First-night at Fellsgarth was always a festive occasion. The holidays
were over, and school had not yet begun. All day long, from remote
quarters, fellows had been converging on the dear old place; and here
they were at last, shoulder to shoulder, delighted to find themselves
back in the old haunts. The glorious memories of the summer holidays
were common property. So was not a little of the pocket-money. So, by
rule immemorial, were the contents of the hampers. And so, as they
discovered to their cost, were the luckless new boys who had to-day
tumbled for the first time headlong into the whirlpool of public school
life.
Does some one tell me he never heard of Fellsgarth? I am surprised.
Where can you have been brought up that you have never heard of the
venerable ivy-clad pile with its watch-tower and two wings, planted
there, where the rivers Shale and Shargle mingle their waters, a mile or
more above Hawkswater? My dear sir, Fellsgarth stood there before the
days when Henry the Eighth, (of whom you may have possibly heard in the
history books) abolished the monasteries and, some wicked people do say,
annexed their contents.
There is very little of the old place standing now. A piece of the wall
in the head-master's garden and the lower buttresses of the watch-tower,
that is all. The present building is comparatively modern; that is to
say, it is no older than the end of the Civil Wars, when some lucky
adherent to the winning side built it up as a manor-house and disfigured
the tower with those four pepper-castors at the corners. Successive
owners have tinkered the place since then, but they cannot quite spoil
it. Who can spoil red brick and ivy, in such a situation?
Not know Fellsgarth! Have you never been on Hawkswater then, with its
lonely island, and the grey screes swooping down into the clear water?
And have you never seen Hawk's Pike, which frowns in on the fellows
through the dormitory window? I don't ask if you have been up it. Only
three persons, to my knowledge (guides and natives of course excepted),
have done that. Yorke was one, Mr Stratton was another, and the
other--but that's to be part of my story.
First-night, as I have said, was a specially "go-as-you-please" occasion
at the school. Masters, having called over their roll, disappeared into
their own quarters and discreetly heard nothing. Dames, having received
and unpacked the "night-bags," retired elsewhere to wrestle with the big
luggage. The cooks, having passably satisfied the cravings of two
hundred and fifty hungry souls, and having removed out of harm's way the
most perishable of the crockery, shrugged their shoulders and shut
themselves into the kitchens, listening to the noise and speculating on
the joys of the coming term.
What a noise it was! Niagara after the rains, or an express train in a
tunnel, or the north wind in a gale against the Hawk's Back might be
able to beat it. But then Fellsgarth was not competing; each of the
fellows was merely chatting pleasantly to his neighbours. It was hardly
a fair trial. And yet it was not bad for the School. When Dangle, who
owned the longest ear in the school, could not hear a word which
Brinkman, who owned the loudest voice, shouted into it, it spoke
somewhat for what Fellsgarth might do in the way of noise if it tried.
The only two persons who were not actively contributing to the general
clamour were the two new boys who sat wedged in among a mass of juniors
at one of the lower tables. They may have considered that the beating
of their hearts was noisy enough. But people in this world are slow at
hearing other people's hearts beat. No one seemed to notice it.
It is due to the stouter of these two young gentlemen to say that the
beating of his heart, and the general state of amaze in which he found
himself, did not interfere greatly with his appetite. He had brought
that accomplishment, if no other, from home, and not being engaged like
those around him in conversation, he contrived to put away really a most
respectable meal. Indeed, his exploits in this direction had already
become a matter for remark among his neighbours.
"It's all right," said one of the juniors, who answered to the name of
D'Arcy; "his buttons are sewn on with wire. They'll hold."
"I suppose he's made of gutta-percha," observed another. "He'll stretch
a little more before he's done."
"I say, what a bill he's running up! By the way, what do they charge
for this kind of pudding?"
"It's a dear kind--and nothing like as good as the sort we get for
regular. I never could understand why they make fellows shell out for
what they eat first-night."
"It _is_ a swindle," said D'Arcy, solemnly. "I've had to make a very
light meal, because I've only half a crown, and I'm afraid there won't
be much change left out of that."
The new boy was just laying butter on a roll, and preparing to close the
proceedings of the meal with a good square turn of bread and butter.
But as D'Arcy's words fell on his ears he suddenly stopped short and
looked up.
"I say," said he, "isn't this dinner charged in the house bill then?"
D'Arcy laughed derisively.
"Well, you most be a muff. Don't you know school doesn't begin till to-
morrow? They give you dinner to-night, but you're not obliged to eat
it."
The new boy took a gulp of water, which he calculated would be gratis
under any circumstances, and then gasped--"I say, I didn't know that."