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Title: The Loom of Youth

Author: Alec Waugh

Release Date: July 18, 2006 [EBook #18863]

Language: English

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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 mediæval 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 rôle 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 protégé 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," sa