"He hath outsoared the shadow of our night."

Finnemore looked at him sadly: "My dear Betteridge, so early in the

morning!"

By many little things his life was made wretched for him. But yet he

would not have chosen any other profession. He had once started life

with very high hopes, but had discovered that the world is not in

sympathy with men of ideas who do not prophesy smooth things. And so at

an early age he found himself disappointed in all his personal aims. It

seemed that he had to harbour only the simplest wish to find it denied.

And then he realised that for the loss of youth there can be no

compensation, and that in youth alone happiness could be found. And so

he had decided to spend his life in company with high hopes and smiling

faces. There were times when an immense sadness came over him, when he

thought that disillusionment was waiting for so many of them and that

there were few who would "carry their looks or their truth to the

grave." But on the whole he was as happy as his temperament could allow

him, and Gordon, although in a sense he was the very antithesis of all

that he admired most, found himself strangely in sympathy with his new

master. One day the subject for an essay was "Conventionality," and

Gordon unpacked his torrid soul in a wild abuse of all existing

governments. After he had written it, he got rather nervous about its

reception, but it was returned marked _a_-, and Finnemore had written at

the bottom: "We all think like this when we are young; and, after all,

it is good to be young."

Gordon felt that he had found someone who understood him.

Finnemore lived in two rooms over the masters' common room, which had

from time immemorial been the possession of the Sixth Form tutor, and in

the evenings when Gordon used to have his prose corrected Finnemore

would often ask him to stay behind and have some coffee. Then the two

would talk about poetry and art and life till the broken bell rang out

its cracked imperious summons. Finnemore had once published a small book

of verses, a copy of which he gave to Gordon. They had in them all the

frail pathos of a wasted career; most of them were songs of spurned

affection, and inside was the quotation: "_Scribere jussit amor_."

"When I look at that book," said Finnemore to Gordon, "I can't associate

myself with the author, I seem to have quite outgrown him. And as I

recall the verses I say to myself, 'Poor fellow, life was hard to you,'

and I wonder if he really was myself."

With him Gordon saw life from a different angle. He presented the

spectacle of failure, and it rather sobered Gordon's wild enthusiasm, at

times, to feel himself so close to anything so bitterly poignant. But

the hour of youth's domination, even if it be but an hour, is too full

of excitement and confidence to be overclouded by doubts for very long.

Usually Gordon saw in him a pathetic shadow whom he patronised. He did

not realise that it was what he himself might become.

Through the long tedious hours in the shadowy class-room Gordon dreamed

of wonderful successes, and let others pass him by in the rush for

promotion. He began to think that prizes and form lists were not worth

worrying about; he said a classical education had such a narrowing

effect on character. We can always produce arguments to back up an

inclination if we want to. And in Finnemore there was no force to stir

anyone to do what they did not want.

Only once a day was Gordon at all industrious, and that was when the

Chief took the Lower and Upper Sixth Form combined in Horace and

Thucydides.

For the Chief Gordon always worked; not, it is true, with any real

measure of success, for he had rather got out of the habit of grinding

at the classics, but at any rate with energy. And during these hours he

began to perceive vaguely what a clear-sighted, unprejudiced mind the

Chief had. To the boy in the Fourth and Fifth forms any headmaster must

appear not so much a living person as the emblem of authority, the final

dispenser of justice, the hard, analytical sifter of evidence, "coldly

sublime, intolerably just." Gordon had always before looked on the Chief

as a figurehead, who at times would unbend most surprisingly and become

a man; on the cricket field, for example, when in a master's match he

had fielded cleanly a terrific cut at point, and played a sporting

innings; at House suppers, and, most surprisingly of all, when a row was

on, Gordon had been unable to understand him. He could not dissociate

him from his conception of a headmaster--a sort of Mercury, a divine

emissary of the gods, sent as a necessary infliction. Yet at times the

Chief was intensely human, and when Gordon came under his immediate

influence and caught a glimpse of his methods, he saw in a flash that at

all times his headmaster was a generous, sympathetic nature, and that it

was his own distorted view that had ever made him think otherwise. The

Chief was so ready to appreciate a joke, so quick with an answer, so

unassuming, so utterly the antithesis of any master he had met before.

There were one or two incidents that stood out clearer than any others

in Gordon's memories of his Chief.

At the very beginning of the term, before a start had been made on the

term's work, the Chief was talking about Horace's life and

characteristics.

"Now, Tester," he said, "if you were asked to sum up Horace's outlook on

life in a single phrase, what would you say?"

Tester thought for a minute or so.

"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," he hazarded.

The form laughed. It seemed rather a daring generalisation. But the

Chief's answer came back pat:

"Well, hardly that, Tester. Shall we say, Let us eat and drink, but not

too much, or we shall have a stomach-ache to-morrow?"

He had taken Tester's quite erroneous estimate as a basis, and had

exactly hit off Horace's character.

But the following incident more than any other brought home to Gordon

how extraordinarily broadminded the Chief was. Carter was construing,

and had made a most preposterous howler, it does not matter what. He

had learnt the translation in the notes by heart, and quite failed to

connect it verbatim with the Greek.

"There now, you see how utterly absurd you are," said the Chief. "You

have not taken the trouble to look the words up in a dictionary. Just

because you see what you think is a literal translation in the notes.

There lies the fatal error of using cribs. Of course when I catch a boy

in Shell or IV. A using one, I drop on him not only for slackness but

dishonesty. The boy is taking an unfair advantage of the rest and

getting promotion undeservedly. But in the Sixth Form you have got

beyond that stage. We don't worry much about marks here, so there is

nothing immoral in using a crib. It is merely silly. It tends to slack

translation which in the end ruins scholarship. And by using the notes

as you do, Carter, you are doing the same thing. You really must use

more common-sense. Go on, please, Harding."

Gordon was amazed at such a broadminded view of cribbing. He had long

since grown weary of preachers who talked about dishonesty, without

seeming to draw a line between active dishonesty and passive slackness.

The Chief realised that it was deliberate slackness that led to

dishonesty, not dishonesty that was incidentally slack. The Chief must

be a very wise man.

Nevertheless his admiration of the Chief did not make him do any more

work than was strictly necessary; and Gordon began to drift into a

peaceful academic groove, where he did just enough work to pass

unnoticed--neither good nor bad. He had grown tired of ragging. It was

such an effort, especially when the call of football demanded of every

ounce of energy. To drift down-stream may spell mediocrity, but it also

spells security, and, after all, there was little danger of Gordon

becoming a mediocrity in other branches of school life. He was far too

ambitious for that, but his ambitions were not academic. House politics

and athletics were sufficient burdens for one man in one lifetime.

"Other heights in other lives"; and Gordon believed in doing a few

things well.

It was more than lucky for Gordon's future that this term he found

himself a success on the football field. If he had not, he would

probably have sought a prominent position in the eyes of the school by

more doubtful paths; but as it was there was no need for him to plunge

into wild escapades to get noticed. His football attracted quite enough

attention. People spoke of his chances of getting into the Fifteen next

year. The Milton match was his greatest triumph, mainly because the rest

of the side did badly. Lovelace played back and made one or two fine

runs when he got the ball, but as a whole the side played very

half-heartedly. Burgoyne was off colour, and Collins's excuse that he

had been overworking lately did not save him from being kicked out of

the side after the match. But Gordon, who had got his Colts' badge on

the morning of the match, and so was relieved of any anxieties about his

place, played what he always said was his best game; so much so, in

fact, that Buller after the match, said:

"Rotten, absolutely rotten, with the exception of Caruthers, who played

magnificently."

There was only one blot on his performance, and that, though everyone

laughed about it, caused Gordon some regretful moments afterwards.

Rightly or wrongly Gordon thought the opposite scrum half was not

putting the ball in straight. Gordon told him what he thought of him.

The scrum half called him "a bloody interfering bastard," and told him

to go to hell. The next time the scrum half got the ball Gordon flung

him with unnecessary force, when he was already in touch, right into the

ropes. And from then onwards the relations between Gordon and the scrum

half were those of a scrapping match. Gordon came off best. He got a

bruise on the left thigh, but no one could notice that, while his

opponent had a bleeding nose and a cut lip. The school was amused, but

Gordon overheard a Milton man say: "I don't think much of the way these

Fernhurst men play the game. Look at that tick of a forward there. Dirty

swine!"

After the game Gordon apologised to the half, and exchanged the usual

compliments; but he could see that the rest of the Milton side were not

at all pleased.

He spoke to Mansell about it.

"My dear man, don't you worry. You played a jolly fine game this

afternoon, and if you go on like that you are a cert. for your Firsts

next year. You played a damned hard game."

"Yes; but it is rather a bad thing for the school, isn't it, if we get a

reputation for playing rough?"

"But you weren't playing foul, and Buller always tells us to go hard and

play as rough as we like."

"Yes; but still----"

He was not quite reassured, though everyone told him it was all right.

However, if "the Bull" made no comment, it looked as if nothing could be

wrong. As a matter of fact, "the Bull" had not noticed; and though

Christy, in a fit of righteous indignation, poured out a long story to

him, he only smiled.

"Oh, well, I expect he got a bit excited. First time he had played

footer for a school side.... I was a bit fierce my first game for

England. Don't blame him. He's a keen kid, and I am sure the other side

did not mind."

Christy mumbled indistinctly. No one ever seemed to take much notice of

what he said. That evening, however, he and Rogers, over a glass of

port, agreed that Caruthers was a thoroughly objectionable young fellow

who ought to be taken in hand, and with this Christian sentiment to

inspire him Rogers went home to put a few finishing touches to his

sermon for the next day.