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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hill, by Horace Annesley Vachell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Hill
+       A Romance of Friendship
+
+Author: Horace Annesley Vachell
+
+Release Date: October 23, 2007 [EBook #23154]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HILL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Stephen Blundell and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+_ALSO BY HORACE A. VACHELL_
+
+QUINNEYS'
+
+
+
+
+           THE HILL
+
+    A ROMANCE OF FRIENDSHIP
+
+
+
+    HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL
+
+
+
+
+
+            LONDON
+ JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
+
+
+
+
+  FIRST EDITION             _April, 1905_
+
+ _Fortieth Impression_      _Jan., 1950_
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Greek
+    text appears as originally printed.
+
+
+
+
+ To
+ GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL
+
+I dedicate this Romance of Friendship to you with the sincerest pleasure
+and affection. You were the first to suggest that I should write a book
+about contemporary life at Harrow; you gave me the principal idea; you
+have furnished me with notes innumerable; you have revised every page of
+the manuscript; and you are a peculiarly keen Harrovian.
+
+In making this public declaration of my obligations to you, I take the
+opportunity of stating that the characters in "The Hill," whether
+masters or boys, are not portraits, although they may be called,
+truthfully enough, composite photographs; and that the episodes of
+Drinking and Gambling are founded on isolated incidents, not on habitual
+practices. Moreover, in attempting to reproduce the curious admixture of
+"strenuousness and sentiment"--your own phrase--which animates so
+vitally Harrow life, I have been obliged to select the less common types
+of Harrovian. Only the elect are capable of such friendship as John
+Verney entertained for Henry Desmond; and few boys, happily, are
+possessed of such powers as Scaife is shown to exercise. But that there
+are such boys as Verney and Scaife, nobody knows better than yourself.
+
+                                Believe me,
+                                  Yours most gratefully,
+                              HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL
+
+ BEECHWOOD,
+   _February 22, 1905_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAP.                               PAGE
+
+    I. THE MANOR                        1
+   II. CÆSAR                           19
+  III. KRAIPALE                        35
+   IV. TORPIDS                         58
+    V. FELLOWSHIP                      70
+   VI. A REVELATION                    92
+  VII. REFORM                         107
+ VIII. VERNEY BOSCOBEL                123
+   IX. BLACK SPOTS                    140
+    X. DECAPITATION                   158
+   XI. SELF-QUESTIONING               173
+  XII. "LORD'S"                       189
+ XIII. "IF I PERISH, I PERISH"        211
+  XIV. GOOD NIGHT                     230
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+_The Manor_
+
+             "Five hundred faces, and all so strange!
+               Life in front of me--home behind,
+               I felt like a waif before the wind
+             Tossed on an ocean of shock and change.
+
+ "_Chorus._  Yet the time may come, as the years go by,
+               When your heart will thrill
+               At the thought of the Hill,
+             And the day that you came so strange and shy."
+
+
+The train slid slowly out of Harrow station.
+
+Five minutes before, a man and a boy had been walking up and down the
+long platform. The boy wondered why the man, his uncle, was so strangely
+silent. Then, suddenly, the elder John Verney had placed his hands upon
+the shoulders of the younger John, looking down into eyes as grey and as
+steady as his own.
+
+"You'll find plenty of fellows abusing Harrow," he said quietly; "but
+take it from me, that the fault lies not in Harrow, but in them. Such
+boys, as a rule, do not come out of the top drawer. Don't look so
+solemn. You're about to take a header into a big river. In it are rocks
+and rapids; but you know how to swim, and after the first plunge you'll
+enjoy it, as I did, amazingly."
+
+"Ra--ther," said John.
+
+In the New Forest, where John had spent most of his life at his uncle's
+place of Verney Boscobel, this uncle, his dead father's only brother,
+was worshipped as a hero. Indeed he filled so large a space in the boy's
+imagination, that others were cramped for room. John Verney in India, in
+Burmah, in Africa (he took continents in his stride), moved colossal.
+And when uncle and nephew met, behold, the great traveller stood not
+much taller than John himself! That first moment, the instant shattering
+of a precious delusion, held anguish. But now, as the train whirled away
+the silent, thin, little man, he began to expand again. John saw him
+scaling heights, cutting a path through impenetrable forests, wading
+across dismal swamps, an ever-moving figure, seeking the hitherto
+unknowable and irreclaimable, introducing order where chaos reigned
+supreme, a world-famous pioneer.
+
+How good to think that John Verney was _his_ uncle, blood of his blood,
+his, his, his--for all time!
+
+And, long ago, John, senior, had come to Harrow; had felt what John,
+junior, felt to the core--the dull, grinding wrench of separation, the
+sense, not yet to be analysed by a boy, of standing alone upon the edge
+of a river, indeed, into which he must plunge headlong in a few minutes.
+Well, Uncle John had taken his "header" with a stout heart--who dared to
+doubt that? Surely he had not waited, shivering and hesitating, at the
+jumping-off place.
+
+The train was now out of sight. John slipped the uncle's tip into his
+purse, and walked out of the station and on to the road beyond, the road
+which led to the top of the Hill.
+
+_The Hill._
+
+Presently, the boy reached some iron palings and a wicket-gate. His
+uncle had pointed out this gate and the steep path beyond which led to
+the top of the Hill, to the churchyard, to the Peachey tomb on which
+Byron dreamed,[1] to the High Street--and to the Manor. It was pleasant
+to remember that he was going to board at the Manor, with its
+traditions, its triumphs, its record. In his uncle's day the Manor
+ranked first among the boarding-houses. Not a doubt disturbed John's
+conviction that it ranked first still.
+
+The boy stared upwards with a keen gaze. Had the mother seen her son at
+that moment, she might have discerned a subtle likeness between uncle
+and nephew, not the likeness of the flesh, but of the spirit.
+
+September rains, followed by a day of warm sunshine, had lured from the
+earth a soft haze which obscured the big fields at the foot of the Hill.
+John could make out fences, poplars, elms, Scotch firs, and spectral
+houses. But, above, everything was clear. The school-buildings, such as
+he could see, stood out boldly against a cloudless sky, and above these
+soared the spire of Harrow Church, pointing an inexorable finger
+upwards.
+
+Afterwards this spot became dear to John Verney, because here, where
+mists were chill and blinding, he had been impelled to leave the broad
+high-road and take a path which led into a shadowy future. In obedience
+to an impulse stronger than himself he had taken the short cut to what
+awaited him.
+
+For a few minutes he stood outside the palings, trying to choke down an
+abominable lump in his throat. This was not his first visit to Harrow.
+At the end of the previous term, he had ascended the Hill to pass the
+entrance examination. A master from his preparatory school accompanied
+him, an Etonian, who had stared rather superciliously--so John
+thought--at buildings less venerable than those which Henry VI raised
+near Windsor. John, who had perceptions, was elusively conscious that
+his companion, too much of a gentleman to give his thoughts words, might
+be contrasting a yeoman's work with a king's; and when the Etonian,
+gazing across the plains below to where Windsor lay, a soft shadow upon
+the horizon, said abruptly, "I wish Eton had been built upon a hill,"
+John replied effusively: "Oh, sir, it _is_ decent of you to say that."
+The examination, however, distracted his attention from all things save
+the papers. To his delight he found these easy, and, as soon as he left
+the examination-room, he was popped into a cab and taken back to town.
+Coming down the flight of steps, he had seen a few boys hurrying up or
+down the road. At these the Etonian cocked a twinkling eye.
+
+"Queer kit you Harrow boys wear," he said.
+
+John, inordinately grateful at this recognition of himself as an
+Harrovian, forgave the gibe. It had struck him, also, that the shallow
+straw hat, the swallow-tail coat, did look queer, but he regarded them
+reverently as the uniform of a crack corps.
+
+To-day, standing by the iron palings, John reviewed the events of the
+last hour. The view was blurred by unshed tears. His uncle and he had
+driven together to the Manor. Here, the explorer had exercised his
+peculiar personal magnetism upon the house-master, a tall, burly man of
+truculent aspect and speech. John realized proudly that his uncle was
+the bigger of the two, and the giant acknowledged, perhaps grudgingly,
+the dwarf's superiority. The talk, short enough, had wandered into
+Darkest Africa. His uncle, as usual, said little, replying almost in
+monosyllables to the questions of his host; but John junior told himself
+exultantly that it was not necessary for Uncle John to talk; the wide
+world knew what he had done.
+
+Then his house-master, Rutford, had told John where to buy his first
+straw hat.
+
+"You can get one without an order at the beginning of each term," said
+he, in a thick, rasping voice. "But you must ask me for an order if you
+want a second."
+
+Then he had shown John his room, to be shared with two other boys, and
+had told him the hour of lock-up. And then, after tea, came the walk
+down the hill, the tip, the firm grasp of the sinewy hand, and a
+final--"God bless you."
+
+Coming to the end of these reflections, confronted by the inexorable
+future, and the necessity, no less inexorable, of stepping into it, John
+passed through the gate. His heart fluttered furiously, and the lump in
+the throat swelled inconveniently. John, however, had provided himself
+with a "cure-all." Plunging his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a
+cartridge, an unused twenty-bore gun cartridge. Looking at this, John
+smiled. When he smiled he became good-looking. The face, too long,
+plain, but full of sense and humour, rounded itself into the gracious
+curves of youth; the serious grey eyes sparkled; the lips, too firmly
+compressed, parted, revealing admirable teeth, small and squarely set;
+into the cheeks, brown rather than pink, flowed a warm stream of colour.
+
+The cartridge stood for so much. Only a week before, Uncle John, on his
+arrival from Manchuria, had handed his nephew a small leather case and a
+key. The case held a double-barrelled, hammerless, ejector, twenty-bore
+gun, with a great name upon its polished blue barrels.
+
+The sight of the cartridge justified John's expectations. He put it back
+into his pocket, and strode forward and upward.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Close to the School Chapel, John remarked a curly-headed young gentleman
+of wonderfully prepossessing appearance, from whom emanated an air, an
+atmosphere, of genial enjoyment which diffused itself. The bricks of the
+school-buildings seemed redder and warmer, as if they were basking in
+this sunny smile. The youth was smiling now, smiling--at John. For
+several hours John had been miserably aware that surprises awaited him,
+but not smiles. He knew no Harrovians; at his school, a small one, his
+fellows were labelled Winchester, Eton, Wellington; none, curiously
+enough, Harrow. And already he had passed half a dozen boys, the
+first-comers, some strangers, like himself, and in each face he had read
+indifference. Not one had taken the trouble to say, "Hullo! Who are
+you?" after the rough and ready fashion of the private school.
+
+And now this smiling, fascinating person was actually about to address
+him, and in the old familiar style----
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"I met your governor the other day."
+
+"Did you?" John replied. His father had died when John was seven.
+Obviously, a blunder in identity had created this genial smile. John
+wished that his father had not died.
+
+"Yes," pursued the smiling one, "I met him--partridge-shooting at
+home--and he asked me to be on the look-out for you. It's queer you
+should turn up at once, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," said John.
+
+"Your governor looked awfully fit."
+
+"Did he?" Then John added solemnly, "My governor died when I was a kid."
+
+The other gasped; then he threw back his curly head and laughed.
+
+"I say, I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to laugh. If you're not
+Hardacre, who are you?"
+
+"Verney. I've just come."
+
+"Verney? That's a great Harrow name. Are you any relation to the
+explorer?"
+
+"Nephew," said John, blushing.
+
+"Ah--you ought to have been here last Speecher.[2] We cheered him, I can
+tell you. And the song was sung: the one with his name in it."
+
+"Yes," said John. Then he added nervously, "All the same, I don't know a
+soul at Harrow."
+
+Desmond smiled. The smile assured John that his name would secure him a
+cordial welcome. Desmond added abruptly, "My name, Desmond, is a Harrow
+name. My father, my grandfather, my uncles, and three brothers were
+here. It does make a difference. What's your house?"
+
+"The Manor," said John, proudly.
+
+"Dirty Dick's!" Then, seeing consternation writ large upon John's face,
+he added quickly, "We call _him_ Dirty Dick, you know; but the house
+is--er--one of the oldest and biggest--er--houses." He continued
+hurriedly: "I'm going into Damer's next term. Damer's is always
+chock-a-block, you know."
+
+"Why is Rutford called 'Dirty Dick'?" John asked nervously. "He doesn't
+_look_ dirty."
+
+"Oh, we've licked him into a sort of shape," said Desmond. "I _believe_
+he toshes now--once a month or so."
+
+"Toshes?"
+
+"Tubs, you know. We call a tub a 'tosh.' When Dirty Dick came here he
+was unclean. He told his form--oh! the cheek of it!--that in his filthy
+mind one bath a week was plenty," unconsciously the boy mimicked the
+thick, rasping tones--"two, luxury, and three--superfluity! After that
+he was called Dirty Dick. There's another story. They say that years ago
+he went to a Turkish bath, and after a rare good scraping the man who
+was scraping him--nasty job that!--found something which Dirty Dick
+recognized as a beastly flannel shirt he had lost when he was at the
+'Varsity. But only the Fourth Form boys swallow _that_. Hullo! There's a
+pal of mine. See you again."
+
+He ran off gaily. John walked to the shop where straw hats were sold.
+Here he met other new boys, who regarded him curiously, but said
+nothing. John put on his hat, and gave Rutford's name to the young man
+who waited on him. He had an absurd feeling that the young man would
+say, "Oh yes--Dirty Dick's!" One very nice-looking pink-cheeked boy said
+to another boy that he was at Damer's. John could have sworn that the
+hatter's assistant regarded the pink youth with increased deference.
+Why had Uncle John sent him to Dirty Dick's? He hurried out of the shop,
+fuming. Then he remembered the hammerless gun. After all, the Manor had
+been _the_ house once, and it might be _the_ house again.
+
+By this time the boys were arriving. Groups were forming. Snatches of
+chatter reached John's ears. "Yes, I shot a stag, a nine-pointer. My
+governor is going to have it set up for me---- What? Walked up your
+grouse with dogs! We drive ours---- I had some ripping cricket, made a
+century in one match---- By Jove! Did you really?----"
+
+John passed on. These were "bloods," tremendous swells, grown men with a
+titillating flavour of the world about their distinguished persons.
+
+A minute later he was staring disconsolately at a group of his fellows
+just in front of Dir----of Rutford's side door. An impulse seized him to
+turn and flee. What would Uncle John say to that? So he advanced. The
+boys made way politely, asking no questions. As he passed through he
+caught a few eager words. "I was hoping that the brute had gone. It _is_
+a sickener, and no mistake!"
+
+John ascended the battered, worn-out staircase, wondering who the
+"brute" was. Perhaps a sort of Flashman. John knew his _Tom Brown_; but
+some one had told him that bullying had ceased to be. Great emphasis had
+been laid on the "brute," whoever he might be.
+
+Upon the second-floor passage, he found his room and one of its tenants,
+who nodded carelessly as John crossed the threshold.
+
+"I'm Scaife," he said. "Are you the Lord, or the Commoner?" He laughed,
+indicating a large portmanteau, labelled, "Lord Esmé Kinloch."
+
+"I'm Verney," said John.
+
+"I've bagged the best bed," said Scaife, after a pause, "and I advise
+you to bag the next best one, over there. It was mine last term."
+
+"I don't see the beds," said John, staring about him.
+
+Scaife pointed out what appeared to be three tall, narrow wardrobes. The
+rest of the furniture included three much-battered washstands and chests
+of drawers, four Windsor chairs, and a square table, covered with
+innumerable inkstains and roughly-carved names.
+
+"The beds let down," Scaife said, "and during the first school the maids
+make them, and shut them up again. It is considered a joke to crawl into
+another fellow's room at night, and shut him up. You find yourself
+standing upon your head in the dark, choking. It is a joke--for the
+other fellow."
+
+"Did some one do that to you?" asked John.
+
+"Yes; a big lout in the Third Fifth," Scaife smiled grimly.
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"I waited for him next day with a cricket stump. There was an awful row,
+because I let him have it a bit too hard; but I've not been shut up
+since. That bed is a beast. It collapses." He chuckled. "Young Kinloch
+won't find it quite as soft as the ones at White Ladies. Well, like the
+rest of us, he'll have to take Dirty Dick's as he finds it."
+
+The bolt had fallen.
+
+John asked in a quavering voice, "Then it _is_ called that?"
+
+"Called what?"
+
+"This house. Dirty Dick's!"
+
+Scaife smiled cynically. He looked about a year older than John, but he
+had the air and manners of a man of the world--so John thought. Also, he
+was very good-looking, handsomer than Desmond, and in striking contrast
+to that smiling, genial youth, being dark, almost swarthy of complexion,
+with strongly-marked features and rather coarse hands and feet.
+
+"Everybody here calls it Dirty Dick's," he replied curtly.
+
+John stared helplessly.
+
+"But," he muttered, "I heard, I was told, that the Manor was the best
+house in the school."
+
+"It used to be," Scaife answered. "To-day, it comes jolly near being the
+worst. The fellows in other houses are decent; they don't rub it in;
+but, between ourselves, the Manor has gone to pot ever since Dirty Dick
+took hold of it. Damer's is the swell house now."
+
+John began to unstrap his portmanteau. Scaife puzzled him. For instance,
+he displayed no curiosity. He did not put the questions always asked at
+a Preparatory School. Without turning his thought into words, John
+divined that at Harrow it was bad form to ask questions. As he wanted to
+ask a question, a very important question, this enforced silence became
+exasperating.
+
+Presently Scaife said, "I suppose you are one of the Claydon lot."
+
+"No; my home is in the New Forest. My uncle is Verney of Verney
+Boscobel."
+
+"Oh! his name is on the panels at the head of the staircase; and it's
+carved on a bed in the next room."
+
+"Crikey! I must go and look at it."
+
+"You can look at the panels, of course; but don't say 'Crikey!' and
+don't go into the next room. Two Fifth Form fellows have it. It would be
+infernal cheek."
+
+John hoped that Scaife would offer to accompany him to the panels. Then
+he went alone. It being now within half an hour of lock-up, the passages
+were swarming with boys. Soon John would see them assembled in Hall,
+where their names would be called over by Rutford. Everybody--John had
+been told--was expected to be present at this first call-over, except a
+few boys who might be coming from a distance. John worked his way along
+the upper passage, and down the second flight of stairs till he came to
+the first landing. Here, close to the house notice-board, were some oak
+panels covered with names and dates, all carved--so John learned
+later--by a famous Harrow character, Sam Hoare, once "Custos" of the
+School. The boy glanced eagerly, ardently, up and down the panels. Ah,
+yes, here was his father's name, and here--his uncle's. And then out of
+the dull, finely-grained oak, shone other names familiar to all who love
+the Hill and its traditions. John's heart grew warm again with pride in
+the house that had held such men. The name of the great statesman and
+below it a mighty warrior's made him thrill and tremble. They were _Old
+Harrovians_, these fellows, men whom his uncle had known, men of whom
+his dear mother, wise soul! had spoken a thousand times. The landing and
+the passages were roaring with the life of the present moment. Boys, big
+and small, were chaffing each other loudly. Under some circumstances,
+this new-comer, a stranger, ignored entirely, might have felt desolate
+and forlorn in the heart of such a crowd; but John was tingling with
+delight and pleasure.
+
+Suddenly, the noise moderated. John, looking up, saw a big fellow slowly
+approaching, exchanging greetings with everybody. John turned to a boy
+close to him.
+
+"Who is it?" he whispered.
+
+The other boy answered curtly, "Lawrence, the Head of the House."
+
+The big fellow suddenly caught John's eyes. What he read
+there--admiration, respect, envy--brought a slight smile to his lips.
+
+"Your name?" he demanded.
+
+"Verney."
+
+Lawrence held out his hand, simply and yet with a certain dignity.
+
+"I heard you were coming," he said, keenly examining John's face. "We
+can't have too many Verneys. If I can do anything for you, let me know."
+
+He nodded, and strode on. John saw that several boys were staring with a
+new interest. None, however, spoke to him; and he returned to his room
+with a blushing face. Scaife had unpacked his clothes and put them away;
+he was now surveying the bare walls with undisguised contempt.
+
+"Isn't this a beastly hole?" he remarked.
+
+John, always interested in people rather than things, examined the room
+carefully. Passing down the passage he had caught glimpses of other
+rooms: some charmingly furnished, gay with chintz, embellished with
+pictures, Japanese fans, silver cups, and other trophies. Comparing
+these with his own apartment, John said shyly--
+
+"It's not very beefy."
+
+"Beefy? You smell of a private school, Verney. Now, is it worth doing
+up? You see, I shall be in a two-room next term. If we all chip in----"
+he paused.
+
+"I've brought back two quid," said John.
+
+Scaife's smile indicated neither approval nor the reverse. John's
+ingenuous confidence provoked none in return.
+
+"We'll talk about it when Kinloch arrives. I wonder why his people sent
+him here."
+
+John had studied some books, but not the Peerage. The great name of
+Kinloch was new to him, not new to Scaife, who, for a boy, knew his
+"Burke" too odiously well.
+
+"Why shouldn't his people send him here?" he asked.
+
+"Because," Scaife's tone was contemptuous, "because the
+Kinlochs--they're a great cricketing family--go to Eton. The duke must
+have some reason."
+
+"The duke?"
+
+"Hang it, surely you have heard of the Duke of Trent?"
+
+"Yes," said John, humbly. "And this is his son?" He glanced at the label
+on the new portmanteau.
+
+"Whose son should he be?" said Scaife. "Well, it's queer. Dukes[3] and
+dukes' sons come to Harrow--all the Hamiltons were here, and the
+FitzRoys, and the St. Maurs--but the Kinlochs, as I say, have gone to
+Eton. It's a rum thing--very. And why the deuce hasn't he turned up?"
+
+The clanging of a bell brought both boys to their feet.
+
+"Lock-up, and call-over," said Scaife. "Come on!"
+
+They pushed their way down the passage. Several boys addressed Scaife.
+
+"Hullo, Demon!--Here's the old Demon!--Demon, I thought you were going
+to be sacked!"
+
+To these and other sallies Scaife replied with his slightly ironical
+smile. John perceived that his companion was popular and at the same
+time peculiar; quite different from any boy he had yet met.
+
+They filed into a big room--the dining-room of the house--a square,
+lofty hall, with three long tables in it. On the walls hung some
+portraits of famous Old Harrovians. As a room it was disappointing at
+first sight, almost commonplace. But in it, John soon found out,
+everything for weal or woe which concerned the Manor had taken place or
+had been discussed. There were two fireplaces and two large doors. The
+boys passed through one door; upon the threshold of the other stood the
+butler, holding a silver salver, with a sheet of paper on it.
+
+"What cheek!" murmured Scaife.
+
+"Eh?" said John.
+
+"Dirty Dick isn't here. Just like him, the slacker! And when he does
+come over on our side of the House, he slimes about in carpet
+slippers--the beast!"
+
+Lawrence entered as Scaife spoke. John saw that his strongly-marked
+eyebrows went up, when he perceived the butler. He approached, and took
+the sheet of paper. The butler said impressively--
+
+"Mr. Rutford is busy. Will you call over, sir?"
+
+At any rate, the butler, Dumbleton, was worthy of the best traditions of
+the Manor. He had a shrewd, clean-shaven face, and the deportment of an
+archbishop. The Head of the House took the paper, and began to call
+over the names. Each boy, as his name was called, said, "Here," or, if
+he wished to be funny, "Here, _sir_!"
+
+"Verney?"
+
+The name rang out crisply.
+
+"Here, _sir_," said John.
+
+The Head of the House eyed him sharply.
+
+"Kinloch?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Kinloch?"
+
+Scaife answered dryly: "Kinloch's portmanteau has come." Then Dumbleton
+said in his smooth, bland voice, "His lordship is in the drawing-room
+with Mr. Rutford."
+
+The boys exchanged knowing glances. Scaife looked contemptuous. The next
+moment the last name had been called, and the boys scurried into the
+passages. Lawrence was the first to leave the hall. Impulsively, John
+rushed up to him.
+
+"I didn't mean to be funny, I didn't really," he panted.
+
+"Quite right. It doesn't pay," Lawrence smiled grimly, "for new boys to
+be funny. I saw you didn't mean it."
+
+Lawrence spoke in a loud voice. John realized that he had so spoken
+purposely, trying to wipe out a new boy's first blunder.
+
+"Thanks awfully," said John.
+
+He reached his room to find three other boys busily engaged in abusing
+their house-master. They took no notice of John, who leaned against the
+wall.
+
+"His lordship is in the drawing-room with Mr. Rutford."
+
+A freckle-faced, red-headed youth, with a big elastic mouth had imitated
+Dumbleton admirably.
+
+"What a snob Dick is!" drawled a very tall, very thin,
+aristocratic-looking boy.
+
+"And a fool," added Scaife. "This sort of thing makes him loathed."
+
+"It _is_ a sell his being here."
+
+All three fell to talking. The question still festering in John's mind
+was answered within a minute. The "brute" was Rutford. Towards the end
+of the previous term gossip had it that the master of the Manor had been
+offered an appointment elsewhere. Whereat the worthier spirits in the
+ancient house rejoiced. Now the joy was turned into wailing and gnashing
+of teeth.
+
+"Is he a beast to _us_?" said John.
+
+The freckle-faced boy answered affably, "That depends. His Imperial
+Highness"--he kicked the new portmanteau hard--"will not find Mr.
+Richard Rutford a beast. Far from it. And he's civil to the Demon,
+because his papa is a man of many shekels. But to mere outsiders, like
+myself, a beast of beasts; ay, the very king of beasts, is--Dirty Dick."
+
+And then--oh, horrors!--the door of No. 15 opened, and Rutford appeared,
+followed by a seemingly young and very fashionably dressed lady. The
+boys jumped to their feet. All, except Scaife, looked preternaturally
+solemn. The house-master nodded carelessly.
+
+"This is Scaife, Duchess," he said in his thick, rasping tones. "Scaife
+and Verney, let me present you to the Duchess of Trent."
+
+He mouthed the illustrious name, as if it were a large and ripe
+greengage.
+
+The duchess advanced, smiling graciously. "These"--Rutford named the
+other boys--"are Egerton, Lovell, and--er--Duff."
+
+Scaife, alone of those present, appreciated the order in which his
+schoolfellows had been named. Egerton--known as the Caterpillar--was the
+son of a Guardsman; Lovell's father was a judge; Duff's father an
+obscure parson.
+
+The duchess shook hands with each boy. "Your father and I are old
+friends," she said to Egerton; "and I have had the pleasure of meeting
+your uncle," she smiled at John.
+
+Duff looked unhappy and ill at ease, because it was almost certain that
+his last sentence had been overheard by the house-master. The duchess
+asked a few questions and then took her leave. She and her son were
+dining with the Head Master. Rutford accompanied her.
+
+"Did the blighter hear?" said Duff.
+
+"How could he help it with his enormous asses' ears?" said the tall,
+thin Egerton.
+
+Duff, an optimist, like all red-headed, freckled boys, appealed to the
+others, each in turn. The verdict was unanimous.
+
+"He hates me like poison," said Duff. "I shall catch it hot. What an
+unlucky beggar I am!"
+
+"Pooh!" said Scaife. "He knows jolly well that the whole school calls
+him Dirty Dick."
+
+But whatever hopes Duff may have entertained of his house-master's
+deafness were speedily laid in the dust. Within five minutes Rutford
+reappeared. He stood in the doorway, glaring.
+
+"Just now, Duff," said he, "I happened to overhear your voice, which is
+singularly, I may say vulgarly, penetrating. You were speaking of me,
+your house-master, as 'Dick.' But you used an adjective before it. What
+was it?"
+
+Duff writhed. "I don't--remember."
+
+"Oh yes, you do. Why lie, Duff?"
+
+John's brown face grew pale.
+
+"The adjective you used," continued Rutford, "was 'dirty.' You spoke of
+_me_ as 'Dirty Dick,' and I fancy I caught the word 'beast.' You will
+write out, if you please, one hundred Greek lines, accents and stops,
+and bring them to me, or leave them with Dumbleton, _twenty-five_ lines
+at a time, _every_ alternate half hour during the afternoon of the next
+half holiday. Good night to you."
+
+"Good night, sir," said all the boys, save John and Scaife.
+
+"Good night, Verney."
+
+Master and pupil confronted each other. John's face looked impassive;
+and Rutford turned from the new boy to Scaife.
+
+"Good night, Scaife."
+
+Scaife drew himself up, and, in a quiet, cool voice, replied--
+
+"Good night, sir."
+
+Duff waited till Rutford's heavy step was no longer heard; then he
+rushed at John.
+
+"I say," he spluttered, "you're a good sort--ain't he, Demon? Refusing
+to say 'Good night' to the beast because he was ragging me. But he'll
+never forgive you--never!"
+
+"Oh yes, he will," said Scaife. "It won't be difficult for Dirty Dick to
+forgive the future Verney of Verney Boscobel."
+
+John stared. "Verney Boscobel?" he repeated. "Why, that belongs to my
+uncle. Mother and I hope he'll marry and have a lot of jolly kids of his
+own."
+
+"You hope he'll marry? Well, I'm----"
+
+John's jaw stuck out. The emphasis on the "hope" and the upraised
+eyebrow smote hard.
+
+"You don't mean to say," he began hotly, "you don't _think_ that----"
+
+"I can think what I please," said Scaife, curtly; "and so can you." He
+laughed derisively. "_Thinking_ what they please is about the only
+liberty allowed to new boys. Even the Duffer learned to hold his tongue
+during his first term."
+
+The Caterpillar--the tall, thin, aristocratic boy--spoke solemnly. He
+was a dandy, the understudy--as John soon discovered--of one of the
+"Bloods"; a "Junior Blood," or "Would-be," a tremendous authority on
+"swagger," a stickler for tradition, who had been nearly three years in
+the school.
+
+"The Demon is right," said he. "A new boy can't be too careful, Verney.
+Your being funny in hall just now made a dev'lish bad impression."
+
+"But I didn't mean to be funny. I told Lawrence so directly after
+call-over."
+
+The Caterpillar pulled down his cuffs.
+
+"If you didn't mean to be funny," he concluded, "you must be an ass."
+
+Duff, however, remembered that John was nephew to an explorer.
+
+"I say," he jogged John's elbow, "do you think you could get me your
+uncle's autograph?"
+
+"Why, of course," said John.
+
+"Thanks. I've not a bad collection," the Duffer murmured modestly.
+
+"And the gem of it," said Scaife, "is Billington's, the hangman! The
+Duffer shivers whenever he looks at it."
+
+"Yes, I do," said Duff, grinning horribly.
+
+After supper and Prayers, John went to bed, but not to sleep for at
+least an hour. He lay awake, thinking over the events of this memorable
+day. Whenever he closed his eyes he beheld two objects: the spire of
+Harrow Church and the vivid, laughing face of Desmond. He told himself
+that he liked Desmond most awfully. And Scaife too, the Demon, had been
+kind. But somehow John did not like Scaife. Then, in a curious
+half-dreamy condition, not yet asleep and assuredly not quite awake, he
+seemed to see the figure of Scaife expanding, assuming terrific
+proportions, impending over Desmond, standing between him and the spire,
+obscuring part of the spire at first, and then, bit by bit,
+overshadowing the whole.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Byron, writing to John Murray, May 26, 1822, and giving directions
+for the burial of poor little Allegra's body, says--
+
+"I wish it to be buried in Harrow Church. There is a spot in the
+churchyard, near the footpath, on the brow of the hill looking towards
+Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie, or
+Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours as a boy: this was my
+favourite spot; but, as I wish to erect a tablet to her memory, the body
+had better be deposited in the church."
+
+See also "Lines written beneath an elm in the churchyard of Harrow," in
+"Hours of Idleness."
+
+[2] "Speecher"--_i.e._ Speech-Day. At Harrow "er" is a favourite
+termination of many substantives. "Harder," for hard-ball racquets,
+"Footer," "Ducker," etc.
+
+[3] The Duke of Dorset was Byron's fag. _Cf._--
+
+    "Though the harsh custom of our youthful band
+    Bade thee obey, and gave me to command."
+                                  _Hours of Idleness._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+_Cæsar_
+
+    "You come here where your brothers came,
+      To the old school years ago,
+    A young new face, and a Harrow name,
+      'Mid a crowd of strangers? No!
+    You may not fancy yourself alone,
+      You who are memory's heir,
+    When even the names in the graven stone
+      Will greet you with 'Who goes there--
+          You?--
+          Pass, Friend--All's well.'"
+
+
+John never forgot that memorable morning when he learned for the first
+time what place he had taken in the school. He sat with the other
+new-comers, staring, open-eyed, at nearly six hundred boys, big and
+small, assembled together in the Speech-room. So engrossed was he that
+he scarcely heard the Head Master's opening prayers. John was obsessed,
+inebriated, with the number of Harrovians, each of whom had once felt
+strange and shy like himself. From his place close to the great organ,
+he could look up and up, seeing row after row of faces, knowing that
+amongst them sat his future friends and foes.
+
+Suddenly, a neighbour nudged him. The Head Master was reading from a
+list in his hand the school-removes, and the names and places taken by
+new boys. He began at the lowest form with the name of a small urchin
+sitting near John. The urchin blinked and blushed as he realized that he
+was "lag of the school." John knew that he had answered fairly well the
+questions set by the examiners; he had no fear of finding himself
+pilloried in the Third Fourth; still, as form after form did not include
+his name, he grew restless and excited. Had he taken a higher place
+than the Middle Shell? Yes; no Verney in the Middle Shell. The Head
+Master began the removes of the top Shell. Now, now it must be coming.
+No; the clear, penetrating tones slowly articulated name after name, but
+not his.
+
+"Verney."
+
+At last. Many eyes were staring at him, some enviously, a few
+superciliously. John had taken the Lower Remove, the highest form but
+one open to new boys. He was sipping the wine called Success.
+
+Moreover, Desmond of the frank, laughing face and sparkling blue eyes,
+and Scaife and Egerton were also in the Lower Remove.
+
+After this, John sat in a blissful dream, hardly conscious of his
+surroundings, seeing his mother's face, hearing her sigh of pleasure
+when she learned that already her son was halfway up the school.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+You may be sure those first forty-eight hours were brim-full of
+excitements. First, John bought his books, stout leather-tipped,
+leather-backed volumes, on which his name will be duly stamped on
+fly-leaf and across the edges of the pages. And he bought also, from
+"Judy" Stephens,[4] a "squash" racquet, "squash" balls, and a yard ball.
+From the school Custos--"Titchy"--a noble supply of stationery was
+procured. Moreover, young Kinloch announced that his mother had given
+him three pounds to spend upon the decoration of No. 15, so Scaife
+declared his intention of spending a similar sum, and in consequence No.
+15 became a gorgeous apartment, the cynosure of every eye that passed.
+The characters of the three boys were revealed plainly enough by their
+simple furnishings. Scaife bought sporting prints, a couple of
+Détaille's lithographs, and an easy-chair, known to dwellers upon the
+Hill as a "frowst"; Kinloch hung upon his side of the wall four pretty
+reproductions of French engravings, and with the help of three yards of
+velveteen and some cheap lace he made a very passable imitation of the
+mantel-cover in his mother's London boudoir; John scorned velveteen,
+lace, "frowsts," and French engravings. He put his money into a pair of
+red curtains, and one excellent photogravure of Landseer's "Children of
+the Mist." Having a few shillings to spare, he bought half a dozen
+ferns, which were placed in a box by the window, and watered so
+diligently that they died prematurely.
+
+Secondly, John played in a house-game at football, and learned the
+difference between a scrimmage at a small preparatory school and the
+genuine thing at Harrow. Lawrence insisted that all new boys should
+play, and the Caterpillar informed him that he would have to learn the
+rules of Harrow "footer" by heart, and pass a stiff examination in them
+before the House Eleven, with the penalty of being forced to sing them
+in Hall if he failed to satisfy his examiners. The Duffer lent him a
+House-shirt of green and white stripes, and a pair of white duck shorts,
+and with what pride John put them on, thinking of the far distant day
+when he would wear a "fez"[5] instead of the commonplace house-cap!
+Lawrence said a few words.
+
+"You'll have to play the compulsory games, Verney, which begin after the
+Goose Match,[6] but I want to see you playing as hard as ever you can in
+the house-games. You'll be knocked about a bit; but a Verney won't mind
+that--eh?"
+
+"Rather not," said John, feeling very valiant.
+
+Thirdly, there was the first Sunday, and the first sermon of the Head
+Master, with its plain teaching about the opportunities and perils of
+Public School life. John found himself mightily affected by the singing,
+and the absence of shrill treble voices. The booming basses and
+baritones of the big fellows made him shiver with a curious bitter-sweet
+sensation never experienced before.
+
+Lastly, the pleasant discovery that his Form treated him with courtesy
+and kindness. Desmond, in particular, welcomed him quite warmly. And
+then and there John's heart was filled with a wild and unreasonable
+yearning for this boy's friendship. But Desmond--he was called "Cæsar,"
+because his Christian names were Henry Julius--seemed to be very
+popular, a bright particular star, far beyond John's reach although for
+ever in his sight. Cæsar never offered to walk with him: and he refused
+John's timid invitation to have food at the "Tudor Creameries."[7] Was
+it possible that a boy about to enter Damer's would not be seen walking
+and talking with a fellow out of Dirty Dick's? This possibility
+festered, till one morning John saw his idol walking up and down the
+School Yard with Scaife. That evening he said to Scaife--
+
+"Do you like Desmond?"
+
+"Yes," Scaife replied decisively. "I like him better than any fellow at
+Harrow. You know that his father is Charles Desmond--the Cabinet
+Minister and a Governor of the school?"
+
+"I didn't know it. I suppose Cæsar Desmond likes you--_awfully_."
+
+"Do you? I doubt it."
+
+No more was said. John told himself that Cæsar--he liked to think of
+Desmond as Cæsar--could pick and choose a pal out of at least three
+hundred boys, half the school. How extremely unlikely that he, John,
+would be chosen! But every night he lay awake for half an hour longer
+than he ought to have done, wondering how, by hook or crook, he could do
+a service to Cæsar which must challenge interest and provoke,
+ultimately, friendship.
+
+Meantime, he was slowly initiated by the Caterpillar into Harrow ways
+and customs. Fagging, which began after the first fortnight, he found a
+not unpleasant duty. After first and fourth schools the other fags and
+he would stand not far from the pantry, and yell out "Breakfast," or
+"Tea," as it might be, "for Number So-and-So." Perhaps one had to nip up
+to the Creameries to get a slice of salmon, or cutlets, or sausages.
+Fagging at Harrow--which varies slightly in different houses--is hard or
+easy according to the taste and fancy of the fag's master. Some of the
+Sixth Form at the Manor made their fags unlace their dirty football
+boots. Kinloch, who since he left the nursery had been waited upon by
+powdered footmen six feet high, now found, to his disgust, that he had
+to varnish Trieve's patent-leathers for Sunday. Trieve was second in
+command, and had been known as "Miss" Trieve. John would have gladly
+done this and more for Lawrence, his fag-master; but Lawrence, a manly
+youth, scorned sybaritic services. The Caterpillar taught John to carry
+his umbrella unfolded, to wear his "straw" straight (a slight list to
+port was allowed to "Bloods" only), not to walk in the middle of the
+road, and so forth. How he used to envy the members of the Elevens as
+they rolled arm-in-arm down the High Street! How often he wondered if
+the day would ever dawn when Cæsar and he, outwardly and inwardly linked
+together, would stroll up and down the middle-walk below the Chapel
+Terrace: that sunny walk, whence, on a fair day, you can see the
+insatiable monster, London, filling the horizon and stretching red,
+reeking hands into the sweet country--the middle-walk, from which all
+but Bloods were rigidly excluded.
+
+Much to his annoyance--an annoyance, be it said, which he managed to
+hide--John seemed to attract young Kinloch almost as magnetically as he
+himself was attracted to Cæsar. John had not the heart to shake off the
+frail, delicate child, who was christened "Fluff" after his first
+appearance in public. Fluff had taken the First Fourth and ingenuously
+confessed to any one who cared to listen that he ought to have gone to
+Eton. A beast of a doctor prescribed the Hill. And even the almighty
+duke failed to get him into Damer's, another grievance. He had been
+entered since birth at the crack house at Eton; and now to be
+pitchforked into Dirty Dick's at Harrow----! The Duffer kicked him,
+feeling an unspeakable cad when poor Fluff burst into tears.
+
+"Sorry," said the Duffer. "Only you mustn't slang Harrow. And you'd
+better get it into your silly head that it's the best school in this or
+any other world--isn't it, Demon?"
+
+"I'm sure the Verneys, and the Egertons, and the Duffs have always
+thought so."
+
+"But it isn't really," whimpered poor Fluff. "You fellows know that
+everybody talks of Eton and Harrow. Who ever heard of Harrow and Eton?
+People say--I've heard my eldest brother, Strathpeffer, say it again and
+again--'Eton and Harrow,' just as they say 'Gentlemen and Players.'"
+
+"Oh," said the Caterpillar. "The Etonians are the gentlemen--eh? Well,
+Fluff, after their performance at Lord's last year, you couldn't expect
+us to admit that they're--players."
+
+The Duffer chuckled.
+
+"I say, Caterpillar, that was a good 'un."
+
+"Not mine," said the Caterpillar, solemnly; "my governor's, you know."
+
+The Duffer continued: "Now, Fluff, I won't touch your body, because you
+might tumble to pieces, but if I hear you slanging the school or our
+house, I'll pull out handfuls of fluff. D'ye hear?"
+
+"Yes," said Fluff, meekly.
+
+"Say '_Floreat Herga_' on your bended knees!"
+
+Fluff obeyed.
+
+"And remember," said the Duffer, impressively, "that we've had a king
+here, haven't we, Caterpillar?"
+
+"Yes," said the Caterpillar.
+
+"I never believed it," said Scaife.
+
+"He was a Spaniard,[8] or an Italian, you know," the Duffer explained.
+"The duke of something or t'other; and an ambassador came down and
+offered the beggar the Spanish crown, when he was in the First Fourth,
+and of course he gobbled it--who wouldn't? And then Victor Emmanuel
+interfered. That's all true, you can take your Bible oath, because my
+governor told me so, and he--well, he's a parson."
+
+"Then it _must_ be true," said Scaife. "Now, young Fluff, don't forget
+that Harrow is a school fit for a king and nearer to Heaven than Eton by
+at least six hundred feet."
+
+So saying, the Demon marched out of the room, followed by Fluff,
+slightly limping.
+
+"Sorry I turfed[9] that little ass so hard," said the Duffer to John. "I
+say, Verney, the Demon is rather a rum 'un, ain't he? Sometimes I can't
+quite make him out. He's frightfully clever and all that, but I had a
+sort of beastly feeling just now that he didn't--eh?--quite mean what he
+said. Was he laughin' at _us_, pullin' our legs--what?"
+
+John's brain worked slowly, as he had found out to his cost under a
+form-master who maintained that it was no use having a fact stored in
+the head unless it slipped readily out of the mouth. The Duffer, who
+never thought, because speaking was so much easier, grew impatient at
+John's silence.
+
+"Well, you needn't look like an owl, Verney. You know that Scaife's
+grandfather was a navvy."
+
+"I don't know," John replied.
+
+"And I don't care," said the Duffer. "Let's go and have some food at the
+Creameries."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Looking back afterwards, John often wondered whether, unconsciously,
+the Duffer had sown a grain of mustard-seed destined to grow into a
+large tree. Or, had the intuition that Scaife was other than what he
+seemed furnished the fertile soil into which the seed fell? In any case,
+from the end of this first week began to increase the suspicion, which
+eventually became conviction, that the Demon, keen at games, popular in
+his house, clever at work--clever, indeed! inasmuch as he never achieved
+more or less than was necessary--generous with his money, handsome and
+well-mannered, blessed, in fine, with so many gifts of the gods, yet
+lacked a soul.
+
+This, of course, is putting into words the vague speculations and
+reasonings of a boy not yet fourteen. If an Olympian--one of the
+masters, for instance, or the Head of the House--had said, "Verney, has
+the Demon a soul?" John would have answered promptly, "Ra--ther! He's
+been awfully decent to Fluff and me. We'd have had a hot time if it
+hadn't been for him," and so forth.... And, indeed, to doubt Scaife's
+sincerity and goodness seemed at times gross disloyalty, because he
+stood, firm as a rock, between the two urchins in his room and the
+turbulent crowd outside. This defence of the weak, this guarding of
+green fruit from the maw of Lower School boys, afforded Scaife an
+opportunity of exercising power. He had the instincts of the potter,
+inherited, no doubt; and he moulded the clay ready to his hand with the
+delight of a master-workman. Nobody else knew what the man of millions
+had said to his boy when he despatched him to Harrow; but the Demon
+remembered every word. He had reason to respect and fear his sire.
+
+"I'm sending you to Harrow to study, not books nor games, but boys, who
+will be men when you are a man. And, above all, study their weaknesses.
+Look for the flaws. Teach yourself to recognize at a glance the liar,
+the humbug, the fool, the egotist, and the mule. Make friends with as
+many as are likely to help you in after life, and don't forget that one
+enemy may inflict a greater injury than twenty friends can repair.
+Spend money freely; dress well; swim with the tide, not against it."
+
+A year at Harrow confirmed Scaife's confidence in his father's worldly
+wisdom. Big for his age, strong, with his grandsire's muscles, tough as
+hickory, he had become the leader of the Lower School boys at the Manor.
+The Fifth were civil to him, recognizing, perhaps, the expediency of
+leaving him alone ever since the incident of the cricket stump. The
+Sixth found him the quickest of the fags and uncommonly obliging. His
+house-master signed reports which neither praised nor blamed. To Dirty
+Dick the boy was the son of a man who could write a cheque for a
+million.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two things worthy of record happened within a month; the one of lesser
+importance can be set down first. Charles Desmond, Cæsar's father, came
+down to Harrow and gave a luncheon at the King's Head. From time
+immemorial the Desmonds had been educated on the Hill. The family had
+produced some famous soldiers, a Lord Chancellor, and a Prime Minister.
+In the Fourth Form Room the stranger may read their names carved in oak,
+and they are carved also in the hearts of all ardent Harrovians. Mr.
+Desmond, though a Cabinet Minister, found time to visit Harrow once at
+least in each term. He always chose a whole holiday, and after attending
+eleven-o'clock Bill[10] in the Yard, would carry off his son and his
+son's friends. The School knew him and loved him. To the thoughtful he
+stood for the illustrious past, the epitome of what John Lyon's[11] boys
+had fought for and accomplished. Four sons had he--Harrovians all. Of
+these Cæsar was youngest and last. Each had distinguished himself on the
+Hill either in work or play, or in both.
+
+Charles Desmond stood upon the step just above the master who was
+calling Bill.
+
+"That's Cæsar's father," said Scaife. "I'm going to lunch with him.
+Isn't he a topper?"
+
+John's eyes were popping out of his face. He had never seen any man like
+this resplendent, stately personage, smiling and nodding to the biggest
+fellows in the school.
+
+"And my governor says," Scaife added, "that he's not a rich man, nothing
+much to speak of in the way of income over and above his screw as a
+Cabinet Minister."
+
+Scaife moved away, and John could hear him say to another boy, in an
+easy, friendly tone, "Mr. Desmond told Cæsar that he wanted to meet
+_me_--very civil of him--eh?"
+
+Presently John was in line waiting to pass by the steps.
+
+"Verney?"
+
+"Here, sir."
+
+He was hurrying by, with a backward glance at the great man. Suddenly
+Cæsar's father beckoned, nodding cheerily. John ascended the steps, to
+feel the grasp of a strong hand, to hear a ringing voice.
+
+"You're John Verney's nephew. Just so. I think I should have spotted
+you, even if Harry had not told me you were in his form. You must lunch
+with us. Cut along, now."
+
+So John was dismissed, brim-full of happiness, which almost overflowed
+when Cæsar met him with an eager--
+
+"I'm so glad, Verney. I say, the governor's a nailer at picking out the
+old names, isn't he?"
+
+So John ate his luncheon in distinguished company, and felt himself for
+the first time to be somebody. As the youngest guest present, to him was
+accorded the place of honour, next the most charming host in
+Christendom, who put him at ease in a jiffy. How good the cutlets and
+the pheasant tasted! And how the talk warmed the cockles of his heart!
+The brand of the Crossed Arrows shone upon all topics. Who could expect,
+or desire, aught else! Cæsar's governor seemed to know what every
+Harrovian had done worth the doing. Easily, fluently, he discoursed of
+triumphs won at home, abroad, in the camp, on the hustings, at the bar,
+in the pulpit. And his anecdotes, which illustrated every phase of life,
+how pat to the moment they were! One boy complained ruefully of having
+spent three terms under a form-master who had "ragged" him. Charles
+Desmond sympathized--
+
+"Bless my soul," said he, "don't I remember being three terms in the
+Third Fifth when that tartar old Heriot had it? I dare swear I got no
+more than my deserts. I was an idle vagabond, but Heriot made my life
+such a burden to me that I entreated my people to take me away from
+Harrow. And then my governor urged me to put my back into the work and
+get a remove. And I did. And would you believe it, upon the first day of
+the next term I wired to my people, 'You must take me away. I've got my
+remove all right--and so has Heriot.'"
+
+How gaily the speaker led the laugh which followed this recital! And the
+chaff! Was it possible that Cæsar dared to chaff a man who was supposed
+to have the peace of Europe in his keeping? And, by Jove! Cæsar could
+hold his own.
+
+So the minutes flew. But John noticed, with surprise, that the Demon
+didn't score. In fact, John and he were the only guests that contributed
+nothing to the feast save hearty appetites. It was strange that the
+Demon, the wit of his house and form, never opened his mouth except to
+fill it with food. He answered, it is true, and very modestly, the
+questions addressed to him by his host; but then, as John reflected, any
+silly fool in the Fourth Form could do that.
+
+After luncheon, the boys were dismissed, each with a hearty word of
+encouragement and half a sovereign. John was passing the plate-glass
+splendours of the Creameries, when the Demon overtook him, and they
+walked down the winding High Street together. Scaife had never walked
+with John before.
+
+"That was worth while," Scaife said quietly. John could not interpret
+this speech, save in its obvious meaning.
+
+"Rather," he replied.
+
+"Why?" said Scaife, very sharply.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Why was it worth while?"
+
+John stammered out something about good food and jolly talk.
+
+"Pooh!" said Scaife, contemptuously. "I thought you had brains, Verney."
+He glanced at him keenly. "Now, speak out. What's in that head of yours?
+You can be cheeky, if you like."
+
+John wondered how Scaife had divined that he wished to be cheeky. His
+mentor had said so much to Fluff and him about the propriety of not
+putting on "lift" or "side" in the presence of an older boy, that he had
+choked back a retort which occurred to him.
+
+"You're thinking," continued the Demon, in his clear voice, "that I
+didn't use my brains just now, but, my blooming innocent, I can assure
+you I did. Very much so. I played 'possum. Put that into your little
+pipe and smoke it."
+
+At four-o'clock Bill, John noticed Cæsar's absence: a fact accounted for
+by the presence of a mail-phaeton, which, he knew, belonged to Mr.
+Desmond, drawn up--oddly enough--opposite the Manor. What a joke to
+think that Cæsar was drinking tea with Dirty Dick!
+
+After Bill, having nothing better to do, John and Fluff went for a walk
+on the Sudbury road. They had played football before Bill, and each had
+realized his own awkwardness and insignificance. Poor Fluff, almost
+reduced to tears, with a big black bruise upon his white forehead,
+confessed that he preferred peaceful games--like croquet, and intended
+to apply for a doctor's certificate of exemption. Demanding sympathy, he
+received a slating.
+
+"I play nearly as rotten a game as you do, Fluff," John said; "but
+Scaife expects us to be Torpids,[12] so we jolly well have to buck up.
+That bruise over your eye has taken off your painted-doll look. Now, if
+you're going to blub, you'd better get behind that hedge."
+
+Fluff exploded.
+
+"This is a beastly hole," he cried. "And I loathe it. I'm going to write
+to my father and beg him to take me away."
+
+"You ought to be at a girls' school."
+
+"I hate everything and everybody. I thought you were my friend, the only
+friend I had."
+
+John was somewhat mollified.
+
+"I am your friend, but not when you talk rot."
+
+"Verney, look here, if you'll be decent to me, I _will_ try to stick it
+out. I wish I was like you; I do indeed. I wish I was like Scaife. Why,
+I'd sooner be the Duffer, freckles and all, than myself."
+
+John looked down upon the delicately-tinted face, the small, regular,
+girlish features, the red, quivering mouth. Suddenly he grasped that
+this was an appeal from weakness to strength, and that he, no older and
+but a little bigger than Fluff, had strength to spare, strength to
+shoulder burdens other than his own.
+
+"All right," he said stiffly; "don't make such a fuss!"
+
+"You'll have me for a friend, Verney?"
+
+"Yes; but I ain't going to kiss your forehead to make it well, you
+know."
+
+"May I call you John, when we're alone? And I wish you'd call me Esmé,
+instead of that horrid 'Fluff.'"
+
+John pondered deeply.
+
+"Look here," he said. "You can call me John, and I'll call you Esmé,
+when we're Torpids. And now, you'd better cut back to the house. I must
+think this all out, and I can't think straight when I look at you."
+
+"May I call you John once?"
+
+"You are the silliest idiot I ever met, bar none. Call me 'John,' or
+'Tom Fool,' or anything; but hook it afterwards!"
+
+"Yes, John, I will. You're the only boy I ever met whom I really wanted
+for a friend." He displayed a radiant face, turned suddenly, and ran
+off. John watched him, frowning, because Fluff was a good little chap,
+and yet, at times, such a bore!
+
+He walked on alone, chewing the cud of a delightful experience; trying,
+not unsuccessfully, to recall some of Mr. Desmond's anecdotes. How proud
+Cæsar was of his father! And the father, obviously, was just as proud of
+his son. What a pair! And if only Cæsar were his friend! By Jove! It was
+rather a rum go, but John was as mad keen to call Cæsar friend as poor
+Fluff to call John friend. Serious food for thought, this. "But I would
+never bother him," said John to himself, "as Fluff has bothered me,
+never!"
+
+"Hullo, Verney!"
+
+"Hullo!" said John.
+
+Coincidence had thrust Cæsar out of his thought and on to the narrow
+path in front of him.
+
+"I'm not a ghost," said Cæsar.
+
+John hesitated.
+
+"I was thinking of you," he confessed; "and then I heard your voice and
+saw you. It gave me a start. I say, it _was_ good of your governor to
+ask me."
+
+"Hang my governor! He's the----"
+
+Cæsar closed his lips firmly, as if he feared that terrible adjectives
+might burst from them. John missed the sparkling smile, the gay glance
+of the eyes.
+
+"What's up?" he demanded.
+
+Cæsar hesitated; looked at John, read, perhaps, the sympathy, the honest
+interest, possibly the affection, in the grey orbs which met his own so
+steadily.
+
+"What's up?" he repeated. "Why, I'm not going into Damer's, after all."
+
+"Oh!" said John.
+
+"My governor has just told me. I came down here to curse and swear."
+
+"Not going into Damer's? What rot--for you!"
+
+"It is sickening. Look here, Verney; I feel like telling you about it. I
+know you won't go bleating all over the shop. No. I said to myself,
+'Mum's the word,' but----"
+
+John's heart beat, his body glowed, his grey eyes sparkled.
+
+"It's like this," continued Cæsar, after a slight pause. "Damer told the
+governor that two fellows he had expected to leave at the end of this
+term were staying on. The governor hinted that Damer added something
+about straining a point, and letting me in ahead of three other fellows;
+but the governor wouldn't listen to that----"
+
+"Jolly decent of him," said John.
+
+"Was it? In my opinion he ought to have thought of me first. All my
+brothers have been at Damer's. And he knew I'd set my heart on going
+there. Look how civil the fellows are to me. I've been in and out of the
+house like a tame cat. Confound it! if Damer did want to strain a point,
+why shouldn't he? The governor played his own game, not mine. What right
+has he to be so precious unselfish at my expense? I argued with him; but
+he can put his foot down. Let's cut all that. Of course, I don't want to
+stop in a beastly Small House for ever, and, if Damer's is closed to me,
+I should like Brown's, but Brown's is full too. And there are other good
+houses. But where--where do you think I _am_ going?"
+
+"Reeds?"
+
+"I don't call Reed's so bad. No; I'm going to Dirty Dick's. I'm coming
+to you."
+
+"Oh, I say."
+
+"Why, dash it all, you're grinning. I don't want to be a cad--Dirty
+Dick's is _your_ house--but--after Damer's! O Lord!"
+
+The grin faded out of John's face. Cæsar's loss outweighed his own gain.
+
+"Your governor was a Manorite," he said slowly.
+
+"Yes, in its best days; and he's always had a sneaking liking for it;
+but he knows, he knows, I say, that now it's rotten, and yet he sends me
+there. Why?"
+
+"Ask another," said John.
+
+"I asked him another, and what do you think he said, in that peculiar
+voice of his which always dries me up? 'Harry,' said he, 'when you're a
+little older and a good deal wiser, you'll be able to answer that
+question yourself.'"
+
+John's face brightened. A glimmering of the truth shone out of the
+darkness. He tried to advance nearer to it, gropingly.
+
+"I dare say----"
+
+"Well, go on!"
+
+"Your governor may feel that we want a fellow like you."
+
+John was blushing because he remembered what the Head of the House had
+said about the Verneys. Desmond glanced at him keenly. He detested
+flattery laid on too thick. But this was a genuine tribute. For the
+first time he smiled.
+
+"Thank you, Verney," he said, more genially. "What you say is utter rot;
+but it was decent of you to say it, and I'm glad that you and I are
+going to be in the same house."
+
+For his life John could not help adding, "And Scaife, you forget
+Scaife?" Jealousy pierced him as Scaife's name slipped out.
+
+"Yes, there's the Demon. I always liked him."
+
+"And he likes you."
+
+"Does he? Good old Demon! I like to be liked. That's the Irish in me.
+I'm half Irish, you know. I want fellows to be friendly to me. I'd
+forgotten Scaife. That's rum too, because he's not the sort one forgets,
+is he? No, I wonder if I could get into the Demon's room next term?"
+
+"I'm in his room. It's a three-room."
+
+"A two-room is much jollier."
+
+"Our room is not bad."
+
+Cæsar was hardly listening. John caught a murmur: "The old Demon and I
+would get along capitally."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] The racquet Professional.
+
+[5] The cap of honour worn by the House Football Eleven.
+
+[6] The Goose Match, the last cricket-match of the year, played between
+the Eleven and Old Boys, on the nearest half-holiday to Michaelmas Day.
+
+[7] A fashionable "tuck"-shop.
+
+[8] H.R.H. Prince Thomas of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, was elected King by
+the Cortes of Spain, October 3, 1869, while he was a boy at Harrow. The
+crown was finally declined January 1, 1870. The Prince was nick-named
+"King Tom."
+
+[9] To "turf," _i.e._ to kick.
+
+[10] Calling over.
+
+[11] John Lyon founded Harrow School, 1571.
+
+[12] Boys who have not been more than two years in the school are
+eligible as "Torpids;" out of each house a Torpid football Eleven is
+chosen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+_Kraipale_[13]
+
+    "Life is mostly froth and bubble;
+      Two things stand like stone--
+    Kindness in another's trouble,
+      Courage in your own."
+
+
+Some five years afterwards John Verney learned what had passed between
+Cabinet Minister and Head Master upon that eventful day which sent Cæsar
+to curse and swear upon the Sudbury road. The Head Master was not an
+Harrovian, and on that account was the better able to perceive
+time-honoured abuses. At Harrow the dominant chord among masters and
+boys is a harmony of strenuousness and sentiment. Inevitably, the
+sentiment becomes, at times, sentimental; and then strenuousness pushes
+it into a corner. When honoured veterans are wearing out, loyalty,
+gratitude for past service, reluctance to inflict pain, keep them in
+positions of responsibility which mentally and physically they are unfit
+to administer. It is almost as difficult to turn an Eton or Harrow
+master out of his house, as to turn a parson of the Church of England
+out of his pulpit. More, in selecting a house-master as in selecting a
+parson, a man's claims to preferment are too often determined by
+scholarship, by length of former service, by interest with authority,
+rather than by ability to govern a body of boys made up of widely
+different parts. A capable form-master may prove an incapable
+house-master. Richard Rutford, to give a concrete example, came to
+Harrow knowing nothing about Public Schools, and caring as little for
+the traditions of the Hill, but with the prestige of being a Senior
+Classic. Nobody questioned his ability to teach Greek. In his own line,
+and not an inch beyond, the Governors were assured that Rutford was a
+success. In due time he accepted a Small House, so small that its
+autocrat's incapacity as an administrator escaped notice. Rutford waited
+patiently for a big morsel. He wrote a couple of text-books; he married
+a wife with money and influence; he entertained handsomely. It is true
+he became popular neither with masters nor boys, but his wine was as
+sound as his scholarship, and his wife had a peer for a second cousin.
+Eventually he accepted the Manor. Within a month, those in authority
+suspected that a blunder had been made; within a year they knew it. The
+house began to go down. Leaven lay in the lump, but not enough to make
+it rise, because the baker refused to stir the dough. First and last,
+Rutford disliked boys, misunderstood them, insulted them, ignored those
+who lacked influential connections, toadied and pampered the "swells."
+
+Just before John Verney came to Harrow, the Manor was showing
+unmistakable signs of decay. A new Head Master, recognizing "dry-rot,"
+realizing the necessity of cutting it out, was confronted with that
+bristling obstacle--Tradition. He possessed enough moral courage to have
+told Rutford to resign, because in a thousand indescribable ways the man
+had neglected his duty; but, so said the Tories, such a step might
+provoke a public scandal, and if Rutford refused to go--what then?
+Nothing definite could be proved against the man. His sins had been of
+omission. Dismayed, not defeated, the Head Master considered other
+methods of regenerating the Manor. Very quietly he made his appeal to
+the Old Harrovians, many of whom were sending their sons and nephews to
+other houses. He invited co-operation. John Verney, the Rev. Septimus
+Duff, Colonel Egerton--half a dozen enthusiastic Manorites--stepped
+forward. Lastly, for Charles Desmond the Head Master baited his hook.
+
+"The reform which we have at heart," said he, "must come from within
+and from below. The house wants a Desmond in it. I was not allowed to
+wield the axe; but, after all, there are more modern methods of
+decapitation. And, believe me, I am not asking any man more than I am
+prepared to do myself. My own nephew goes to the Manor after next
+holidays."
+
+"Um!" said Mr. Desmond, stroking his chin.
+
+"Lawrence, the Head of the House, is a tower of strength, like all the
+Lawrences."
+
+"How did you beguile the Duke of Trent?"
+
+"Fortune gave me that weapon. The duke"--he laughed genially----
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Will turn scales which my heaviest arguments won't budge. A bit of
+luck! The duke wanted to send his son, a delicate lad, to Harrow, and I
+did mention to him that Rutford had a vacancy."
+
+"O Ulysses! And Scaife? How did you handle that large bale of
+bank-notes?"
+
+"Rutford captured Scaife."
+
+"Handsome boy--his son. Lunched with us this morning. Well, well, you
+have persuaded me. But what an unpleasant quarter of an hour I shall
+have with Harry!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As a new boy, John slaved at "footer," and displayed a curious
+inaptitude for squash racquets. At all games Cæsar and Scaife were
+precociously proficient. John's clumsiness annoyed them. Often the
+Caterpillar joined him and Fluff, giving them to understand that this
+must be regarded as an act of grace and condescension which might be
+suitably acknowledged at the Tudor Creameries.
+
+The Caterpillar mightily impressed the two small boys. He had acquired
+his nick-name from the very leisurely pace at which he advanced up the
+school. He wore "Charity tails," as they were called, the swallow-tail
+coat of the Upper School mercifully given to boys of the Lower School
+who are too tall to wear with decency the short Eton jacket; he
+possessed a trouser-press; and his "bags" were perfectly creased and
+quite spotless. From tip to toe, at all seasons and in all weathers, he
+looked conspicuously spick and span. Chaff provoked the solemn retort:
+"One should be well groomed." He spoke impersonally, considering it bad
+form to use for first person singular. Amongst the small boys he ranked
+as the Petronius of the Lower School.
+
+One day the Caterpillar said grandiloquently, "You kids will oblige me
+by not shouting and yelling when you speak to me. I've a bit of a head."
+
+"What's wrong with it?" said Fluff.
+
+"It looks splendid _outside_," said John, in his serious voice.
+
+The Caterpillar, detecting no cheek, answered gravely--
+
+"Some of us had a wet night of it, last night."
+
+"Wet?" exclaimed the innocent Fluff. "Why, all the stars were shining."
+
+"Your brothers at Eton know what a 'wet night' means," said the
+Caterpillar. "I was talking with one of the Fifth, when a fellow came in
+with a flask. A gentleman ought to be able to carry a few glasses of
+wine, but one is not accustomed to spirits."
+
+"Spirits?"
+
+"Whisky, not prussic acid, you know."
+
+"But where do they get the whisky?" demanded John.
+
+"Comparing it with my father's old Scotch, I should say at the
+grocer's," replied the Caterpillar. "There's some drinking going on in
+our house, and--and other things. One mentions it to you kids as a
+warning."
+
+"Thanks," said John.
+
+"Not at all; you're rather decent little beggars. They" (the Fifth Form
+was indicated), "they've let you alone so far, but you may have trouble
+next term, so look out! And if you want advice, come to me."
+
+Beneath his absurd pompous manner beat a kindly heart, and the small
+boys divined this and were grateful. None the less the word "spirits"
+frightened them. Next day John happened to find himself alone with
+Cæsar. Very nervously he asked the question--
+
+"I say, do any of the big fellows at Damer's drink?"
+
+"Drink? Drink--what?"
+
+"Well, spirits."
+
+Cæsar snorted an indignant denial. The fellows at Damer's were above
+that sort of thing. The house prided itself upon its tone. Tone
+constituted Damer's glory, and was the secret of its success. John
+nodded, but two days afterwards the Demon took him by the arm, twisted
+it sharply, and said--
+
+"What the deuce did you mean by telling Cæsar that the Manorites drink?"
+
+"Oh, Scaife--I didn't."
+
+"You gave us away."
+
+"_Us?_" John's eyes opened. "_You_ don't drink with 'em?" he faltered.
+
+"Don't bother your head about what I do, or don't do." Scaife answered
+roughly; "and because you took the Lower Remove don't think for an
+instant that you are on a par with Cæsar and me, or even the old
+Caterpillar--for you ain't."
+
+"I know that," said John, humbly.
+
+"Don't forget it, or there may be ructions."
+
+"I shan't forget it."
+
+"That's right. And, by the way, you're getting into the habit of hanging
+about Cæsar, which bores him to death. Stop it."
+
+But to this John made no reply. He read dislike in Scaife's bold eyes,
+detected it in his clear, peremptory voice, felt it in the cruel twist
+of the arm. And he had brains enough to know that Scaife was not the boy
+to dislike any one without reason. John crawled to the conclusion that
+Scaife had become jealous of his increasing intimacy with Desmond.
+
+However, when the three boys were preparing their Greek for First
+School, Scaife seemed his old self, friendly, amusing, and cool as a
+cucumber. Long ago he had initiated John into Manorite methods of work.
+
+"Our object is," he explained to the new boy, "to get through the 'swat'
+with as little squandering of valuable time as possible. It doesn't pay
+to be skewed. We must mug up our 'cons' well enough to scrape along
+without 'puns' and extra school."
+
+The three co-operated. Out of forty lines of Vergil, Scaife would be
+fifteen, John fifteen, and the Caterpillar ten; _ten_, because, as he
+pointed out, he had been nearly three years in the school. Then each
+fellow in turn construed his lines for the benefit of the others. A
+difficult passage was taken by Scaife to a clever friend in the Fifth.
+Sometimes Scaife would be absent twenty minutes, returning flushed of
+face, and slightly excited. John wondered if he had been drinking, and
+wondered also what Cæsar would say if he knew. About this time fear
+possessed his soul that Cæsar would come into the Manor and be taught by
+Scaife to drink. An occasional nightmare took the form of a desperate
+struggle between himself and Scaife, in which Scaife, by virtue of
+superior strength and skill, had the mastery, dragging off the beloved
+Cæsar, to plunge with him into fathomless pools of Scotch whisky.
+Somehow in these horrid dreams, Cæsar played an impressive part. Scaife
+and John fought for his body, while he looked on, an absurd state of
+affairs, never--as John reflected in his waking hours--likely to happen
+in real life. Of all boys Cæsar seemed to be the best equipped to fight
+his own battles, and to take, as he would have put it, "jolly good care
+of himself."
+
+After the first of the football house-matches, Scaife got his "fez" from
+Lawrence, the captain of the House Eleven, and the only member of the
+School Eleven in Dirty Dick's. Some of the big fellows in the Fifth
+seized this opportunity to "celebrate," as they called it. Scaife was
+popular with the Fifth because--as John discovered later--he cheerfully
+lent money to some of them and never pressed for repayment. And
+Scaife's getting his "fez" before he was fifteen might be reckoned an
+achievement. Cæsar, in particular, could talk of nothing else. He
+predicted that the Demon would be Captain of both Elevens, school
+racquet-player, and bloom into a second C. B. Fry.
+
+John, upon this eventful evening, soon became aware of a shindy. It
+happened that Rutford was giving a dinner-party, and extremely unlikely
+to leave the private side of the house. John heard snatches of song,
+howls, and cheers. Ordinarily Lawrence (in whose passage the shindy was
+taking place) would have stopped this hullabaloo; but Lawrence was
+dining with his house-master, and Trieve, an undersized, weakly
+stripling, lacked the moral courage to interfere. John was getting a
+"con" from Trieve when an unusually piercing howl penetrated the august
+seclusion.
+
+"What _are_ they doing?" asked Trieve, irritably.
+
+John hesitated. "It's the Fifth," he blurted out. "They've got Scaife in
+there, you know."
+
+"Oh, indeed! Scaife is an excuse, is he, for this fiendish row? Go and
+tell Scaife I want to see him."
+
+John looked rather frightened. He felt like a spaniel about to retrieve
+a lion. And scurrying along the passage he ran headlong into the Duffer,
+to whom he explained his errand.
+
+"Phew-w-w!" said that young gentleman. "I'd sooner it was you than me,
+Verney. They're pretty well ginned-up, I can tell you."
+
+John tapped timidly at the door of the room whence the songs and
+laughter proceeded. Then he tapped again, and again. Finally, summoning
+his courage, he rapped hard. Instantly there was silence, and then a
+furtive rustling of papers, followed by a constrained "Come in!"
+
+John entered.
+
+Most of the boys--there were about six of them--gazed at him in
+stupefaction. Scaife, very red in the face, burst into shrill shouts of
+laughter. Somehow the laughter disconcerted John. He forgot to deliver
+his message, but stood staring at Scaife, quaking with a young boy's
+terror of the unknown. Upon the table were some siphons, syrups, and the
+remains of a "spread."
+
+"What the blazes do you want?" said Lovell, the owner of the room.
+
+"I want Scaife," said John. "I mean that Trieve wants Scaife."
+
+"Oh, Miss Trieve wants Master Scaife, does she? Well, young 'un, you
+tell Trieve, with my compliments, that Scaife can't come. See? Now--hook
+it!"
+
+But John still stared at Scaife. The boy's dishevelled appearance, his
+wild eyes, his shrill laughter, revealed another Scaife.
+
+"You'd better come, Scaife," he faltered.
+
+"Not I," said Scaife. He spoke in a curiously high-pitched voice, quite
+unlike his usual cool, quiet tone. "Wait a mo'--I'm not Trieve's fag.
+I'm nobody's fag now, am I?"
+
+He appealed to the crowd. It was an unwritten rule at the Manor that
+members of the House cricket or football Elevens were exempt from
+fagging. But the common law of fagging at Harrow holds that any lower
+boy is bound to obey the Monitors, provided such obedience is not
+contrary to the rules of the school. In practice, however, no boy is
+fagged outside his own house, except for cricket-fagging in the summer
+term.
+
+"Fag? Not you? Tell Miss Trieve to mind her own business."
+
+John departed, feeling that an older and wiser boy might have tact to
+cope with this situation. For him, no course of action presented itself
+except delivering what amounted to a declaration of war.
+
+"Won't come? Is he mad?"
+
+"'Can't come,' they said."
+
+"Oh, can't come? Has he hurt himself--sprained anything?"
+
+John was truthful (more of a habit than some people believe). He told
+the truth, just as some boys quibble and prevaricate, simply and
+naturally. But now, he hesitated. If he hinted--a hint would
+suffice--that Scaife had hurt himself--and what more likely after the
+furious bit of playing which had secured his "fez"?--Trieve, probably,
+would do nothing. John felt in his bones that Trieve would be glad of an
+excuse to do--nothing.
+
+"No; he hasn't sprained himself."
+
+"Then why don't he come?"
+
+"I--I----" Then he burst into excited speech. "He looks as if he _was_ a
+little mad. Oh, Trieve, won't you leave him alone? Please do! They must
+stop before prayers, and then Lawrence will be here."
+
+O unhappy John--thou art not a diplomatist! Why lug in Lawrence, who has
+inspired mordant jealousy and envy in the heart of his second in
+command?
+
+"Tell Scaife to come here at once," said Trieve, eyeing a couple of
+canes in the corner. "And if he should happen to ask what I want him
+for, say that I mean to whop him."
+
+John fled.
+
+"Whop him?"
+
+The Fifth howled rage and remonstrance. Scaife fiercely announced his
+intention of not taking a whopping from Trieve. None the less, the
+announcement had a sobering effect upon the elder boys. The consequence
+of a refusal must prove serious. Sooner or later Scaife would be
+whopped, probably by Lawrence, no ha'penny matter that!
+
+"You'd better go, Demon," said Lovell. "Trieve can't hurt you. I'd speak
+to the idiot, only he hates me so poisonously, just as I hate him."
+
+"I'll go," said the Caterpillar.
+
+John had not noticed the Caterpillar before. He stood up, spick and
+span, carefully adjusting his coat, pulling down his immaculate cuffs.
+
+"Good old Caterpillar," said somebody. "By Jove, he really thinks that
+Trieve will listen to--him!"
+
+"Any one who has been nearly three years in this house," said the
+Caterpillar, "has the right to tell Miss Trieve that she is--er--not
+behaving like a lady."
+
+"And he'll tell you you're screwed, you old fool."
+
+"I am not screwed," replied the Caterpillar, solemnly. "Whisky and
+potass does not agree with everybody; but I am not screwed, not at all."
+So speaking he sat down rather suddenly.
+
+Lovell shrugged his shoulders, glanced at the Caterpillar and Scaife,
+and left the room. Within two minutes he returned, chapfallen and
+frowning.
+
+"I knew it would be useless. Look here, Demon, you must grin and bear
+it."
+
+"No," said Scaife, "not from Miss Trieve."
+
+He laughed as before. The Fifth exchanged glances. Then Scaife said
+thickly, "Give me another drink, I want a drink; so does young Verney.
+Look at him!"
+
+John was white about the gills and trembling, but not for himself.
+
+"Do go, Scaife!" he entreated.
+
+The Fifth formed a group; holding a council of war, engrossed in trying
+to find a way out of a wood which of a sudden had turned into a tangled
+thicket. And so what each would have strenuously prevented came to pass.
+Scaife pulled a bottle from under a sofa-cushion, and put it to his
+lips--John, standing at the door, could not see what was taking place.
+
+When the bottle was torn from Scaife's hands, the mischief had been
+done. The boy had swallowed a quantity of raw spirit. Till now the
+whisky had been much diluted with mineral water.
+
+"I'm going to him," yelled Scaife, struggling with his friends. "And I'm
+going to take a cricket stump with me. Le'me go--le'me go!"
+
+The Caterpillar surveyed him with disgust. After a brief struggle Scaife
+succumbed, helpless and senseless.
+
+"One is reminded sometimes," said the Caterpillar, solemnly, "that the
+poor Demon is the son of a Liverpool merchant, bred in or about the
+Docks."
+
+Nobody, however, paid any attention to Egerton, who, to do him justice,
+was the only boy present absolutely unmindful of his own peril.
+Expulsion loomed imminent. The window was flung wide open, eau de
+Cologne liberally applied. Scaife lay like a log.
+
+And then, in the middle of the confusion, Trieve walked in.
+
+"Scaife has had a sort of fit," explained an accomplished liar. "You
+know what his temper is, Trieve? And when he heard that you meant to
+'whop' him, he went stark, staring mad."
+
+This explanation was so near the truth that Trieve accepted it, probably
+with mental reservations.
+
+"You had better send for Mrs. Puttick," he replied coldly.
+
+The Caterpillar was despatched for the matron; but before that worthy
+woman panted upstairs, Scaife had been carried to his own room, hastily
+undressed and put into bed, where he lay breathing stertorously. The
+matron, good, easy soul, accepted the boys' story unhesitatingly. A fit,
+of course, poor dear child! Mr. Rutford must be summoned.
+
+With the optimism of youth, those present began to hope that dust might
+be thrown into the eyes of Dirty Dick. And, with a little discreet
+delay, the Demon might recover, when he could be relied upon to play his
+part with adroitness and ability. Accordingly, the matron was urged to
+try her ministering hand first, amid the chaff, which, even in
+emergencies, slips so easily out of boys' mouths.
+
+"Mrs. Puttick, you're better than any doctor--Scaife is all right,
+_really_. We knew that he was subject to fits--Rather! Some one was
+telling me that one of his aunts died in a fit"--"Shut up, you silly
+fool," this in a whisper, emphasized by a kick; "do you want to send her
+out of this with a hornets' nest tied to her back hair?--That's a lie,
+Mrs. Puttick. He's humbugging you. Scaife told me that his fits were
+nothing. Yes; he had a slight sun-stroke when he was a kid, you know,
+and the least bit of excitement affects him."
+
+"Perhaps I'd better fetch a drop of brandy," said Mrs. Puttick, staring
+anxiously at Scaife. "He looks very bad."
+
+"Yes, please do, Mrs. Puttick."
+
+She bustled away.
+
+"Now we _must_ bring him to," said the Fifth Form.
+
+Everything was tried, even to the expedient of flicking Scaife's body
+with a wet towel; but the body lay motionless, his face horribly red
+against the white pillow, his heavy breathing growing more laboured and
+louder. And despite the perfume of the eau de Cologne which had drenched
+pillow and pyjamas, the smell of whisky spread terror to the crowd. If
+Rutford came in, he would swoop on the truth.
+
+"We'll souse the brandy all over him," said the Caterpillar; "and then
+no one can guess."
+
+"How about burnt feathers?" suggested Lovell. He had seen a fainting
+housemaid treated with this family restorative.
+
+Mrs. Puttick appeared with the brandy, which Lovell administered
+externally. Still, Scaife remained unconscious. Then a pillow was ripped
+open, and enough feathers burned to restore--as the Caterpillar put it
+afterwards--a ruined cathedral. The stench filled the passage and
+brought to No. 15 a chattering crowd of Lower Boys. And then the
+conviction seized everybody that Scaife was going to die.
+
+"Make way, make way, please!"
+
+It was Rutford, who, followed by Lawrence, strode down the passage into
+No. 15, and up to the bed.
+
+"If you please, sir," said Lovell, "Scaife has had a fit."
+
+"It looks like a fit," said Rutford, gravely. "I have telephoned for the
+doctor. You've tried," he sniffed the air, "all the wrong remedies, of
+course. Feathers--phaugh!--perfume--brandy! The boy must be propped up
+and the blood drawn from his head by applying hot water to his feet."
+
+The Fifth exchanged glances. Why had this not occurred to them? What a
+fool Mrs. Puttick was!
+
+"A rush of blood to the head!" Rutford liked to hold forth, and he had
+been told that he was a capital after-dinner speaker. He had just risen
+from an excellent dinner; he was not much alarmed; and his audience
+listened with flattering attention. Scaife was lifted into a chair; ice
+was applied to his head; his feet were thrust into a "tosh" filled with
+steaming water.
+
+"Note the effect," said Rutford. Already a slight change might be
+perceived; the breathing became easier, the face less red. Rutford
+continued in his best manner: "Mark the _vis medicatrix naturæ_. Nature,
+assisted by hot water, gently accomplishes her task. Very simple, and
+not one of you had the wit to think of a remedy close at hand, and so
+easy to administer. The breathing is becoming normal. In a few minutes I
+predict that we shall have the satisfaction of seeing the poor dear
+fellow open his eyes, and he will tell us that he is but little the
+worse. Yes, yes, a rush of blood to the head producing cerebral
+disturbance."
+
+He smiled blandly, receiving the homage of the Fifth.
+
+"And now, Lovell, what do you know about this? Did this fit take place
+here?"
+
+"In my room, sir."
+
+"In your room--eh? What was Scaife, a Lower Boy, doing in your room?"
+
+"Lawrence gave him his 'fez' to-day, sir."
+
+Lawrence nodded.
+
+"Ah! And Scaife was excited, perhaps unduly excited--eh?"
+
+The Fifth joined in a chorus of, "Yes, sir--Oh, yes, sir--awfully
+excited, sir--never saw a boy so excited, sir."
+
+"That will do. Now, Lovell, go on!"
+
+"We had some siphons in our room, sir." A stroke of genius this--for the
+siphons were still on the table and the syrups, and the _débris_ of
+cakes and meringues. Rutford would be sure to examine the scene of the
+catastrophe; and the whisky bottle was carefully hidden. "We were having
+a spread, sir, and we asked Scaife to join us. His play to-day made him
+one of us."
+
+The other boys gazed admiringly at Lovell. What a cool, knowing hand!
+
+"Yes, yes, I see nothing objectionable about that."
+
+"Well, sir--we were rather noisy----"
+
+"Go on."
+
+"To speak the exact truth, sir, I fear we were _very_ noisy; and Trieve,
+it seems, heard us. Instead of sending for me, sir, he sent Verney for
+Scaife----"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Lovell's hesitation at this point was really worthy of Coquelin _cadet_.
+
+"Of course you know, sir, that Scaife's getting his 'fez' releases him
+from house-fagging. We thought Trieve had forgotten that, sir; and that
+it would be rather fun--I'm not excusing myself, sir--we thought it
+would be a harmless joke if we persuaded Scaife not to go."
+
+"Um!"
+
+"We were very foolish, sir. And then Trieve sent another message saying
+that Scaife was to go to his room at once to be--whopped."
+
+"To be whopped. Um! Rather drastic that, very drastic under the
+circumstances."
+
+"So we thought, sir; and I went to represent the facts to Trieve----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I'm not much of a peacemaker, I fear, sir. Trieve refused to listen to
+me. He insisted upon whopping Scaife for what he called disobedience and
+impudence. Upon my honour, sir, I tried, we all tried, to persuade
+Scaife to take his whopping quietly, but he seemed to go quite mad. He
+has a violent temper, sir----"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"A very violent temper. He--he----"
+
+"Frothed at the mouth," put in a bystander. "I particularly noticed
+that."
+
+"Really, really----"
+
+"Yes," said Lovell, nodding his head reflectively. "He frothed at the
+mouth, and then----"
+
+"Grew quite black in the face," interpolated a third boy, who was
+determined that Lovell should not carry off all the honours.
+
+"I should say--purple," amended Lovell. "And then he gave----"
+
+"A beastly gurgle----"
+
+"A sort of snort, and fell flat on his face. I'm not sure that he didn't
+strike the edge of the table as he fell."
+
+"He did," said one of the boys. "I saw that."
+
+At this moment Scaife moved in his chair, drawing all eyes to his face.
+John, peering from behind the circle of big boys, could see the first
+signs of returning consciousness, a flicker of the eyelids, a convulsive
+tremor of the limbs. Rutford bent down.
+
+"Well, my dear Scaife, how are you? We've been a little anxious, all of
+us, but, I ventured to predict, without cause. Tell us, my poor boy, how
+do you feel?"
+
+Scaife opened his eyes. Then he groaned dismally. Rutford was standing
+to the right of the chair and foot-bath. The Fifth were facing Scaife.
+He met their anxious, admonishing glances, unable to interpret them.
+
+Lovell senior repeated the house-master's question--
+
+"How are you, old chap?"
+
+But, in his anxiety to convey a warning, he came too near, obscuring
+Rutford's massive figure. Scaife groaned again, putting his hand to his
+head.
+
+"How am I?" he repeated thickly. "Why, why, I'm jolly well screwed,
+Lovell; that's how I am! Jolly well screwed--hay? Ugh! how screwed I am.
+Ugh!"
+
+The groans fell on a terrifying silence. Rutford glanced keenly from
+face to face. Then he said slowly--
+
+"The wretched boy is--_drunk_!"
+
+At the sound of his house-master's voice, Scaife relapsed into an
+insensibility which no one at the moment cared to pronounce counterfeit
+or genuine. Rutford glared at Lovell.
+
+"Who was in your room, Lovell?"
+
+Without waiting for Lovell to answer, the other boys, each in turn,
+said, "I, sir," or "Me, sir." John came last.
+
+"Anybody else, Lovell?"
+
+A discreet master would not have asked this question, but Dirty Dick was
+the last man to waive an advantage. Now, the Caterpillar had quietly
+left No. 15, as soon as Rutford entered it. Not from any cowardly
+motive, but--as he put it afterwards--"because one makes a point of
+retiring whenever a rank outsider appears. One ought to be particular
+about the company one keeps." It says something for the boy's character,
+that this statement was accepted by the house as unvarnished truth.
+Lovell glanced at the other Fifth Form boys, as Rutford repeated the
+question.
+
+"Anybody else, Lovell? Be careful how you answer me!"
+
+"Nobody else," said Lovell.
+
+"On your honour, sir?"
+
+"On my honour, sir."
+
+And, later, all Manorites declared that Lovell had lied like a
+gentleman. Rutford and he stared at each other, the boy pale, but
+self-possessed, the big, burly man flushed and ill at ease.
+
+"You will all go to my study. A word with you, Lawrence."
+
+The boys filed quietly out. Rutford looked at John and Fluff. Large, fat
+tears were trickling down Fluff's cheeks. Somehow he felt convinced
+that John was involved in a frightful row.
+
+"Run away, Kinloch," said his house-master. "I wish to speak with
+Lawrence and Verney."
+
+He turned to Lawrence as he spoke. John glanced at Scaife. His eyes were
+open. Silently, Scaife placed a trembling finger upon his lips. The
+action, the expression in the eyes, were unmistakable. John understood,
+as plainly as if Scaife had spoken, that silence, where expulsion
+impended, was not only expedient but imperative. Kinloch crept out of
+the room. Rutford examined Scaife, who feigned insensibility. Then he
+addressed Lawrence.
+
+"Go to Lovell's room, Lawrence, and institute a thorough search. If you
+find wine or spirits, let me know at once."
+
+Lawrence left the room.
+
+"Now, Verney, I am going to ask you a few questions." He assumed his
+rasping, truculent tone. "And don't you dare to tell me lies, sir!"
+
+John was about to repudiate warmly his house-master's brutal injunction,
+when the habit of thinking before he spoke closed his half-opened lips.
+Immediately, his face assumed the obstinate, expressionless look which
+made those who searched no deeper than the surface pronounce him a dull
+boy. Rutford, for instance, interpreted this stolidity as unintelligence
+and lack of perception. John, meantime, was struggling with a thought
+which shaped itself slowly into a plan of action. He had just heard
+Lovell lie to save the Caterpillar. John knew well enough that he might
+be called upon to lie also, to save not himself, but Scaife. If he held
+his tongue and refused to answer questions, Rutford would assume, and
+with reason, that Scaife had been made drunk by the Fifth Form fellows.
+
+Then John said quietly, "I am not a liar, sir."
+
+"Certainly, I have never detected you in a lie," said Rutford.
+
+"All the same," continued John, in a hesitating manner, "I _would_ lie,
+if I thought a lie might save a friend's life."
+
+Rutford was so unprepared for this deliberate statement, that he could
+only reply--
+
+"Oh, you would, would you?"
+
+"Yes," said John; then he added, "Any decent boy or man would."
+
+"Oh! Oh, indeed! This is very interesting. Go on, Verney."
+
+"Scaife said he _felt_ as if he was jolly well screwed, sir; but he
+isn't. I'm quite sure he isn't. He may feel like it; but he isn't."
+
+John could see Scaife's eyes, slightly blood-shot, but sparkling with a
+sort of diabolical sobriety. At that moment, one thing alone seemed
+certain, Scaife had regained full possession of his faculties. Rutford
+stared at John, frowning.
+
+"You dare to look me in the face and tell me that Scaife is not drunk?"
+
+Very seriously, John answered, "I'm sure he's not drunk, sir."
+
+Rutford eyed the boy keenly.
+
+"Have you ever seen anybody drunk?" he demanded.
+
+"I live in the New Forest," said John, as gravely as before, "and on
+Whit-Monday----" He was aware that he had made an impression upon this
+big, truculent man.
+
+"Don't try to be funny with me, Verney."
+
+"On no, sir, as if I should dare!"
+
+"Well, well, we are wasting time. Trieve sent you to Lovell's room to
+fetch Scaife?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And what was Scaife doing when you went into the room? Be very
+careful!"
+
+John considered. "He was laughing, sir."
+
+"Laughing, was he?"
+
+"But he stopped laughing when I gave him Trieve's message, and then he
+said what Lovell told you, sir."
+
+"Never mind what Lovell told me. Give me your version of the story."
+
+"Scaife asked the other fellows if Trieve had any right to fag him, now
+that he had got his 'fez.' If he had been drunk, sir, he wouldn't have
+thought of that, would he?"
+
+"Um," said Rutford, slightly shaken. John described his return to
+Trieve's room, and Trieve's threat.
+
+"Lovell and you tell the same story."
+
+"Why, yes, sir." John made no deliberate attempt to look simple; but his
+face, to the master studying it, seemed quite guileless.
+
+Just then, Dumbleton ushered in the doctor. To him Rutford recited what
+he knew and what he suspected. He had hardly finished speaking, when
+Scaife opened his eyes for the second time. By a curious coincidence,
+the doctor used the words of the house-master.
+
+"Well, sir, how do you feel?"
+
+And then Scaife answered, in the same dazed fashion as before--
+
+"I feel as if I was jolly well screwed, sir."
+
+Rutford nodded portentously.
+
+"I feel," continued Scaife, "as I did once long ago, when I was a kid
+and got hold of some curaçoa at one of my father's parties."
+
+"Just so," said the doctor.
+
+"Same buzzing in the head, same beastly feeling, same--same old--same
+old--giddiness." He closed his eyes, and his head fell heavily upon his
+chest.
+
+"It looks like concussion," said the doctor, doubtfully. "You say he
+fell?" He turned to John.
+
+"I was just outside the door," said John.
+
+"We'll put him into the sick-room, Mr. Rutford. And in a day or two
+he'll be himself again."
+
+"Are you sure that what I--er--feared--er----?"
+
+The doctor frowned. "The boy has had brandy, of course."
+
+"Mrs. Puttick and Lovell gave him plenty of that," John interpolated.
+
+"I believe you can exonerate the boy entirely," said the doctor.
+
+John saw that Rutford seemed relieved.
+
+"I have ordered Lovell's room to be searched. If no wine or spirits are
+found, I shall be glad to believe that I have made a very pardonable
+mistake."
+
+While Scaife was being removed, Lawrence came in with his report.
+Nothing alcoholic had been discovered in Lovell's room. After prayers,
+which were late that night, Dirty Dick made a short speech.
+
+"I had reason to suspect," said he, "that a gross breach of the rules of
+the school had been made to-night by certain boys in this house. It
+appears I was mistaken. No more will be said on the subject by me; and I
+think that the less said by you, big and small, the better. Good night."
+
+He strode away into the private side.
+
+Two days later, Scaife came back to No. 15. John wondered why he stared
+at him so hard upon the first occasion when they happened to be alone.
+Then Scaife said--
+
+"Well, young Verney, I shan't forget that, if it hadn't been for you, I
+should have been sacked. And I shan't forget either that you're not half
+such a fool as you look."
+
+John exhibited surprise.
+
+"The way you handled the beast," continued Scaife, "was masterly. I
+heard every word, though my head was bursting. I shall tell Lovell that
+you saved us. Oh, Lord--didn't I give the show away?"
+
+He never tried to read the perplexity upon the other's face, but went
+away laughing. He came back with the Caterpillar half an hour later, and
+the three boys sat down as usual to prepare some Livy. John was sensible
+that his companions treated him not only as an equal--a new and
+agreeable experience--but as a friend. In the course of the first ten
+minutes Scaife said to the Caterpillar--
+
+"He told Dick to his face that he would lie to save a pal."
+
+And the Caterpillar replied seriously, "Good kid, very good kid. Lovell
+says he's going to give a tea in his honour."
+
+"No, he isn't. It's my turn."
+
+Accordingly, upon the next half-holiday, Scaife gave a tea at the
+Creameries. Of all the strange things that had happened during the past
+fortnight, this to our simple John seemed the strangest. He was not
+conscious of having done or said anything to justify the esteem and
+consideration in which Scaife, the Caterpillar, and Lovell seemed to
+hold him.
+
+"You've forgotten Desmond," he said to Scaife, when the latter mentioned
+the names of his guests.
+
+"Cæsar isn't coming. By the way, Verney, you've not been talking to
+Cæsar about the row in our house?"
+
+"No," said John. "Lawrence came round and said that I must keep my mouth
+shut."
+
+"And naturally you did what you were told to do?"
+
+The half-mocking tone disappeared in a burst of laughter as John
+answered--
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"And I suppose it never entered your head that Lawrence would not have
+been so particular about shutting your mouth without good reason."
+
+"Perhaps," said John, after a pause, "Lawrence was in a funk lest,
+lest----"
+
+"Go on!"
+
+"Lest the thing should be exaggerated."
+
+"Exactly. Lots of fellows would go about saying that I was dead
+drunk--eh?"
+
+"They might."
+
+"And that would be coming dangerously near the truth."
+
+"Oh, Scaife! Then you really _were_----"
+
+Scaife laughed again. "Yes, I really was, my Moses in the bulrushes!
+Don't look so miserable. I guessed all along that you weren't _quite_ in
+the know. Well, I'm every bit as grateful. You stood up to Dick like a
+hero. And my tea is in your honour."
+
+"Oh, Scaife--you--you won't do it again?"
+
+"Get screwed?" said Scaife, gravely. "I shall not. It isn't good enough.
+We've chucked the stuff away."
+
+"If they'd found it----"
+
+"Ah--if! The old Caterpillar attended to that. He's a downy bird, I can
+tell you. When Dick came into our room, he slipped back to Lovell's
+room, carried off the whisky, hid it, washed the glasses, and then
+dirtied them with siphon and syrup. The Caterpillar and you showed great
+head. We shall drink your healths to-morrow--in tea and chocolate."
+
+John wondered what Scaife had said to the Fifth. At any rate, they asked
+John no questions, and treated him with distinguished courtesy and
+favour; but that evening, when John was fagging in Lawrence's room, the
+great man said abruptly--
+
+"I saw you walking with Lovell senior this afternoon."
+
+John explained. Lawrence frowned.
+
+"Oh, you've been celebrating, have you? Thanksgiving service at the
+Creameries. Now, look here, Verney, I've met your uncle, and he asked me
+to keep an eye on you. Because of that I made you my fag--you, a green
+hand, when I had the pick of the House."
+
+"It was awfully good of you," said John, warmly.
+
+"We'll sink that. I'm five years older than you, and I know every
+blessed--and _cursed_"--he spoke with great emphasis--"thing that goes
+on in this house. I know, for instance, that dust was thrown, and very
+cleverly thrown, into Rutford's eyes, and you helped to throw it. Don't
+speak! You didn't quite know what you were up to. Well, it's lucky for
+Lovell and Co. that one innocent kid was mixed up in that affair. But
+it's been rather unlucky for you. I'd sooner see you kicked about a bit
+by those fellows than petted. I'm sorry--sorry, do you hear?--the whole
+lot were not sacked. And now you can hook it. I've said enough, perhaps
+too much, but I believe I can trust you."
+
+After this John showed his gratitude by painstaking attention to
+fagging. Lawrence became aware of faithful service: that his toast was
+always done to a turn, that his daily paper was warmed, as John had seen
+the butler at home warm the _Times_, that his pens were changed, his
+blotting-paper renewed, and so forth. In John's eyes, Lawrence occupied
+a position near the apex of the world's pyramid of great men.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] κραιπάλη is translated by Liddell and Scott as "the result of a
+debauch."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+_Torpids_
+
+    "Again we rush across the slush,
+      A pack of breathless faces,
+    And charge and fall, and see the ball
+      Fly whizzing through the bases."
+
+
+The remainder of the term slipped away without farther accident or
+incident. Apart from the preparation of work, John saw little of Scaife
+or Egerton. The Fifth nodded to him in a friendly fashion when he passed
+them in the street, and, greater kindness on their part, left him alone.
+Possibly, Lawrence had said a word to Lovell. Such leisure as John
+enjoyed (a new boy at Harrow has not much) he spent with the devoted
+Fluff. Desmond and Scaife walked together on Sunday afternoons. But the
+fact that Desmond seemed to be vanishing out of his horizon made no
+difference to John's ever-increasing affection for him. Very humbly, he
+worshipped at a distance. On clear, dry days Fluff and he would climb to
+the top of the wall of the squash racquet-courts to see Scaife and
+Desmond play a single. They were extraordinarily well-matched in
+strength, activity, and skill. John noticed, however, that the Demon
+lost his temper when he lost a game, whereas Cæsar only laughed. Somehow
+John divined that the Demon was making the effort of his life to secure
+Desmond's friendship. And Cæsar had ideals, standards to which the Demon
+pretended to attain. Good, simple John made sure that Cæsar would
+elevate the Demon to his plane, that evil would be exorcised by good.
+Only in his dreams did the Demon have the advantage.
+
+Just before the end of the term, Cæsar said to him--
+
+"After all, I'm jolly glad I'm coming into your House, because the old
+Demon is such a ripper; and he and I have been talking things over. He's
+as mad keen as I am about games, and although the Manorites have not
+played in a cock-house match at cricket or footer for years, still there
+is a chance for us at Torpids next term. You'll play, Verney. You've
+improved a lot, so the Demon says, and he'll be captain. Then there are
+the sports. If only Dirty Dick could be knocked on the head, the Manor
+might jump to the front again."
+
+"It will," said John.
+
+When the School reassembled after Christmas, Desmond entered the Manor,
+and found himself with Scaife in a two-room. A civil note from the man
+of millions had arranged this. To John was given a two-room, also, with
+the Duffer as stable companion. Fluff remained in No. 15. The Duffer had
+got his remove from the Top Shell into John's form. Scaife and Desmond
+were elevated into the Upper Remove. It followed, therefore, that Scaife
+and Desmond prepared work in their own room, the Caterpillar joining the
+Duffer and John. Thus it will be seen that, although Desmond had become
+a Manorite, he was, practically speaking, out of John's orbit.
+
+The Caterpillar had now been three years in the school, and he governed
+himself accordingly. He put on a "barmaid"[14] collar and spent much
+time on the top step of the boys' entrance to the Manor. No mere
+two-year-old presumed to occupy this sacred spot. Had he dared to do so,
+the Caterpillar would have made things very sultry for him. Also, he
+informed the Duffer and John that, by virtue of his position, he
+proposed to prepare no work at all. Each "con" was divided into two
+equal parts: the Duffer "mugged" up one; John the other. Then the
+Caterpillar would be summoned, and glean the harvest. The Duffer had a
+crib or two, but the Caterpillar forbade their use.
+
+"You kids," said he, "ought not to use 'Bohns.' Besides, it's
+dangerous."
+
+The Caterpillar's deportment and coolness filled John and the Duffer
+with respect and admiration. The master in charge of the Lower Remove
+happened to be short-sighted. The Caterpillar took shameful advantage of
+this. At repetitions, for instance, he would read Horace's odes off a
+torn-out page concealed in the palm of his hand, or--if practicable--pin
+the page on to the master's desk.
+
+He had genius for extricating himself (and others) out of what boys call
+tight places. One anecdote, well known to the Lower School and repeated
+as proof of the Caterpillar's masterly methods, may serve to illustrate
+the sort of influence Egerton wielded. When he was in the Fourth, his
+form met in the Old Schools in a room not far from that august chamber
+used by the Head Master and Upper Sixth. One day, the master in charge
+of the form happened to be late. The small boys in the passage
+celebrated his absence with dance and song. When the belated man
+arrived, a monitor awaited him. The Head Master presented his
+compliments to Mr. A---- and wished to learn the names of the boys who
+had created such a scandalous disturbance. Mr. A---- invited the
+roysterers to give up their names under penalties of extra school.
+Hateful necessity! Silence succeeded. A---- grew irate. The monitor
+tried to conceal a smile.
+
+"Any boy who was making any noise at all--stand up."
+
+The Caterpillar rose slowly, long and thin, spick and span.
+
+"If you please, sir," said he, "I was _whispering_!"
+
+A----'s sense of humour was tickled.
+
+"My compliments to the Head Master," said he, "and please tell him that
+I find, on careful inquiry, that Egerton was--whispering."
+
+A shout of laughter from Olympus proclaimed that the message had been
+delivered. The Caterpillar had saved the situation.
+
+John became a disciple of this accomplished young gentleman and tried
+to imitate him. For Egerton represented, faithfully enough, traditions
+to which John bowed the knee. Upon any point of schoolboy honour his
+authority ruled supreme. He told the truth among his peers; he loathed
+obscenity; he disliked and condemned bad language.
+
+"The best men don't swear much," he would say. "It's doosid bad form. I
+allow myself a 'damn' or two, nothing more. My great-grandfather, who
+was one of the Regency lot, was known as Cursing Egerton, but nowadays
+we leave that sort of thing to bargees."
+
+Quite unconsciously, John assimilated the Caterpillar's axioms.
+
+"We're not sent here at enormous expense to learn only Latin and Greek.
+At Harrow and Eton one is licked into shape for the big things:
+diplomacy, politics, the Services. One is taught manners, what? I'm not
+a marrying sort of man, but if I do have sons I shall send 'em here,
+even if I have to pinch a bit."
+
+This was the side of Egerton which appealed so strongly to John. The
+Caterpillar was an Harrovian to the core, like the Duffer and Cæsar
+Desmond. He deplored the increasing predominance of sons of very rich
+men. And he anathematized Harrovian fathers who were persuaded by
+Etonian wives to send their sons to the Plain instead of to the Hill.
+That some of the famous Harrow families, who owed so much to the School,
+should forsake it, seemed to Egerton the unpardonable sin.
+
+During this term, regretfully must it be recorded that John scamped his
+"prep" and "ragged" in form whenever a suitable chance presented itself.
+The Duffer and he bribed a "Chaw"[15] to throw gravel against the
+windows of the room where the boys were supposed to be mastering the
+problems of Euclid and algebra. The "tique"[16] master had been Third
+Wrangler, but he couldn't tackle his Division properly. Upon this
+occasion the "chaw" created such a disturbance that (on audacious
+demand) leave was granted to the Duffer and John to capture the
+offender. The young rascals pursued the "chaw" as far as the
+Metropolitan Station, and presented that conscientious youth with
+another sixpence. Then it occurred to John that it might be expedient to
+capture some bogus prisoner; so by means of talk, sugared with
+chocolates, they persuaded a little girl to impersonate the thrower of
+gravel. The little girl, carefully coached in her part, was led to the
+Wrangler, but stage-fright made her burst into tears at the critical
+moment. Somehow or other the truth leaked out; the Duffer and John were
+sent up to the Head Master and "swished." Each collected a few twigs of
+the birch, carefully preserved to this day.
+
+Meantime, the Torpid house-matches were coming on, and the School
+agreed, wonderingly, that Dirty Dick's had a chance of being cock-house.
+The fact that the Manor has lost caste brought about this possibility.
+Boys just under fifteen found room at the Manor when other houses were
+full. All the Manorites in the Shell and Removes were fellows who had
+come to Harrow rather over than under fourteen years of age.
+
+And when the list of the Torpid Eleven was posted, didn't John's heart
+boil with pride when he read his own name at the bottom of it?
+
+The Manor won the first and the second of the matches. Then came the
+semi-final, with Damer's. When the teams met in the playing-fields the
+difference in the size of the players was remarked. Damer's Torpids were
+small boys, not much bigger than John or the Duffer. But they had behind
+them that stupendous force which is fashioned out of pride, _esprit de
+corps_, self-confidence begotten of long-continued success, and,
+strongest of all, the conviction that every man-Jack would fight till he
+dropped for the honour and glory of the crack house at Harrow. Not a boy
+in Damer's team was Scaife's equal as a player, but in Scaife's
+strength lay the weakness of the Manorites. They relied upon one player;
+Damer's pinned faith to eleven.
+
+As it happened to be a fine day, the School turned out in force to
+witness the match. Most of the masters were present, and some ladies.
+Rutford, however, had business elsewhere. The School commented upon his
+absence with sly smiles and shrugs of the shoulder. Some of the
+Manorites were indifferent; the better sort raged. The Caterpillar
+appeared upon the ground in a faultless overcoat, carrying a large bag
+of lemons. His straw hat was cocked at a slight angle.
+
+"One is really uncommonly obliged to Dirty Dick for staying away," he
+told everybody. "Speaking personally, the mere sight of him is very
+upsetting to me. Keen as one feels about this match, one can't deny that
+there is not room in a footer field for Dirty Dick and a self-respecting
+person."
+
+None the less, the absence of their house-master had a bad effect upon
+the Torpids. Damer, you may be sure, had come down, prepared to cheer
+louder than any boy in his house; Damer, it was whispered, had been
+known to shed tears when his house suffered defeat; Damer, in fine,
+inspired ardours--a passion of endeavour.
+
+Scaife won the toss and kicked off.
+
+For the first five minutes nothing of interest happened. Damer's played
+collectively; the Manorites rather waited upon the individual. When
+Scaife's chance came, so it was predicted, he would go through the
+Damer's centre as irresistibly as a Russian battleship cuts through a
+fleet of fishing-smacks.
+
+Rutford being absent, Dumbleton, the butler, stood well to the fore. He
+never missed a house-match, and no one could guess, looking at his
+wooden countenance, how the game was going; for he accepted either
+defeat or victory with a dignified self-restraint. A smart bit of work
+provoked a bland, "Well played, sir, _very well_ played, sir!" uttered
+in the same respectful tone in which he requested Lovell, let us say, to
+go to Mr. Rutford's study after prayers. The fags believed that
+"Dumber," who had begun his career as boot-boy at the Manor in the
+glorious days of old, had given notice to leave when he learned that
+Dirty Dick was about to assume command; but had been prevailed upon to
+stay by the promise of an enormous salary. Nothing disturbed his
+equanimity. On the previous Saturday evening, John had heated the wrong
+end of the poker in No. 15, knowing that Dumber's duty constrained him
+to march round the House after "lights out," to rake out any fires that
+might be still burning. Snug under his counterpane, the practical joker
+awaited, chuckling, a choleric word from the impassive and impeccable
+butler. How did Dumber divine that the poker was unduly hot and black
+with soot underneath? Who can answer that question? The fact remains
+that he seized John's best Sunday trousers which were laid out on a
+chair, and holding the poker with these, accomplished his task without
+remark or smile. The trousers had to be sent to the tailor's to be
+cleaned.
+
+Not far from Dumber stood a group of small boys, including the unhappy
+Fluff--unhappy because he was not playing, despite arduous training
+(entirely to please John) and systematic coaching. His failure meant
+further separation from John, whom, it will be remembered, he would have
+been allowed to call by his Christian name, had he been included amongst
+the Torpids. Of late, Fluff had not seen much of John, and in his dark
+hours he allowed his thoughts to linger, not unpleasantly sometimes,
+upon premature death and John's subsequent remorse.
+
+Meantime, Scaife and Desmond were playing a furious game which must have
+proved successful had it not been for the admirable steadiness of the
+enemy. Lawrence watched their efforts with compressed lips and frowning
+brows. He knew--who better?--that his cracks were tearing themselves to
+tatters; but his protests were drowned by the shrill cheers of the
+fags.
+
+"Rutfords--Rutfor-r-r-r-r-ds! Go it, old Demon!--Jolly well played,
+Cæsar!--Sky him![17]--Well skied, sir!--Ah-h-h-h! Well given--well
+taken!"
+
+The last, long-drawn-out exclamation proclaimed that "Yards"[18] had
+been given to Scaife right in front of Damer's base. Damer's retreated;
+Scaife, with heaving chest, balanced the big ball between the tips of
+his fingers.
+
+"Oh-h-h-h-h!"
+
+Scaife had missed an easy shot. Lawrence could see that the boy was
+trembling with disappointment and mortification. Barbed arrows from
+Damer's small boys pierced Manorite hearts.
+
+"Jolly well boshed, Scaife!--Good, kind, old Demon!--Thank you,
+Scaife!--" and like derisive approbation rolled from lip to lip. The
+Caterpillar turned to Lovell.
+
+"Showing temper, ain't he?"
+
+"Yes," said Lovell.
+
+"Clever chap," said the Caterpillar, reflectively; "but one is reminded
+that a stream can't rise higher than its source. Not mine that--the
+governor's! Cæsar is facing the chaff with a grin."
+
+The game began again. But soon it became evident that Scaife had lost,
+not only his temper, but his head. He rushed here and there with so
+little judgment that the odds amongst the sporting fellows went to six
+to four against the Manor. At the beginning of the game they were six to
+four the other way. And, inevitably, Scaife's wild and furious efforts
+unbalanced Desmond's play. Both boys were out of their proper places to
+the confusion of the rest of the team. Within half an hour Damer's had
+scored two bases to nothing.
+
+The Caterpillar distributed halves of lemons. Lawrence went up to
+Scaife. The captain of the Torpids was standing apart, not far from
+Desmond, who was sucking a lemon with a puzzled expression. Gallant,
+sweet-tempered, and always hopeful, Cæsar could not understand his
+friend's passion of rage and resentment. With the tact of his race,
+however, he held aloof, smiling feebly, because he had sworn to himself
+not to frown. Had he looked to his right, he would have seen John, also
+sucking a lemon, but understudying his idol's nonchalant attitude and
+smile. John was sensible of an overpowering desire to fling himself upon
+the ground and howl. Instead he sucked his lemon, stared at Desmond, and
+smiled--valiantly.
+
+"Scaife," said Lawrence, gravely, "you're not playing the game."
+
+Scaife scowled. "I only know I've half killed myself," he muttered.
+
+Lawrence continued in the same steady voice, "Yes; because you missed an
+easy base which has happened to me and every other player scores of
+times. Come here, Desmond."
+
+Desmond joined them. Lawrence's face brightened when he saw hopeful eyes
+and a gallant smile.
+
+"You don't despair?"
+
+"We'll knock 'em into smithereens yet."
+
+"That's the Harrow spirit, but temper your determination to win with a
+little common sense. You've overdone it, both of you. Take my tip:
+they'll play up like blazes. Defend your own base; and then, when
+they're spent, trample on 'em."
+
+"Thank you," said Desmond.
+
+Scaife nodded sulkily.
+
+None the less he had too great respect for Lawrence's ability and
+experience as a captain to disregard his advice. After the kick-off,
+Damer's _did_ play up, and the Manor had to defend its base against
+sustained and fierce attack. Again and again a third base was almost
+kicked, again and again superior weight prevailed in the scrimmages.
+Within ten minutes Damer's were gasping and weary. And then, the ball
+was forced out of the scrimmage and kicked to the top side, Desmond's
+place in the field. Comparatively fresh, seeing the glorious
+opportunity, grasping it, hugging it, Cæsar swooped on the ball. He had
+the heels of any boy on the opposite side. Down the field he sped,
+faster and faster, amid the roars of the School, roars which came to his
+ears like the deep booming of breakers upon a lee shore. To many of
+those watching him, the sight of that graceful figure, that shining,
+ardent face, revealing the promise which youth and beauty always offer
+to a delighted world, became an ineffaceable memory. Damer turned to the
+Head of his house.
+
+"And Desmond ought to be one of _us_," he groaned.
+
+And now Cæsar had passed all forwards. If he keeps his wits a base is
+certain. The full back alone lies between him and triumph. But this is
+the moment, the psychological moment, when one tiny mistake will prove
+irrevocable. The Head of Damer's whispers as much to Damer, who smiles
+sadly.
+
+"His father's son will not blunder now," he replies.
+
+Nor does he. The mistake--for mistake there must be on one side or
+t'other--is made by Damer's back. As the ball rolls halfway between
+them, the back hesitates and falters.
+
+One base to two--and eighteen minutes to play!
+
+The second base was kicked by Scaife five minutes later.
+
+By this time the School knew that they were looking on at a cock-house
+match, not a semi-final. It was the wealth of Dives against the widow's
+mite that the winner of this match would defeat easily either of the two
+remaining houses. And not a man or boy on the ground could name with any
+conviction the better eleven. The betting languished at evens.
+
+Moreover, both sides were playing "canny," risking nothing, nursing
+their energies for the last furious five minutes. Damer began to fidget;
+than he dropped out of the front rank of spectators. He couldn't stand
+still to see his boys win--or lose. He paced up and down behind the
+fags, who winked at each other.
+
+"Damer's got the needle," they whispered.
+
+Dumbleton, however, stood still; a graven image of High Life below
+Stairs.
+
+"What do you think, Dumber?" asked Fluff.
+
+"I think, my lord," replied Dumber, solemnly, "that every minute
+improves our chance, but if it goes on _much_ longer," he added
+phlegmatically, "I shall fall down dead. My 'eart's weak, my lord."
+
+This was an ancient joke delivered by Dumber as if it were brand-new,
+and received by the fags in a like spirit.
+
+"Bless you, you've got no heart, Dumber. It's turned into tummy long
+ago," or, in scathing accents, "It's not your heart that's out of whack,
+Dumber, but your blithering old headpiece. What a pity you can't buy a
+new one!" and so on and so forth.
+
+Very soon, however, this chaff ceased. Excitement began to shake the
+spectators. They felt it up and down their spinal columns; it formed
+itself into lumps in their throats; it gave one or two cramp in the
+calves of their legs; it reddened many cheeks and whitened as many more.
+The Caterpillar pulled out his watch.
+
+"Three and a half minutes," he announced in a voice which fell like the
+crack of doom upon the silent crowd. If they could have cheered or
+chaffed! But the absolute equality of the last desperate struggle
+prevented any demonstration. The ball was worried through a scrimmage,
+escaped to the right, slid out to the left, only to be returned whence
+it came. It seemed as if both sides were unable to kick it, and when
+kicked it seemed to refuse to move as if weighted by the ever-increasing
+burden of suspense....
+
+"Now--now's your chance!" yelled the Manorites. To their flaming senses
+the ball appeared to be lying, a huge blurred sphere, upon the muddy
+grass; and the Elevens were stupidly staring at it. The Saints be
+praised! Some fellow can move. Who is it? The players, big and little,
+are so daubed with mud from head to foot as to be unrecognizable.
+Ah-h-h! It's young Verney.
+
+"Good kid! Well played--I say, well played, well pla-a-a-a-yed!"
+
+Our John has, it seems, distinguished himself. He has charged valiantly
+into the captain of Damer's at the moment when that illustrious chief is
+about to kick the ball to a trusted lieutenant on the left. He succeeds
+in kicking the ball into John's face. John goes over backwards; but the
+ball falls just in front of the Duffer.
+
+"Kick it, Duffer--kick it, you old ass!"
+
+The Duffer kicks it most accurately, kicks it well out to the top side.
+Now, can Desmond repeat his amazing performance? Yes--No--he can't. The
+conditions are no longer the same. Half a dozen fellows are between him
+and the Damer base.
+
+Alas! The Manor is about to receive a second object-lesson upon the
+fatuity of trusting to individuals. Confident in Cæsar's ability to take
+the ball at least within kicking distance of the base, they have rushed
+forward, leaving unguarded their own citadel. Cæsar, going too fast,
+misjudges the distance between himself and the back. A second later the
+ball is well on its way to the Manor's base. The back awaits it, coolly
+enough; knowing that Damer's forwards are offside. Then he kicks the
+sodden, slippery ball--hard. An exclamation of horror bursts from the
+Manorites. Their back has kicked the ball straight into the hands of the
+Damerite captain, the steadiest player on the ground.
+
+"_Yards!_"
+
+The chief collects himself for a decisive effort, and then despatches
+the ball straight and true for the target.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It passed between the posts within forty-five seconds of time.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[14] The "barmaid" collar is the double collar, at that time just coming
+into fashion.
+
+[15] "Chaw," short for Chawbacon.
+
+[16] "Tique," ab. for arithmetic. "Tique-beaks" are mathematical
+masters.
+
+[17] To "sky," _i.e._ to charge and overthrow.
+
+[18] In the Harrow game a boy may turn and kick the ball into the hands
+of one of his own side. The boy who catches it calls "Yards!" and, the
+opposite side withdrawing three yards, the catcher is allowed a free
+kick.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+_Fellowship_
+
+    "Fellowship is Heaven, and the lack of it is Hell."
+
+
+John was squelching through the mud, wondering whether his nose was
+broken or not, when Lawrence touched his shoulder.
+
+"Never mind, Verney," he said cheerily; "the Manor will be cock-house at
+Torpids next year, and I venture to prophesy that you'll be Captain."
+
+"Oh, thanks, Lawrence," said John.
+
+But, much as he appreciated this tribute from the great man, and much as
+it served to mitigate the pangs of defeat, a yet happier stroke of
+fortune was about to befall him. Desmond, who always walked up from the
+football field with Scaife, conferred upon John the honour of his
+company.
+
+"Where's Scaife?" said John.
+
+"The Demon is demoniac," said Desmond. "He's lost his hair, and he
+blames me. Well, I did my best, and so did he, and there's no more to be
+said. It's a bore that we shall be too old to play next year. I told the
+Demon that if we had to be beaten, I would sooner take a licking from
+Damer's than any other house; and he told me that he believed I wanted
+'em to win. When a fellow's in that sort of blind rage, I call him
+dotty, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," said John.
+
+"You played jolly well, Verney; I expect Lawrence told you so."
+
+"He did say something decent," John replied.
+
+The Caterpillar joined them as they were passing through the stile. "We
+should have won," he said deliberately, "if the Demon hadn't behaved
+like a rank outsider."
+
+"Scaife is my pal," said Desmond, hotly.
+
+The Caterpillar shrugged his shoulders, and held high his well-cut,
+aquiline nose, as he murmured--
+
+"One doesn't pretend to be a Christian, but as a gentleman one accepts a
+bit of bad luck without gnashing one's teeth. What? That Spartan boy
+with the fox was a well bred 'un, you can take my word for it. Scaife
+isn't."
+
+The Caterpillar joined another pair of boys before Desmond could reply.
+John looked uncomfortable. Then Desmond burst out with Irish vehemence--
+
+"Egerton is always jawing about breeding. It's rather snobbish. I don't
+think the worse of Scaife because his grandfather carried a hod. The
+Egertons have been living at Mount Egerton ever since they left Mount
+Ararat, but what have they done? And he ought to make allowances for the
+old Demon. He was simply mad keen to win this match, and he has a
+temper. You like him, Verney, don't you?"
+
+John hesitated, realizing that to speak the truth would offend the one
+fellow in the school whom he wished to please and conciliate. Then he
+blurted out--
+
+"No--I don't."
+
+"You don't?" Desmond's frank, blue eyes, Irish eyes, deeply blue, with
+black lashes encircling them, betrayed amazement and curiosity--so John
+thought--rather than anger. "You don't?" he continued. "Why not? The old
+Demon likes you; he says you got him out of a tight place. Why don't you
+like him, Verney?"
+
+John's mind had to speculate vaguely whether or not Desmond knew the
+nature of the tight place--_tight_ was such a very descriptive
+adjective--out of which he had pulled Scaife. Then he said nervously--
+
+"I don't like him because--because he likes--you."
+
+"Likes me? What a rum 'un you are, Verney! Why shouldn't he like me?"
+
+"Because," said John, boldly meeting the emergency with the conviction
+that he had burnt his ships, and must advance without fear, "because
+he's not half good enough for you."
+
+Desmond burst out laughing; the clear, ringing laugh of his father,
+which had often allayed an incipient mutiny below the gangway, and
+charmed aside the impending disaster of a snatch-division. And it is on
+_one's own side_ in the House of Commons that good temper tells
+pre-eminently.
+
+"Not good enough for me!" he repeated. "Thanks awfully. Evidently you
+have a high opinion of--_me_."
+
+"Yes," said John.
+
+The quiet monosyllable, so soberly, so seriously uttered, challenged
+Desmond's attention. He stared for a moment at John's face--not an
+attractive object. Blood and mud disfigured it. But the grey eyes met
+the blue unwaveringly. Desmond flushed.
+
+"You've stuck me on a sort of pedestal." His tone was as serious as
+John's.
+
+"Yes," said John.
+
+They were opposite the Music Schools. The other Manorites had run on.
+For the moment they stood alone, ten thousand leagues from Harrow, alone
+in those sublimated spaces where soul meets soul unfettered by flesh.
+Afterwards, not then, John knew that this was so. He met the real
+Desmond for the first time, and Desmond met the real John in a
+thoroughfare other than that which leads to the Manor, other than that
+which leads to any house built by human hands, upon the shining highway
+of Heaven.
+
+Shall we try to set down Desmond's feelings at this crisis? Till now,
+his life had run gaily through fragrant gardens, so to speak:
+pleasaunces full of flowers, of sweet-smelling herbs, of stately trees,
+a paradise indeed from which the ugly, the crude, the harmful had been
+rigorously excluded. Happy the boy who has such a home as was allotted
+to Harry Desmond! And from it, ever since he could remember, he had
+received tender love, absolute trust, the traditions of a great family
+whose name was part of English history, an exquisite refinement, and
+with these, the gratification of all reasonable desires. And this
+magnificent upbringing shone out of his radiant face, the inexpressible
+charm of youth unspotted--white. Scaife's upbringing, of which you shall
+know more presently, had been far different, and yet he, the cynic and
+the unclean, recognized the God in Harry Desmond. He had not, for
+instance, told Desmond of the nature of that "tight" place; he had kept
+a guard over his tongue; he had interposed his own strong will between
+his friend and such attention as a boy of Desmond's attractiveness might
+provoke from Lovell senior and the like. It is true that Scaife was well
+aware that without these precautions he would have lost his friend; none
+the less, above and beyond this consciousness hovered the higher, more
+subtle intuition that the good in Desmond was something not lightly to
+be tampered with, something awe-inspiring; the more so because, poor
+fellow! he had never encountered it before.
+
+Desmond stood still, with his eyes upon John's discoloured face. Not the
+least of Cæsar's charms was his lack of self-consciousness. Now, for the
+first time, he tried to see himself as John saw him--on a pedestal. And
+so strong was John's ideal that in a sense Desmond did catch a glimpse
+of himself as John saw him. And then followed a rapid comparison, first
+between the real and the ideal, and secondly between himself and Scaife.
+His face broke into a smile.
+
+"Why, Verney," he exclaimed, "you mustn't turn me into a sort of Golden
+Calf. And as for Scaife not being good enough for me, why, he's miles
+ahead of me in everything. He's cleverer, better at games, ten thousand
+times better looking, and one day he'll be a big power, and I shall
+always be a poor man. Why, I--I don't mind telling you that I used to
+keep out of Scaife's way, although he was always awfully civil to me,
+because he has so much and I so little."
+
+"He's not half good enough for you," repeated John, with the Verney
+obstinacy. Unwittingly he slightly emphasized the "good."
+
+"Good? Do you mean 'pi'? He's not _that_, thank the Lord!"
+
+This made John laugh, and Desmond joined in. Now they were Harrow boys
+again, within measurable distance of the Yard, although still in the
+shadow of the Spire. The Demon described as "pi" tickled their ribs.
+
+"You must learn to like the Demon," Desmond continued, as they moved on.
+Then, as John said nothing, he added quickly, "He and I have made up our
+minds not to try for remove this term. You see, next term is the
+jolliest term of the year--cricket and 'Ducker'[19] and Lord's. And we
+shall know the form's swat thoroughly, and have time to enjoy ourselves.
+You'll be with us. Your remove is a 'cert'--eh?"
+
+John beamed. He had made certain that Cæsar would be in the Third Fifth
+next term and hopelessly out of reach.
+
+"Oh yes, I shall get my remove. So will the Caterpillar."
+
+"Hang the Caterpillar," said Desmond.
+
+"He'd ask for a silken rope, as Lord Ferrers did," said John, with one
+of his unexpected touches of humour. Again Desmond bent his head in the
+gesture John knew so well, and laughed.
+
+"I say, Verney, you _are_ a joker. Well, the old Caterpillar's a good
+sort, but he's not fair to Scaife. Here we are!"
+
+They ran upstairs to "tosh" and change. John found the Duffer just
+slipping out of his ducks. He looked at John with a rueful grin.
+
+"Are you going to chuck me?" he asked.
+
+"Chuck you?"
+
+"Fluff says you've chucked him. He was in here a moment ago to ask if
+your nose was squashed. I believe the silly little ass thinks you the
+greatest thing on earth."
+
+"I don't chuck anybody," said John, indignantly. And he made a point of
+asking Fluff to walk with him on Sunday.
+
+After the Torpid matches the school settled down to train (more or less)
+for the athletic sports. John came to grief several times at Kenton
+brook, essaying to jump it at places obviously--as the Duffer pointed
+out--beyond his stride. The Duffer and he put their names down for the
+house-handicaps, and curtailed their visits to the Creameries. After
+this self-denial it is humiliating to record that neither boy succeeded
+in winning anything. Cæsar won the house mile handicap; Scaife won the
+under sixteen high jump--a triumph for the Manor; and Fluff, the
+despised Fluff, actually secured an immense tankard, which one of the
+Sixth offered as a prize because he was quite convinced that his own
+particular pal would win it. The distance happened to be half a mile.
+Fluff was allowed an enormous start and won in a canter.
+
+The term came to an end soon after these achievements, and John spent a
+week of the holidays at White Ladies, the Duke of Trent's Shropshire
+place. Here, for the first time, he saw that august and solemn
+personage, a Groom of the Chambers, with carefully-trimmed whiskers, a
+white tie, a silky voice, and the appearance of an archdeacon. This
+visit is recorded because it made a profound impression upon a plastic
+mind. John had never sat in the seats of the mighty. Verney Boscobel was
+a delightful old house, but it might have been put, stables and all,
+into White Ladies, and never found again. Fluff showed John the famous
+Reynolds and Gainsborough portraits, the Van Dycks and Lelys, the
+Romneys and Richmonds. Fair women and brave men smiled or frowned at our
+hero wherever he turned his wondering eyes. After the first tour of the
+great galleries, he turned to his companion.
+
+"I say," he whispered solemnly, "some of 'em look as if they didn't like
+my calling you--Fluff."
+
+"I wish you'd call me Esmé."
+
+"All right," said John, "I will; and--er--although you didn't get into
+the Torpids, you can call me--John."
+
+"Oh, John, thanks awfully."
+
+Ponies were provided for the boys to ride, and they shot rabbits in the
+Chase. Also, they appeared at dinner, a tremendous function, and were
+encouraged by some of the younger guests to spar (verbally, of course)
+with the duke's Etonian sons. Fluff looked so much stronger and happier
+that his parents, delighted with their experiment, were inclined to cry
+up the Hill, much to the exasperation of the dwellers in the Plain.
+
+When he left White Ladies John had learned one valuable lesson. His
+sense of that hackneyed phrase, _noblesse oblige_, the sense which
+remains nonsense with so many boys (old and young), had been quickened.
+Little more than a child in many ways, he realized, as a man does, the
+true significance of rank and wealth. The Duke of Trent had married a
+pleasure-loving dame; White Ladies was essentially a pleasure-house, to
+which came gladly enough the wit and beauty of the kingdom. And yet the
+duke, not clever as compared to his guests, not even good-looking as
+compared to the splendid gentlemen whom Van Dyck and Lely had painted,
+_undistinguished_, in fine, in everything save rank and wealth, worked,
+early and late, harder than any labourer upon his vast domain. And when
+John said to Fluff, "I say, Esmé, why does the duke work so beastly
+hard?" Fluff replied with emphasis, "Why, because he has to, you know.
+It's no joke to be born a duke, and I'm jolly glad that I'm a younger
+son. Father says that he has no amusements, but plenty of occupation.
+Mother says he's the unpaid land-agent of the Trent property."
+
+John went back to Verney Boscobel, and repeated what Fluff had said, as
+his own.
+
+"It was simply splendid, mum, like a sort of castle in fairyland and all
+that, but I _am_ glad I'm not a duke. And I expect that even an earl has
+a lot of beastly jobs to do which never bother _us_."
+
+"Oh, you've found that out, have you, John? Well, I hesitated when the
+invitation came; but I'm glad now that you went."
+
+"Yes; and it's ripping to be home again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The summer term began in glorious sunshine; and John forgot that he
+owned an umbrella. The Caterpillar and he had achieved their remove, but
+the unhappy Duffer was left behind alone with the hideous necessity of
+doing his form's work by himself. The boys occupied the same rooms, but
+John prepared his Greek and Latin with Scaife, Cæsar, and the
+Caterpillar; whom he was now privileged to call by their nick-names.
+They began to call him John, hearing young Kinloch do so; and then one
+day, Scaife, looking up with his derisive smile, said--
+
+"I'm going to call you Jonathan."
+
+"Good," said Desmond. "All the same, we can't call either the Duffer or
+Fluff--David, can we?"
+
+"I was not thinking of Kinloch or Duff," said Scaife, staring hard at
+John. And John alone knew that Scaife read him like a book, in which he
+was contemptuously amused--nothing more. After that, as if Scaife's will
+were law, the others called John--Jonathan.
+
+Very soon, the sun was obscured by ever-thickening clouds. John happened
+to provoke the antipathy of a lout in his form known as Lubber Sprott.
+Sprott began to persecute him with a series of petty insults and
+injuries. He accused him of "sucking up" to a lord, of putting on "lift"
+because he was the youngest boy in the Upper Remove, of kow-towing to
+the masters--and so forth. Then, finding these repeated gibes growing
+stale, he resorted to meaner methods. He upset ink on John's books, or
+kicked them from under his arm as he was going up to the New Schools.
+He put a "dringer"[20] into the pocket of John's "bluer."[21] He pinched
+him unmercifully if he found himself next to John in form, knowing that
+John would not betray him. When occasion offered he kicked John. In
+short, he was successful in taking all the fun and sparkle out of the
+merrie month of May.
+
+Finally, Cæsar got an inkling of what was going on.
+
+"Is Sprott ragging you?" he asked point-blank.
+
+"Ye-es," said John, blushing. "It's n-nothing," he added nervously.
+"He'll get tired of it, I expect."
+
+"I saw him kick you," said Desmond, frowning. "Now, look here, Jonathan,
+you kick him; kick him as hard as ever you can where, where he kicks
+you--eh? And do it to-morrow in the Yard, at nine Bill, when everybody
+is looking on. You can dodge into the crowd; but if I were you I'd kick
+him at the very moment he gets into line, and then he can't pursue. And
+if he does pursue--which I'll bet you a bob he don't, he'll have to
+tackle you and me."
+
+"I'll do it," said John.
+
+Next day, a whole holiday, at nine Bill, both Cæsar and John were
+standing close to the window of Custos' den, waiting for Lubber Sprott
+to appear. While waiting, an incident occurred which must be duly
+chronicled inasmuch as it has direct bearing upon this story. Only the
+week before Rutford had come up to the Yard late for Bill, he being the
+master whose turn it was to call over. Such tardiness, which happens
+seldom, is reckoned as an unpardonable sin by Harrow boys. Briefly it
+means that six hundred suffer from the unpunctuality of one. Therefore,
+when Rutford appeared, slightly flushed of countenance and visibly
+annoyed, the School emphasized their displeasure by derisive cheers.
+Rutford, ever tactless where boys were concerned, was unwise enough to
+make a speech from the steps condemning, in his usual bombastic style, a
+demonstration which he ought to have known he was quite powerless to
+punish or to prevent. When he had finished, the School cheered more
+derisively than before. After Bill, he left the Yard, purple with rage
+and humiliation.
+
+Upon this particular morning, one of the younger masters, Basil Warde,
+was calling Bill. The School knew little of Warde, save that he was an
+Old Harrovian in charge of a Small House, and that his form reported
+him--_queer_. He had instituted a queer system of punishments, he made
+queer remarks, he looked queer: in fine, he was generally regarded as a
+radical, and therefore a person to be watched with suspicion by boys
+who, as a body, are intensely conservative. He was of a clear red
+complexion with lapis-lazuli blue eyes, that peculiar blue which is the
+colour of the sea on a bright, stormy day. The Upper School knew that,
+as a member of the Alpine Club, Warde had conquered half a dozen
+hitherto unconquerable peaks.
+
+Into the Yard and into this book Warde comes late. As he hurried to his
+place, the School greeted him as they had greeted Rutford only the week
+before. If anything, the demonstration was slightly more hostile. That
+Bill should be delayed twice within ten days was unheard-of and
+outrageous. When the hoots and cheers subsided, Warde held up his hand.
+He smiled, and his chin stuck out, and his nose stuck up at an angle
+familiar to those who had scaled peaks in his company. In silence, the
+School awaited what he had to say, hoping that he might slate them,
+which would afford an excuse for more ragging. Warde, guessing, perhaps,
+the wish of the crowd, smiled more genially than before. Then, in a
+loud, clear voice, he said--
+
+"I beg pardon for being late. And I thank you for cheering me. I haven't
+been cheered in the Yard since the afternoon when I got my Flannels."
+
+A deafening roar of applause broke from the boys. Warde might be queer,
+but he was a good sort, a gentleman, and, henceforward, popular with
+Harrovians.
+
+He began to call over as Lubber Sprott neared the place where Desmond
+and John awaited him. The Lubber took up his position near the boys,
+turning a broad back to them. He stood with his hands in his pockets,
+talking to another boy as big and stupid as himself. The Lubber, it may
+be added, ought to have worn "Charity" tails, but he had not applied for
+permission to do so. He was fat and gross rather than tall, and
+certainly too large for his clothes.
+
+"Now," said Cæsar.
+
+John measured the distance with his eye, as Cæsar thoughtfully nudged
+other members of the Upper Remove. John had room for a very short run.
+The Lubber was swaying backwards and forwards. John timed his kick,
+which for a small boy he delivered with surprising force, so accurately
+that the Lubber fell on his face. The boys looking on screamed with
+laughter. The Lubber, picking himself up (John dodged into the crowd,
+who received him joyfully) and glaring round, encountered the
+contemptuous face of Desmond.
+
+"Let me have a shot," said Cæsar.
+
+The Lubber advanced, spluttering with rage.
+
+"Where is he--where is he, that infernal young Verney?"
+
+By this time fifty boys at least were interested spectators of the
+scene. Desmond stood square in the Lubber's path.
+
+"You like to kick small boys," said Cæsar, in a very loud voice. "I'm
+small, half your size, why don't you kick me?"
+
+The Lubber could have crushed the speaker by mere weight; but he
+hesitated, and the harder he stared at Desmond the less he fancied the
+job of kicking him. Quality confronted quantity.
+
+"Kick me," said Desmond, "if--if you dare, you big, hulking coward and
+cad!"
+
+"Come on, Lubber, get into line!" shouted some boy.
+
+Sprott turned slowly, glancing over his vast, fat shoulder to guard
+against further assault. Then he took his place in the line, and passed
+slowly out of the Yard and out of these pages. He never persecuted John
+again.[22]
+
+Not yet, however, was the sun to shine in John's firmament. As the days
+lengthened, as June touched all hearts with her magic fingers,
+insensibly relaxing the tissues and warming the senses, John became more
+and more miserably aware that, in the fight between Scaife and himself
+for the possession of Desmond, the odds were stupendously against him.
+Truly the Demon had the subtlety of the serpent, for he used the
+failings which he was unable to hide as cords wherewith to bind his
+friend more closely to him. When the facts, for instance, of what had
+taken place in Lovell's room came to Desmond's ears, he denied fiercely
+the possibility of Scaife, his pal, making a "beast" of himself. The
+laughter which greeted his passionate protest sent him hot-foot to
+Scaife himself.
+
+"They say," panted Cæsar, "that last winter you were dead drunk in
+Lovell's room. I told the beasts they lied."
+
+Scaife's handsome face softened. Was he touched by Cæsar's loyalty? Who
+can tell? Always he subordinated emotion to intelligence: head commanded
+heart.
+
+"Perhaps they did," he answered steadily; "and perhaps they didn't. I
+deny nothing; I admit nothing. But"--his fine eyes, so dark and
+piercing, flamed--"Cæsar, if I was dead drunk at your feet now, would
+you turn away from me, would you chuck me?"
+
+Desmond winced. Scaife pursued his advantage.
+
+"If you _are_ that sort of a fellow--the Pharisee"--Desmond winced
+again--"the saint who is too pure, too holy, to associate with a
+sinner, say so, and let us part here--and now. For I _am_ a--sinner. You
+are not a sinner. Hold hard! let me have my say. I've always known that
+this moment was coming. Yes, I am a sinner. And my governor is a sinner,
+a hardened sinner. His father made our pile by what you would call
+robbery. The whole world knows it, and condones it, because we are so
+rich. Even my mother----"
+
+He paused, trembling, white to the lips.
+
+"Don't," said Desmond. "Please don't."
+
+"You're right. I won't. But I'm handicapped on both sides. It's only
+fair that you should know what sort of a fellow you've chosen for a pal.
+And it's not too late to chuck me. Rutford will put Verney in here, if I
+ask him. And, by God! I'm in the mood to ask him _now_. Shall I go to
+him, Desmond, or shall I stay?"
+
+He had never raised his voice, but it fell upon the sensitive soul of
+the boy facing him as if it were a clarion-call to battle.
+
+Desmond sprang forward, ardent, eager, afire with generous
+self-surrender.
+
+"Forgive me," he cried. "Oh, forgive me, because I can't forgive
+myself!"
+
+After this breaking of barriers, Scaife took less pains to disguise a
+nature which turned as instinctively to darkness as Desmond's to light.
+A score of times protest died when Scaife murmured, "There I go again,
+forgetting the gulf between us"; and always Desmond swore stoutly that
+the gulf, if a gulf did yawn between them, should be bridged by
+friendship and hope. But, insensibly, Cæsar's ideals became tainted by
+Scaife's materialism. Scaife, for instance, spent money lavishly upon
+"food" and clothes. So far as a Public Schoolboy is able, he never
+denied his splendid young body anything it coveted. Desmond, too proud
+to receive favours without returning them, tried to vie with this
+reckless spendthrift, and found himself in debt. In other ways a keen
+eye and ear would have marked deterioration. John noticed that Cæsar
+laughed, although he never sneered, at things he used to hold sacred;
+that he condemned, as Scaife did, whatever that clever young reprobate
+was pleased to stigmatize as narrow-minded or intolerant.
+
+Cricket, however, kept them fairly straight. Each was certain to get his
+"cap,"[23] if, as Lawrence told them, they stuck to the rigour of the
+game. This was Lawrence's last term. He had stayed on to play at Lord's,
+and when he left Trieve would become the Head of the House--a prospect
+very pleasing to the turbulent Fifth.
+
+About the middle of June John suffered a parlous blow. He was never so
+happy as when he was sitting in Scaife's room, cheek by jowl with
+Desmond, sharing, perhaps, a "dringer," poring over the same dictionary.
+This delightful intimacy came to a sudden end in this wise. The
+form-master of the Upper Remove happened to be a precisian in English. A
+sure road to his favour was the right use of a word. The Demon,
+appreciating this, bought a dictionary of synonyms, and made a point of
+discarding the commonplace and obvious, substituting a phrase likely to
+elicit praise and marks. Desmond and John joined in this hunt of the
+right word with enthusiasm.
+
+One evening the four boys encountered the simple sentence--"_majoris
+pretii quam quod æstimari possit_."
+
+"'Priceless''ll cover that," said Cæsar.
+
+"Or 'inest_ee_mable,'" said the Demon.
+
+The three other boys stared at the Demon, and then at each other. The
+Caterpillar, something of a purist in his way, drawled out--
+
+"One pronounces that 'inestimable.'"
+
+"My father doesn't," said Scaife, hotly. "I've heard him say
+'inesteemable.'"
+
+"No doubt," said Egerton, coldly. "How does _your_ father pronounce it,
+Cæsar?"
+
+Desmond said hurriedly, "Oh, 'inestimable'; but what does it matter?"
+
+The Demon sprang up, furious. "It matters this," he cried. "I'm d----d
+if I'll have Egerton sitting in my room sneering at my governor. After
+this he'll do his work in his own room, or I'll do mine in the passage."
+
+Before Desmond could speak, Scaife had whirled out of the room, slamming
+the door. John looked stupefied with dismay.
+
+The Caterpillar shrugged his shoulders. Then he said slowly--
+
+"Scaife's father pronounces 'connoisseur' 'connoysure,' and so does
+Scaife."
+
+Desmond stood up, flushed and distressed, but emphatic.
+
+"Scaife is right about one thing," he said. "He won't sit here like a
+cad and listen to Egerton sneering at his father. I'm very sorry, but
+after this we'd better split up. Verney and you, Egerton; and Scaife and
+I."
+
+"Certainly," said the Caterpillar, rising in his turn.
+
+Poor John cast a distracted and imploring glance at Desmond, which
+flashed by unheeded. Then he got up, and followed the Caterpillar out of
+the room. The passage was empty.
+
+The Caterpillar sniffed as if the atmosphere in Scaife's room had been
+polluted.
+
+"One has nothing to regret," he remarked. "Scaife has good points,
+and--er--bad. You've noticed his hands--eh! _Very_ unfinished! And his
+foot--short, but broad." The Caterpillar surveyed his long, slender feet
+with infinite satisfaction; then he added, with an accent of finality,
+"Scaife talks about going into the Grenadiers; but they'll give him a
+hot time there, a very hot time. One is really sorry for the poor
+fellow, because, of course, he can't help being a bounder. What does
+puzzle me is, why did Cæsar want such a fellow for his pal?"
+
+"But he didn't," said John.
+
+"Eh?--what?"
+
+"Scaife wanted Cæsar," John explained. "And I've noticed, Caterpillar,
+that whatever Scaife wants he gets."
+
+"He wants breeding, Jonathan, but he'll never get that--never."
+
+After this, John saw but little of Desmond; and Scaife hardly spoke to
+him. Accordingly, much of our hero's time was spent in the company of
+the Duffer and Fluff. The three passed many delightful hours together at
+"Ducker." Armed with buns and chocolate, they would rush down the hill,
+bathe, lie about on the grass, eat the buns, and chaff the kids who were
+learning to swim.
+
+    "Long, long, in the misty hereafter
+      Shall echo, in ears far away,
+    The lilt of that innocent laughter,
+      The splash of the spray."
+
+During the School matches they spent the afternoons on the Sixth Form
+ground, carefully criticizing every stroke. The theory of the game lay
+pat to the tongue, but in practice John was a shocking bungler. At his
+small preparatory school in the New Forest, he had not been taught the
+elementary principles of either racquets or cricket; but he had a good
+eye, played a capital game of golf, rode and shot well for a small boy.
+Fluff, although still delicate, gave promise of being a cricketer as
+good, possibly, as his brothers, when he became stronger.
+
+Upon Speech Day John's mother and uncle came down to Harrow, and you may
+be sure that John escorted them in triumph to the Manor. Mrs. Verney has
+since confessed that John's expression as she greeted him surprised and
+distressed her. He looked quite unhappy. And the dear woman, thinking
+that he must be in debt, seriously considered the propriety of tipping
+him handsomely _in advance_. A moment later, as she slipped out of an
+old and shabby dust-cloak, revealing the splendours of a dress fresh
+from Paris, she divined from John's now radiant face what had troubled
+him.
+
+"John," she said, "you didn't really think that I was going to shame you
+by wearing this dreadful cloak--did you?"
+
+"I wasn't quite sure," John answered; then he burst out, "Mum, you look
+simply lovely. All the fellows will take you for my sister."
+
+And after the great function in Speech-room came the cheering. How
+John's heart throbbed when the Head of the School, standing just outside
+the door, proclaimed the illustrious name--
+
+"Three cheers for Mr. John Verney."
+
+And how the boys in the road below cheered, as the little man descended
+the steps, hat in hand, bowing and blushing! Everybody knew that he was
+on the eve of departure for further explorations in Manchuria. He would
+be absent, so the papers said, three years at least. The School cheered
+the louder, because each boy knew that they might never see that gallant
+face again.
+
+Later in the afternoon a selection of Harrow songs was given in the
+Speech-room. "Five Hundred Faces," as usual, was sung by a new boy, who
+is answered, in chorus, by the whole School. How John recalled his own
+feelings, less than a year ago, as he stood shivering upon the bank of
+the river, funking the first plunge! And his uncle, now sitting beside
+him, had said that he would soon enjoy himself amazingly--and so he had!
+The new boy began the second verse. His voice, not a strong one,
+quavered shrilly--
+
+    "A quarter to seven! There goes the bell!
+      The sleet is driving against the pane;
+      But woe to the sluggard who turns again
+    And sleeps, not wisely, but all too well!"
+
+In reply to the weak, timid notes came the glad roar of the School--
+
+    "Yet the time may come, as the years go by,
+      When your heart will thrill
+      At the thought of the Hill,
+    And the pitiless bell, with its piercing cry!"
+
+Ah, that pitiless bell! And yet because of it one wallowed in Sunday and
+whole-holiday "frowsts."[24] John, you see, had the makings of a
+philosopher. And now the Eleven were grunting "Willow the King." And
+when the last echo of the chorus died away in the great room, Uncle John
+whispered to his nephew that he had heard Harrow songs in every corner
+of the earth, and that convincing proof of merit shone out of the fact
+that their charm waxed rather than waned with the years; they improved,
+like wine, with age.
+
+Cæsar's father came down with the Duke of Trent. The duke tipped John
+magnificently and asked him to spend his exeat at Trent House, and to
+witness the Eton and Harrow match at Lord's from the Trent coach. John
+accepted gratefully enough; but his heart was sore because, just before
+the row over that infernal word "inestimable," Cæsar had asked John if
+he would like to occupy an attic in Eaton Square. After the row nothing
+more was said about the attic; but John would have preferred bare boards
+in Eaton Square to a tapestried chamber in Park Lane.
+
+Now, during the whole of this summer term there was much animated
+discussion in regard to the rival claims of lines or spots upon the
+white waistcoat worn by all self-respecting Harrovians at Lord's. Upon
+this important subject John had betrayed scandalous indifference.
+Accordingly, just before the match, the Caterpillar took him aside and
+spoke a solemn word.
+
+"Look here," he said; "one doesn't as a rule make personal remarks, but
+it's rather too obvious that you buy your clothes in Lyndhurst. I was
+sorry to see that the Duke of Trent was the worst-dressed man at
+Speecher; but a duke can look like a tinker, and nobody cares."
+
+"I'd be awfully obliged if you'd tell me what's wrong," said John,
+humbly.
+
+"Everything's wrong," said the Caterpillar, decisively. He looked
+critically at John's boots. "Your boots, for instance--most excellent
+boots for wading through the swamps in the New Forest, but quite
+impossible in town. And the 'topper' you wear on Sunday! Southampton,
+you say? Ah, I thought it was a Verney heirloom. Now, it wouldn't
+surprise me to hear that your mother, who dresses herself quite
+charmingly, bought your kit."
+
+"She did," John confessed.
+
+"Just so. One need say no more. Now, you come along with me."
+
+They marched down the High Street to the most fashionable of the School
+tailors, where John was measured for an Eton jacket of the best, white
+waistcoat with blue spots, light bags; while the Caterpillar selected a
+new "topper," an umbrella, a pair of gloves, and a tie.
+
+"Be _very_ careful about the bags," said the Caterpillar. "They are
+cutting 'em in town a trifle tighter about the lower leg, but loose
+above. You understand?"
+
+"Perfectly, Mr. Egerton," replied the obsequious snip. "What we call the
+'tighto-looso' style, sir."
+
+"I don't think they call it that in Savile Row," said the Caterpillar;
+"but be careful."
+
+The tailor was assured that he would receive an order properly signed by
+Mr. Rutford. And then John was led to the bootmaker's, and there
+measured for his first pair of patent-leathers. The Caterpillar was so
+exhausted by these labours that a protracted visit to the Creameries
+became imperative.
+
+"You've always looked like a gentleman," said the Caterpillar, after his
+"dringer," "and it's a comfort to me to think that now you'll be dressed
+like one."
+
+So John went up to town looking very smart indeed; and Fluff (who had
+ordered a similar kit) whispered to John at luncheon that his brothers,
+the Etonians, had expressed surprise at the change for the better in
+their general appearance.
+
+This luncheon was eaten on the top of the duke's coach, and it happened
+that the next coach but one belonged to Scaife's father. John could just
+see Scaife's handsome head, and Cæsar sitting beside him. The boys
+nodded to each other, and the Etonians asked questions. At the name of
+Scaife, however, the young Kinlochs curled contemptuous lips.
+
+"Unspeakable bounder, old Scaife, isn't he?" they asked; and the duchess
+replied--
+
+"My dears, his cheques are honoured to any amount, even if _he_ isn't."
+
+Her laughter tinkled delightfully; but John reflected that Desmond was
+eating the Scaife food and drinking the Scaife wine--all bought with
+ill-gotten gold.
+
+Later in the afternoon it became evident that the Scaife champagne was
+flowing freely. To John's dismay, the Harrovians (including Cæsar) on
+the top of the Scaife coach became noisy. The Caterpillar and his
+father, Colonel Egerton, sauntered up, and were invited by the duke to
+rest and refresh themselves. John was amused to note that the colonel
+was even a greater buck than his son. He quite cut out the poor old
+Caterpillar, challenging and monopolizing the attention of all who
+beheld him.
+
+"Those boys are makin' the devil of a row," said the colonel, fixing his
+eyeglass. "Ah, the Scaifes! A man I know dined with them last week. He
+reported everything _over_done, except the food. Their _chef_ is
+Marcobruno, you know."
+
+Presently, to John's relief, Desmond left the Scaifes and joined the
+Trent party, upon whom his gay, radiant face and charming manners made a
+most favourable impression. He laughed at the duchess's stories, and
+made love to her quite unaffectedly. The Etonians looked rather glum,
+because their wickets were falling faster than had been expected.
+Desmond told the duke, in answer to a question, that his father was in
+his seat in the pavilion, with his eyes glued to the pitch.
+
+"He's awfully keen," said Cæsar.
+
+"You boys are not so keen as we were," said the duke, nodding
+reflectively.
+
+"Oh, but we are, sir--indeed we are," said Cæsar. "Aren't we,
+Caterpillar?"
+
+The Caterpillar replied, thoughtfully, "One bottles up that sort of
+thing, I suppose."
+
+"Ah," said the duke, kindly, "if it's the right sort of thing, it's none
+the worse for being bottled up."
+
+The boys went to the play that night and enjoyed themselves hugely. Next
+day, however, the match ended in a draw. John was standing on the top of
+the coach, very disconsolate, when he saw Desmond beckoning to him from
+below. The expression on Cæsar's face puzzled him.
+
+"How can you pal up with those Etonians?" whispered Cæsar, after John
+had descended. "Every Eton face I see now I want to hit." Then he added,
+with a smile and a chuckle, "I say, there's going to be a ruction in
+front of the Pavvy. Come on."
+
+A minute later John was in the thick of a very pretty scrimmage between
+the Hill and the Plain. Hats were bashed in; cornflowers torn from
+buttonholes; pale-blue tassels were captured; umbrellas broken. Finally,
+the police interfered.
+
+"Short, but very, very sweet," said Cæsar, panting.
+
+John and he were lamentable objects for fond parents to behold, but the
+sense of depression had vanished. And then Cæsar said suddenly--
+
+"By Jove! I _have_ got a bit of news. It quite takes the sting out of
+this draw."
+
+"What's happened?"
+
+"My governor has been talking with Warde. Rutford is leaving Harrow."
+
+John gasped. "That is ripping."
+
+"Isn't it? But who do you think is coming to us? Why, Warde himself. He
+was at the Manor when it was _the_ house, and the governor says that
+Warde will make it _the_ house, again. He's got his work cut out for
+him--eh?"
+
+"You bet your life," said John.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] "Duck-Puddle," the school bathing-place.
+
+[20] A "Dringer" is composed of the following ingredients: a layer of
+strawberries is secreted in sugar and cream at the bottom of a clean
+jam-pot; and this receives a decent covering of strawberry ice, which
+brings the surface of the dringer and the top edge of the jam-pot into
+the same plane. The whole may be bought for sixpence. (P. C. T., 1905.)
+
+[21] A "Bluer" is the blue-flannel jacket worn in the playing fields. It
+must be worn _buttoned_ by boys who have been less than three years in
+the school.
+
+[22] Small boys are not advised to copy John's tactics. The victory is
+not always to the weak.
+
+[23] The house-cap, only worn by members of the House Cricket Eleven.
+
+[24] Lying in bed in the morning when there is no First School is a
+"frowst." By a subtle law of association, an armchair is also a
+"frowst."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+_A Revelation_
+
+    "Forty years on, when afar and asunder
+      Parted are those who are singing to-day,
+    When you look back, and forgetfully wonder
+      What you were like in your work and your play;
+    Then, it may be, there will often come o'er you
+      Glimpses of notes like the catch of a song,--
+    Visions of boyhood shall float them before you,
+      Echoes of dreamland shall bear them along."
+
+
+Before the end of the summer term, both Desmond and Scaife received
+their "caps" and a word of advice from Lawrence.
+
+"There are going to be changes here," said he; "and I wish I could see
+'em, and help to bring 'em about. Now, I'm not given to buttering
+fellows up, but I see plainly that the rebuilding of this house depends
+a lot upon you two. It's not likely that you're able to measure your
+influence; if you could, there wouldn't be much to measure. But take it
+from me, not a word, not an action of yours is without weight with the
+lower boys. Everything helps or hinders. Next term there will be war--to
+the knife--between Warde and some fellows I needn't name, and Warde will
+win. Remember I said so. I hope you," he looked hard at Desmond, "will
+fight on the right side."
+
+The boys returned to their room, jubilant because the house-cap was
+theirs, but uneasy because of the words given with it. As soon as they
+were alone, Scaife said sullenly--
+
+"Does Lawrence expect us to stand in with Warde against Lovell and his
+pals? If he does, he's jolly well mistaken, as far as I'm concerned."
+
+Desmond flushed. He had spent nearly five terms at Harrow, but only two
+at the Manor. Of what had been done or left undone by certain fellows in
+the Fifth he was still in twilight ignorance. He discerned shadows,
+nothing more, and, boylike, he ran from shadows into the sunlight.
+Desmond knew that there were beasts at the Manor. Had you forced from
+him an expression approaching, let us say, definiteness, he would have
+admitted that beasts lurked in every house, in every school in the
+kingdom. You must keep out of their way (and ways)--that was all. And he
+knew also that too many beasts wreck a house, as they wreck a regiment
+or a nation.
+
+But once or twice within the past few months he had suspected that his
+cut-and-dried views on good and evil were not shared by Scaife. Scaife
+confessed to Desmond that the Old Adam was strong in him. He liked,
+craved for, the excitement of breaking the law. Hitherto, this breaking
+of the law had been confined to such offences as smoking or drinking a
+glass of beer at a "pub,"[25] or using cribs, or, generally speaking,
+setting at naught authority. That Scaife had escaped severe punishment
+was due to his keen wits.
+
+Now, when Scaife gave Desmond the unexpurgated history of the row which
+so nearly resulted in the expulsion of six boys, Desmond had asked a
+question--
+
+"Do you _like_ whisky? I loathe it."
+
+Scaife laughed before he answered. Doubtless one reason why he exacted
+interest and admiration from Desmond lay in a rare (rare at fifteen)
+ability to analyse his own and others' actions.
+
+"I loathe it, too," he admitted. "Really, you know, we drank precious
+little, because it _is_ such beastly stuff. But I liked, we all liked,
+to believe that we were doing the correct thing--eh? And it warmed us
+up. Just a taste made the Caterpillar awfully funny."
+
+"I see."
+
+"Do you see? I doubt it, Cæsar. Perhaps I shall horrify you when I tell
+you that vice interests me. I used to buy the _Police News_ when I was a
+kid, and simply wallow in it. I told a woman that last Easter, and she
+laughed--she was as clever as they make 'em--and said that I suffered
+from what the French call _la nostalgie de la boue_; that means, you
+know, the homesickness for the gutter. Rather personal, but dev'lish
+sharp, wasn't it?"
+
+"I think she was a beast."
+
+"Not she, she's a sort of cousin; she came from the same old place
+herself; that's why she understood. You don't want to know what goes on
+in the slums, but I do. Why? Because my grand-dad was born in 'em."
+
+"He pulled himself out by brains and muscles."
+
+"But he went back--sometimes. Oh yes, he did. And the governor--I'm up
+to some of _his_ little games. I could tell you----"
+
+"Oh--shut up!" said Cæsar, the colour flooding his cheeks.
+
+Upon the last Saturday of the term the School Concert took place. Few of
+the boys in the Manor, and none out of it, knew that John Verney had
+been chosen to sing the treble solo; always an attractive number of the
+programme. John, indeed, was painfully shy in regard to his singing, so
+shy that he never told Desmond that he had a voice. And the
+music-master, enchanted by its quality, impressed upon his pupil the
+expediency of silence. He wished to surprise the School.
+
+The concerts at Harrow take place in the great Speech-room. Their
+characteristic note is the singing of Harrow songs. To any boy with an
+ear for music and a heart susceptible of emotion these songs must appeal
+profoundly, because both words and music seem to enshrine all that is
+noble and uplifting in life. And, sung by the whole School (as are most
+of the choruses), their message becomes curiously emphatic. The spirit
+of the Hill is acclaimed, gladly, triumphantly, unmistakably, by
+Harrovians repeating the creed of their fathers, knowing that creed will
+be so repeated by their sons and sons' sons. Was it happy chance or a
+happier sagacity which decreed that certain verses should be sung by the
+School "Twelve," who have struggled through form after form and know
+(and have not yet had time to forget) the difficulties and temptations
+which beset all boys? They, to whom their fellows unanimously accord
+respect at least, and often--as in the case of a Captain of the Cricket
+Eleven--enthusiastic admiration and fealty; these, the gods, in a word,
+deliver their injunction, transmit, in turn, what has been transmitted
+to them, and invite their successors to receive it. To many how poignant
+must be the reflection that the trust they are about to resign might
+have been better administered! But to many there must come upon the
+wings of those mighty, rushing choruses the assurance that the Power
+which has upheld them in the past will continue to uphold them in the
+future. In many--would one could say in all--is quickened, for the first
+time, perhaps, a sense of what they owe to the Hill, the overwhelming
+debt which never can be discharged.
+
+Desmond sat beside Scaife. Scaife boasted that he could not tell "God
+save the Queen" from "The Dead March in Saul." He confessed that the
+concert bored him. Desmond, on the other hand, was always touched by
+music, or, indeed, by anything appealing to an imagination which gilded
+all things and persons. He was Scaife's friend, not only (as John
+discovered) because Scaife had a will strong enough to desire and secure
+that friendship, but because--a subtler reason--he had never yet seen
+Scaife as he was, but always as he might have been.
+
+Desmond told Scaife that he could not understand why John had bottled up
+the fact that he was chosen to sing upon such an occasion. Scaife smiled
+contemptuously.
+
+"You never bottle up anything, Cæsar," said he.
+
+"Why should I? And why should he?"
+
+"I expect he'll make an awful ass of himself."
+
+"Oh no, he won't," Desmond replied. "He's a clever fellow is Jonathan."
+
+As he gave John his nickname, Desmond's charming voice softened. A boy
+of less quick perceptions than Scaife would have divined that the
+speaker liked John, liked him, perhaps, better than he knew. Scaife
+frowned.
+
+"There are several Old Harrovians," he said, indicating the seats
+reserved for them. "It's queer to me that they come down for this
+caterwauling."
+
+Desmond glanced at him sharply, with a wrinkle between his eyebrows. For
+the moment he looked as if he were short-sighted, as if he were trying
+to define an image somewhat blurred, conscious that the image itself was
+clear enough, that the fault lay in the obscurity of his own vision.
+
+"They come down because they're keen," he replied. "My governor can't
+leave his office, or he'd be here. I like to see 'em, don't you, Demon?"
+
+"I could worry along without 'em," the Demon replied, half-smiling. "You
+see," he added, with the blend of irony and pathos which always
+captivated his friend, "you see, my dear old chap, I'm the first of my
+family at Harrow, and the sight of all your brothers and uncles and
+fathers makes me feel like Mark Twain's good man, rather _lonesome_."
+
+At once Desmond responded, clutching Scaife's arm.
+
+"You're going to be Captain of the cricket and footer Elevens, and
+School racquet-player, and a monitor; and after you leave you'll come
+down here, and you'll see that Harrow hasn't forgotten you, and then
+you'll know why these fellows cut engagements. My governor says that an
+hour at a School Concert is the finest tonic in the world for an Old
+Harrovian."
+
+"Oh, shut up!" said Scaife; "you make me feel more of an outsider than
+good old Snowball." He glanced at a youth sitting close to them.
+Snowball was as black as a coal: the son of the Sultan of the Sahara.
+"Yes, Cæsar, you can't get away from it, I _am_ an 'alien.'"
+
+"You're a silly old ass! I say, who's the guest of honour?"
+
+Next to the Head Master was sitting a thin man upon whose face were
+fixed hundreds of eyes. The School had not been told that a famous Field
+Marshal, the hero of a hundred fights, was coming to the concert. And,
+indeed, he had accepted an invitation given at the last moment--accepted
+it, moreover, on the understanding that his visit was to be informal.
+None the less, his face was familiar to all readers of illustrated
+papers. And, suddenly, conviction seized the boys that a conqueror was
+among them, an Old Etonian, making, possibly, his first visit to the
+Hill. Scaife whispered his name to Desmond.
+
+"Why, of course," Desmond replied eagerly. "How splendid!"
+
+He leaned forward, devouring the hero with his eyes, trying to pierce
+the bronzed skin, to read the record. From his seat upon the stage John,
+also, stared at the illustrious guest. John was frightfully nervous, but
+looking at the veteran he forgot the fear of the recruit. Both Desmond
+and he were wondering what "it felt like" to have done so much.
+And--they compared notes afterwards--each boy deplored the fact that the
+great man was not an Old Harrovian. There he sat, cool, calm, slightly
+impassive. John thought he must be rather tired, as a man ought to be
+tired after a life of strenuous endeavour and achievement. He had
+done--so John reflected--an awful lot. Even now, he remained the active,
+untiring servant of Queen and country. And he had taken time to come
+down to Harrow to hear the boys sing. And, dash it all! he, John, was
+going to sing to him.
+
+At that moment Desmond was whispering to Scaife--
+
+"I say, Demon; I'm jolly glad that I've not got to sing before _him_. I
+bet Jonathan is in a funk."
+
+"A big bit of luck," replied Scaife, reflectively. Then, seeing the
+surprise on Desmond's face, he added, "If Jonathan can sing--and I
+suppose he can, or he wouldn't be chosen--this is a chance----"
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"Cæsar, sometimes I think you've no brains. Why, a chance of attracting
+the notice of a tremendous swell--a man, they say, who never
+forgets--never! Jonathan may want a commission in the Guards, as I do;
+and if he pleases the great man, he may get it."
+
+"Jonathan's not thinking of that," said Desmond. "Shush-h-h!"
+
+The singers stood up. They faced the Field Marshal, and he faced them.
+He looked hardest at Lawrence, pointed out to him by the Head Master.
+Perhaps he was thinking of India; and the name of Lawrence indelibly cut
+upon the memories of all who fought in the Mutiny. And Lawrence, you may
+be sure, met his glance steadily, being fortified by it. The good fellow
+felt terribly distressed, because he was leaving the Hill; and, being a
+humble gentleman, the old songs served to remind him, not of what he had
+done, but of what he had left undone--the words unspoken, the actions
+never now to be performed. The chief caught his eye, smiled, and nodded,
+as if to say, "I claim your father's son as a friend."
+
+When the song came to an end, John was seized with an almost
+irresistible impulse to bolt. His turn had come. He must stand up to
+sing before nearly six hundred boys, who would stare down with gravely
+critical and courteously amused eyes. And already his legs trembled as
+if he were seized of a palsy. John knew that he could sing. His mother,
+who sang gloriously, had trained him. From her he had inherited his
+vocal chords, and from her he drew the knowledge how to use them.
+
+When he stood up, pale and trembling, the silence fell upon his
+sensibilities as if it were a dense, yellow fog. This silence, as John
+knew, was an unwritten law. The small boy selected to sing to the
+School, as the representative of the School, must have every chance. Let
+his voice be heard! The master playing the accompaniment paused and
+glanced at his pupil. John, however, was not looking at him; he was
+looking within at a John he despised--a poltroon, a deserter about to
+run from his first engagement. He knew that the introduction to the song
+was being played a second time, and he saw the Head Master whispering to
+his guest. Paralysed with terror, John's intuition told him that the
+Head Master was murmuring, "That's the nephew of John Verney. Of course
+you know him?" And the Field Marshal nodded. And then he looked at John,
+as John had seen him look at Lawrence, with the same flare of
+recognition in the steel-grey eyes. Out of the confused welter of faces
+shone that pair of eyes--twin beacons flashing their message of
+encouragement and salvation to a fellow-creature in peril--at least, so
+John interpreted that piercing glance. It seemed to say, far plainer
+than words, "I have stood alone as you stand; I have felt my knees as
+wax; I have wished to run away. But--_I didn't_. Nor must you. Open your
+mouth and sing!"
+
+So John opened his mouth and sang. The first verse of the lyric went
+haltingly.
+
+Scaife growled to Desmond, "He _is_ going to make an ass of himself."
+
+And Desmond, meeting Scaife's eyes, half thought that the speaker wished
+that John would fail--that he grudged him a triumph. None the less, the
+first verse, sung feebly, with wrong phrasing and imperfect
+articulation, revealed the quality of the boy's voice; and this quality
+Desmond recognized, as he would have recognized a fine painting or a bit
+of perfect porcelain. All his short life his father had trained him to
+look for and acclaim quality, whether in things animate or inanimate. He
+caught hold of Scaife's arm.
+
+"Make an ass of himself!" he whispered back. "Not he. But he may make an
+ass of me."
+
+Even as he spoke he was aware that tears were horribly near his eyes.
+Some catch in John's voice, some subtle inflection, had smitten his
+heart, even as the prophet smote the rock.
+
+"Rot!" said Scaife, angrily.
+
+He was angry, furiously angry, because he saw that Cæsar was beyond his
+reach, whirled innumerable leagues away by the sound of another's voice.
+John had begun the second verse. He stared, as if hypnotized, straight
+into the face of the great soldier, who in turn stared as steadily at
+John; and John was singing like a lark, with a lark's spontaneous
+delight in singing, with an ease and self-abandonment which charmed eye
+almost as much as ear. Higher and higher rose the clear, sexless notes,
+till two of them met and mingled in a triumphant trill. To Desmond, that
+trill was the answer to the quavering, troubled cadences of the first
+verse; the vindication of the spirit soaring upwards unfettered by the
+flesh--the pure spirit, not released from the pitiful human clay without
+a fierce struggle. At that moment Desmond loved the singer--the singer
+who called to him out of heaven, who summoned his friend to join him, to
+see what he saw--"the vision splendid."
+
+John began the third and last verse. The famous soldier covered his face
+with his hand, releasing John's eyes, which ascended, like his voice,
+till they met joyfully the eyes of Desmond. At last he was singing to
+his friend--_and his friend knew it_. John saw Desmond's radiant smile,
+and across that ocean of faces he smiled back. Then, knowing that he was
+nearer to his friend than he had ever been before, he gathered together
+his energies for the last line of the song--a line to be repeated three
+times, loudly at first, then more softly, diminishing to the merest
+whisper of sound, the voice celestial melting away in the ear of
+earth-bound mortals. The master knew well the supreme difficulty of
+producing properly this last attenuated note; but he knew also that
+John's lungs were strong, that the vocal chords had never been strained.
+Still, if the boy's breath failed; if anything--a smile, a frown, a
+cough--distracted his attention, the end would be--weakness, failure. He
+wondered why John was staring so fixedly in one direction.
+
+Now--now!
+
+The piano crashed out the last line; but far above it, dominating it,
+floated John's flute-like notes. The master played the same bars for the
+second time. He was still able to sustain, if it were necessary, a
+quavering, imperfect phrase. But John delivered the second repetition
+without a mistake, singing easily from the chest. The master put his
+foot upon the soft pedal. Nobody was watching him. Had any one done so,
+he would have seen the perspiration break upon the musician's forehead.
+The piano purred its accompaniment. Then, in the middle of the phrase,
+the master lifted his hands and held them poised above the instrument.
+John had to sing three notes unsupported. He was smiling and staring at
+Desmond. The first note came like a question from the heart of a child;
+the second, higher up, might have been interpreted as an echo to the
+innocent interrogation of the first, the head no wiser than the heart;
+but the third and last note had nothing in it of interrogation: it was
+an answer, all-satisfying--sublime. Nor did it seem to come from John at
+all, but from above, falling like a snowflake out of the sky.
+
+And then, for one immeasurable moment--_silence_.
+
+John slipped back to his seat, crimson with bashfulness, while the
+School thundered applause. The Field Marshal shouted "Encore," as loudly
+as any fag; but the Head Master whispered--
+
+"We don't encourage _encores_. A small boy's head is easily turned."
+
+"Not his," the hero replied.
+
+Two numbers followed, and then the School stood up, and with them all
+Old Harrovians, to sing the famous National Anthem of Harrow, "Forty
+Years on." Only the guests and the masters remained seated.
+
+    "Forty years on, growing older and older,
+      Shorter in wind, as in memory long,
+    Feeble of foot and rheumatic of shoulder,
+      What will it help you that once you were strong?
+    God give us bases to guard or beleaguer,
+      Games to play out, whether earnest or fun;
+    Fights for the fearless, and goals for the eager,
+      Twenty, and thirty, and forty years on!
+    Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! Follow up!
+    Till the field ring again and again,
+      With the tramp of the twenty-two men.
+                Follow--up!"
+
+As the hundreds of voices, past and present indissolubly linked
+together, imposed the mandate, "_Follow up!_" the Head Master glanced at
+his guest, but left unsaid the words about to be uttered. Tears were
+trickling down the cheeks of the man who, forty years before, had won
+his Sovereign's Cross--For Valour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After the concert, but before he left the Speech-room, the Field Marshal
+asked the Head Master to introduce Lawrence and John, and, of course,
+the Head of the School. When John came up, there was a twinkle in the
+veteran's eye.
+
+"Ha--ha!" said he; "you were in a precious funk, John Verney."
+
+"I was, sir," said John.
+
+"Gad! Don't I know the feeling? Well, well," he chuckled, smiling at
+John, "you climbed up higher than I've ever been in my life. What was
+it--hey? 'F' in 'alt'?"
+
+"'G,' sir."
+
+"You sang delightfully. Tell your uncle to bring you to see me next time
+you are in town. You must consider me a friend," he chuckled again--"an
+old friend. And look ye here," his pleasant voice sank to a whisper, "I
+daren't tip these tremendous swells, but I feel that I can take such a
+liberty with you. Shush-h-h! Good-bye."
+
+John scurried away, bursting with pride, feeling to the core the strong
+grip of the strong man, hearing the thrill of his voice, the thrill
+which had vibrated in thousands of soldier-hearts. Outside, Fluff was
+awaiting him.
+
+"Oh, Jonathan, you can sing, and no mistake."
+
+"Five--six--seven mistakes," John answered.
+
+The boys laughed.
+
+John told Fluff what the hero had said to him, and showed the piece of
+gold.
+
+"What ho! The Creameries! Come on, Esmé."
+
+At the Creameries several boys congratulated John, and the Caterpillar
+said--
+
+"You astonished us, Jonathan; 'pon my soul you did. Have a 'dringer'
+with me? And Fluff, too? By the way, be sure to keep your hair clipped
+close. These singing fellows with manes may be lions in their own
+estimation, but the world looks upon 'em as asses."
+
+"That's not bad for you, Caterpillar," said a boy in the Fifth.
+
+"Not my own," said the Caterpillar, solemnly--"my father's. I take from
+him all the good things I can get hold of."
+
+John polished off his "dringer," listening to the chaff, but his
+thoughts were with Desmond. He had an intuition that Desmond would have
+something to say to him. As soon as possible he returned to the Manor.
+
+There he found his room empty. John shut the door and sat down, looking
+about him half-absently. The Duffer had not contributed much to the
+mural decoration, saying, loftily, that he preferred bare walls to
+rubbishy engravings and Japanese fans. But, with curious inconsistency
+(for he was the least vain of mortals), he had bought at a "leaving
+auction" a three-sided mirror--once the property of a great buck in the
+Sixth. The Duffer had got it cheap, but he never used it. The lower boys
+remarked to each other that Duff didn't dare to look in it, because what
+he would see must not only break his heart but shatter the glass.
+Generally, it hung, folded up, close to the window, and the Duffer said
+that it would come in handy when he took to shaving.
+
+John's eye rested on this mirror, vacantly at first, then with gathering
+intensity. Presently he got up, crossed the room, opened the two
+folding panels, and examined himself attentively, pursing up his lips
+and frowning. He could see John Verney full face, three-quarter face,
+and half-face. And he could see the back of his head, where an obstinate
+lock of hair stuck out like a drake's tail. John was so occupied in
+taking stock of his personal disadvantages that a ringing laugh quite
+startled him.
+
+"Why, Jonathan! Giving yourself a treat--eh?"
+
+John turned a solemn face to Desmond. "I think my head is hideous," he
+said ruefully.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"It's too long," John explained. "I like a nice round head like yours,
+Cæsar. I wish I wasn't so ugly."
+
+Desmond laughed. John always amused him. Cæsar was easily amused, saw
+the funny side of things, and contrasts tickled his fancy agreeably. But
+he stopped laughing when he realized that John was hurt. Then, quickly,
+impulsively, he said--
+
+"Your head is all right, old Jonathan. And your voice is simply
+beautiful." He spoke seriously, staring at John as he had stared in the
+Speech-room when John began to sing. "I came here to tell you that. I
+felt odd when you were singing--quite weepsy, you know. You like me, old
+Jonathan, don't you?"
+
+"Awfully," said John.
+
+"Why did you look at me when you sang that last verse? Did you know that
+you were looking at me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You looked at me because--well, because--bar chaff--you--liked--me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You--you like me better than any other fellow in the school?"
+
+"Yes; better than any other fellow in the world."
+
+"Is it possible?"
+
+"I have always felt that way since--yes--since the very first minute I
+saw you."
+
+"How rum! I've forgotten just where we did meet--for the first time."
+
+"I shall never forget," said John, in the same slow, deliberate fashion,
+never taking his eyes from Desmond's face. Ever since he had sung, he
+had known that this moment was coming. "I shall never forget it," he
+repeated--"never. You were standing near the Chapel. I was poking about
+alone, trying to find the shop where we buy our straws. And I was
+feeling as all new boys feel, only more so, because I didn't know a
+soul."
+
+"Yes," said Desmond, gravely; "you told me that. I remember now; I
+mistook you for young Hardacre."
+
+"You smiled at me, Cæsar. It warmed me through and through. I suppose
+that when a fellow is starving he never forgets the first meal after
+it."
+
+"I say. Go on; this is awfully interesting."
+
+"I can remember what you wore. One of your bootlaces had burst----"
+
+"Well; I'm----"
+
+"I had a wild sort of wish to run off and buy you a new lace----"
+
+"Of all the rum starts I----"
+
+"Afterwards," John continued, "I tried to suck-up. I asked you to come
+and have some 'food.' Do you remember?"
+
+"I'll bet I came, Jonathan."
+
+"No; you didn't. You said 'No.'"
+
+"Dash it all! I certainly said, 'No thanks.'"
+
+"I dare say; but the 'No' hurt awfully because I did feel that it was
+cheek asking you."
+
+"Jonathan, you funny old buster, I'll never say 'No' again. 'Pon my
+word, I won't. So I said 'No.' That's odd, because it's not easy for me
+to say 'No.' The governor pointed that out last hols. Somehow, I can't
+say 'No,' particularly if there's any excitement in saying 'Yes.' And my
+beastly 'No' hurt, did it? Well, I'm very, _very_ sorry."
+
+He held out his hand, which John took. Then, for a moment, there was a
+pause before Desmond continued awkwardly--
+
+"You know, Jonathan, that the Demon is my pal. You like him better than
+you did, don't you?"
+
+John had the tact not to speak; but he shook his head dolefully.
+
+"And I couldn't chuck him, even if I wanted to, which I don't--which I
+don't," he repeated, with an air of satisfying himself rather than John.
+And John divined that Scaife's hold upon Desmond's affections was not so
+strong as he had deemed it to be. Desmond continued, "But I want you,
+too, old Jonathan, and if--if----"
+
+"All right," said John, nobly. He perceived that Desmond's loyalty to
+Scaife made him hesitate and flush. "I understand, Cæsar, and if I can't
+be first, let me be second; only, remember, with me you're first, rain
+or shine."
+
+Desmond looked uneasy. "Isn't that a case of 'heads I win, tails you
+lose'?"
+
+John considered; then he smiled cheerfully, "You know you are a winner,
+Cæsar. You're cut out for a winner; you can win whatever you want to
+win."
+
+"Oh, that's all rot," said Desmond. He looked very grave, and in his
+eyes lay shadows which John had never seen before.
+
+And so ended John's first year at Harrow.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[25] All Public Houses are out of bounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+_Reform_
+
+    "'It must be a gran' thing to be a colledge profissor.'
+
+    "'Not much to do,' said Mr. Hennessy.
+
+    "'But a gr--reat deal to say,' said Mr. Dooley."
+
+
+When John returned to the Hill at the beginning of the winter term the
+great change had taken place. Rutford had assumed the duties of
+Professor of Greek at a Scotch University; Warde was in possession of
+the Manor; Scaife and Desmond and John--but not the Caterpillar--had got
+their remove. They were Fifth Form boys--and in tails! John, it is true,
+although tougher and broader, was still short for his years and juvenile
+of appearance, but Scaife and Desmond were quite big fellows, and their
+new coats became them mightily. Trieve was Head of the House; Lovell,
+Captain of the House football Eleven and in the Lower Sixth.
+
+"Lovell will have to behave himself now," the Duffer remarked to Scaife,
+who laughed derisively, as he answered--
+
+"He couldn't, even if he tried."
+
+Warde welcomed the House at lock-up, and introduced the boys to his wife
+and daughter. Mrs. Warde had a plain, pleasant face. Miss Warde,
+however, was a beauty, and she knew it, the coquette, and had known it
+from the hour she could peep into a mirror. The Caterpillar pronounced
+her "fetching." Being only fifteen, she wore her hair in a plait tied by
+a huge bow, and the hem of her skirt barely touched the neatest ankle on
+Harrow Hill. Give her a saucy, pink-and-white face, pop a pert,
+tip-tilted nose into the middle of it just above a pouting red mouth,
+and just below her father's lapis-lazuli eyes, and you will see Iris
+Warde. Her hair was reddish, not red--call it warm chestnut; and she had
+a dimple.
+
+After the introductions, mother and daughter left the hall. Warde stood
+up, inviting the House to sit down. Warde was about half the width of
+the late Rutford, but somehow he seemed to take up more room. He had
+spent the summer holidays in Switzerland, climbing terrific peaks. Snow
+and sun had coloured his clear complexion. John, who saw beneath tanned
+skins, reflected that Warde seemed to be saturated with fresh air and
+all the sweet, clean things which one associates with mountains. "He
+loves hills," thought John, "and he loves our Hill." Warde began to
+speak in his jerky, confidential tones. Dirty Dick had always been
+insufferably dull, pompous, and didactic.
+
+"I don't like speechmaking," said Warde, "but I want to put one thing to
+you as strongly as a man may. I have always wished to be master of the
+Manor. Some men may think mine a small ambition. Master of a house at
+Harrow? Nothing big about that. Perhaps not. But I think it big. And it
+is big--for me. Understand that I'm in love with my job--head over
+heels. I'd sooner be master of the Manor than Prime Minister. I couldn't
+tackle his work. Enough of that. Now, forget for a moment that I'm a
+master. Let me talk as an Old Harrovian, an old Manorite who remembers
+everything, ay--everything, good and bad. Some lucky fellows remember
+the good only; we call them optimists. Others remember the bad.
+Pessimists those. Put me between the two. The other day I had an eye,
+_one_ eye, fixed on the top of a certain peak--by Jove! how I longed to
+reach that peak!--but the other eye was on a _crevasse_ at my feet. Had
+I kept both eyes on the peak, I should be lying now at the bottom of
+that _crevasse_. You take me? Well, twenty years ago I sat here, in
+hall, my last night in the old house, and I hoped that one day I might
+come back. Why? This is between ourselves, a confidence. I came to the
+Manor from a beastly school, such schools are hardly to be found
+nowadays--a hardened young sinner at thirteen. The Manor licked me into
+shape. Speaking generally, I suppose the tone of the house insensibly
+communicated itself to me. The Manor was cock-house at games and work. I
+began by shirking both. But the spirit of the Hill was too much for me.
+I couldn't shirk that. Some jolly old boys, we all know them and like
+them, are always saying that their early school-days were the happiest
+of their lives. They're fond of telling this big lie just as they're
+settling down to their claret. I really believe that they believe what
+they say, but it _is_ a lie. The smallest boy here knows it's a lie.
+Let's hark back a bit. I said I was licked into shape--and I mean
+_licked_. I had a lot of really hard fagging--much harder than any of
+you boys know--I was sent up and swished, I had whoppings innumerable,
+and it wasn't pleasant. My mother had pinched herself to send me here,
+because my father had been here before me; and I wondered why she did
+it. At that time I couldn't see why cheaper schools shouldn't be not
+only as good as Harrow, but perhaps better. Not till I was in the Fifth
+did I get a glimmering of what my mother and the Manor were doing for
+me. When I got into the Sixth and into the Eleven, I knew. And my last
+year here made up, and more, too, for the previous four. I enjoyed that
+year thoroughly; I had ceased to be a slacker. I tell you, all of you,
+that happiness, like liberty, must be earned before we can enjoy it. And
+you are sent here to earn it. I'm not going to keep you much longer. I
+have come to the marrow of the matter. I owe the Manor a debt which I
+hope to pay to--you. Just as you, in turn, will pay back to boys not yet
+born the money your people have gladly spent on you, and other greater
+things besides. I want to see this house at the top of the tree again:
+cock-house at cricket, cock-house at footer, with a Balliol Scholar in
+it, and a school racquet-player. And now Dumbleton is going to bring in
+a little champagne. We'll drink high health and fellowship to the Manor
+and the Hill!"
+
+His face broke into the smile his form knew so well; he sat down, as the
+house roared its welcome to a friend.
+
+As soon as the champagne was drunk ("Dumber" was careful to put more
+froth than wine into the glasses of the kids), the boys filed out of the
+Hall. The Duffer, Desmond, John, and the Caterpillar assembled in John's
+room. Desmond, you may be sure, was afire with resolution. Warde was the
+right sort, a clinker, a first flighter. And he meant to stick by him
+through thick and thin. John said nothing. The Caterpillar drawled out--
+
+"Warde didn't surprise me--much. I've found out that he's one of the
+Wardes of Warde-Pomeroy, the real old stuff. Our families intermarried
+in Elizabeth's reign."
+
+"Chance to do it again, Caterpillar," said the Duffer. "Warde's daughter
+is an uncommonly pretty girl."
+
+Then the Caterpillar used the epithet "fetching."
+
+"She's fetching, very fetching," he said. "It's a pleasure to remember
+that we're of kin. One must be civil to Warde. He's a well bred 'un."
+
+"You think too much of family," said Desmond.
+
+"_One can't_," replied the Caterpillar, solemnly. "One knows that family
+is not everything, but, other things being equal, it means refinement.
+The first of the Howards was a swineherd, I dare say, but generations of
+education, of association with the best, have turned them from
+swine-herds into gentlemen, and it takes generations to do it."
+
+"Good old Caterpillar!" said the Duffer.
+
+"Not my own," said the Caterpillar; adding, as usual, "My governor's,
+you know."
+
+"Warde hasn't a soft job ahead of him," said Desmond.
+
+"Soft or hard, he'll handle it his own way."
+
+Desmond went out, wondering what had become of Scaife. Scaife was in his
+room, talking to Lovell senior, who spent a fortnight with Scaife's
+people in Scotland, fishing and grousing. Desmond had been asked also,
+but his father, rather to Cæsar's disgust (for the Scaife moor was
+famous), had refused to let him go. Lovell and Scaife were arguing
+about something which Desmond could not understand.
+
+"I left it to my partner," said Scaife, "and the fool went no trumps
+holding two missing suits. The enemy doubled, my partner redoubled, and
+the others redoubled again: that made it ninety-six a trick. The fellow
+on the left held my partner's missing suits; he made the Little Slam,
+and scored nearly six hundred below the line. It gave 'em the rubber,
+too, and I had to fork out a couple of quid."
+
+"What are you jawing about, Demon?" said Desmond.
+
+"Bridge. It's the new game. It's going to be the rage. Do you play
+bridge, Cæsar?"
+
+"No. I want to learn it."
+
+"All right, I must teach you."
+
+"We could get up a four in this house," said Lovell. "We three and the
+Caterpillar. He plays, I know. The Colonel is one of the cracks at the
+Turf. It would be an awful lark. A mild gamble: small points--eh? A bob
+a hundred. What do you say, Cæsar?"
+
+Desmond hesitated. Bridge had not yet reached its delirious stage. But
+Desmond had seen it played, had heard his father praise it as the most
+fascinating of card-games, and had determined to learn it at the first
+convenient opportunity. None the less Warde's words still echoed in his
+ear.
+
+"I think we ought to give Warde a chance," he said.
+
+"You don't mean to say you were taken in by him?" said Lovell,
+contemptuously.
+
+Desmond burst into enthusiastic praise of Warde and his methods. Lovell
+shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room, nodding to Scaife,
+but ignoring Desmond.
+
+"You must go canny with Lovell," said Scaife. "He's the fellow who ought
+to give you your 'fez' after the first house-game."
+
+"Never mind that. You won't play bridge, Demon, will you?"
+
+"Why not?" said Scaife. "Where's the harm? Your governor plays----"
+
+"Yes; but----"
+
+"You're afraid of getting sacked?"
+
+"I'm not."
+
+"All right; I'll take that back. You're not a funk, Cæsar, but you're so
+easily humbugged. Warde caught you with his 'pi jaw' and a glass of
+gooseberry."
+
+"The champagne was all right, wasn't it?"
+
+"Oh, ho! So you do mean to stand in with Warde against Lovell and me?
+Thanks for being so candid. Now I'll be candid with you. I like Lovell.
+There's no nonsense about him. He don't put on frills because he's in
+the Sixth, and he don't mean to take to their sneaking, spying ways.
+He's just as anxious as Warde to see the Manor cock-house at footer and
+cricket, and I'm as keen as he is; but we stop there. The Balliol
+Scholarship may go hang. And as for sympathy and fellowship and pulling
+together between masters and boys, I never did believe in it, and never
+shall. My hand is against the masters, so long as they interfere with
+anything I want to do. I like bridge, and I mean to play it. And I'll
+take jolly good care that I'm not nailed. That's part of the fun, as the
+drinking used to be. I chucked that because it wasn't good enough; but
+bridge is ripping, and, take my word for it, you'll be keener than I
+when you begin."
+
+"Perhaps. But I'm not going to begin here."
+
+"Right--oh!"
+
+Scaife turned aside, whistling, but out of the corner of his shrewd eye
+he marked the expression of Desmond's face, the colour ebbing and
+flowing in the round, boyish cheeks, the perplexity on the brow. Then he
+spoke in a different voice.
+
+"Don't worry, old chap. You've stuck to me through thick and thin, and
+I'm grateful, really and truly. You're right, and I'm wrong; I always am
+wrong. I was looking forward to larks. If you count 'em purple sins, I
+don't blame you for letting me go to the devil by myself."
+
+"I never said bridge was a purple sin."
+
+"Warde thinks it is. If you're going to look at life here with his eyes,
+you'll have to rename things. Babies play Beggar my Neighbour for
+chocolates; why shouldn't we play bridge for a bob a hundred? The game
+is splendid for the brain; ten thousand times better than translating
+Greek choruses."
+
+"But it is--gambling, Demon; you can't get away from that."
+
+"Pooh! It's gambling if I bet you a 'dringer' that you won't make ten
+runs in a house-match; it's gambling if I raffle a picture and you take
+a sixpenny ticket. Are you going to give up that sort of gambling?"
+
+"No; but----"
+
+"What would Warde say to our co-operative system of work--eh? You're not
+prepared to go the whole hog? You want to pick and choose. Good! But
+give me the same right, that's all. Play bridge with your old pals, or
+don't play, just as you please."
+
+No more was said. Scaife's manner rather than his matter confounded the
+younger and less experienced boy. Scaife, too, tackled problems which
+many men prefer to leave alone. Here heredity cropped up. Scaife's sire
+and grandsire were earning their bread before they were sixteen. Of
+necessity they faced and overcame obstacles which the ordinary Public
+School-boy never meets till he leaves the University.
+
+For some time after this bridge was not mentioned. Lovell, acting,
+possibly, under advice from Scaife, treated Desmond courteously, and
+gave him his "fez" after the first house-game. Both boys now were
+members of the Manor cricket and football Elevens, and, as such, persons
+of distinction in their small world. Scaife, moreover, began to play
+football with such extraordinary dash and brilliancy, that it seemed to
+be quite on the cards that he might get his School Flannels. This
+possibility, and the Greek in the Fifth, absorbed his energies for the
+first six weeks of the winter quarter. John had come back to Scaife's
+room to prepare work. Desmond felt that Scaife had been generous in
+proposing that John should join them, because in many small ways it had
+become evident that the Demon disliked John, although he still spoke of
+the tight place out of which John had hauled him. Through Scaife John
+received his "fez"; and when John wore it for the first time, Scaife
+came up and said, smiling--
+
+"I'm nearly even with you, Verney."
+
+"What do you mean?" said John.
+
+"You know well enough what I mean," said Scaife, winking his eye
+maliciously.
+
+John flushed, because in his heart he did know. But when he told Egerton
+what Scaife had said, that experienced man of the world turned up his
+nose.
+
+"Just like him," he said. "He wants you to feel that he has wiped out
+his debt."
+
+"Do you think my 'fez' ought to have been given to young Lovell?"
+
+The Caterpillar, who played back for the Manor, considered the question.
+
+"I don't know," he said. "You are pretty nearly equal; but it's a fact
+that the Demon turned the scale. He pointed out to Lovell that if he
+gave a 'fez' to his young brother, the house might accuse him of
+favouritism. That did the trick."
+
+This made John uneasy and unhappy for a week or two; but the
+consciousness that another might be better entitled to the coveted "fez"
+made him play up with such energy that he succeeded in proving to all
+critics that he had honestly earned what luck had bestowed on him.
+
+During the last week of October, John began those long walks with
+Desmond which, afterwards, he came to regard as perhaps the most
+delightful hours spent at Harrow. Scaife detested walking. He had his
+father's power of focusing attention and energy upon a single object.
+For the moment he was mad about football. Talk about books, scenery,
+people, bored him, and he said so with his usual frankness and
+impatience of restraint. Desmond, on the other hand, was also like his
+father, inasmuch as his tastes were catholic. He was a bit of a
+naturalist, learned in the lore of woods and fields, and he liked to
+talk about books, and he liked to talk about his home. Simple John would
+sooner hear Cæsar talk than listen to the heavenly choir. So it came to
+pass that once a week at least the boys would stroll down the avenue at
+Orley Farm (where Anthony Trollope's sad boyhood was passed), or take
+the Northwick Walk, which winds through meadows to the Bridge, or visit
+John Lyon's farm at Preston, or, getting signed for Bill, attempt a
+longer ramble to Ruislip Reservoir, or Oxhey Wood, or Headstone with its
+moated grange, or Horsington Hill with its long-stretching view across
+the Uxbridge plain.
+
+Very soon it became the natural thing for Cæsar to give John a glimpse,
+at least, of whatever floated in and out of his mind. John, being
+himself a creature of reserves, could not quite understand this unlocking
+of doors, but he appreciated his privileges. Cæsar's ingenuousness,
+sympathy, and impulsiveness, seemed the more enchanting because John
+himself was of the look-before-you-leap, think-before-you-speak, sort.
+One Sunday evening they were hurrying back to Chapel, when they passed a
+woman carrying a heavy child. The poor creature appeared to be almost
+fainting with fatigue and possibly hunger. Her pinched face, her bent
+figure, her thin garments, bespoke a passionate protest against
+conditions which obviously she was powerless to avert or control. The
+boys glanced at her with pitying eyes as they passed. Then Desmond said
+quickly--
+
+"I say, Jonathan, she looks as if she was going to fall down."
+
+John, seeing what was in his friend's mind, said--
+
+"We must hurry up, or we shall miss Chapel."
+
+They offered the woman sixpences, and blushes, because through the
+tattered shawl might be seen a shrunken bosom.
+
+The woman stared, stammered, and burst into tears.
+
+"We shall miss Chapel," John repeated.
+
+"Hang Chapel," said Desmond.
+
+He was looking at the child. When the woman took the silver, she let the
+child slip to the ground, where it lay inert.
+
+"What's the matter with it?" said Desmond.
+
+Half sobbing, the woman explained that the child had sprained its ankle.
+
+"I'm just about done," she gasped; "an' the sight o' you two young
+gen'lemen runnin' up the 'ill finished me. I ain't the leaky sort," she
+added fiercely, still gasping and trembling.
+
+Then she bent down and tried to lift the heavy child, which moaned
+feebly.
+
+"You run on, Jonathan," said Desmond.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I'm going to carry this kid up the hill."
+
+"I'll help."
+
+"No--hook it, you ass."
+
+"I won't hook it."
+
+Between them they carried the child as far as the Speech-room, where a
+policeman accepted a shilling, and gave in return a positive assurance
+that he would see woman and child to their destination. When the boys
+were alone, John said--
+
+"Cæsar----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"What a fellow you are! I wouldn't have thought of that. It was
+splendid."
+
+"Oh, shut up." There was a slight pause; then Cæsar said defiantly, "I
+thought of carrying that kid; but I wouldn't have done it, unless I'd
+known that every boy was safe in Chapel. I couldn't have faced the
+chaff. And--you could."
+
+They were punished for cutting Chapel, because Cæsar refused to give the
+reason which would have saved them.
+
+"I'd have told the truth," he admitted to John, "if I could have
+shouldered that kid with the Manorites looking on."
+
+John agreed that this was an excellent and a Cæsarean (he coined the
+adjective on this occasion) reason.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among the Fifth Form boys of the Manor was a big, coarse-looking youth
+of the name of Beaumont-Greene. Everybody called him Beaumont-Greene in
+full, because upon his first appearance at Bill he had stopped the line
+of boys by refusing to answer to the name of Greene.
+
+"My name," said he, in a shrill pipe, "is Beaumont-Greene, and we spell
+the Greene with a final 'e'."
+
+Beaumont-Greene was a type of boy, unhappily, too common at all Public
+Schools. He had no feeling whatever for Harrow, save that it was a place
+where it behoved a boy to escape punishment if he could, and to run, hot
+foot, towards anything which would yield pleasure to his body. He was
+known to the Manorites as a funk at footer, and a prodigious consumer of
+"food" at the Creameries. His father, having accumulated a large fortune
+in manufacturing what was advertised in most of the public prints as the
+"Imperishable, Seamless, Whale-skin Boot," gave his son plenty of money.
+As a Lower Boy, Beaumont-Greene had but a sorry time of it. Somebody
+discovered that he was what Gilbert once described as an "imperfect
+ablutioner." The Caterpillar made a point of telling new boys the nature
+of the punishment meted out to the unclean. He had assisted at the
+"toshing" of Beaumont-Greene.
+
+"A nasty job," the Caterpillar would remark, looking at his own
+speckless finger-nails: "but it had to be done. We took the Greene
+person" (the Caterpillar alone refused to defame the fine name of
+Beaumont by linking it to Greene) "and placed him naked in a large
+tosh. Into that tosh the house was invited to pour any fluid that could
+be spared. One forgets things; but, unless I'm mistaken, the particular
+sheep-wash used was made up of lemonade, syrups, ink--plenty of
+that--milk (I bought a quart myself), tooth-powder, paraffin, and a cake
+of Sapolio--Monkey Brand! We scrubbed the Yahoo thoroughly, washed its
+teeth, ears, hair, and then we dried it. I don't know who smeared
+marmalade on to the towel, but the drying part was not very successful.
+Rather tough--eh? Yes, very tough--on _us_, but effective. The Greene
+person has toshed regularly ever since. At least, so I'm told; I never
+go near him myself, and he's considerate enough to keep out of my way."
+
+Beaumont-Greene had not, it is true, the appetite for reckless breaking
+of the law which distinguished Lovell and his particular pals; but
+Lovell's good qualities cancelled to a certain extent what was vicious.
+A fine cricketer, a plucky football-player, he might have proved a
+credit to his house had a master other than Dirty Dick been originally
+in command of it. Before he was out of the Shell, he had declared war
+against Authority. Beaumont-Greene, on the other hand, detested games,
+and sneered at those who played them. Pulpy, pimply, gross in mind and
+body, he stood for that heavy, amorphous resistance to good, which is so
+difficult to overcome.
+
+During the first half of the winter quarter, John saw but little of Esmé
+Kinloch. It is one of the characteristics of a Public School that the
+boys--as in the greater world for which it is a preparation--are in
+layers. Some layers overlap; others never touch. Fluff was a fag; his
+friend John was in the Fifth Form, and a "fez." In a word, an Atlantic
+rolled between them. John, however, would often give Fluff a "con," and
+occasionally they would walk together. Fluff was no longer the delicate,
+girlish child of a year ago. He had bloomed into a very handsome boy,
+attractive, like all the members of his mother's family, with engaging
+manners, and he had also shown signs of developing into a cricketer.
+Fluff could paddle his own canoe, provided, of course, that he kept out
+of the rapids.
+
+But about the middle of the term John noticed that Fluff was losing
+colour and spirits, the latter never very exuberant. It was not in
+John's nature to ask questions which he might answer for himself by
+taking pains to do so. He watched Fluff closely. Then he demanded
+bluntly--
+
+"What's up?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"That's a cram," said John, severely. "I didn't believe you'd tell me a
+cram, Esmé."
+
+"You don't care tuppence whether I tell crams or not--_now_."
+
+John weighed the "now" deliberately.
+
+"That's another cram," he said slowly. "Has anybody been rotting you?"
+
+Silence. John repeated the question. Still silence. Then John added--
+
+"You know, Esmé, that I shall stick to you till I find out what's up; so
+you may as well save time by telling me at once."
+
+"It's Beaumont-Greene," faltered Fluff.
+
+"That fat beast! What's he done?"
+
+"He hasn't done much--yet."
+
+"Tell everything!"
+
+"He came into my room one night and turned me up in my bed. I woke, on
+my head, in the dark, half-smothered, and couldn't think what had
+happened; it was simply awful. Then I heard his beastly voice saying,
+'If I let you down, will you do what I ask you?' I'd have promised
+anything to get out of that horrible, choking prison, and now he
+threatens to turn me up every night, and I dream of it----"
+
+"Go on," said John, grimly. "No, you needn't go on. I can guess what
+this low cad is up to."
+
+"He said he'd be my friend; as if I'd have a beast like that for a
+friend."
+
+"Did you tell him that?"
+
+"Yes, I did."
+
+"You're a good-plucked 'un, Esmé. And he's made it warm for you ever
+since?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But he hasn't turned you up again?"
+
+"N-no; but he will. I'd almost sooner he'd do it, and have done with it.
+I can't sleep."
+
+"Now, don't be a silly fool," John commanded. "I'm going to think this
+out, and I'll bet I make that fat, pimply beast sit up and howl."
+
+"Thanks awfully, John."
+
+But the more John thought of what he had undertaken to do, the less
+clearly he saw his way to do it. Evidently Beaumont-Greene was too
+prudent to bully Fluff; he had resorted to the crueller alternative of
+terrorizing him. Lawrence would have settled this fellow's hash--so John
+reflected--in a jiffy, but Trieve, "Miss Trieve," was hopelessly
+incapable. Presently inspiration came. He seized an opportunity when
+Beaumont-Greene happened to be by himself; then he marched boldly into
+his room, leaving the door ajar.
+
+"Hullo! what do you want?"
+
+Beaumont-Greene was sitting opposite the fire, reading a novel and
+leisurely consuming macaroons.
+
+"I want you to leave young Kinloch alone--_please_."
+
+Beaumont-Greene nearly choked; then he spluttered out--
+
+"Say that again, will you?"
+
+"I want you to leave young Kinloch alone."
+
+"Really? Anything else?"
+
+"Nothing more, thank you."
+
+Beaumont-Greene slowly raised himself out of his chair and glared at
+John, whose head came to his chin.
+
+"You've plenty of cheek."
+
+"What I have isn't spotty, anyway."
+
+John saw the veins begin to swell in Beaumont-Greene's throat. He
+thought with relief of the door ajar, but it was part of his policy--a
+carefully devised policy--to provoke, if possible, a scene. Then others
+would interfere, explanations would be in order, and public opinion
+would accomplish the rest.
+
+"You infernal young jackanapes!"
+
+"You pretty pet!"
+
+"Get out of my room! Hook it!"
+
+"I want to," said John, coolly enough, although his heart was throbbing.
+"It's horribly fuggy in here, and I've Jambi[26] to do; but I'm not
+going till you give me your word that you'll leave young Kinloch alone."
+
+"If you don't walk out I'll chuck you out."
+
+"You must catch me first," said John.
+
+And then a very pretty chase took place. Beaumont-Greene, fat, scant of
+breath, full of macaroons, began to pursue John round and round the
+table. John skilfully interposed chairs, sofa-cushions, anything he
+could lay hands on. Passing the washstand, he secured an enormous
+sponge, which an instant later flew souse into the face of the grampus.
+An abridged edition of Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon followed. This
+nearly brought the big fellow to grass. In his rage he, too, began to
+hurl what objects happened to be within reach, but he was a shocking bad
+shot; he missed, or John dodged every time. John did not miss. Finally,
+as John had foreseen, a couple of Sixth Form fellows rushed in.
+
+"What's the meaning of this infernal row?" asked one.
+
+"Ask him," said John.
+
+Authority stared at Beaumont-Greene, and then at his wrecked room.
+
+"I told him to hook it, and he wouldn't," spluttered the gasping Greene.
+
+"Why?"
+
+Half a dozen other fellows had come into the room. Amongst them the
+Duffer and the Caterpillar.
+
+"I wanted to hook it," John explained, "because it's so beastly fuggy;
+but Beaumont-Greene wouldn't promise me to do something he ought to do."
+
+"This is mysterious."
+
+"The swaggering young blackguard cheeked me," growled Greene.
+
+"I was very polite--at first," pleaded John.
+
+"Hook it now, anyway," said Authority.
+
+"Not till he promises. If you turn me out, I'll come back after you're
+gone."
+
+"What is it you want him to promise?"
+
+John had achieved his object.
+
+"I want him to leave young Kinloch _alone_."
+
+The two Sixth Form boys glanced at each other; at John; at the gross,
+spotted face of Beaumont-Greene. Then the senior said coldly--
+
+"I suppose you have no objection, Beaumont-Greene, to promising Verney
+or any one else that you will leave young Kinloch alone?"
+
+"I've never laid a finger on the kid," growled the big fellow; but he
+looked pale and frightened.
+
+"Then you promise--eh?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"On your word of honour?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+That night John told Fluff with great glee how Beaumont-Greene had been
+made to "sit up and howl."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] "Jambi"--Iambic verses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_Verney Boscobel_
+
+    "In honour of all who believe that life was made for friendship."
+
+
+The immediate result of the incident described in the last chapter was
+to strengthen the bond between John and Desmond. Desmond had the epic
+from Fluff, from the Caterpillar, and finally from John himself.
+
+"You bearded that poisonous beast in his den," exclaimed he; "you
+plotted and planned for the scrimmage; you foresaw what would happen.
+Well, you are a corker, Jonathan."
+
+"You'd have thought of something much better."
+
+"Not I," Desmond replied.
+
+Scaife, however, made no remarks. Possibly, because Desmond made too
+many, singing John's praises behind his back and to his face, in and out
+of season. This, of course, was indiscreet, and led to hard words and
+harder feelings. Beaumont-Greene realized that John had tarred and
+feathered him. The fags, you may be sure, rubbed the tar in. If
+Beaumont-Greene threatened to kick an impudent Fourth Form boy, that
+youngster would bid him be careful.
+
+"If you don't behave yourself," he would say, "I shall have to send
+Verney to your room."
+
+Lovell senior remarked that Beaumont-Greene was a "swine," but that
+Verney had put on "lift" and must be snubbed. What? A boy who had not
+been two years in the school _dared_ to take the law into his own hands!
+The matter ought to have been laid before the Head of the House.
+
+Accordingly, John found himself, much to his dismay, unpopular with the
+Olympians. The last month of this term was, in some ways, the most
+disagreeable he had yet spent at Harrow.
+
+But the gain of Desmond's friendship far outweighed the loss of
+popularity. John tingled with pleasure when he reflected that he had
+achieved his ambition to stand between Scaife and Desmond. At the same
+time, he was uncomfortably aware that Scaife seemed to have climbed high
+above Desmond, who had stood still. In moments of depression John told
+himself that he was a makeshift, that Desmond would leave him and join
+the Demon whenever that splendid young person chose to whistle him up.
+Scaife had failed to get his Football Flannels, but he came so near to
+beating all previous records that the School began to regard him as a
+"Blood." He was seen arm-in-arm with Lovell, strolling up and down the
+High Street, and the fags breathlessly repeated what Desmond had
+predicted a year ago: the Demon was the coming man. And always, when
+John and Desmond passed him, John thought he could read a derisive
+triumph upon the Demon's handsome face, an expression which said
+plainly: "You young fool, don't you know that I'm playing cat and mouse
+with _you_?"
+
+The three still met twice daily to prepare work. But the moment that was
+done, Scaife disappeared, leaving John and Desmond together.
+
+"He's playing bridge in Lovell's room," said Desmond.
+
+More facts were gleaned from the Caterpillar, who had joined the
+bridge-players, but played seldom.
+
+"One draws the line," said he, "at playing for stakes one can't afford
+to lose. Lovell and the Demon have made it too hot."
+
+"And Warde will make it hotter," said John.
+
+"Not he," replied the Caterpillar. "The Demon is a wonder. Thanks to his
+brains, detection is impossible. He suggested that Lovell's room should
+be used. Warde wouldn't dare to burst in upon one of the Sixth. And you
+ought to see their dodgy arrangements. Lovell has his young brother on
+guard. I'm hanged if the Demon didn't invent a sort of drill, which they
+go through with a stop-watch. It's a star performance, I tell you. Young
+Lovell bolts in. In thirty-five seconds--they have got it down to
+that--the cards and markers are hidden; and the four of 'em are jawing
+away about footer."
+
+"All the same," said John, obstinately, "Warde will be too much for
+'em."
+
+"Oh, rot!" said the Caterpillar.
+
+The Manor got into the semi-finals of the football matches, and when the
+School broke up for the Christmas holidays it was generally conceded
+that the fortunes of the ancient house were mending. In the Manor itself
+Warde's influence was hardly yet perceptible: only a very few knew that
+it was diffusing itself, percolating into nooks and crevices undreamed
+of: the hearts of the Fourth Form, for instance. In Dirty Dick's time
+there had been almost universal slackness. In pupil-room Rutford read a
+book; boys could work or not as they pleased, provided their tutor was
+not disturbed. Warde, on the other hand, made it a point of honour to
+work with his pupils. His indefatigable energies, his good humour, his
+patience, were never so conspicuous as when he was coaching duffers. In
+other ways he made the boys realize that he was at the Manor for their
+advantage, not his own. The gardens and park were kept strictly private
+by Dirty Dick. Warde threw them open: a favour hardly appreciated in the
+whiter quarter, but the House admitted that it would be awfully jolly in
+the summer to lie under the trees far from the "crowd." In a word--a
+"privilege."
+
+Upon the last Saturday, to John's delight, Desmond asked him to spend a
+week in Eaton Square. John had paid two visits to White Ladies; he was
+now about to experience something entirely new. White Ladies and Verney
+Boscobel were typical of the past; they illustrated the history of the
+families who had inhabited them. The great world went to White Ladies to
+see the pictures and the gardens, the Gobelin tapestries, the Duchess
+and her guests; but the same world dined in Eaton Square to see Charles
+Desmond.
+
+During this visit, our John first learned what miracles one individual
+may accomplish. At White Ladies, he had dimly perceived, as has been
+said, the duties and responsibilities imposed upon rank and wealth. In
+Eaton Square he saw more plainly the duties and responsibilities imposed
+upon a man of great talents. Both Charles Desmond and the Duke of Trent
+were hard workers, but the labours of the duke seemed to John (and to
+other wise persons) drab-coloured. Charles Desmond's work, in contrast,
+presented all the colours of the spectrum. John left White Ladies,
+thanking his stars that he was not a duke; he came away from Eaton
+Square filled with the ambition to be Private Secretary to the great
+Minister. And when Mr. Desmond said to him with his genial smile, "Well,
+young John, Harry, I hope, will be my secretary, and the crutch of my
+declining years. But what would you like to be?" John replied fervently,
+"Oh, sir, I should like to be Harry's understudy."
+
+"Would you?"
+
+And then John saw the face of his kind host change. The smile faded. Mr.
+Desmond had taken his answer as John meant it to be taken--seriously. He
+examined John as if he were already a candidate for office. The piercing
+eyes probed deep. Then he said slowly, "I should like to have you under
+me, John. We shall talk of this again, my boy. My own sons----" He
+paused, sighed, and then laughed, tapping John's cheek with his slender,
+finely-formed fingers. But he passed on without finishing his sentence.
+John knew that, of Cæsar's brothers, Hugo, the eldest, was Secretary of
+Legation at Teheran; Bill "devilled" for a famous barrister; Lionel wore
+her Majesty's livery. Strange that none had elected to serve his own
+father! Cæsar explained later.
+
+"You see," he said, "the dear old governor outshines everybody. Hugo
+and the others felt that under him they would be in eclipse, for ever
+and ever--eh?"
+
+"I see," said John, gravely. "Yes, there's something in that. He wants
+you, Cæsar."
+
+"Dear old governor!" the other replied. "Yes--he's keen on that. But I
+hope to make my own little mark. I'd like to have my name on a brass
+tablet in Harrow Chapel; that would be something." His eyes began to
+glow and sparkle.
+
+Next day, at dinner, Rodney's name cropped up.
+
+"Rodney paved the way for Nelson," Mr. Desmond observed. "I look upon
+him as one of our greatest Harrovians. We ought to have a building to
+Rodney's memory. I put him before Peel or Byron."
+
+"Oh, I say, father----" Hot protest from Cæsar.
+
+"Act before word, Harry; practice before precept. Rodney was a man of
+action. I should like to have been Rodney."
+
+"I should like to have been Sheridan," said Cæsar. "I often look at his
+name on the third panel of the Fourth Form Room."
+
+He glanced at his father, who smiled, knowing that a delicate compliment
+was intended, for enthusiastic admirers had spoken of Charles Desmond as
+the Richard Brinsley Sheridan of the modern House of Commons. The father
+said curtly--
+
+"A sky-rocket, my dear Harry." Then he turned to John. "And of all our
+famous Harrovians whom would you like to take as a pattern, young John?"
+
+John hesitated. Two or three of the guests present were celebrities.
+Amongst them was England's greatest critic sitting beside an ambassador.
+There happened to be a lull in the talk. All looked curiously at John.
+
+"I'd like to be another Lord Shaftesbury," he said slowly.
+
+"Good! Capital!" Mr. Desmond nodded his head. "I knew him well." He
+poured out anecdote after anecdote illustrating the character and
+temperament of the statesman-philanthropist: his self-sacrifice, his
+devotion to an ideal, his curious exclusiveness, his refinement, his
+faith in an aristocracy never diminished by the indefatigable zeal
+wherein he laboured to better the condition of the poor. "If every rich
+man were animated by Shaftesbury's spirit," said Mr. Desmond, in
+conclusion, "extreme poverty would be wiped out of England, and yet we
+should retain all that makes life charming and profitable. He was no
+leveller, save of foul rookeries. First and last he believed in order,
+particularly his own--a true nobleman. And the inspiration of his great
+career came to him on the Hill."
+
+"Indeed?" said the Critic.
+
+"John Verney will tell you all about it," said Mr. Desmond, glancing
+cheerily at our hero. His was ever the habit to draw out the humblest of
+his guests.
+
+So John recited how young Anthony Ashley, standing on the Hill, just
+below the churchyard, chanced to see a pauper's coffin fall to the
+ground and burst open, revealing the pitiful corpse within, and how he
+had exclaimed in horror, "Good heavens! Can this be permitted simply
+because the man was poor and friendless?" And how, then and there, the
+boy had sworn to devote his powers to the amelioration of
+poverty-stricken lives.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Desmond. "He told me that the next fifteen minutes
+decided his career. Ah, he succeeded greatly. Why, when I was at Harrow
+we used to cross from Waterloo to Euston through some of the worst slums
+in the world. You boys can't realize what they looked like. And
+Shaftesbury's work and example wiped them out of our civilization."[27]
+
+When John returned to his uncle's house of Verney Boscobel (his home
+since his father's death), Cæsar Desmond accompanied him. Then it seemed
+to John that his cup brimmed, that everything he desired had been
+granted unto him. Verney Boscobel stood in the heart of the great
+forest, one of the few large manors within that splendid demesne. The
+boys arrived at Lyndhurst Road Station late in the evening, long after
+dusk, and were driven in darkness through Bartley and Minstead up to the
+high-lying moors of Stoneycross. Next morning, early, John woke his
+friend, and opened the shutters.
+
+"Jolly morning," he said. "Have a look at the Forest, old chap."
+
+Cæsar jumped out of bed, and drew a long breath.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed; "it's fairyland."
+
+Frost had silvered all things below. Above, motionless upon the blue
+heavens, as if still frozen by the icy fingers of a December night, were
+some aerial transparencies of aqueous vapour, amethystine in colour,
+with edges of white foam. In the east, obscured, but not concealed, by
+grey mist, hung the crimson orb of the sun. From it faint rays shot
+forth, touching the clouds beneath, which, roused, so to speak, out of
+sleep, drifted lethargically in a southerly direction.
+
+        "Underneath the young grey dawn
+    A multitude of dense, white, fleecy clouds
+    Were wandering in thick flocks, ...
+    Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind."
+
+Desmond drew in his breath, sighing with purest delight. From the lawns
+encompassing the house his eyes strayed into a glade of bracken, gold
+gleaming through silver--a glade shadowed by noble oaks and beeches,
+with one birch tree in the middle of it surpassingly graceful. Upon this
+each delicate bough and spray were outlined sharply against the sky.
+Beyond the glade stretched the moor, rugged, bleak, and treeless,
+sloping sharply upward. Beyond the moor lay the Forest--belts of firs
+darkly purple; and flanking these the irregular masses of oaks and
+beeches, varying in tint from palest lavender to rose and brown, some
+still in shadow, some in ever-increasing glow of sunlight; not one the
+same and each in itself containing a thousand differing forms, yet all
+harmonious parts of the resplendent whole.
+
+"I'm so glad you like my home," said John. "Shall we have a gallop
+before breakfast? It's only a white frost."
+
+So they galloped away into fairyland, returning with mortal appetites to
+the oak-panelled dining-hall, whence a Verney had ridden forth to join
+his kinsman, Sir Edmund, in arms for the King upon the distant field of
+Edge Hill. After breakfast the boys explored the quaint old house; and
+John showed Cæsar the twenty-bore gun, and promised his guest much
+rabbit-shooting, and two days' hunting, at least, with the New Forest
+Hounds, and some pike-fishing, and possibly an encounter with a big
+grayling--which, later, the boys saw walloping about in the Test above
+Broadlands--a splendid fish, once hooked by John, and lost--a
+three-pounder, of course.
+
+O golden age! You will never forget that Christmas--will you, John? If
+you live to be Prime Minister of England, the memory of those first days
+alone with your friend will remain green when the colour has been sucked
+by Time out of everything else. Fifty years hence, maybe, you will see
+Cæsar's curly head and his blue eyes full of fun and life, and you will
+hear his joyous laughter--peal upon peal--echoing through the corridors
+of Verney Boscobel. Your mother took him to her heart--didn't she? And
+all the servants, from butler to scullery maid, voted him the jolliest,
+cheeriest boy that ever came to Hampshire. Why, Mrs. Osman, the cook,
+with a temper like tinder from too much heat, refused flatly to let
+Cæsar make toffee in her kitchen. But just then a barrel-organ turned
+up, and before she could open her mouth, Cæsar was dancing a polka with
+her; and after that he could make toffee, or hay, or anything else,
+wherever and whenever he pleased.
+
+When they returned to the Manor, John hoped and prayed that this blessed
+intimacy would continue. It did--for a time. The three boys got their
+remove, and found themselves in the Second Fifth, where they proposed to
+linger till after the summer term. Lovell and Scaife seemed inseparable,
+and bridge began again, apparently an inexhaustible source of amusement
+and excitement. Then came the Torpid matches; and John, as Lawrence
+predicted, was captain of the cock-house Eleven--the first great victory
+of the Manorites. During the term, Scaife and Desmond won no races,
+being in age betwixt and between winners of Upper and Lower School
+races. Scaife refused to train. Desmond took a few runs, but abandoned
+them for racquets, the chief game in the Easter term, but only played
+regularly by boys whose purses are well lined. John confined his
+attention to "Squash." Cæsar played "Harder" with the Demon. The three
+worked together as of yore. John now perceived that Scaife had joined a
+clique pledged to fight Reform. It was in the air that something might
+happen. Warde eyed the big fellows shrewdly, as if measuring weapons. He
+confounded some by asking them to dine with him. At dessert he would
+talk of sport, or games, or politics--everything, in fine, except
+"shop." The more worthy came away from these pleasant evenings with
+rather a hangdog expression, as if they had been receiving goods under
+false pretences. John and Desmond were made especially welcome. And,
+after dinner, John, whose voice had not yet cracked, would sing, to Mrs.
+Warde's accompaniment, such songs as "O Bay of Dublin, my heart yu're
+throublin'," or "Think of me sometimes," or Handel's "Where'er you
+walk." The Caterpillar made no secret of a passion for Iris Warde, and
+became a dangerous rival of one of the younger masters. He talked to
+Warde about genealogies and hunting, topics of conversation in which
+they had a common interest outside Harrow. John guessed that Warde was
+making an effort to secure Egerton, who, for his part, took the world
+as he found it, consorting alike with John and his friends, and also
+with Lovell and Co. From the Caterpillar John learned that
+Beaumont-Greene had begun to play bridge.
+
+"Scaife and Lovell are skinning the beast," he added confidentially.
+"Green he is, and no error."
+
+"Ructions soon," said John.
+
+"I don't believe it," replied the Caterpillar. "Take my word, Warde
+knows what he's about. He's playing up to the younger members of the
+house--you, Cæsar, and you, Jonathan--and he's letting the others
+slide."
+
+"Giving 'em rope," said John, "to hang 'emselves."
+
+"Well, now, there's something in that. That hadn't occurred to me. What?
+You think that he's eggin' 'em on, eh? Eggin' 'em on!"
+
+"I think that, if I were you, Caterpillar, I'd cut loose from that
+gang."
+
+"They've made it rather warm for you."
+
+"I don't care a hang about that."
+
+As a matter of fact, John's life had been made very unpleasant by the
+fast set. Upon the other hand, the Duffer, Fluff, and many Lower School
+boys reckoned him their leader and adviser. And--such is the irony of
+Fate--John's popularity with friends caused him more anxiety than
+unpopularity with enemies. Towards the end of the term, Desmond spoke of
+applying to Warde for a certain room to be shared by himself and John.
+John had to decline an arrangement desired passionately, because he had
+indiscreetly promised not to chuck the Duffer. Cæsar dropped the
+subject. After this, John noticed a slight coldness. He wondered whether
+Cæsar were jealous, jealousy being John's own besetting sin. Finally, he
+came to the conclusion that his friend might be not jealous but
+unreasonable. In any case, during the last three weeks of the term, John
+saw less of Cæsar, and more--more, indeed, than he wanted--of the Duffer
+and Fluff.
+
+And then came the paralysing news that Desmond had promised to spend ten
+days with Scaife's people, that a Professional had been hired, and that
+both boys were going to give their undivided energies to cricket.
+
+Afterwards, John often wondered whether Scaife, with truly demoniac
+insight into Desmond's character, had let him go, so as to seize him
+with more tenacious grasp when an opportunity presented itself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As soon as John saw Cæsar after the Easter holidays, he knew that,
+temporarily, at any rate, he had lost his friend. Cæsar, indeed, was
+demonstratively glad to see him, and dragged him off next day to walk to
+a certain bridge where a few short weeks before the boys had carved
+their names upon the wooden railing, surrounding them with a circle and
+the Crossed Arrows. But Cæsar could talk of nothing else but Scaife and
+cricket. They had both "come on" tremendously. Scaife's people had a
+splendid cricket-ground.
+
+Poor John! If he could have submerged the Scaife cricket-ground and the
+Scaife family by nodding his head, I fear that he would have nodded it,
+although he told himself that he was an ungenerous beast and cad not to
+sympathize with his pal.
+
+And before the boys got back to the Manor, Cæsar said, not without a
+blush, that he had learned to play bridge.
+
+"I shall teach you, Jonathan."
+
+"No."
+
+"I say--yes."
+
+"You're not going to play with Lovell and that beast Beaumont-Greene?"
+
+"The Demon says no cards this term, when lock-up's late. And look here,
+Jonathan, I've made the Demon promise to make the peace between Lovell
+and you. You'll play for the House, of course, and we must all pull
+together, as Warde says."
+
+John might have smiled at this opportune mention of Warde, but sense of
+humour was swamped in apprehension. Desmond went on to talk about
+Scaife.
+
+"He'll make 'em sit up, you see! The 'pro.' we had is the finest
+cover-point in England. I never saw such a chap. He dashes at the ball.
+Hit it as hard as you please, he runs in, picks it up, and snaps it back
+to the wicket-keeper as easy as if he was playing pitch and toss. And,
+by Jove! the Demon can do it. You wait. I never saw any fellow like him.
+He's only just sixteen, and he'll get his Flannels. You needn't shake
+your old head, I know he will. And we must work like blazes to get ours
+next summer."
+
+John discounted much of this talk, but he soon found out that Cæsar had
+not overestimated the Demon's activity. The draw at Lord's in the
+previous summer had been attributed, by such experts as Webbe and
+Hornby, to bad fielding. The Demon told John, with his hateful, derisive
+smile, that he had remembered this when he selected a "pro." Not for the
+first time, John realized Scaife's overpowering ability to achieve his
+own ends. Who, but Scaife, would have made fielding the principal object
+of his holiday practice?
+
+Within a fortnight, Scaife was put into the Sixth Form game. Desmond
+found himself--thanks to Scaife--playing in the First Fifth game; but
+John was placed in Second Fifth Beta. Fortunately, he found an ally in
+Warde, who had a private pitch in the small park surrounding the Manor,
+where he coached the weaker players of his House. John told himself that
+he ought to get his "cap"; but, as the weeks slipped by, despite several
+creditable performances, he became aware that the "cap" was withheld,
+although it had been given to Fluff. There were five vacancies in the
+House Eleven, but, according to precedent, these need not be filled up
+till after the last House-match, and possibly not even then. In a word,
+John might play for the House, and even distinguish himself, without
+receiving the coveted distinction. How sore John felt!
+
+About the end of May he noticed that something was amiss with Cæsar.
+Generally they walked together on Sunday, but not always. During these
+walks, as has been said, Cæsar did most of the talking. Now, of a
+sudden, he became a half-hearted listener, and to John's repeated
+question, "What's up?" he would reply irritably, "Oh, don't
+bother--nothing."
+
+Finally, John heard from the Caterpillar that Cæsar was playing bridge,
+and losing.
+
+"They don't play often," the Caterpillar added; "but on wet afternoons
+they make up for lost time. Cæsar is outclassed. I've told him, but he's
+mad keen about the game."
+
+Later, John learned from the same source that Sunday afternoon was a
+bridge-fixture with Lovell and Co. At any rate, Cæsar did not play on
+Sunday. That was something.
+
+Upon the following Saturday, after making an honest fifteen runs and
+taking three wickets in a closely-contested game, John was running into
+the Yard just before six Bill, when Lovell stopped him.
+
+"You can get your 'cap,'" he said coldly.
+
+"Oh, thanks; thanks awfully!"
+
+Cæsar received this agreeable news with indifference.
+
+"You ought to have had it before Fluff," he growled.
+
+"To-morrow, we'll walk to John Lyon's farm," said John, eagerly.
+
+"Engaged," Cæsar replied.
+
+"Oh, Cæsar, you're--you're----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You're going to play bridge?"
+
+"Yes. What of it? It's only once in a way. I _do_ bar cards on Sunday;
+but there are reasons."
+
+"What reasons?"
+
+"Reasons which--er--I'll keep to myself."
+
+"All right," said John, stiffly, but with a breaking heart.
+
+Next day he asked Fluff to walk with him, but Fluff was walking with
+some one else. The Duffer had letters to write, and stigmatized walking
+as a beastly grind. John determined to walk by himself; but as he was
+leaving the Manor he met the Caterpillar, a tremendous buck, arrayed in
+his best--patent-leather boots, white waistcoat, a flower in his
+buttonhole.
+
+"Where are you off to, Jonathan?"
+
+"To Preston. You'd better come, Caterpillar."
+
+"I never walk far in these boots. Peal made 'em."
+
+"Change 'em, can't you?"
+
+"Right."
+
+While he was absent, John seriously considered the propriety of taking
+Egerton into his confidence. Sincerely attached to Egerton, and valuing
+his advice, he knew, none the less, that the Caterpillar looked at
+everybody and everything with the eyes of a colonel in the Guards. To
+tell Colonel Egerton's son that one's heart was lacerated because Cæsar
+Desmond was playing bridge on Sunday seemed to invite jeers. And,
+besides, that wasn't the real reason. John felt wretched because the
+Sunday walk had been sacrificed to Moloch. Presently Egerton came
+downstairs, spick and span, but not quite so smart. The boys walked
+quickly, talking of cricket.
+
+"The Demon'll get his Flannels," said Egerton. "I'm glad Lovell gave you
+your cap, Jonathan; you deserved it a month ago. It wasn't my fault you
+didn't get it at the beginning of the term."
+
+"I'm sure of that," said John, gratefully.
+
+"You don't look particularly bucked-up. A grin improves your face, my
+dear fellow."
+
+At this John burst into explosive speech. Those beasts had got hold of
+Cæsar. The Caterpillar stared; he had never heard John let himself go.
+John's vocabulary surprised him.
+
+"Whew-w-w!" he whistled. "Gad! Jonathan, you do pile on the agony.
+Cæsar's all right. Don't worry."
+
+"He's not all right. I thought Cæsar had backbone, I----"
+
+"Hold on," said the Caterpillar, gravely.
+
+John thought he was about to be rebuked for disloyalty to a pal, an
+abominable sin in the Caterpillar's eyes.
+
+"Well?" said John.
+
+"I'm going to tell you something," said Egerton. "But you must swear not
+to give me away."
+
+"I'll swear."
+
+"You're a good little cove, Jonathan, but sometimes you smell just a
+little bit of--er--bread and butter. Keep cool. Personally, I would
+sooner that you, at your age, did smell of bread and butter than whisky.
+Well, you think that Cæsar is going straight to the bow-wows because he
+plays bridge. You accuse him in your own little mind of feebleness, and
+so forth. Yes, just so. And it's doosid unfair to Cæsar, because he's
+given up his walk to-day entirely on your account. Ah! I thought that
+would make you sit up."
+
+"My account?" John repeated blankly.
+
+"Yes; Cæsar would be furious if he knew that I was peaching, but he
+won't know, and instead of this--er--trifling affair weakening your good
+opinion of your pal, it will strengthen it."
+
+"Oh, do go on, Caterpillar."
+
+"Yesterday I was in Lovell's room. We were talking of the first House
+match. Scaife and Cæsar were there. I took it upon myself to say you
+ought to be given your 'cap'; and then Cæsar burst out, 'Oh yes, Lovell,
+do give him his "cap." If you knew how he'd slaved to earn it.' But
+Lovell only laughed. And then Scaife chipped in, 'Look here, Cæsar,' he
+said, 'do I understand that you put this thing, which after all is none
+of your business or mine, as a favour which Lovell might do _you_?' And
+Cæsar answered, 'You can put it that way, if you like, Demon.' And then
+Scaife laughed. I don't like Scaife's laugh, Jonathan."
+
+"I loathe it," said John.
+
+"Well, when Scaife laughed, Lovell looked first at him and then at
+Cæsar. It came to me that Lovell was primed to say something. At any
+rate, he turned to Cæsar, and said slowly, 'Tit for tat. If I do this
+for you, will you do something for me?' And Cæsar spoke up as usual,
+without a second's hesitation, 'Of course I will.' And then Scaife
+laughed again, just as Lovell said, 'All right, I'll give Verney his
+"cap" before tea, and you will make a fourth at bridge with us to-morrow
+afternoon.'"
+
+"Oh, oh!" groaned John.
+
+"Dash it all, don't look so wretched. There's not much more. Cæsar
+hesitated a moment. Then he said quietly enough, 'Done!' Personally, I
+don't think Lovell was playing--well--cricket, but I do know that he
+wanted a fourth at bridge, because I'd just refused to make that fourth
+myself. They play too high for me."
+
+"It's awfully good of you to have told me this."
+
+"Pray don't mention it! Hullo! What's up now?"
+
+John's face was very red, and his fists were clenched.
+
+"Nothing," he gasped. "Only this--I'd like to kill Scaife. I'd like to
+cut off his infernal head."
+
+The Caterpillar laughed indulgently. "Jonathan, you're a rum 'un. You
+think it wicked to play cards on Sunday; but you would like"--he
+imitated John's trembling, passionate voice--"you would like to cut off
+Scaife's infernal head."
+
+"Yes--I would," said John.
+
+That same week he had a memorable talk with Warde; recorded because it
+illustrates Warde's methods, and because, ultimately, it came to be
+regarded by John as the turning-point of his intellectual life. Since he
+had taken the Lower Remove, John's energies of mind and body had been
+concentrated upon improving himself at games. Vaguely aware that some of
+the School-prizes were within his grasp, he had not deemed them worth
+the winning. To him, therefore, Warde abruptly began--
+
+"You pride yourself upon being straight--eh, Verney?"
+
+"Why, yes," said John, meeting Warde's blue eyes not without misgiving.
+
+"Well, to me, you're about as straight as a note of interrogation. I
+never see you without saying to myself, 'Is Verney going to bury his
+talents in the cricket-ground?'"
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Some parents, too many of them, send their boys here to make a few nice
+friends, to play games, to scrape up the School with a remove once a
+year. That, I take it, is not what Mrs. Verney wants?"
+
+"N--no, sir."
+
+"You ought to be in the Sixth--and you know it. Twice, or oftener, you
+have deliberately taken things easy, because you wanted a soft time of
+it during the summer term, and because you wished to remain in the same
+form with Desmond, who, intellectually, is your--inferior. Is that
+square dealing with your people?"
+
+John was silent, but red of countenance. Warde went on, more
+vehemently--
+
+"I know all about your co-operative system of work. I have a harder name
+for it. And I know just what you can do, and I want to see you do it,
+for your own sake, for the sake of Mrs. Verney, and for the Hill's sake.
+I've pushed you on at cricket a bit, haven't I? Yes. You owe me
+something. Pay up by entering for a School-prize, and winning it!"
+
+"A School-prize?"
+
+"Yes; Lord Charles Russell's Shakespeare Medal. The exam. is next
+October. I'll coach you. Is it a bargain?"
+
+He held out his hand, staring frankly, but piercingly, into John's eyes.
+
+"All right, sir," said John, after a pause. "I'll try."
+
+"And buck up for your remove."
+
+John smiled feebly, and sighed.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[27] There is a tablet on the wall of the Old Schools which bears the
+following inscription:--Near this spot ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER Afterwards
+the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G. While yet a boy in Harrow School Saw
+with shame and indignation The pauper's funeral Which helped to awaken
+his lifelong Devotion to the service of the poor And the oppressed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+_Black Spots_
+
+    "The Avon bears to endless years
+      A magic voice along,
+    Where Shakespeare strayed in Stratford's shade,
+      And waked the world to song.
+    We heard the music soft and wild,
+      We thrilled to pulses new;
+    The winds that reared the Avon's child
+      Were Herga's[28] nurses too."
+
+
+That evening John told Cæsar what Warde had said to him, and then added,
+"I mean to have a shot at 'the Swan of Avon.'" Cæsar looked glum.
+
+"But how about the remove? We'd agreed to stay in the Second Fifth till
+Christmas. It's the jolliest form in the school."
+
+"If we put our backs--and heads--into Trials,[29] we can easily get a
+remove."
+
+"Blow Trials."
+
+John turned aside.
+
+"Look here, Jonathan," said Cæsar, eagerly. "To please me, give up your
+swatting scheme. We can't spoil the end of this jolly term."
+
+He caught hold of John's arm, squeezing it affectionately. Never had our
+hero been so sorely tempted.
+
+"We must stick together, you and I," entreated Desmond.
+
+"No," said John.
+
+"As you please," Cæsar replied coldly.
+
+A detestable week followed. John tackled his Shakespeare alone, working
+doggedly. Then, quite suddenly, the giant gripped him. He had always
+possessed a remarkable memory, and as a child he had learnt by heart
+many passages out of the plays (a fact well known to the crafty Warde);
+but these he had swallowed without digesting them. Now he became keen,
+the keener because he met with violent opposition from the Caterpillar
+and the Duffer, who were of opinion that Shakespeare was a "back
+number."
+
+John won the prize, and on the following Speech Day saw his mother's
+face radiant with pride and happiness, as he received the Medal from the
+Head Master's hands.
+
+"You look as pleased as if I'd got my Flannels," said John.
+
+"Surely this Medal is a greater thing?"
+
+"Oh, mum, you don't know much about boys."
+
+"Perhaps not, but," her eyes twinkled, "I know something about
+Shakespeare, and he's a friend that will stand by you when cricketing
+days are over."
+
+"If you're pleased, so am I," said John.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Scaife got his Flannels; and at Lord's his fielding was mentioned as the
+finest ever seen in a Public School match. John witnessed the game from
+the top of the Trent coach, and he stopped at Trent House. But he didn't
+enjoy his exeat, because he knew that Cæsar was in trouble. Cæsar owed
+Scaife thirteen pounds, and the fact that this debt could not be paid
+without confession to his father was driving him distracted. Scaife, it
+is true, laughed genially at Cæsar's distress. "Settle when you please,"
+he said, "but for Heaven's sake, don't peach to your governor! Mine
+would laugh and pay up; yours will pay up and make you swear not to
+touch another card while you're at Harrow."
+
+"Just what he _will_ do," Cæsar told John.
+
+"And the best thing that could happen," John said bluntly. "If you don't
+cut loose now, it will be much worse next term."
+
+"Rot," Desmond had replied. "I'm paying the usual bill for learning a
+difficult game. That's how the Demon puts it. But I've a turn for
+bridge, and now I can hold my own. I'm better than Beaumont-Greene, and
+quite as good as Lovell. The Demon, of course, is in another class."
+
+"And therefore he oughtn't to play with you. It's robbery."
+
+"Now you're talking bosh."
+
+The Eton and Harrow match ended in another draw. Time and Scaife's
+fielding saved Harrow from defeat. The fact of a draw had significance.
+A draw spelled compromise. John had indulged in a superstitious fancy
+common enough to persons older than he. "If Harrow wins," he put it to
+himself, "Cæsar will triumph; if Eton wins, Cæsar will lose." When the
+match proved a draw, John drew the conclusion that his pal would "funk"
+telling the truth; an apprehension presently confirmed.
+
+"I didn't tell the governor," said Cæsar, when John and he met. "My
+eldest brother, Hugo, is coming home, and I shall screw it out of him.
+He's a good sort, and he's going to marry a girl who is simply rolling.
+He'll fork out, I know he will. I feel awfully cheery."
+
+"I don't," said John.
+
+He had good reason to fear that Cæsar and he were drifting apart. Now he
+worked by himself. And his voice had broken. A small thing this, but
+John was sensible that his singing voice touched corners in Cæsar's soul
+to which his speaking voice never penetrated. More, Cæsar and he had
+agreed to differ upon points of conscience other than card-playing. And
+every point of conscientious difference increases the distance between
+true friends in geometrical progression. Poor Jonathan!
+
+But we have his grateful testimony that Warde stood by him. And Warde
+made him see life at Harrow (and beyond) in a new light. Warde, indeed,
+decomposed the light into primary colours, a sort of experiment in
+moral chemistry, and not without fascination for an intelligent boy.
+Sometimes, it became difficult to follow Warde--members of the Alpine
+Club said that often it was impossible--because he jumped where others
+crawled. And he clipped words, phrases, thoughts so uncommonly short.
+
+"You're beginning to see, Verney, eh? Scales crumbling away, my boy. And
+strong sunshine hurts the eyes--at first. Black spots are dancing before
+you. I know the little devils."
+
+Or again--
+
+"This remove will wipe a bit more off the debt, won't it? Ha, ha! I've
+made you reckon up what you owe Mrs. Verney. But there are others----"
+
+"I'm awfully grateful to you, sir."
+
+"Never mind me."
+
+"What do you mean, sir?"
+
+"New Testament; Matthew; twenty-fifth chapter--I forget verse.[30] Look
+it up. Christ answers your question. Make life easier and happier for
+some of the new boys. Pass on gratitude. Set it a-rolling. See?"
+
+John had appetite for such talk, but Warde never gave much of it--half a
+dozen sentences, a smile, a nod of the head, a keen look, and a striding
+off elsewhere. But when John repeated what Warde had said to Cæsar, that
+young gentleman looked uneasy.
+
+"Warde means well," he said; "and he's doing wonders with the Manor, but
+I hope he's not going to make a sort of tin parson of you?"
+
+"As if he could!" said John.
+
+"You're miles ahead of me, Jonathan."
+
+"No, no."
+
+"I say--yes."
+
+"Cæsar," said John, in desperation, "perhaps we _are_ sliding apart, but
+it isn't my fault, indeed it isn't. And think what it means to--me.
+You've heaps of friends, and I never was first, I know that. You can do
+without me, but I can't do without you."
+
+"Dear old Jonathan." Cæsar held out his hand, smiling.
+
+"I'm a jealous ass, Cæsar. And, as for calling me a parson," he laughed
+scornfully, "why, I'd sooner walk with you, even if you were the worst
+sinner in the world, than with any saint that ever lived."
+
+The feeling in John's voice drove Cæsar's gay smile from his face. Did
+he realize, possibly, for the first time, that if John and he remained
+friends, he might drag John down? Suddenly his face brightened.
+
+"Jonathan," he said gravely, "to please you, I'll not touch a card again
+this term, and we'll have such good times these last three weeks that
+you'll forget the rest of it."
+
+    "And what delights can equal those
+      That stir the spirit's inner deeps,
+      When one that loves but knows not reaps
+    A truth from one that loves and knows?"
+
+The Manor played in the cock-house match at cricket, being but barely
+beaten by Damer's. Everybody admitted that this glorious state of
+affairs was due to Warde's coaching of the weaker members of the Eleven.
+Scaife fielded brilliantly, and John, watching him, said to himself that
+at such times the Demon was irresistible. Warde invited the Eleven to
+dinner, and spoke of nothing but football, much to every one's
+amusement.
+
+"He's right," said the Caterpillar; "we're not cock-house at cricket
+this year, but we may be at footer."
+
+John spent his holidays abroad with his mother, and when the School
+reassembled, he found himself in the First Fifth _alone_. With
+satisfaction he reflected that this was Lovell's last term, and
+Beaumont-Greene's, too. Warde said a few words at first lock-up.
+
+"We are going to be cock-house at footer, I hope," he began, "and next
+term Scaife will show the School what he can do at racquets; but I want
+more. I'm a glutton. How about work, eh? Lot o' slacking last term. Is
+it honest? You fellows cost your people a deal of money. And it's well
+spent, if, _if_ you tackle everything in school life as you tackled Mr.
+Damer's last July. That's all."
+
+"He's giving you what he gave me," said John.
+
+"Good fellow, Warde," observed the Caterpillar; "in his room every night
+after prayers to mug up his form work."
+
+"What?" Murmurs of incredulity.
+
+"Fact, 'pon my word. And he never refuses a 'con' to a fellow who wants
+it."
+
+"He's paid for it," sneered Scaife.
+
+The other boys nodded; enthusiasm was chilled. Yes, of course Warde was
+paid for it. John caught Scaife's eye.
+
+"You don't believe that he's in love with his job, as he told us?"
+
+"Skittles--that!"
+
+John looked solemn. He had a bomb to throw.
+
+"Skittles, is it?" he echoed. The other boys turned to listen. "Do you
+think he'd take a better paid billet?"
+
+Scaife laughed derisively. "Of course he would, like a shot. But he's
+not likely to get the chance."
+
+"He has just been offered the Head Mastership of Wellborough. It's worth
+about four thousand a year."
+
+"Pooh! who told you that?"
+
+"Cæsar's father."
+
+"It's true," said Cæsar.
+
+"And he refused it," said John, triumphantly.
+
+"Then he's a fool," said Scaife, angrily. He marched out of the room,
+slamming the door. But the Manor, as a corporate body, when it heard of
+Warde's refusal to accept promotion, was profoundly impressed. Thus the
+term began with good resolutions upon the part of the better sort.
+
+Very soon, however, with the shortening days, bridge began again. John
+made no protest, afraid of losing his pal. He called himself coward, and
+considered the expediency of learning bridge, so as to be in the same
+boat with Cæsar. Cæsar told him that he had not asked his brother Hugo
+for the thirteen pounds. Hugo, it seemed, had come back from Teheran
+with a decoration and the air of an ambassador. He spoke of his
+"services."
+
+"I knew that Hugo would make me swear not to play again," said Cæsar to
+John, "and naturally I want to get some of the plunder back. I am
+getting it back. I raked thirty bob out of Beaumont-Greene last night."
+
+John said nothing.
+
+Presently it came to his ears that Cæsar was getting more plunder back.
+The Caterpillar, an agreeable gossip, because he condemned nothing
+except dirt and low breeding, told John that Beaumont-Greene was losing
+many shekels. And about the middle of October Cæsar said to John--
+
+"What do you think, old Jonathan? I've jolly nearly paid off the Demon.
+And you wanted me to chuck the thing. Nice sort of counsellor."
+
+"Beaumont-Greene must have lost a pot?"
+
+"You bet," said Cæsar; "but that doesn't keep me awake at night. He has
+got the _Imperishable Seamless Whaleskin Boot_ behind him."
+
+Next time John met Beaumont-Greene he eyed him sharply. The big fellow
+was pulpier than ever; his complexion the colour of skilly. Yes; he
+looked much worried. Perhaps the "Imperishable Boot" lasted too long.
+And, nowadays, so many fellows wore shoes. Thus John to himself.
+
+Beaumont-Greene, indeed, not only looked worried, he was worried,
+hideously worried, and with excellent reason. He had an absurdly,
+wickedly, large allowance, but not more than a sovereign of it was left.
+More, he owed Scaife twenty pounds, and Lovell another ten. Both these
+young gentlemen had hinted plainly that they wanted to see their money.
+
+"I must have the stuff now," said Lovell, when Beaumont-Greene asked for
+time. "I'm going to shoot a lot this Christmas, and the governor makes
+me pay for my cartridges."
+
+"So does mine," said Scaife, grinning. He was quite indifferent to the
+money, but he liked to see Beaumont-Greene squirm. He continued suavely,
+"You ought to settle before you leave. Ain't your people in Rome? Yes.
+And you're going to join 'em. Why, hang it, some Dago may stick a knife
+into you, and where should we be then--hey? Your governor wouldn't
+settle a gambling debt, would he?"
+
+This was too true. Scaife grinned diabolically. He knew that
+Beaumont-Greene's father was endeavouring to establish a credit-account
+with the Recording Angel. Originally a Nonconformist, he had joined the
+Church of England after he had made his fortune (cf. _Shavings from the
+Workshops of our Merchant Princes_, which appeared in the pages of
+"Prattle"). Then, the famous inventor of the Imperishable Boot had taken
+to endowing churches; and he published pamphlets denouncing drink and
+gambling, pamphlets sent to his son at Harrow, who (with an eye to
+backsheesh) had praised his sire's prose somewhat indiscreetly.
+
+"You shall have your confounded money," said Beaumont-Greene, violently.
+
+"Thanks," said Scaife, sweetly. "When we asked you to join us" (slight
+emphasis on the "us"), "we knew that we could rely on you to settle
+promptly."
+
+The Demon grinned for the third time, knowing that he had touched a weak
+spot; not a difficult thing to do, if you touched the big fellow at all.
+A young man of spirit would have told his creditors to go to Jericho.
+Beaumont-Greene might have said, "You have skinned me a bit. I don't
+whine about that; I mean to pay up; but you'll have to wait till I have
+the money. I'm stoney now." Scaife and Lovell must have accepted this as
+an ultimatum. But Beaumont-Greene's wretched pride interfered. He had
+posed as a sort of Golden Youth. To confess himself pinchbeck seemed an
+unspeakable humiliation.
+
+Men have been known to take to drink under the impending sword of
+dishonour. Beaumont-Greene swallowed instead large quantities of food at
+the Creameries; and then wrote to his father, saying that he would like
+to have a cheque for thirty pounds by return of post. He was leaving
+Harrow, he pointed out, and he wished to give his friends some handsome
+presents. Young Desmond, for instance, the great Minister's son, had
+been kind to him (Beaumont-Greene prided himself upon this touch), and
+Scaife, too, he was under obligations to Scaife, who would be a power
+by-and-by, and so forth.... To confess frankly that he owed thirty
+pounds gambled away at cards required more cheek than our stout youth
+possessed. His father refused to play bridge on principle, because he
+could never remember how many trumps were out.
+
+The father answered by return of post, but enclosed no cheque. He
+pointed out to his dear Thomas that giving handsome presents with
+another's money was an objectionable habit. Thomas received a large,
+possibly too large an allowance. He must exercise self-denial, if he
+wished to make presents. His quarterly allowance would be paid as usual
+next Christmas, and not a minute before. There would be time then to
+reconsider the propriety of giving young Desmond a suitable gift....
+
+Common sense told Beaumont-Greene to show this letter to Scaife and
+Lovell. But he saw the Demon's derisive grin, and recoiled from it.
+
+At this moment temptation seized him relentlessly. Beaumont-Greene never
+resisted temptation. For fun, so he put it, he would write the sort of
+letter which his father ought to have written, and which would have put
+him at his ease. It ran thus--
+
+ "MY DEAR THOMAS,
+
+"No doubt you will want to give some leaving presents, and a spread or
+two. I should like my son to do the thing handsomely. You know better
+than I how much this will cost, but I am prepared to send you, say,
+twenty-five or thirty pounds for such a purpose. Or, you can have the
+bills sent to me.
+
+                              "With love,
+                                "Your affectionate father,
+                                  "GEORGE BEAUMONT-GREENE."
+
+Beaumont-Greene, like the immortal Mr. Toots, rather fancied himself as
+a letter-writer. The longer he looked at his effusion, the more he liked
+it. His handwriting was not unlike his father's--modelled, indeed, upon
+it. With a little careful manipulation of a few letters----!
+
+The day was cold, but Beaumont-Greene suddenly found himself in a
+perspiration. None the less, it seemed easier to forge a letter than to
+avow himself penniless. Detection? Impossible! Two or three tradesmen in
+Harrow would advance the money if he showed them this letter. Next
+Christmas they would be paid. Within a quarter of an hour he made up his
+mind to cross the Rubicon, and crossed it with undue haste. He forged
+the letter, placed it in an envelope which had come from Rome, and went
+to his tailor's.
+
+Under pretext of looking at patterns, he led the man aside.
+
+"You can do me a favour," he began, in his usual, heavy, hesitating
+manner.
+
+"With pleasure," said the tradesman, smiling. Then, seeing an
+opportunity, he added, "You are leaving Harrow, Mr. Beaumont-Greene, but
+I trust, sir, you will not take your custom with you. We have always
+tried to please you."
+
+Beaumont-Greene, in his turn, saw opportunity.
+
+"Yes, yes," he answered. Then he produced the letter, envelope and all.
+"I have here a letter from my father, who is in Rome. I'll read it to
+you. No; you can read it yourself."
+
+The tailor read the letter.
+
+"Very handsome," he replied; "_very_ handsome indeed, sir. Your father
+is a true gentleman."
+
+"It happens," said Beaumont-Greene, more easily, for the thing seemed to
+be simpler than he had anticipated--"it happens that I _do_ want to make
+some presents, but I'm not going to buy them here. I shall send to the
+Stores, you know. I have their catalogue."
+
+"Just so, sir. Excellent place the Stores for nearly everything; except,
+perhaps, my line."
+
+"I should not think of buying clothes there. But at the Stores one must
+pay cash. I've not got the cash, and my father is in Rome. I should like
+to have the money to-day, if possible. Will you oblige me?"
+
+The tradesman hesitated. In the past there have been grave scandals
+connected with lending money to boys. And Harrow tradesmen are at the
+mercy of the Head Master. If a school-tailor be put out of bounds, he
+can put up his shutters at once. Still----
+
+"I'll let you have the money," said the man, eyeing Beaumont-Greene
+keenly.
+
+"Thanks."
+
+The tailor observed a slight flush and a sudden intake of breath--signs
+which stirred suspicion.
+
+"Will you take it in notes, sir?"
+
+Here Beaumont-Greene made his first blunder. He had an ill-defined idea
+that paper was dangerous stuff.
+
+"In gold, please."
+
+He forgot that gold is not easily sent in a letter. The tailor
+hesitated, but he had gone too far to back out.
+
+"Very well, sir. I have not twenty-five pounds----"
+
+"Thirty, if you please. I shall want thirty."
+
+"I have not quite that amount here, but I can get it."
+
+When the man came back with a small canvas bag in his hand,
+Beaumont-Greene had pocketed the letter. He received the money, counted
+it, thanked the tailor, and turned to go.
+
+"If you please, sir----"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I should like to keep your father's letter, sir. As a form of receipt,
+sir. When you settle I'll return it. If--if anything should happen
+to--to you, sir, where would I be?"
+
+Beaumont-Greene's temper showed itself.
+
+"You all talk as if I was on my death-bed," he said.
+
+The tailor stared. Others, then, had suggested to this large,
+unwholesome youth the possibility of premature decease.
+
+"Not at all, sir, but we do live in the valley of shadders. My wife's
+step-father, as fine and hearty a specimen as you'd wish to see, sir,
+was taken only last month; at breakfast, too, as he was chipping his
+third egg."
+
+Beaumont-Greene said loftily, "Blow your wife's step-father and his
+third egg. Here's the letter."
+
+He flung down the letter and marched out of the shop. The tradesman
+looked at him, shaking his head. "He'll never come back," he muttered.
+"I know his sort too well." Then, business happening to be slack, he
+re-read the letter before putting it away. Then he whistled softly and
+read it for the third time, frowning and biting his lips. The
+"Beaumont-Greene" in the signature and on the envelope did not look to
+be written by the same hand.
+
+"There's something fishy here," muttered the tradesman. "I must show
+this to Amelia."
+
+It was his habit to consult his wife in emergencies. The chief cutter
+and two assistants said that Amelia was the power behind the throne.
+Amelia read the letter, listened to what her husband had to say, stared
+hard at the envelope, and delivered herself--
+
+"The hand that wrote the envelope never wrote the letter, that's
+plain--to me. Now, William, you've got me and the children to think of.
+This may mean the loss of our business, and worse, too. You put on your
+hat and go straight to the Manor. Mr. Warde's a gentleman, and I don't
+think he'll let me and the children suffer for your foolishness. Don't
+you wait another minute."
+
+Nor did he.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After prayers that night, Warde asked Beaumont-Greene to come to his
+study. Beaumont-Greene obeyed, smiling blandly. Within three weeks he
+was leaving; doubtless Warde wanted to say something civil. The big
+fellow was feeling quite himself. He had paid Scaife and Lovell, not
+without a little pardonable braggadocio.
+
+"You fellows have put me to some inconvenience," he said. "I make it a
+rule not to run things fine, but after all thirty quid is no great sum.
+Here you are."
+
+"We don't want to drive you into the workhouse," said Scaife. "Thanks.
+Give you your revenge any time. I dare say between now and the end of
+the term you'll have most of it back."
+
+Warde asked Beaumont-Greene to sit down in a particular chair, which
+faced the light from a large lamp. Then he took up an envelope. Suddenly
+cold chills trickled down Beaumont-Greene's spine. He recognized the
+envelope. That scoundrel had betrayed him. Not for a moment, however,
+did he suppose that the forgery had been detected.
+
+"On the strength of this letter," said Warde, gravely, "you borrowed
+thirty pounds from a tradesman?"
+
+Denial being fatuous, Beaumont-Greene said--
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You know, I suppose, that Harrow tradesmen are expressly forbidden to
+lend boys money?"
+
+"I am hardly a boy, sir. And--er--under the circumstances----"
+
+Warde smiled very grimly.
+
+"Ah--under the circumstances. Have you any objection to telling me the
+exact circumstances?"
+
+"Not at all, sir. I wished to make some presents to my friends. I am
+going to give a large leaving-breakfast."
+
+"Oh! Still, thirty pounds is a large sum----"
+
+"Not to my father, sir. I--er--thought of coming to you, sir, with that
+letter."
+
+"Did you?"
+
+Warde took the letter from the envelope, and glanced at it with faint
+interest, so Beaumont-Greene thought. Then he picked up a magnifying
+glass and played with it. It was a trick of his to pick up objects on
+his desk, and turn them in his thin, nervous fingers. Beaumont-Greene
+was not seriously alarmed. He had great faith in a weapon which had
+served him faithfully, his lying tongue.
+
+"Yes, sir. I thought you would be willing to advance the money for a few
+days, and then----"
+
+"And then?"
+
+"And then I thought I wouldn't bother you. It never occurred to me that
+I was getting a tradesman into trouble. I hope you won't be hard on him,
+sir."
+
+"I shall not be hard on him," said Warde, "because"--for a moment his
+eyes flashed--"because he came to me and confessed his fault; but I
+won't deny that I gave him a very uncomfortable quarter of an hour. He
+sat in your chair."
+
+Beaumont-Greene shuffled uneasily.
+
+"Have you this thirty pounds in your pocket?" asked Warde, casually.
+
+Beaumont-Greene began to regret his haste in settling.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Some of it?"
+
+"None of it."
+
+"You sent it to London? To buy these handsome presents?"
+
+"Ye-es, sir."
+
+"You hadn't much time. Lock-up's early, and you received the money in
+gold. Did you buy Orders?"
+
+Beaumont-Greene's head began to buzz. He found himself wondering why
+Warde was speaking in this smooth, quiet voice, so different from his
+usual curt, incisive tones.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"At the Harrow post-office?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Ah."
+
+Again the house-master picked up the letter, but this time he didn't lay
+down the lens. Instead he used it, very deliberately. Beaumont-Greene
+shivered; with difficulty he clenched his teeth, so as to prevent them
+clicking like castanets. Then Warde held up the sheet of paper to the
+light of the lamp. Obviously he wished to examine the watermark. The
+paper was thin notepaper, the kind that is sold everywhere for foreign
+correspondence. Beaumont-Greene, economical in such matters, had bought
+a couple of quires when his people went abroad. The paper he had bought
+did not quite match the Roman envelope. Warde opened a drawer, from
+which he took some thin paper. This also he held up to the light.
+
+"It's an odd coincidence," he said, tranquilly; "your father in Rome
+uses the same notepaper that I buy here. But the envelope is Italian?"
+
+He spoke interrogatively, but the wretch opposite had lost the power of
+speech. He collapsed. Warde rose, throwing aside his quiet manner as if
+it were a drab-coloured cloak. Now he was himself, alert, on edge,
+sanguine.
+
+"You fool!" he exclaimed; "you clumsy fool! Why, a child could find you
+out. And you--you have dared to play with such an edged tool as forgery.
+Now, do the one thing which is left to you: make a clean breast of it to
+me--at once."
+
+In imposing this command, a command which he knew would be obeyed,
+inasmuch as he perceived that he dominated the weak, grovelling
+creature in front of him, Warde overlooked the possibility that this
+boy's confession might implicate other boys. Already he had formed in
+his mind a working hypothesis to account for this forged letter. The
+fellow, no doubt, was in debt to some Harrow townsman.
+
+"For whom did you _steal_ this money? To whom did you pay it to-day?
+Answer!"
+
+And he was answered.
+
+"I owed the money to Scaife and Lovell."
+
+Then he told the story of the card-playing. At the last word he fell on
+his knees, blubbering.
+
+"Get up," said Warde, sharply. "Pull yourself together if you can."
+
+The master began to walk up and down the room, frowning and biting his
+lips. From time to time he glanced at Beaumont-Greene. Seeing his utter
+collapse, he rang the bell, answered by the ever-discreet Dumbleton.
+
+"Dumbleton, take Mr. Beaumont-Greene to the sick-room. There is no one
+in it, I believe?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"You will fetch what he may require for the night; quietly, you
+understand."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+"Follow Dumbleton," Warde addressed Beaumont-Greene. "You will consider
+yourself under arrest. Your meals will be brought to you. You will hold
+no communication with anybody except Dumbleton and me; you will send no
+messages; you will write no notes. Do you hear?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Then go."
+
+Dumbleton opened the door. Young man and servant passed out and into the
+passage beyond. Warde waited one moment, then he followed them into the
+passage; but instead of going upstairs, he paused for an instant with
+his fingers upon the handle of the door which led from the private side
+to the boys' quarters. He sighed as he passed through.
+
+At this moment Lovell was sitting in his room alone with Scaife. They
+had no suspicion of what had taken place in the study. In the afternoon
+there had been a match with an Old Harrovian team, and both Scaife and
+Lovell had played for the School. But as yet neither had got his
+Flannels. As Warde passed through the private side door, Scaife was
+saying angrily--
+
+"I believe Challoner" (Challoner was captain of the football Eleven and
+a monitor) "has a grudge against us. If we had a chance--and we had--of
+getting our Flannels last year, why isn't it a cert. this, eh?"
+
+Lovell shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It is a cert.," he answered; "and you're right. Challoner doesn't like
+us, and it amuses him to keep us out of our just rights. The monitors
+know I detest 'em, and they don't think you're called the Demon for
+nothing. Challoner is more of a monitor than a footer-player. How about
+a rubber? There's just time."
+
+"I don't mind."
+
+Lovell went to the door and opened it.
+
+"Bo-o-o-o-o-o-y!"
+
+The familiar cry--that imperious call which makes an Harrovian feel
+himself master of more or less willing slaves--echoed through the house.
+Immediately the night-fag came running; it was not considered healthy to
+keep Lovell waiting.
+
+"Ask Beaumont-Greene to come up here and----" He paused. Warde had just
+turned the corner, and was approaching. Lovell hesitated. Then he
+repeated what he had just said, with a slight variation for Warde's
+benefit. "Tell him I want to ask him a question about the
+house-subscriptions."
+
+"Right," said the fag, bustling off.
+
+Lovell waited to receive his house-master. He had very good manners.
+
+"Can I do anything for you, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said Warde, deliberately. He entered Lovell's room and looked at
+Scaife, who rose at once.
+
+"I wish to speak with you alone, Lovell."
+
+"Certainly, sir. Won't you sit down?"
+
+Warde waited till Scaife had closed the door; then he said quietly--
+
+"Lovell, does Beaumont-Greene owe you money?"
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[28] The Anglo-Saxon form of Harrow.
+
+[29] The terminal examination.
+
+[30] "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My
+brethren, ye have done it unto Me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+_Decapitation_
+
+    "Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the
+    first magnitude!"
+
+
+Lovell betrayed his astonishment by a slight start; however, he faced
+Warde with a smile. Warde, clean-shaven, alert, with youthful figure,
+looked but little older than his pupil. For a moment the two stared
+steadily at each other; then, very politely, Lovell said--
+
+"No, sir, he does not."
+
+Warde continued curtly, "Then he has paid you what he did owe you?"
+
+Lovell nodded, shrugging his shoulders. Plainly, Warde had discovered
+the fact of the debt. Probably that fool Beaumont-Greene had applied to
+his father, and the father had written to Warde. It was unthinkable that
+Warde knew more than this. Having reached this conclusion, Lovell turned
+over in his mind two or three specious lies that might meet the
+exigency.
+
+"Yes," he replied, with apparent frankness, "Beaumont-Greene did owe me
+money, and he has paid me."
+
+After a slight pause, Warde said quietly, "It is my duty, as your tutor,
+to ask you how Beaumont-Greene became indebted to you?"
+
+"I lent him the money," said Lovell.
+
+"Ah! Please call 'Boy.'"
+
+Lovell went into the passage. Had he an intuition that he was about to
+call "Boy" for the last time, or did the pent-up excitement find an
+outlet in sound? He had never called "Boy" so loudly or clearly. The
+night-fag scurried up again.
+
+"Tell him to send Scaife here," said Warde.
+
+Lovell's florid face paled. Scaife would introduce complications. And
+yet, if it had come to Warde's ears that Beaumont-Greene was in debt to
+two of his schoolfellows, and if he had found out the name of one, it
+was not surprising that he knew the name of the other also. As he gave
+the fag the message, he regretted that Scaife and he could not have a
+minute's private conversation together.
+
+"You lent Beaumont-Greene ten pounds, Lovell?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Scaife came in, cool, handsomer than usual because of the sparkle in his
+eyes.
+
+"Shut the door, Scaife. Look at me, please. Beaumont-Greene owed you
+money?"
+
+Scaife glanced at Lovell, whose left eyelid quivered.
+
+"Kindly stand behind Scaife, Lovell. Thank you. Answer my question,
+Scaife."
+
+"Yes, sir; he owed me money."
+
+"Have _you_ lent him money, too?" said Lovell.
+
+It was admirably done--the hint cleverly conveyed, the mild amazement.
+Warde smiled grimly. Scaife understood, and took his cue.
+
+"Yes; I have lent him money," said he, after a slight pause.
+
+"Twenty pounds?"
+
+"I believe, sir, that is the amount."
+
+"And can you offer me any explanation why Beaumont-Greene, whose father,
+to my knowledge, has always given him a very large allowance, should
+borrow thirty pounds of you two?"
+
+"I haven't the smallest idea, have you, Lovell?"
+
+"No," said Lovell. "Unless his younger brother, who is at Eton, has got
+into trouble. He's very fond of his brothers."
+
+"Um! You speak up for your--friend."
+
+Lovell frowned. "A friend, sir--no."
+
+"Of course," said Warde, reflectively, "if it is true that
+Beaumont-Greene borrowed this money to help a brother----"
+
+He paused, staring at Lovell. From the bottom of a big heart he was
+praying that Lovell would not lie.
+
+"Beaumont-Greene certainly gave me to understand that the affair was
+pressing. Having the money, I hadn't the heart to refuse."
+
+"But you pressed for repayment?" said Warde, sharply.
+
+"That is true, sir. I'm on an allowance; and I shall have many expenses
+this holidays."
+
+"You, Scaife, asked for your money?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, between you, you have driven this unhappy wretch into crime."
+
+"Crime, sir?"
+
+At last their self-possession abandoned them. Crime is a word which
+looms large in the imaginations of youth. What had Beaumont-Greene done?
+
+"What crime, sir?"
+
+Scaife, the more self-possessed, although fully two years the younger,
+asked the question.
+
+"Forgery."
+
+"Forgery?" Lovell repeated. He was plainly shocked.
+
+"The idiot!" exclaimed Scaife.
+
+"Yes--forgery. Have you anything to say? It is a time when the truth,
+all the truth, might be accepted as an extenuating circumstance. I speak
+to you first, Lovell. You're a Sixth Form boy--remember, I have been one
+myself--and it is your duty to help me."
+
+"I beg pardon, sir," Lovell replied. "I have never considered it my duty
+as a Sixth Form boy to play the usher."
+
+"Nor did I; but you ought to work on parallel lines with us. You
+accepted the privileges of the Sixth."
+
+Lovell's flush deepened.
+
+"More," continued Warde, "you know that we, the masters, have implicit
+trust in the Sixth Form, a trust but seldom betrayed. For instance, I
+should not think of entering your room without tapping on the door;
+under ordinary circumstances I should accept your bare word
+unhesitatingly. I say emphatically that if you, knowing these things,
+have accepted the privileges of your order with the deliberate intention
+of ignoring its duties, you have not acted like a man of honour."
+
+"Sir!"
+
+"Don't bluff! Now, for the last time, will you give me what I have given
+you--trust?"
+
+"I have nothing more to say," Lovell answered stiffly.
+
+"And you, Scaife?"
+
+"I am sorry, sir, that Beaumont-Greene has been such a fool. We lent him
+this money, because he wanted it badly; and he said he would pay us back
+before the end of the term."
+
+"You stick to that story?"
+
+"Why, yes, sir. Why should we tell you a lie?"
+
+"Ah, why, indeed?" sighed Warde. Then his voice grew hard and sharp. The
+persuasiveness, the carefully-framed sentences, gave place to his
+curtest manner. "This matter," said he, "is out of my hands. The Head
+Master will deal with it. I must ask you for your keys, Lovell."
+
+"And if I refuse to give them up?"
+
+"Then we must break into your boxes. Thanks." He took the keys. "Follow
+me, please."
+
+The pair followed him into the private side, upstairs, and into the
+sick-room. There were three beds in it; upon one sat Beaumont-Greene.
+His complexion turned a sickly drab when he saw Lovell and Scaife. He
+even glanced at the window with a hunted expression. The window was
+three stories from the ground, and heavily barred ever since a boy in
+delirium had tried to jump from it.
+
+"Your night-things will be brought to you," said Warde.
+
+He went out slowly. The boys heard the key turn in the massive lock.
+They were prisoners. Scaife walked up to Beaumont-Greene.
+
+"You told Warde about the bridge?"
+
+"Ye-es; I had to. Scaife, don't look at me like that. Lovell"--his voice
+broke into a terrified scream--"don't let him hit me. I couldn't help
+it--I swear I----"
+
+"You cur!" said Scaife. "I wouldn't touch you with a forty-foot pole."
+
+Just what passed between Warde and the Head Master must be surmised.
+Carefully hidden in Lovell's boxes were found cards and markers. Upon
+the latter remained the results of the last game played, and under the
+winning column a rough calculation in pounds, shillings, and pence.
+There were no names.
+
+Next day, during first school, a notice came round to each Form to be in
+the Speech-room at 8.30. Not a boy knew or guessed the reason of this
+summons. The Manorites, aware that three of their House were in the
+sick-room, believed that an infectious disease had broken out. Only
+Desmond, John, and the Caterpillar experienced heart-breaking fears that
+a catastrophe had taken place.
+
+When the School assembled at half-past eight, the monitors came in,
+followed by the Head Master in cap and gown. Then, a moment later, the
+School Custos entered with Scaife. They sat down upon a small bench near
+the door. Immediately the whispers, the shuffling of feet, the
+occasional cough, died down into a thrilling silence. The Head Master
+stood up.
+
+He was a man of singularly impressive face and figure. And his voice had
+what may be described as an edge to it--the cutting quality so
+invaluable to any speaker who desires to make a deep impression upon his
+audience. He began his address in the clear, cold accents of one who
+sets forth facts which can neither be controverted nor ignored. Slowly,
+inexorably, without wasting a word or a second, he told the School what
+had happened. Then he paused.
+
+As his voice melted away, the boys moved restlessly. Upon their faces
+shone a curious excitement and relief. Gambling in its many-headed forms
+is too deeply rooted in human hearts to awaken any great antipathy. So
+far, then, the sympathy of the audience lay with the culprits; this the
+Head Master knew.
+
+When he spoke again, his voice had changed, subtly, but unmistakably.
+
+"You were afraid," he said, "that I had something worse--ah, yes,
+unspeakably worse--to tell you. Thank God, this is not one of those
+cases from which every clean, manly boy must recoil in disgust. But, on
+that account, don't blind yourselves to the issues involved. This
+playing of bridge--a game you have seen your own people playing night
+after night, perhaps--is harmless enough in itself. I can say more--it
+is a game, and hence its fascination, which calls into use some of the
+finest qualities of the brain: judgment, memory, the faculty of making
+correct deductions, foresight, and patience. It teaches restraint; it
+makes for pleasant fellowship. It does all this and more, provided that
+it never degenerates into gambling. The very moment that the game
+becomes a gamble, if any one of the players is likely to lose a sum
+greater than he can reasonably afford to pay, greater than he would
+cheerfully spend upon any other form of entertainment, then bridge
+becomes cursed. And because you boys have not the experience to
+determine the difference between a mere game and a gamble, card-playing
+is forbidden you, and rightly so. Now, let us consider what has
+happened. A stupid, foolish fellow, playing with boys infinitely
+cleverer than himself, has lost a sum of money which he could not pay.
+To obtain the means of paying it, he deliberately forged a letter and a
+signature. And then followed the inevitable lying--lie upon lie. That is
+always the price of lies--'to lie on still.'
+
+"I would mitigate the punishment, if I could, but I must think of the
+majority. This sort of malignant disease must be cut out. Two of the
+three offenders are young men; they were leaving at the end of this
+term. They will leave, instead--to-day. The third boy is much younger.
+Because of his youth, I have been persuaded by his house-master to give
+him a further chance."
+
+Again he paused. Then he exclaimed loudly, "Scaife!"
+
+Scaife stood up, very pale. "Here, sir!"
+
+"Scaife, you will go into the Fourth Form Room,[31] and prepare to
+receive the punishment which no member of the Eleven should ever
+deserve."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+John sat with his Form while the Head Master was addressing the School.
+Not far off was the Caterpillar, less cool than usual, so John remarked.
+His collar, for instance, seemed to be too tight; and he moved
+restlessly upon his chair. Many very brave men become nervous when a
+great danger has passed them by. Egerton said afterwards, "I felt like
+getting down a hole, and pulling the hole after me. Not my own. Some
+Yankee's, you know." Still, he displayed remarkable self-possession
+under trying circumstances. Two of Lovell's particular friends were seen
+to turn the colour of Cheddar cheese. But Desmond, so John noticed, grew
+red rather than yellow. Nor did he tremble, but his fists were clenched,
+and his eyes kindled.
+
+As Scaife left the Speech-room, followed by Titchener (the provider of
+birches, whose duty it is to see that boys about to be swished are
+properly prepared to receive punishment), the boys began to shuffle in
+their places. But the Head Master held up his hand. It was then that
+Lovell's two particular friends, who had partially recovered, felt that
+the earth was once more slipping from under them.
+
+"It takes four to play bridge." The Caterpillar's fingers went to
+his collar again. "In this case there must have been a fourth,
+possibly a fifth and a sixth. Not more, I think, because the secret
+was too well kept. We are confronted with the disagreeable fact that
+three boys are going to receive the most severe punishments I can
+inflict, and that another escapes scot-free. _For I do not know
+the--name--of--the--fourth._"
+
+The Head Master waited to let each deliberate word soak in. Perhaps he
+had calculated the effect of his voice upon a boy of sensibility and
+imagination. That Scaife, his friend, should suffer the indignity of a
+swishing, and that he should escape scot-free, seemed to Cæsar Desmond
+not a bit of rare good fortune--as it appeared to the others--but an
+incredible miscarriage of justice. To submit tamely to such a burden was
+unthinkable. He sprang to his feet, ardent, impetuous, afire with the
+spirit which makes men accept death rather than dishonour; and then, in
+a voice that rang through the room, thrilling the coldest and most
+callous heart, he exclaimed--
+
+"I was the fourth."
+
+A curious sound escaped from the audience--a gasp of surprise, of
+admiration, and of dismay; at least, so the Head Master interpreted it.
+And looking at the faces about him, he read approval or disapproval,
+according as each boy betrayed the feeling in his heart.
+
+"You, Desmond?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The Caterpillar rose slowly. He was cool enough now.
+
+"I was the fifth."
+
+But Lovell's two particular friends sat tight, as they put it. Let us
+not blame them.
+
+"You, Egerton?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+For a moment the Head Master hesitated. Into his mind there flashed the
+image of two notable figures--the fathers whom he had entreated to send
+sons to the Manor. If--if by so doing he had compassed the boys' ruin,
+could he ever have forgiven himself? But now, the boys themselves had
+justified his action; they had proved worthy of their breeding and the
+traditions of the Hill.
+
+"Come here," he said.
+
+When they stood opposite to him, he continued--
+
+"You give yourselves up to receive the punishment I am about to inflict
+upon Scaife?"
+
+The boys did not answer, save with their eyes. The silence in the great
+room was so profound that John made sure that the beating of his heart
+must be heard by everybody.
+
+"I shall not punish you. This voluntary confession has done much to
+redeem your fault. Meet me in my study at nine this evening, and I will
+talk to you. When I came here I hardly hoped to find saints, but I did
+expect to find--gentlemen. And I have not been disappointed." He
+addressed the others. "You will return to your boarding-houses, and
+quietly, if you please."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The immediate and most noticeable effect of Lovell's expulsion was the
+loss of the next House match. Damer's defeated the Manor easily. Some of
+the fags whispered to each other that the injuries inflicted by the Head
+Master on Scaife had been so severe as to incapacitate the star-player
+of the House. Two boys had concealed themselves in the Armoury (which is
+just below the Fourth Form Room) upon the morning when Scaife was
+flogged. But they reported--nothing. However severe the punishment might
+have been, Scaife received it without a whimper.
+
+In truth, Scaife received but one cut, and that a light one. The Head
+Master wished to lay stripes upon the boy's heart, not his body. When he
+saw him prepared to receive punishment, he said gravely--
+
+"I have never flogged a member of the Eleven. And now, at the last
+moment, I offer you the choice between a flogging and expulsion."
+
+"I prefer to be flogged."
+
+_And then--one cut._
+
+But Scaife never forgot the walk from the Yard to the Manor, after
+execution. He was too proud to run, too proud not to face the boys he
+happened to meet. They turned aside their eyes from his furious glare.
+But he met no members of his own House. They had the delicacy to leave
+the coast clear. When he reached his room, he found Desmond alone.
+Desmond said nervously--
+
+"I asked Warde if we could have breakfast here this morning, instead of
+going into Hall. I've got some ripping salmon."
+
+Scaife had faced everything with a brazen indifference, but the sympathy
+in his friend's voice overpowered him. He flung himself upon the sofa by
+the window and wept, not as a boy weeps, but with the cruel, grinding
+sobs of a man. He wept for his stained pride, for his vain-glory, not
+because he had sinned and caused others to sin. The boy watching him,
+seeing the hero self-abased, hearing his heartbreaking sobs, interpreted
+very differently those sounds. Infinitely distressed, turning over and
+over in his mind some soothing phrases, some word of comfort and
+encouragement, Desmond waited till the first paroxysm had passed. What
+he said then shall not be set down in cold print. You may be sure he
+proved that friendship between two strong, vigorous boys is no frail
+thread, but a golden chain which adversity strengthens and refines.
+Scaife rose up with his heart softened, not by his own tears, but by the
+tears he saw in Desmond's eyes.
+
+"I'm all right now," he said. Then, with frowning brows, he added
+thoughtfully, "I deserve what I got for being a fool. I ought to have
+foreseen that such a swine as Beaumont-Greene would be sure to betray us
+sooner or later. I shall be wiser next time."
+
+"Next--time?" The dismay in Desmond's voice made Scaife smile.
+
+"Don't worry, Cæsar. No more bridge for me; but," he laughed harshly,
+"the leopard can't change his spots, and he won't give up hunting
+because he has fallen into a trap, and got out of it. Come, let's tackle
+the salmon."
+
+The winter term came to an end, and the School broke up. Upon the
+evening of the last Sunday, Warde said a few words to John.
+
+"I propose to make some changes in the house," he said abruptly. "Would
+you like to share No. 7 with Desmond?"
+
+No. 7 was the jolliest two-room at the Manor. It overlooked the gardens,
+and was larger than some three-rooms. Then John remembered Scaife and
+the Duffer.
+
+"Desmond has been with Scaife ever since he came to the house, sir."
+
+"True. But I'm going to give Scaife a room to himself. He's entitled to
+it as the future Captain of the Eleven. That is--settled. You and Duff
+must part. He's two forms below you in the school, and never likely to
+soar much higher than the Second Fifth. Next term you will be in the
+Sixth, and by the summer I hope Desmond will have joined you. You will
+find[32] together. Of course Scaife can find with you, if you wish. I've
+spoken to him and Desmond."
+
+And so, John's fondest hope was realized. When he came back to the
+Manor, Desmond and he spent much time and rather more money than they
+could afford in making No. 7 the cosiest room in the house. Consciences
+were salved thus:--John bought for Desmond some picture or other
+decorative object which cost more money than he felt justified in
+spending on himself; then Desmond made John a similar present. It was
+whipping the devil round the stump, John said, but oh! the delight of
+giving his friend something he coveted, and receiving presents from him
+in return.
+
+During this term, Scaife became one of the school racquet-players. In
+many ways he was admittedly the most remarkable boy at Harrow, the
+Admirable Crichton who appears now and again in every decade. He won the
+high jump and the hurdle-race. These triumphs kept him out of mischief,
+and occupied every minute of his time. He associated with the "Bloods,"
+and one day Desmond told John that he considered himself to have been
+"dropped" by this tremendous swell. John discreetly held his tongue; but
+in his own mind, as before, he was convinced that Scaife and Desmond
+would come together again. The inexorable circumstance of Scaife's
+superiority at games had separated the boys, but only for a brief
+season. Desmond would become a "Blood" soon, and then it would be John's
+turn to be "dropped." Being a philosopher, our hero did not worry too
+much over the future, but made the most of the present, with a grateful
+and joyous heart. In his humility, he was unable to measure his
+influence on Desmond. In athletic pursuits an inferior, in all
+intellectual attainments he was pulling far ahead of his friend. The
+artful Warde had a word to say, which gave John food for thought.
+
+"You can never equal your friend at cricket or footer, Verney. If you
+wish to score, it is time to play your own game."
+
+Shortly after this, John realized that Warde had read Cæsar aright.
+Charles Desmond's son, as has been said, acclaimed quality wherever he
+met it. John's intellectual advance amazed and then fascinated him. When
+John discovered this, he worked harder. Warde smiled. John ran second
+for the Prize Poem. He had genuine feeling for Nature, but he lacked as
+yet the technical ability to display it. A more practised versifier won
+the prize; but John's taste for history and literature secured him the
+Bourchier, not without a struggle which whetted to keenness every
+faculty he possessed. More, to his delight, he realized that his
+enthusiasm was contagious. Cæsar entered eagerly into his friend's
+competitions; struggle and strife appealed to the Irishman. He talked
+over John's themes, read his verses, and predicted triumphs. Warde told
+John that Cæsar Desmond might have stuck in the First Fifth, had it not
+been for this quickening of the clay. The days succeeded each other
+swiftly and smoothly. Warde was seen to smile more than ever during this
+term. Certain big fellows who opposed him were leaving or had already
+left. Bohun, now Head of the House, was a sturdy, straightforward
+monitor, not a famous athlete, but able to hold his own in any field of
+endeavour. Just before the Christmas holidays, Warde discovered, to his
+horror, that the drainage at the Manor was out of order. At great
+expense a new and perfect system was laid down. At last Warde told
+himself his house might be pronounced sanitary within and without.
+
+When the summer term came, Desmond joined John in the Sixth Form. They
+were entitled to single rooms, but they asked and obtained permission to
+remain in No. 7. Desmond was invested with the right to fag, and the
+right to "find." How blessed a privilege the right to find is, boys who
+have enjoyed it will attest. The cosy meals in one's own room, the
+pleasant talk, the sense of intimacy, the freedom from restraint. Custom
+stales all good things, but how delicious they taste at first!
+
+The privilege of fagging is not, however, unadulterated bliss. When
+Warde said to Cæsar, "Well, Desmond, how do you like ordering about your
+slave?" Desmond replied, ruefully, "Well, sir, little Duff has broken my
+inkstand, spilt the ink on our new carpet, and let Verney's bullfinch
+escape. I think, on the whole, I'd as lief wait on myself."
+
+Early in June it became plain that unless the unforeseen occurred,
+Harrow would have a strong Eleven, and that Desmond would be a member of
+it. John and Fluff were playing in the Sixth Form game; but John had no
+chance of his Flannels, although he had improved in batting and bowling,
+thanks to Warde's indefatigable coaching. Scaife hardly ever spoke to
+John now, but occasionally he came into No. 7 to talk to Desmond. Upon
+these rare occasions John would generally find an excuse for leaving the
+room. Always, when he returned, Desmond seemed to be restless and
+perplexed. His admiration for Scaife had waxed rather than waned.
+Indeed, John himself, detesting Scaife--for it had come to that--fearing
+him on Desmond's account, admired him notwithstanding: captivated by
+his amazing grace, good looks, and audacity. His recklessness held even
+the "Bloods" spellbound. A coach ran through Harrow in the afternoons of
+that season. Scaife made a bet that he would drive this coach from one
+end of the High Street to the other, under the very nose of Authority.
+The rules of the school set forth rigorously that no boy is to drive in
+or on any vehicle whatever. Only the Cycle Corps are allowed to use
+bicycles. Scaife's bet, you may be sure, excited extraordinary interest.
+He won it easily, disguised as the coachman--a make-up clever enough to
+deceive even those who were in the secret. His friends knew that he kept
+two polo-ponies at Wembley. One afternoon he dared to play in a match
+against the Nondescripts. Warde's daughter, just out of the schoolroom,
+happened to be present, and she rubbed her lovely eyes when she saw
+Scaife careering over the field. Scaife laughed when he saw her; but
+before she left the ground a note had reached her.
+
+ "DEAR MISS WARDE,
+
+"I am sure that you have too much sporting blood in your veins to tell
+your father that you have seen me playing polo.
+
+                              "Yours very sincerely,
+                                            "REGINALD SCAIFE."
+
+To run such risks seemed to John madness; to Desmond it indicated
+genius.
+
+"There never was such a fellow," said Cæsar to John.
+
+When Cæsar spoke in that tone John knew that Scaife had but to hold up a
+finger, and that Cæsar would come to him even as a bird drops into the
+jaws of a snake. Cæsar was strong, but the Demon was stronger.
+
+After the Zingari Match, Desmond got his Flannels. He was cheered at six
+Bill. Everybody liked him; everybody was proud of him, proud of his
+father, proud of the long line of Desmonds, all distinguished,
+good-looking, and with charming manners. The School roared its
+satisfaction. John stood a little back, by the cloisters. Cæsar ran past
+him, down the steps and into the street, hat in hand, blushing like a
+girl. John felt a lump in his throat. He thrilled because glory shone
+about his friend; but the poignant reflection came, that Cæsar was
+running swiftly, out of the Yard and out of his own life. And before
+lock-up he saw, what he had seen in fancy a thousand times, Cæsar
+arm-in-arm with Scaife and the Captain of the Eleven, Cæsar in his new
+straw,[33] looking happier than John had ever seen him, Cæsar, the
+"Blood," rolling triumphantly down the High Street, the envied of all
+beholders, the hero of the hour.
+
+John called himself a selfish beast, because he had wished for one
+terrible moment, wished with heart and soul, that Cæsar was unpopular
+and obscure.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[31] The place of execution.
+
+[32] "Finding" is the privilege, accorded to the Sixth Form, of having
+breakfast and tea served in their own rooms instead of in Hall.
+
+[33] The black-and-white straw hat only worn by members of the School
+Cricket Eleven.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_Self-questioning_
+
+    "Friend, of my infinite dreams
+      Little enough endures;
+    Little howe'er it seems,
+      It is yours, all yours.
+    Fame hath a fleeting breath,
+      Hope may be frail or fond;
+    But Love shall be Love till death,
+      And perhaps beyond."
+
+
+Until the Metropolitan Railway joined Harrow to Baker Street, the Hill
+stood in the midst of genuine and unspoilt country, separated by five
+miles of grass from the nearest point of the metropolis, and encompassed
+by isolated dwellings, ranging in rank and scale from villas to country
+houses.[34] Most of the latter have fallen victims to the speculative
+builder, and have been cut up into alleys of brick and stucco. But one
+or two still remain among their hayfields and rhododendrons.
+
+John Verney had an eager curiosity, not common in schoolboys, to know
+something about the countryside in which he dwelt. As a Lower Boy,
+whenever released from "Compulsory" and House-games, he used to wander
+with alert eyes and ears up and down the green lanes of Roxeth and
+Harrow Weald, enjoying fresh glimpses of the far-seen Spire, making
+friends with cottagers, picking up traditions of an older and more
+lawless[35] epoch, and, with these, an ever-increasing love and loyalty
+to Harrow. So Byron had wandered a hundred years before.
+
+These solitary rambles, however, were regarded with disfavour by
+schoolfellows who lacked John's imaginative temperament. The
+Caterpillar, for instance, protested, "Did I see you hobnobbing with a
+chaw the other day? I thought so; and you looked like a confounded
+bughunter." The Duffer's notions of topography were bounded by the
+cricket-ground on the one side of the Hill, and the footer-fields on the
+other; and his traditions held nothing much more romantic than A. J.
+Webbe's scores at Lord's. Fluff, as has been said, was too far removed
+from John to make him more than an occasional companion. And so, for
+several terms, John, for the most part, walked alone. By the time
+Desmond joined him, he had gleaned a knowledge which fascinated a friend
+of like sensibility and imagination. Together they revisited the old and
+explored the new. One never-to-be-forgotten day the boys discovered a
+deserted house of some pretensions about a mile from the Hill. Its
+grounds, covering several acres, were enclosed by a high oak paling,
+within which stood a thick belt of trees, effectually concealing what
+lay beyond. Grim iron gates, always locked, frowned upon the wayfarer;
+but John, flattening an inquisitive nose against the ironwork, could
+discern a carriage-drive overgrown with grass and weeds, and at the end
+of it a white stone portico. After this the place became to both boys a
+sort of Enchanted Castle. A dozen times they peered through the gates.
+No one went in or out of the grass-grown drive. The gatekeeper's lodge
+was uninhabited; there were no adjacent cottages where information might
+be sought. The boys called it "The Haunted House," and peopled it with
+ghosts; gorgeous bucks of the Regency, languishing beauties such as
+Lawrence painted, fiery politicians, duellists, mysterious black-a-vised
+foreigners. John connected it in fancy with the days when the gorgeous
+Duke of Chandos (who had Handel for his chapel-organist and was a
+Governor of Harrow and guardian of Lord Rodney) kept court at Cannons.
+He told Cæsar anecdotes of Dr. Parr, with his preposterous wig, his
+clouds of tobacco, his sesquipedalian quotations, coming down from
+Stanmore; and also of the great Lord Abercorn, another Governor of the
+school, who used to go out shooting in the blue riband of the Garter,
+and who entertained Pitt and Sir Walter Scott at Bentley Priory.
+
+"What a lot you know!" said Cæsar. "And you have a memory like my
+father's. I'm beginning to think, Jonathan, that you'll be a swell like
+him some day--in the Cabinet, perhaps."
+
+"Ah," said John, with shining eyes.
+
+"I hope I shall live to see it," Desmond added, with feeling.
+
+"Thanks, old chap. A crust or a triumph shared with a pal tastes twice
+as good."
+
+One soft afternoon in spring, after four Bill, Desmond and John were
+approaching the iron gates of the Haunted House. They had not taken this
+particular walk since the day when Desmond got his Flannels. During the
+winter term, Scaife and Desmond became members of the Football Eleven.
+During this term Scaife won the hundred yards and quarter-mile; Desmond
+won the half-mile and mile. In a word, they had done, from the athletic
+point of view, nearly all that could be done. A glorious victory at
+Lord's seemed assured. Scaife, Captain and epitome of the brains and
+muscles of the Eleven, had grown into a powerful man, with the mind, the
+tastes, the passions of manhood. Desmond, on the other hand, while
+nearly as tall (and much handsomer in John's eyes), still retained the
+look of youth. Indeed, he looked younger than John, although a year his
+senior; and John knew himself to be the elder and wiser, knew that
+Desmond leaned upon him whenever a crutch was wanted.
+
+The chief difficulty which besets a school friendship between two boys
+is that of being alone together. In Form, in the playing-fields, in the
+boarding-house, life is public. Even in the most secluded lane, a Harrow
+boy is not secure against the unwelcome salutations of heated athletes
+who have been taking a cross-country run, or leaping over, or into, the
+Pinner brook. To John the need of sanctuary had become pressing.
+
+Upon this blessed spring afternoon--ever afterwards recalled with
+special affection--a retreat was suddenly provided. As the boys jumped
+over the last stile into the lane which led to the Haunted House,
+Desmond exclaimed--
+
+"By Jove, the gates are open!"
+
+Then they saw that a man, a sort of caretaker, was in the act of
+shutting them.
+
+"May we go in?" John asked civilly.
+
+The man hesitated, eyeing the boys. Desmond's smile melted him, as it
+would have melted a mummy.
+
+"There's nothing to see," he said.
+
+Then, in answer to a few eager questions, he told the story of the
+Haunted House; haunted, indeed, by the ghosts of what might have been. A
+city magnate owned the place. He had bought it because he wished to
+educate his only son at Harrow as a "Home-Boarder," or day-boy. A few
+weeks before the boy should have joined the school, he fell ill with
+diphtheria, and died. The mother, who nursed him, caught the disease and
+died also. The father, left alone, turned his back upon a place he
+loathed, resolving to hold it till building-values increased, but never
+to set eyes on it again. The caretaker and his wife occupied a couple of
+rooms in the house.
+
+The boys glanced at the house, a common-place mansion, and began to
+explore the gardens. To their delight they found in the shrubberies, now
+a wilderness of laurel and rhododendron, a tower--what our forefathers
+called a "Gazebo," and their neighbours a "Folly." The top of it
+commanded a wide, unbroken view--
+
+    "Of all the lowland western lea,
+      The Uxbridge flats and meadows,
+    To where the Ruislip waters see
+      The Oxhey lights and shadows."
+
+"There's the Spire," said John.
+
+The man, who had joined them, nodded. "Yes," said he, "and my mistress
+and her boy are buried underneath it. She wanted him to be there--at the
+school, I mean--and there he is."
+
+"We're very much obliged to you," said Desmond. He slipped a shilling
+into the man's hand, and added, "May we stay here for a bit? and perhaps
+we might come again--eh?"
+
+"Thank you, sir," the man replied, touching his hat. "Come whenever you
+like, sir. The gates ain't really locked. I'll show you the trick of
+opening 'em when you come down."
+
+He descended the steep flight of steps after the boys had thanked him.
+
+"Sad story," said John, staring at the distant Spire.
+
+Desmond hesitated. At times he revealed (to John alone) a curious
+melancholy.
+
+"Sad," he repeated. "I don't know about that. Sad for the father, of
+course, but perhaps the son is well out of it. Don't look so amazed,
+Jonathan. Most fellows seem to make awful muddles of their lives. You
+won't, of course. I see you on pinnacles, but I----" He broke off with a
+mirthless laugh.
+
+John waited. The air about them was soft and moist after a recent
+shower. The south-west wind stirred the pulses. Earth was once more
+tumid, about to bring forth. Already the hedges were green under the
+brown; bulbs were pushing delicate spears through the sweet-smelling
+soil; the buds upon a clump of fine beeches had begun to open. In this
+solitude, alone with teeming nature, John tried to interpret his
+friend's mood; but the spirit of melancholy eluded him, as if it were a
+will-o'-the-wisp dancing over an impassable marsh. Suddenly, there came
+to him, as there had come to the quicker imagination of his friend, the
+overpowering mystery of Spring, the sense of inevitable change, the
+impossibility of arresting it. At the moment all things seemed
+unsubstantial. Even the familiar Spire, powdered with gold by the
+slanting rays of the sun, appeared thinly transparent against the rosy
+mists behind it. The Hill, the solid Hill, rose out of the valley, a
+lavender-coloured shade upon the horizon.
+
+"He came here," continued Desmond, dreamily--John guessed that he was
+speaking of the father--"a rich, prosperous man. I dare say he worked
+like a slave in the city. And he wanted peace and quiet after the Stock
+Exchange. Who wouldn't? And he planted out these gardens, thinking that
+every plant would grow up and thrive, and his son with them. And then
+the boy died; and the wife followed; and the enchanted castle became a
+place of horror; and now it is a wilderness. Haunted? I should think it
+was--haunted! I wish we'd never set foot in it. There's a curse on it."
+
+"Let's go," said John.
+
+"Too late. We'll stay now, and we'll come again, every Sunday. Wild and
+desolate as things look, they will be lovely when we get back in summer.
+Don't talk. I'm going to light a pipe."
+
+Through the circling cloud of tobacco-smoke John stared at the face
+which had illumined nearly every hour of his school-life. Its peculiar
+vividness always amazed John, the vitality of it, and yet the perfect
+delicacy. Scaife's handsome features were full of vitality also, but
+coarseness underlay their bold lines and peered out of the keen,
+flashing eyes. When the Caterpillar left Harrow he had said to John--
+
+"Good-bye, Jonathan. Awful rot your going to such a hole as Oxford! One
+has had quite enough schooling after five years here. It's settled I'm
+going into the Guards. My father tells me that old Scaife tried to get
+the Demon down on the Duke's list. But we don't fancy the Scaife brand."
+
+Often and often John wondered whether Desmond saw the brand as plainly
+as the Caterpillar and he did. Sometimes he felt almost sure that a
+word, a look, a gesture betraying the bounder, had revolted Desmond;
+but a few hours later the bounder bounded into favour again, captivating
+eye and heart by some brilliant feat. And then his brains! He was so
+diabolically clever. John could always recall his face as he lay back in
+the chair in No. 15, sick, bruised, befuddled, and yet even in that
+moment of extreme prostration able to "play the game," as he put it, to
+defeat house-master and doctor by sheer strength of will and intellect.
+It was Scaife who had persuaded Desmond to smoke.... Cæsar's voice broke
+in upon these meditations.
+
+"I say--what are you frowning about?"
+
+John, very red, replied nervously, "Now that you're in the Sixth, you
+ought to chuck smoking."
+
+"What rot!" said Cæsar. "And here, in this tower, where one couldn't
+possibly be nailed----"
+
+"That's it," said John. "It's just because you can't possibly be nailed
+that it seems to me not quite square."
+
+Cæsar burst out laughing. "Jonathan, you _are_ a rum 'un. Anyway--here
+goes!"
+
+As he spoke he flung the pipe into the bushes below.
+
+"Thanks," said John, quietly.
+
+"We'll come here again. I like this old tower."
+
+"You won't come here without me?"
+
+"Oh, ho! I'm not to let the Demon into our paradise--eh? What a jealous
+old bird you are! Well, I like you to be jealous." And he laughed again.
+
+"I am jealous," said John, slowly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The School broke up on the following Tuesday, and Desmond went home with
+John.
+
+This happened to be the first time that the friends had spent Easter
+together. John wondered whether Cæsar would take the Sacrament with his
+mother and him. He and Cæsar had been confirmed side by side in the
+Chapel at Harrow. He felt sure that Desmond would not refuse if he were
+asked. On Easter Eve, Mrs. Verney said, in her quiet, persuasive
+voice--
+
+"You will join us to-morrow morning, Harry?"
+
+Desmond flushed, and said, "Yes."
+
+Not remembering his own mother, who had died when he was a child, he
+often told John that he felt like a son to Mrs. Verney. Upon Easter
+morning, the three met in the hall, and Desmond asked for a Prayer-book.
+
+"I've lost mine," he murmured.
+
+That afternoon, when they were alone upon the splendid moor above
+Stoneycross, Desmond said suddenly--
+
+"Religion means a lot to you, Jonathan, doesn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But you never talk about it."
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I don't know how to begin."
+
+"There's such sickening hypocrisy in this world."
+
+John nodded.
+
+"But your religion is a help to you, eh? Keeps you straight?"
+
+John nodded again. Then Desmond said with an air of finality--
+
+"I wish I'd some of your faith. I want it badly."
+
+"If you want it badly, you will get it."
+
+A long silence succeeded. Then Desmond exclaimed--
+
+"Hullo! By Jove, there's a fox, a splendid fellow! He's come up here
+amongst the rabbits for a Sunday dinner. Gone awa-a-a-ay!"
+
+He put his hand to his mouth and halloaed. A minute later he was talking
+of hunting. Religion was not mentioned till they were approaching the
+house for tea. On the threshold, Desmond said with a nervous laugh--
+
+"I'd like your mother to give me a Prayer-book--a small one, nothing
+expensive."
+
+During the following week they hunted with foxhounds or staghounds every
+day, except Wednesday. In the New Forest the Easter hunting is unique.
+Tremendous fellows come down from the shires--masters of famous packs,
+thrusters, keen to see May foxes killed. And the Forest entertains them
+handsomely, you may be sure. Big hampers are unpacked under the oaks
+which may have been saplings when William Rufus ruled in England; there
+are dinners, and, of course, a hunt-ball in the ancient village of
+Lyndhurst. But as each pleasant day passed, John told himself that the
+end was drawing near. This was almost the last holidays Cæsar and he
+would spend together; and, afterwards, would this friendship, so
+romantic a passion with one at least of them--would it wither away, or
+would it endure to the end?
+
+At the end of a fortnight, Desmond returned to Eaton Square. Upon the
+eve of departure, Mrs. Verney gave him a small Prayer-book.
+
+"I have written something in it," she said; "but don't open it now."
+
+He looked at the fly-leaf as the train rolled out of Lyndhurst Station.
+Upon it, in Mrs. Verney's delicate handwriting, were a few lines. First
+his name and the date. Below, a text--"Unto whomsoever much is given, of
+him shall be much required." And, below that again, a verse--
+
+    "Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
+    As if Thy blessings had spare days:
+    But such a heart whose pulse may be--
+          Thy praise."
+
+Desmond stared at the graceful writing long after the train had passed
+Totton. "Am I ungrateful?" he asked himself. "Not to them," he muttered;
+"surely not to them." He recalled what Warde had said about ingratitude
+being the unpardonable sin. Ah! it was loathsome, ingratitude! And much
+had been given to him. How much? For the first time he made, so to
+speak, an inventory of what he had received--his innumerable blessings.
+_What had he given in return?_ And now the fine handwriting seemed
+blurred; he saw it through tears which he ought to have shed. "Oh, my
+God," he murmured, "am I ungrateful?" The question bit deeper into his
+mind, sinking from there into his soul.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the School reassembled, a curious incident occurred. John happened
+to be going up the fine flight of steps that leads to the Old Schools.
+He was carrying some books and papers. Scaife, running down the steps,
+charged into him. By great good fortune, no damage was done except to a
+nicely-bound Sophocles. John, however, felt assured that Scaife had
+deliberately intended to knock him down, seized, possibly, by an ecstasy
+of blind rage not uncommon with him. Scaife smiled derisively, and
+said--
+
+"A thousand apologies, Verney."
+
+"_One_ is enough," John replied, "if it is sincere."
+
+They eyed each other steadily. John read a furious challenge in Scaife's
+bold eyes--more, a menace, the threatening frown of power thwarted.
+Scaife seemed to expand, to fill the horizon, to blot out the glad
+sunshine. Once again the curious certainty gripped the younger that
+Scaife was indeed the personification of evil, the more malefic because
+it stalked abroad masked. For Scaife had outlived his reputation as a
+breaker of the law. Since that terrible experience in the Fourth Form
+Room, he had paid tithe of mint and cummin. As a Sixth Form boy he
+upheld authority, laughing the while in his sleeve. He knew, of course,
+that one mistake, one slip, would be fatal. And he prided himself on not
+making mistakes. He gambled, but not with boys; he drank, not with boys;
+he denied his body nothing it craved; but he never forgot that expulsion
+from Harrow meant the loss of a commission in a smart cavalry regiment.
+When it was intimated to him that the Guards did not want his father's
+son, he laughed bitterly, and swore to himself that he would show the
+stuck-up snobs what a soldier they had turned away. A soldier he fully
+intended to be--a dashing cavalry leader, if the Fates were kind. His
+luck would stand by him; if not--why--what was life without luck? He had
+never been a reader, but he read now the lives of soldiers. Murat,
+Uxbridge, Cardigan, Hodson, were his heroes. Talking of their
+achievements, he inflamed his own mind and Desmond's.
+
+The pleasant summer days passed. May melted into June. And each Sunday
+John and Desmond walked to the Haunted House, ascended the tower, and
+talked. Scaife was leaving at the end of the summer. Desmond was staying
+on for the winter term; then John would have him entirely to himself.
+This thought illumined dark hours, when he saw his friend whirled away
+by Scaife, transported, as it were, by the irresistible power of the man
+of action. That nothing should be wanting to that trebly-fortunate
+youth, he had helped to win the Public Schools' Racquets Championship.
+The Manor was now the crack house--cock-house at racquets and football,
+certain to be cock-house at cricket. And Scaife got most of the credit,
+not Warde, who smiled more than ever, and talked continually of Balliol
+Scholarships. He never bragged of victories past.
+
+Meantime, John was devoting all energies to the competition for the
+Prize Essay. The Head Master had propounded as theme: "The History and
+Influence of Parliamentary Oratory." Bit by bit, John read or declaimed
+it to Desmond. Then, according to custom, Desmond copied it out for his
+friend. Signed "_Spero Infestis_," with a sealed envelope containing
+John's name inside and the motto outside, the MS. was placed in the Head
+Master's letter-box. John, cooling rapidly after the fever of
+composition, condemned his stuff as hopelessly bad; Cæsar went about
+telling everybody that Jonathan would win easily, "with a bit to spare."
+John did win, but that proved to be the least part of his triumph. The
+Essay had to be declaimed upon Speech Day. Once more John experienced
+the pangs that had twisted him at the concert, long ago, when he had
+sung to the Nation's hero. And as before, he began weakly. Then, the
+fire seizing him, self-consciousness was exorcised by feeling, and
+forgetful of the hundreds of faces about him, he burst into genuine
+oratory. Thrilled himself, he thrilled others. His voice faltered
+again, but with an emotion that found an echo in the hearts of his
+audience; his hand shook, feeling the pulse of old and young in front of
+him. Dominated, swept away by his theme, he dominated others. When he
+finished, in the silence that preceded the roar of applause, he knew
+that he had triumphed, for he saw Desmond's glowing countenance, radiant
+with pleasure, transfigured by amazement and admiration. Next day a
+great newspaper hailed the Harrow boy as one destined to delight and to
+lead, perhaps, an all-conquering party in the House of Commons. And yet,
+warmed to the core by this praise, John counted it as nothing compared
+with his mother's smile and Desmond's fervent grip.
+
+Fortune, however, comes to no man--or boy--with both hands full.
+Immediately after Speech Day, John's bubble of pride and happiness was
+pricked by Scaife. Midsummer madness seized the Demon. One may conceive
+that the innate recklessness of his nature, suppressed by an iron will,
+and smouldering throughout many months, burst at last into flame.
+Desmond told John that the Demon had spent a riotous night in town. He
+had slipped out of the Manor after prayers, had driven up to a certain
+club in Regent Street, returned in time for first school, fresh as
+paint--so Desmond said--and then, not content with such an achievement,
+must needs brag of it to Desmond.
+
+"And if he's nailed, Eton wins," concluded Desmond. "I've told you,
+because together we must put a stop to such larks."
+
+John slightly raised his thick eyebrows. It was curious that Cæsar
+always chose to ignore the hatred which he must have known to exist
+between his two friends. Or did he fatuously believe that, because John
+exercised an influence over himself, the same influence would or could
+be exercised over Scaife?
+
+"We?" said John.
+
+"I've tried and failed. But together, I say----"
+
+"I shan't interfere, Cæsar."
+
+"Jonathan, you must."
+
+"It would be a fool's errand."
+
+"We three have gone up the School together. You have never been fair to
+Scaife. I tell you he's sound at core. Why, after he was swished----"
+
+Desmond told John what had passed; John shook his head. He could
+understand better than any one else why Scaife had broken down.
+
+"He has splendid ambitions," pursued Desmond. "He's going to be a great
+soldier, you see. He thinks of nothing else. You never have liked him,
+but because of that I thought you would do what you could."
+
+The disappointment and chagrin in his voice shook John's resolution.
+
+"To please you, I'll try."
+
+And accordingly the absurd experiment was made. Afterwards, John asked
+himself a thousand times why he had not foreseen the inevitable result.
+But the explanation is almost too simple to be recorded: he wished to
+convince a friend that he would attempt anything to prove his
+friendship.
+
+That night they went together to Scaife's room. The second-best room in
+the Manor, situated upon the first floor, it overlooked the back of the
+garden, where there was a tangled thicket of laurustinus and
+rhododendron. Scaife had spent much money in making this room as
+comfortable as possible. It had the appearance of a man's room, and
+presented all the characteristics of the man who lived in it. Everything
+connected with Scaife's triumphal march through the School was
+preserved. On the walls were his caps, fezes, and cups. You could hardly
+see the paper for the framed photographs of Scaife and his fellow
+"bloods." Scaife as cricketer, Scaife as football-player, Scaife as
+racquet-player and athlete, stared boldly and triumphantly at you. He
+had a fine desk covered with massive silver ornaments. Upon this, as
+upon everything else in the room, was the hall-mark of the successful
+man of business. The papers, the pens and pencils, the filed bills and
+letters, the books of reference, spoke eloquently of a mind that used
+order as a means to a definite end. All his books were well bound. His
+boots were on trees. His racquets were in their press. Had you opened
+his chest of drawers, you would have found his clothes in perfect
+condition. Obviously, to an observant eye, the owner of this room gave
+his mind to details, because he realized that on details hang great and
+successful enterprises.
+
+Scaife stared at John, but welcomed him civilly enough. Cricket, of
+course, explained this unexpected visit. As Desmond blurted out what was
+in his mind, Scaife frowned; then he laughed unpleasantly.
+
+"And so I told Jonathan," concluded Desmond.
+
+"So you told Jonathan," repeated Scaife. "Are you in the habit of
+telling Jonathan,"--the derisive inflection as he pronounced the name
+warned John at least that he had much better have stayed away--"things
+which concern others and which don't concern him?"
+
+"If you're going to take it like that----"
+
+"Keep cool, Cæsar. I'll admit that you mean well. I should like to hear
+what Verney has to say."
+
+At that John spoke--haltingly. Fluent speech upon any subject very dear
+to him had always been difficult. He could talk glibly enough about
+ordinary topics; his sense of humour, his retentive memory, made him
+welcome even in the critical society of Eaton Square, but you know him
+as a creature of unplumbed reserves. The matter in hand was so vital
+that he could not touch it with firm hands or voice. He spoke at his
+worst, and he knew it; concluding an incoherent and slightly
+inarticulate recital of the reasons which ought to keep Scaife in his
+house at night with a lame "Two heads ought to prevail against one."
+
+Scaife showed his fine teeth. "You think that? Your head and Cæsar's
+against mine?"
+
+The challenge revealed itself in the derisive, sneering tone.
+
+John shrugged his shoulders and rose. "I have blundered; I am sorry."
+
+"Hold hard," said Scaife. He read censure upon Desmond's ingenuous
+countenance. Then his temper whipped him to a furious resentment against
+John, as an enemy who had turned the tables with good breeding; who had
+gained, indeed, a victory against odds. Scaife drew in his breath; his
+brows met in a frown. "You have not blundered; and you are not sorry,"
+he said deliberately. "I'm not a fool, Verney; but perhaps I have
+underrated your ability. You're as clever as they make 'em. You knew
+well enough that you were the last person in the world to lead me in a
+string; you knew that, I say, and yet you come here to pose as the
+righteous youth, doing his duty--eh?--against odds, and accepting credit
+for the same from Cæsar. Why, it's plain to me as the nose upon your
+face that in your heart you would like me to be sacked."
+
+Desmond interrupted. "You are mad, Demon. Take that back; take it back!"
+
+"Ask him," said Scaife. "He hates me, and common decency ought to have
+kept him out of this room. But he's not a liar. Ask him. Put it your own
+way. Soften it, make pap of it, if you like, but get an answer."
+
+"Jonathan, it is not true, is it? You don't like Scaife; but you would
+be sorry, very sorry, to see him--sacked."
+
+"I'm glad you've not funked it," said Scaife. "You've put it squarely.
+Let him answer it as squarely."
+
+John was white to the lips, white and trembling; despicable in his own
+eyes, how much more despicable, therefore, in the eyes of his friend,
+whose passionate faith in him was about to be scorched and shrivelled.
+
+Scaife began to laugh.
+
+"For God's sake, don't laugh!" said Desmond. "Jonathan, I know you are
+too proud to defend yourself against such an abominable charge."
+
+"He's not a liar," said Scaife.
+
+"It's true," said John, in a strangled voice.
+
+"You have wished that he might be sacked?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+John met Desmond's indignant eyes with an expression which the other was
+too impetuous, too inexperienced to interpret. Into that look of
+passionate reproach he flung all that must be left unsaid, all that
+Scaife could read as easily as if it were scored in letters of flame.
+Because, in his modesty and humility, he had ever reckoned that Scaife
+would prevail against himself--because, with unerring instinct, he had
+apprehended, as few boys could apprehend, the issues involved, he had
+desired, fervently desired, that Scaife should be swept from Cæsar's
+path. But this he could not plead as an excuse to his friend; and Scaife
+had known that, and had used his knowledge with fiendish success. John
+lowered his eyes and walked from the room.
+
+When he met Desmond again, nothing was said on either side. John told
+himself that he would speak, if Desmond spoke first. But evidently
+Desmond had determined already the nature of their future relations.
+They no longer shared No. 7, John being in the Upper Sixth with a room
+to himself, but they still "found" together. To separate would mean a
+public scandal from which each shrank in horror. No; let them meet at
+meals as before till the end of the term. Indeed, so little change was
+made in their previous intercourse, that John began to hope that Cæsar
+would walk with him as usual upon the following Sunday. And if he
+did--if he did, John felt that he would speak. On the top of the tower,
+looking towards the Spire, alone with his friend, exalted above the
+thorns and brambles of the wilderness, words would come to him.
+
+But on the following Sunday Desmond walked with Scaife.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[34] Of these, the Park, now a boarding-house, was a characteristic
+specimen. It belonged to Lord Northwick, Lord of the Manor of Harrow.
+
+[35] In the thirties Harrow boys played "Jack o' Lantern," or nocturnal
+Hare and Hounds. They used to attend Kingsbury Races and Pinner Fair.
+Lord Alexander Russell, when he was a boy at the Grove, kept a pack of
+beagles at the foot of the Hill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+_"Lord's"_
+
+    "There we sat in the circle vast,
+      Hard by the tents, from noon,
+    And looked as the day went slowly past
+      And the runs came all too soon;
+    And never, I think, in the years gone by,
+      Since cricketer first went in,
+    Did the dying so refuse to die,
+      Or the winning so hardly win."
+
+
+"My dear Jonathan, I'm delighted to see you. You know my father, I
+think?" It was the Caterpillar that spoke.
+
+John shook hands with Colonel Egerton.
+
+The three were standing in the Members' Enclosure at Lord's. The
+Caterpillar, gorgeous in frock-coat, with three corn-flowers[36] in the
+lapel of it, was about as great a buck as his sire, quite as
+conspicuous, and, seemingly, as cool. It happened to be a blazing hot
+day, but heat seldom affected Colonel Egerton.
+
+"By Jove," he said to John, "I'm told it's a certainty this year, and
+I've come early, too early for me, to see a glorious victory. There's
+civil war raging on the top of the Trent coach, I give you my word."
+
+"We've won the toss," said John.
+
+"Ah, there's Charles Desmond, an early bird, too."
+
+He bustled away, leaving John and the Caterpillar together. The great
+ground in front of them was being cleared. One could see, through the
+few people scattered here and there, the wickets pitched in the middle
+of that vast expanse of lawn, and the umpires in their long white coats.
+Upon the top of the steps, in the middle of the pavilion, the Eton
+captain was collecting his Eleven. The Duffer, who had got his Flannels
+at the last moment, came up and joined John and the Caterpillar.
+
+"The Manor's well to the front," said the Caterpillar. "By Jove! I never
+thought to see Fluff in the Eleven."
+
+"Fluff came on tremendously this term," the Duffer replied.
+
+"Of course the Kinlochs are a cricketing family."
+
+"Good joke the brothers playing against each other," said John.
+
+"Warde," the Duffer nodded in the direction of Warde, who was talking
+with Charles Desmond and Colonel Egerton, "has worked like a slave. He
+made a cricketer out of Fluff and a scholar out of Jonathan. He's so mad
+keen to see us win, that he's given me the jumps."
+
+"You must keep cool," the Caterpillar murmured. "I've just come from the
+Trent coach. Fluff has it from the brother who is playing that the Eton
+bowling is weak. But Strathpeffer, the eldest son, tells me the batsmen
+are stronger than last year. He seemed anxious to bet; so we have a
+fiver about it. They're taking the field."
+
+The Eton Eleven walked towards the wicket, loudly cheered. Cæsar came up
+in his pads, carrying his bat and gloves. He shook hands with the
+Caterpillar, and said, with a groan, that he had to take the first ball.
+
+"Keep cool," said the Caterpillar. "The bowling's weak; I have it from
+Cosmo Kinloch. They're in a precious funk."
+
+"So am I," said the Duffer.
+
+"But you're a bowler," said Desmond. "If I get out first ball, I shall
+cut my throat."
+
+But Cæsar looked alert, cool, and neither under- nor over-confident.
+
+"You'll cut the ball, not your throat," said the Duffer. Cutting was
+Cæsar's strong point.
+
+The Caterpillar nodded, and spoke oracularly--
+
+"My governor says he never shoots at a snipe without muttering to
+himself, 'Snipe on toast.' It steadies his nerves. When you see the
+ball leave the bowler's hand, you say to yourself, 'Eton on toast.'"
+
+"Your own, Caterpillar?"
+
+"My own," said the Caterpillar, modestly. "I don't often make a joke,
+but that's mine. Pass it on."
+
+The other Harrovian about to go in beckoned to Desmond.
+
+"Cæsar won't be bowled first ball," said the Caterpillar. "He's the sort
+that rises to an emergency. Can't we find a seat?"
+
+They sat down and watched the Eton captain placing his field. Desmond
+and his companion were walking slowly towards the wickets amid Harrow
+cheers. The cheering was lukewarm as yet. It would have fire enough in
+it presently. The Caterpillar pointed out some of the swells.
+
+"That's old Lyburn. Hasn't missed a match since '64. Was brought here
+once with a broken leg! Carried in a litter, by Jove! That fellow with
+the long, white beard is Lord Fawley. He made 78 _not out_ in the days
+of Charlemagne."
+
+"It was in '53," said the Duffer, who never joked on really serious
+subjects; "and he made 68, not 78. He's pulling his beard. I believe
+he's as nervous as I am."
+
+Presently the innumerable voices about them were hushed; all eyes turned
+in one direction. Desmond was about to take the first ball. It was
+delivered moderately fast, with a slight break. Desmond played forward.
+
+"Well played, sir! Well pla-a-ayed!"
+
+The shout rumbled round the huge circle. The beginning and the end of a
+great match are always thrilling. The second and third balls were played
+like the first. John could hear Mr. Desmond saying to Warde, "He has
+Hugo's style and way of standing--eh?" And Warde replied, "Yes; but he's
+a finer batsman. Ah-h-h!"
+
+The first real cheer burst like a bomb. Desmond had cut the sixth ball
+to the boundary.
+
+Over! The new bowler was a tall, thin boy with flaxen hair.
+
+"That's Cosmo Kinloch, Fluff's brother," said John. "I wonder they can't
+do better than that. Even I knocked him all over the shop at White
+Ladies last summer."
+
+"He's come on, they tell me," said the Caterpillar. "Good Lord, he
+nearly had him first ball."
+
+Fluff's brother bowled slows of a good length, with an awkward break
+from the off to the leg.
+
+"Teasers," said the Caterpillar, critically. "Hullo! No, my young
+friend, that may do well enough in Shropshire, not here."
+
+A ball breaking sharply from the off had struck the batsman's pad; he
+had stepped in front of his wicket to cut it. Country umpires are often
+beguiled by bowlers into giving wrong decisions in such cases; not so
+your London expert. Cosmo Kinloch appealed--in vain.
+
+"He'll send a short one down now," said John. "You see."
+
+And, sure enough, a long hop came to the off, curling inwards after it
+pitched. The Eton captain had nearly all his men on the off side. The
+Harrovian pulled the ball right round to the boundary.
+
+"Well hit!"
+
+"Well pulled!"
+
+"Two 4's; that's a good beginning," said the Duffer.
+
+A couple of singles followed, and then the first "10" went up amid
+cheers.
+
+"Here's my governor," said the Duffer. "He was three years in the Eleven
+and Captain his last term."
+
+"You've told us that a thousand times," said the Caterpillar.
+
+The Rev. Septimus Duff greeted the boys warmly. His eyes sparkled out of
+a cheery, bearded face. Look at him well. An Harrovian of the Harrovians
+this. His grandfathers on the maternal and paternal side had been
+friends at Harrow in Byron's time. The Rev. Septimus wore rather a
+shabby coat and a terrible hat, but the consummate Caterpillar, who
+respected pedigrees, regarded him with pride and veneration. He came up
+from his obscure West Country vicarage to town just once a year--to see
+the match. If you asked him, he would tell you quite simply that he
+would sooner see the match and his old friends than go to Palestine; and
+the Rev. Septimus had yearned to visit Palestine ever since he left
+Cambridge; and it is not likely that this great wish will ever be
+gratified. He is the father of three sons, but the Duffer is the first
+to get into the Eleven. Charles Desmond joins them. At the moment,
+Charles Desmond is supposed to be one of the most harried men in the
+Empire. Times are troublous. A war-cloud, as large as Kruger's hand, has
+just risen in the South, and is spreading itself over the whole world.
+But to-day the great Minister has left the cares of office in Downing
+Street. He hails the Rev. Septimus with a genial laugh and a hearty
+grasp of the hand.
+
+"Ah, Sep, upon your word of honour, now--would you sooner be here to see
+the Duffer take half a dozen wickets, or be down in Somerset, Bishop of
+Bath and Wells?"
+
+"When _you_ offer me the bishopric," replied the Rev. Septimus, with a
+twinkle, "I'll answer that question, my dear Charles, and not before."
+
+"You old humbug! You're so puffed up with sinful pride that you've stuck
+your topper on to your head the wrong way about."
+
+"Bless my soul," said the Duffer's father, "so I have."
+
+"That topper of the governor's," the Duffer remarked solemnly, "has seen
+twenty-five matches at least."
+
+John looked at no hats; his eyes were on the pitch. Another round of
+cheers proclaimed that "20" had gone up. Both boys are batting steadily;
+no more boundary hits; a snick here, a snack there--and then--merciful
+Heavens!--Cæsar has cut a curling ball "bang" into short slip's hands.
+
+Short slip--wretched youth--muffs it! Derisive remarks from Rev.
+Septimus.
+
+"Well caught! Well held! Tha-a-nks!"
+
+The Caterpillar would pronounce this sort of chaff bad form in a
+contemporary. He removes his hat.
+
+"By Jove!" says he. "It's very warm."
+
+Cæsar times the next ball beautifully. It glides past point and under
+the ropes.
+
+Early as it is, the ground seems to be packed with people. Glorious
+weather has allured everybody. Stand after stand is filled up. The
+colour becomes kaleidoscopic. The Rev. Septimus, during the brief
+interval of an over, allows his eyes to stray round the huge circle.
+Upon the ground are the youth, the beauty, the rank and fashion of the
+kingdom, and, best of all, his old friends. The Rev. Septimus has a
+weakness, being, of course, human to the finger-tips. He calls himself a
+_laudator temporis acti_. In his day, the match was less of a function.
+The boys sat round upon the grass; behind them were the carriages and
+coaches--you could drive on to the ground then!--and here and there,
+only here and there, a tent or a small stand. _Consule Planco_--the
+parson loves a Latin tag--the match was an immense picnic for Harrovians
+and Etonians. And, my word, you ought to have heard the chaff when an
+unlucky fielder put the ball on the floor. Or, when a batsman interposed
+a pad where a bat ought to have been. Or, if a player was bowled first
+ball. Or, if he swaggered as he walked, the cynosure of all eyes, from
+the pavilion to the pitch. Upon this subject the Rev. Septimus will
+preach a longer (and a more interesting) sermon than any you will hear
+from his pulpit in Blackford-Orcas Church.
+
+Loud cheers put an end to the parson's reminiscences. Desmond's
+companion has been clean bowled for a useful fifteen runs. He walks
+towards the pavilion slowly. Then, as he hears the Harrow cheers, he
+blushes like a nymph of sixteen, for he counts himself a failure. Last
+year he made a "duck" in his first innings, and five in the second. No
+cheers then. This is his first taste of the honey mortals call success.
+He has faced the great world, and captured its applause.
+
+"When does Scaife go in?" the Rev. Septimus asks.
+
+"Second wicket down."
+
+More cheers as the second man in strolls down the steps. A careful cove,
+so the Duffer tells his father--one who will try to break the back of
+the bowling.
+
+"They're taking off Fluff's brother," the Caterpillar observes.
+
+A thick-set young man holds the ball. He makes some slight alteration in
+the field. The wicket-keeper stands back; the slips and point retreat a
+few yards. The ball that took the first wicket was the last of an over.
+Desmond has to receive the attack of the new bowler.
+
+The thick-set Etonian, having arranged the off side to his satisfaction,
+prepares to take a long run. He holds the ball in the left hand, runs
+sideways at great speed, changes the ball from the left hand to the
+right at the last moment, and seems to hurl both it and himself at the
+batsman.
+
+"Greased lightning!" says John.
+
+A dry summer had made the pitch rather fiery. The ball, short-pitched,
+whizzes just over Cæsar's head. A second and a third seem to graze his
+cap. Murmurs are heard. Is the Eton bowler trying to kill or maim his
+antagonist? Is he deliberately endeavouring to establish a paralysing
+"funk"?
+
+But the fourth ball is a "fizzer"--the right length, a bailer,
+terrifically fast, but just off the wicket. Desmond snicks it between
+short slip and third man; it goes to the boundary.
+
+"That's what Cæsar likes," says the Duffer. "He can cut behind the
+wicket till the cows come home."
+
+"Cut--and come again," says the Caterpillar.
+
+The fifth ball is played forward for a risky single. The Rev. Septimus
+forgets that times have changed. And if they have, what of it? He
+hasn't. His deep, vibrant voice rolls across the lawn right up to the
+batsman--
+
+"Steady there! Steady!"
+
+And now the new-comer has to take the last ball of the over--his first.
+Alas and alack! The sixth ball is dead on to the middle stump. The
+Harrovian plays forward. Man alive, you ought to have played back to
+that! The ball grazes the top edge of the bat's blade and flies straight
+into the welcoming hands of the wicket-keeper.
+
+Two wickets for 33.
+
+Breathless suspense, broken by tumultuous cheers as Scaife strides on to
+the ground. His bat is under his arm; he is drawing on his gloves.
+Thousands of men and as many women are staring at his splendid face and
+figure.
+
+"What a mover!" murmurs the Rev. Septimus.
+
+Scaife strides on. Upon his face is the expression John knows so well
+and fears so much--the consciousness of power, the stern determination
+to be first, to shatter previous records. John can predict--and does so
+with absolute certainty--what will happen. For six overs the Demon will
+treat every ball--good, bad, and indifferent--with the most
+distinguished consideration. And then, when his "eye" is in, he will
+give the Etonians such leather-hunting as they never had before.
+
+After a long stand made by Scaife and Desmond, Cæsar is caught at
+cover-point, but Scaife remains. It is a Colossus batting, not a Harrow
+boy. The balls come down the pitch; the Demon's shoulders and chest
+widen; the great knotted arms go up--crash! First singles; then twos;
+then threes; and then boundary after boundary. To John--and to how many
+others?--Scaife has been transformed into a tremendous human machine,
+inexorably cutting and slicing, pulling and driving--the embodied symbol
+of force, ruthlessly applied, indefatigable, omnipotent.
+
+The Eton captain, hopeful against odds, puts on a cunning and cool
+dealer in "lobs." Fluff is in, playing steadily, holding up his wicket,
+letting the giant make the runs. The Etonian delivers his first ball.
+Scaife leaves the crease. Fluff sees the ball slowly spinning--harmless
+enough till it pitches, and then deadly as a writhing serpent. Scaife
+will not let it pitch. The ball curves slightly from the leg to the off.
+Scaife is facing the pavilion----
+
+A stupendous roar bursts from the crowd. The ball, hit with terrific
+force, sails away over the green sward, over the ropes, over the heads
+of the spectators, and slap on to the top of the pavilion.
+
+Only four; but one of the finest swipes ever seen at Lord's. Shade of
+Mynn, come forth from the tomb to applaud that mighty stroke!
+
+But the dealer in lobs knows that the man who leaves his citadel, leaves
+it, sooner or later, not to return. In the hope that Scaife, intoxicated
+with triumph, will run out again, he pitches the next lob too much up--a
+half-volley. Scaife smiles.
+
+John's prediction has been fulfilled. A record has been established.
+Never before in an Eton and Harrow match have two balls been hit over
+the ropes in succession. The crowds have lost their self-possession.
+Men, women, and children are becoming delirious. The Rev. Septimus
+throws his ancient topper into the air; the Caterpillar splits a
+brand-new pair of delicate grey gloves. Upon the tops of the coaches,
+mothers, sisters, aunts, and cousins are cheering like Fourth-Form boys.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Harrow first innings closed with 289 runs, Scaife carrying out his
+bat for an almost flawless 126. Desmond made 72; Fluff was in for
+twenty-seven minutes--a great performance for him--and was caught in the
+slips after compiling a useful 17.
+
+But the remarkable feature of the innings was the short time in which so
+many runs were made--exactly three hours. The elevens went in to lunch,
+as the crowd poured over the ground, laughing and chattering. This is a
+delightful hour to the Rev. Septimus. He will walk to the wickets, and
+wait there for his innumerable friends. It will be, "Hullo, Sep!" "By
+Jove, here's dear old Sep!" "Sep, you unfriendly beast, why do you never
+come to see us?" "Sep, when are you going to send that awful tile of
+yours to the British Museum?" And so on.
+
+Twenty men, at least--some of them with names known wherever the Union
+Jack waves--will ask the Rev. Sep to lunch with them; but the Rev. Sep
+will say, as he has said these thirty years, that he doesn't come to
+Lord's to "gorge." A sandwich presently, and a glass of "fizz," if you
+please; but time is precious. A tall bishop strolls up--one of the
+pillars of the Church, an eloquent preacher, and an autocrat in his
+diocese. Most people regard him with awe. The Rev. Sep greets him with a
+scandalous slap on the back, and addresses him, the apostolic one,
+as--Lamper.[37] And the Lord Bishop of Dudley says, like the others--
+
+"Hullo, Sep! We used to think you a slogger, but you never came anywhere
+near that smite of Scaife's."
+
+"I thought his smite was coming too near me," says the Rev. Sep, with a
+shrewd glance at the pavilion. "Lamper, old chap, I _am_ glad to see
+your 'phiz' again."
+
+And so they stroll off together, mighty prelate and humble country
+parson, once again happy Harrow boys.
+
+And now, before Eton goes in, we must climb on to the Trent coach. Fluff
+and his brother Cosmo, the Eton bowler, are lunching in other company,
+but we shall find Colonel Egerton and the Caterpillar and Warde; so the
+Hill slightly outnumbers the Plain, as the duke puts it. Next to the
+duchess sits Mrs. Verney. The duke is torn nearly in two between his
+desire that Fluff should make runs and that Cosmo, the Etonian, should
+take wickets. His Eton sons regard him as a traitor, a "rat," and
+Colonel Egerton gravely offers him the corn-flowers out of his coat.
+
+"You can laugh," the duke says seriously, "but when I see what Harrow
+has done for Esmé, I'm almost sorry"--he looks at his youngest son
+(nearly, but not quite, as delicate-looking as Fluff used to be)--"I'm
+almost sorry that I didn't send Alastair there also."
+
+Alastair smiles contemptuously. "If you had," he says, "I should have
+never spoken to you again. Esmé is a forgiving chap, but you've wrecked
+his life. At least, that's my opinion."
+
+After luncheon, the crowd on the lawn thickens. The ladies want to see
+the pitch, and, shall we add, to display their wonderful frocks. The
+enclosure at Ascot on Cup Day is not so gay and pretty a scene as this.
+The Caterpillar, sly dog, has secured Iris Warde, and looks uncommonly
+pleased with himself and his companion; a smart pair, but smart pairs
+are common as gooseberries. It is the year of picture hats and
+Gainsborough dresses.
+
+"England at its best," says Miss Iris.
+
+"And in its best," the Caterpillar replies solemnly.
+
+Iris Warde is as keen as her father's daughter ought to be. She tells
+the Caterpillar that when she was a small girl with only threepence a
+week pocket-money, she used to save a penny a week for twelve weeks
+preceding the match, so as to be able to put a shilling into the plate
+on Sunday _if Harrow won_.
+
+"And I dare say you'll marry an Etonian and wear light blue after all,"
+growls the Caterpillar.
+
+"Never!" says Miss Iris.
+
+Now, amongst the black coats in the pavilion you see a white figure or
+two. The Elevens have finished lunch, and are mixing with the crowd.
+Scaife is talking with a famous Old Carthusian, one of the finest living
+exponents of cricket, sometime an "International" at football, and a
+D.S.O. The great man is very cordial, for he sees in Scaife an
+All-England player. Scaife listens, smiling. Obviously, he is impatient
+to begin again. As soon as possible he collects his men, and leads them
+into the field. One can hear the policemen saying in loud, firm voices,
+"Pass along, please; pass along!" As if by magic the crowds on the lawn
+melt away. In a few minutes the Etonians come out of the pavilion. The
+sun shines upon their pale-blue caps and sashes, and upon faces slightly
+pale also, but not yet blue. For Eton has a strong batting team, and
+Scaife and Desmond have proved that it is a batsman's wicket.
+
+And now the connoisseurs, the really great players, settle themselves
+down comfortably to watch Scaife field. That, to them, is the great
+attraction, apart from the contest between the rival schools. Some of
+these Olympians have been heard to say that Scaife's innings against
+weak bowling was no very meritorious performance, although the two
+"swipes," they admit, were parlous knocks. Still, Public School cricket
+is kindergarten cricket, and if you've not been at Eton or Harrow, and
+if you loathe a fashionable crowd, and if you think first-class fielding
+is worth coming to Lord's to see, why, then, my dear fellow, look at
+Scaife!
+
+Scaife stands at cover-point. If you put up your binoculars, you will
+see that he is almost on his toes. His heels are not touching the
+ground. And he bends slightly, not quite as low as a sprinter, but so
+low that he can start with amazing speed. For two overs not a ball worth
+fielding rolls his way. Ah! that will be punished. A long hop comes down
+the pitch. The Etonian squares his shoulders. His eye, to be sure, is on
+the ball, but in his mind's eye is the boundary; in his ear the first
+burst of applause. Bat meets ball with a smack which echoes from the
+Tennis Court to the stands across the ground. Now watch Scaife! He
+dashes at top speed for the only point where his hands may intercept
+that hard-hit ball. And, by Heaven! he stops it, and flicks it up to the
+wicket-keeper, who whips off the bails.
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Not out!"
+
+"Well fielded; well fielded, sir!"
+
+"A very close squeak," says the Caterpillar. "They won't steal many runs
+from the Demon."
+
+"Sometimes," says Iris Warde, "I really think that he _is_ a demon."
+
+The Caterpillar nods. "You're more than half right, Miss Warde."
+
+Presently, the first wicket falls; then the second soon after. And the
+score is under twenty. The Rev. Septimus is beaming; the Bishop seated
+beside him looks as if he were about to pronounce a benediction; Charles
+Desmond is scintillating with wit and good humour. Visions of a single
+innings victory engross the minds of these three. They are in the front
+row of the pavilion, and they mean to see every ball of the game.
+
+But soon it becomes evident that a determined stand is being made. Runs
+come slowly, but they come; the score creeps up--thirty, forty, fifty.
+Fluff goes on to bowl. On his day Fluff is tricky, but this, apparently,
+is not his day. The runs come more quickly. The Rev. Septimus removes
+his hat, wipes his forehead, and replaces his hat. It is on the back of
+his head, but he is unaware of that. The Bishop appears now as if he
+were reading a new commination--to wit, "Cursed is he that smiteth his
+neighbour; cursed is he that bowleth half volleys." The Minister is
+frowning; things may look black in South Africa, but they're looking
+blacker in St. John's Wood.
+
+One hundred runs for two wickets.
+
+The Eton cheers are becoming exasperating. A few seats away Warde is
+twiddling his thumbs and biting his lips. Old Lord Fawley has slipped
+into the pavilion for a brandy and soda.
+
+At last!
+
+Scaife takes off Fluff and puts on a fast bowler, changing his own place
+in the field to short slip. The ball, a first ball and very fast,
+puzzles the batsman, accustomed to slows. He mistimes it; it grazes the
+edge of his bat, and whizzes off far to the right of Scaife, but the
+Demon has it. Somehow or other, ask of the spirits of the air--not of
+the writer--somehow his wonderful right hand has met and held the ball.
+
+"Well caught, sir; well caught!"
+
+"That boy ought to be knighted on the spot," says Charles Desmond. Then
+the three generously applaud the retiring batsman. He has played a
+brilliant innings, and restored the confidence of all Etonians.
+
+The Eton captain descends the steps; a veteran this, not a dashing
+player, but sure, patient, and full of grit. He asks the umpire to give
+him middle and leg; then he notes the positions of the field.
+
+"Whew-w-w-w!"
+
+"D----n it!" ejaculates Charles Desmond. Bishop and parson regard him
+with gratitude. There are times when an honest oath becomes expedient.
+The Eton captain has cut the first ball into Fluff's hands, and Fluff
+has dropped it! Alastair Kinloch, from the top of the Trent coach,
+screams out, "Jolly well muffed!" The great Minister silently thanks
+Heaven that point is the Duke's son and not his.
+
+And, of course, the Eton captain never gives another chance till he is
+dismissed with half a century to his credit. Meantime five more wickets
+have fallen. Seven down for 191! Eton leaves the field with a score of
+226 against Harrow's 289. Harrow goes in without delay, and one wicket
+is taken for 13 runs before the stumps are drawn. Charles Desmond looks
+at the sky.
+
+"Looks like rain to-night," he says anxiously.
+
+And so ends Friday's play.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The morrow dawned grey, obscured by mist rising from ground soaked by
+two hours' heavy rain. You may be sure that all our friends were early
+at Lord's, and that the pitch was examined by thousands of anxious eyes.
+The Eton fast bowler was seen to smile. Upon a similar wicket had he not
+done the famous hat-trick only three weeks before? The rain, however,
+was over, and soon the sun would drive away the filmy mists. No man
+alive could foretell what condition the pitch would be in after a few
+hours of blazing sunshine. The Rev. Septimus told Charles Desmond that
+he considered the situation to be critical, and, although he had read
+the morning paper, he was not alluding even indirectly to South African
+affairs. Charles Desmond said that, other things being equal, the Hill
+would triumph; but he admitted that other things were very far from
+equal. It looked as if Harrow would have to bat upon a treacherous
+wicket, and Eton on a sound one.
+
+At half-past ten punctually the men were in the field. Scaife issued
+last instructions. "Block the bowling; don't try to score till you see
+what tricks the ground will play. A minute saved now may mean a quarter
+of an hour to us later." Cæsar nodded cheerfully. The fact that the luck
+had changed stimulated every fibre of his being. And he said that he
+felt in his bones that this was going to be a famous match, like that of
+'85--something never to be forgotten.
+
+Charles Desmond spoke few words while his son was batting. It was a
+tradition among the Desmonds that they rose superior to emergency. The
+Minister wondered whether his Harry would rise or fall. The fast bowler
+delivered the first ball. It bumped horribly. The Rev. Septimus
+shuddered and closed his eyes. Cæsar got well over it. The third ball
+was cut for three. The fourth whizzed down--a wide. The fast bowler
+dipped the ball into the sawdust.
+
+"It isn't all jam for him," whispered the Rev. Septimus.
+
+"Well bowled--well bowled!"
+
+Alas! the middle stump was knocked clean out of the ground. Cæsar's
+partner, a steady, careful player, had been bowled by his first ball.
+
+Two wickets for 17.
+
+The crowd were expecting the hero, but Fluff was walking towards the
+wickets, wondering whether he should reach them alive. Never had his
+heart beat as at this moment. Scaife had come up to him as soon as he
+had examined the pitch.
+
+"Fluff, I am putting you in early because you are a fellow I can trust.
+My first and last word is, hit at nothing that isn't wide of the wicket.
+The ground will probably improve fast."
+
+Fluff nodded. A hive of bees seemed to have lodged in his head, and an
+active automatic hammer in his heart; but he didn't dare tell the Demon
+that funk, abject funk, possessed him, body and soul.
+
+The second bowler began his first over. He bowled slows. Desmond played
+the six balls back along the ground. A maiden over.
+
+And then that thick-set, muscular beast, for so Fluff regarded him,
+stared fixedly at Fluff's middle stump. Fluff glanced round. The
+wicket-keeper had a grim smile on his lips, for his billet was no easy
+one. Cosmo Kinloch at short slip looked as if it were a foregone
+conclusion that Fluff would put the ball into his hands. Then Fluff
+faced the bowler. Now for it!
+
+The first ball was half a foot off the wicket, but Fluff let it go by.
+The second came true enough. Fluff blocked it. The third flew past
+Fluff's leg, but he just snicked it. Desmond started to run, and then
+stopped, holding up his hand. Cheers rippled round the ring for the
+first hit to the boundary. That was a bit of sheer luck, Fluff
+reflected.
+
+After this both boys played steadily for some ten minutes. Then, very
+slowly, Cæsar began to score. He had made about fifteen when he drove a
+ball hard to the on, Fluff backing up. Desmond, watching the travelling
+ball, called to him to run. It seemed to Desmond almost certain that the
+ball would go to the boundary. Too late he realized that it had been
+magnificently fielded. Desmond strained every nerve, but his bat had not
+reached the crease when the bails flew to right and left.
+
+Out! And run out!
+
+Three wickets for 41!
+
+A quarter of an hour later Fluff was bowled with a yorker. He had made
+eleven runs, and kept up his wicket during a crisis. Harrow cheered him
+loudly.
+
+And then came the terrible moment of the morning. Scaife went in when
+Fluff's wicket fell. The ground had improved, but it was still
+treacherous. The fast bowler sent down a straight one. It shot under
+Scaife's bat and spread-eagled his stumps.
+
+The wicket-keeper knows what the Harrow captain said, but it does not
+bear repeating. Every eye was on his scowling, furious face as he
+returned to the pavilion; and the Rev. Septimus scowled also, because he
+had always maintained that any Harrovian could accept defeat like a
+gentleman. Upon the other side of the ground the Caterpillar was saying
+to his father. "I always said he was hairy at the heel."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was admitted afterwards that the Duffer's performance was the one
+really bright spot in Harrow's second innings. Being a bowler, he went
+in last but one. It happened that Fluff's brother was in possession of
+the ball. It will never be known why the Duffer chose to treat Cosmo
+Kinloch's balk with utter scorn and contempt. The Duffer was tall,
+strong, and a terrific slogger. Nobody expected him to make a run, but
+he made twenty in one over--all boundary hits. When he left the wicket
+he had added thirty-eight to the score, and wouldn't have changed places
+with an emperor. The Rev. Septimus followed him into the room where the
+players change.
+
+"My dear boy," he said, "I've never been able to give you a gold watch,
+but you must take mine; here it is, and--and God bless you!"
+
+But the Duffer swore stoutly that he preferred his own Waterbury.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Eton went in to make 211 runs in four hours, upon a wicket almost as
+sound as it had been upon the Friday. Scaife put the Duffer on to bowl.
+The Demon had belief in luck.
+
+"It's your day, Duffer," he said. "Pitch 'em up."
+
+The Duffer, to his sire's exuberant satisfaction, "pitched 'em up" so
+successfully that he took four wickets for 33. Four out of five! The
+other bowlers, however, being not so successful, Eton accumulated a
+hundred runs. The captains had agreed to draw stumps at 7.30. To win,
+therefore, the Plain must make another hundred in two hours; and three
+of their crack batsmen were out.
+
+After tea an amazing change took place in the temper of the spectators.
+Conviction seized them that the finish was likely to be close and
+thrilling; that the one thing worth undivided attention was taking place
+in the middle of the ground. As the minutes passed, a curious silence
+fell upon the crowd, broken only by the cheers of the rival schools. The
+boys, old and young alike, were watching every ball, every stroke. The
+Eton captain was still in, playing steadily, not brilliantly; the Harrow
+bowling was getting slack.
+
+In the pavilion, the Rev. Septimus, Warde, and Charles Desmond were
+sitting together. Not far from them was Scaife's father, a big, burly
+man with a square head and heavy, strongly-marked features. He had never
+been a cricketer, but this game gripped him. He sat next to a
+world-famous financier of the great house of Neuchatel, whose sons had
+been sent to the Hill. Run after run, run after run was added to the
+score. Scaife's father turned to Neuchatel.
+
+"I'd write a cheque for ten thousand pounds," he said, "if we could
+win."
+
+Lionel Neuchatel nodded. "Yes," he muttered; "I have not felt so excited
+since Sir Bevis won the Derby."
+
+In the deep field Desmond was standing, miserable because he had nothing
+to do. No balls came his way; for the Eton captain had made up his mind
+to win this match with singles and twos. Very carefully he placed his
+balls between the fielders; very carefully his partner followed his
+chief's example. No stealing of runs, no scoring off straight balls, no
+gallery play--till victory was assured.
+
+Poor Lord Fawley retired at this point into an inner room, pulling
+savagely at his white beard. Old Lyburn, who had been sitting beside
+him, gurgling and gasping, staggered after him. The Rev. Septimus kept
+wiping his forehead.
+
+"I can't stand this much longer," said Warde, in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"Well hit, sir! Well hit!"
+
+The Eton cheering became frantic. After nearly an hour's pawky,
+uninteresting play, the Eton captain suddenly changed his tactics. His
+"eye" was in; now or never let him score. A half-volley came down from
+the pavilion end--a half-volley and off the wicket. The Etonian put all
+the strength and power he had suppressed so manfully into a tremendous
+swipe, and hit the ball clean over the ropes.
+
+"Do you want to double that bet?" said Strathpeffer to the Caterpillar.
+They were standing on the top of the Trent coach.
+
+"No, thanks."
+
+"Give you two to one, Egerton?"
+
+"Done--in fivers."
+
+The unhappy bowler sent down another half-volley. Once more the Etonian
+smote, and smote hard; but this ball was not quite the same as the
+first, although it appeared identical. The ball soared up and up. Would
+it fall over the ropes? Thousands of eyes watched its flight. Desmond
+started to run. Golconda to a sixpence on the fall! It is falling,
+falling, falling.
+
+"He'll never get there in time," says Charles Desmond.
+
+"Yes he will," Warde answers savagely.
+
+"He has!" screamed the Rev. Septimus. "He--_has_!"
+
+Pandemonium broke loose. Grey-headed men threw their hats into the air;
+M.P.'s danced; lovely women shrieked; every Harrovian on the ground
+howled. For Cæsar held the ball fast in his lean, brown hands.
+
+The Eton captain walks slowly towards the pavilion. He had to pass Cæsar
+on his way, and passing him he pauses.
+
+"That was a glorious catch," he says, with the smile of a gallant
+gentleman.
+
+And as Harrow, as cordially as Eton, cheers the retiring chieftain, the
+Caterpillar whispers to Mrs. Verney--
+
+"Did you see that? Did you see him stop to congratulate Cæsar?"
+
+"Yes," says Mrs. Verney.
+
+"I hope Scaife saw it too," the Caterpillar replies coolly. "That Eton
+captain is cut out of whole cloth; no shoddy there, by Jove!"
+
+And Desmond. How does Desmond feel? It is futile to ask him, because he
+could not tell you, if he tried. But we can answer the question. If the
+country that he wishes to serve crowns him with all the honours bestowed
+upon a favoured son, never, _never_ will Cæsar Desmond know again a
+moment of such exquisite, unadulterated joy as this.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Six wickets down and 39 runs to get in less than half an hour!
+
+Every ball now, every stroke, is a matter for cheers, derisive or
+otherwise. The Rev. Septimus need not prate of golden days gone by. Boys
+at heart never change. And the atmosphere is so charged with electricity
+that a spark sets the firmament ablaze.
+
+_Seven wickets for 192._
+
+_Eight wickets for 197._
+
+Signs of demoralization show themselves on both sides. The bowling has
+become deplorably feeble, the batting even more so. Four more singles
+are recorded. Only ten runs remain to be made, with two wickets to fall.
+
+And twelve minutes to play!
+
+Scaife puts on the Duffer again. The lips of the Rev. Sep are seen to
+move inaudibly. Is he praying, or cursing, because three singles are
+scored off his son's first three balls?
+
+"Well bowled--well bowled!"
+
+A ball of fair length, easy enough to play under all ordinary
+circumstances, but a "teaser" when tremendous issues are at stake, has
+defeated one of the Etonians. The last man runs towards the pitch
+through a perfect hurricane of howls. Warde rises.
+
+"I can't stand it," he says, and his voice shakes oddly. "You fellows
+will find me behind the Pavvy after the match."
+
+"I'd go with you," says the Rev. Septimus, in a choked tone, "but if I
+tried to walk I should tumble down."
+
+Charles Desmond says nothing. But, pray note the expression so
+faithfully recorded in _Punch_--the compressed lips, the stern, frowning
+brows, the protruded jaw. The famous debater sees all fights to a
+finish, and fights himself till he drops.
+
+_Seven runs to make, one wicket to fall, and five minutes to play!!!_
+
+Evidently the last man in has received strenuous instructions from his
+chief. The bowling has degenerated into that of anæmic girls--and two
+whacks to the boundary mean--Victory. The new-comer is the square,
+thick-set fast bowler, the worst bat in the Eleven, but a fellow of
+determination, a slogger and a run-getter against village teams.
+
+He obeys instructions to the letter. The Duffer's fifth ball goes to the
+boundary.
+
+Three runs to make and two and a half minutes to play!
+
+The Duffer sends down the last ball. The Rev. Septimus covers his eyes.
+O wretched Duffer! O thou whose knees are as wax, and whose arms are as
+chop-sticks in the hands of a Griffin! O egregious Duff! O degenerate
+son of a noble sire, dost thou dare at such a moment as this to attack
+thine enemy with a--long hop?
+
+The square, thick-set bowler shows his teeth as the ball pitches short.
+Then he smites and runs. Runs, because he has smitten so hard that no
+hand, surely, can stop the whirling sphere. Runs--ay--and so does the
+Demon at cover point. This is the Demon's amazing conjuring-trick--what
+else can you call it? And he has practised it so often, that he reckons
+failure to be almost impossible. To those watching he seems to spring
+like a tiger at the ball. By Heaven! he has stopped it--he's snapped it
+up! But if he despatches it to the wicket-keeper, it will arrive too
+late. The other Etonian is already within a couple of yards of the
+crease. Scaife does not hesitate. He aims at the bowler's wicket towards
+which the burly one is running as fast as legs a thought too short can
+carry him.
+
+He aims and shies--instantaneously. He shatters the wicket.
+
+"How's that?"
+
+The appeal comes from every part of the ground.
+
+And then, clearly and unmistakably, the umpire's fiat is spoken--
+
+"Out!"
+
+The Rev. Sep rises and rushes off, upsetting chairs, treading on toes,
+bent only upon being the first to tell Warde that Harrow has won.
+
+"_Io! Io! Io!_"
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[36] The blue of the Harrow colours.
+
+[37] Lamper, _i.e._ Lamp-post.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+_"If I perish, I perish"_
+
+    "Since we deserved the name of friends,
+      And thine effect so lives in me,
+      A part of mine may live in thee
+    And move thee on to noble ends."
+
+
+The cheering at Bill upon the following Tuesday must be recorded,
+inasmuch as it has, indirectly, bearing upon our story. It will be
+guessed that the enthusiasm, the uproar, the tumultuous excitement were
+even greater than on a similar occasion some fifteen years before. But,
+to his amazement, Desmond, not Scaife, was made the particular hero of
+the hour. Scaife's display of temper festered in the hearts of boys who
+can forgive anything sooner than low breeding. The Hill had seen the
+Etonian stop to speak his cheery word of congratulation to Cæsar, and
+not the Caterpillar alone, but urchins of thirteen had made comparisons.
+
+Scaife, however, could not complain of his reception upon that memorable
+Tuesday afternoon; the cheering must have been heard a mile away. But
+Desmond was acclaimed differently. The cheers were no louder--that was
+impossible--but afterwards, when the excitement had simmered down, Cæsar
+became the object of a special demonstration by the Monitors and Sixth
+Form. Nearly every boy of note in the Upper School insisted upon shaking
+his hand or patting him on the back. Scaife came up with the others, but
+he left the Yard almost immediately and retired to his room. He had won
+the great match; Desmond had saved it; and the School apprehended the
+subtle difference. More, Scaife knew that John had gone up to Desmond
+with outstretched hands after the match at Lord's. He could hear John's
+eager voice, see the flame of admiration in his eyes, as he said, "Oh,
+Cæsar, I am glad it was you who made that catch!" And with those
+generous words, with that warm clasp of the hand, Scaife had seen the
+barrier which he had built between the friends dissolve like ice in the
+dog-days.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The attention of the Manor was now fixed upon the house matches. It
+seemed probable that with four members of the School Eleven in the team,
+the ancient house must prove invincible. But to John's surprise, as this
+delightful probability ripened into conviction, Warde betrayed unwonted
+anxiety and even irritability. Miss Iris confided to Desmond, who paid
+her much court, that she couldn't imagine what was the matter with papa.
+And mamma, it transpired (from the same source), really feared that the
+strain at Lord's had been too much, that her indefatigable husband was
+about to break down. Finally, John made up his mind to ask a question.
+He was second in command; he had a right to ask the chief if anything
+were seriously amiss. Accordingly, he waited upon Warde after prayers.
+
+But when he put his question, and expressed, modestly enough, his
+anxiety and desire to help if he could, Warde bit his lips. Then he
+burst out violently--
+
+"I am miserable, Verney."
+
+John said nothing. His tutor rose and began to pace up and down the
+study; then, halting, facing John, he spoke quickly, with restless
+gestures indicating volcanic disturbance.
+
+"I'm between the devil and the deep sea," he said, "as many a better man
+has been before me. I thought I'd wiped out the grosser evils in the
+Manor, but I haven't--I haven't. Do you know that a fellow in this
+house, perhaps two of 'em, but one at any rate, is getting out at night
+and going up to town? You needn't answer, Verney. If you do know it, you
+are powerless to prevent it, or it wouldn't occur."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+"I can only guess who it is. I am not certain. And to make certain, I
+must play the spy, creep and crawl, do what I loathe to do--suspect the
+innocent together with the guilty. It's almost breaking my heart."
+
+"I can understand that, sir, after what you have done for us."
+
+Warde smiled grimly. "I don't think you do quite understand," he said
+slowly. "At this moment I am tempted, tempted as I never have been
+tempted, to let things slide, to shut both eyes and ears, till this term
+is over. Next term"--he laughed harshly--"I shan't stand in such an
+awkward place. The deep sea will always be near me, but the devil--the
+devil will be elsewhere."
+
+John nodded. His serious face expressed neither approval nor disapproval
+to the man keenly watching it. Afterwards Warde remembered this
+impassivity.
+
+"If I do not act"--Warde's voice trembled--"I am damned as a traitor in
+my own eyes."
+
+John had never doubted that his house-master would act. As for creeping
+and crawling, can peaks be scaled without creeping and crawling?
+Never----
+
+"You are not to speak a word of warning," Warde continued vehemently.
+"If you know what I don't know yet, still you cannot speak to me,
+because the sinner in this case is a Sixth-Form boy. You cannot speak to
+me; and you will not speak to him, on your honour?"
+
+There was interrogation in the last sentence. John replied almost
+inaudibly--
+
+"I shall not speak--on my honour!"
+
+"It is hard, hard indeed, that I should have to foul my own nest, but it
+must be so. Good night."
+
+John went back to his room, calm without, terribly agitated within. What
+ruthless spirit had driven him to Warde's study? Yes; at last,
+inexorably, discovery, disgrace, the ineffaceable brand of expulsion,
+impended over the head of his enemy, to whom he was pledged to utter no
+word of warning. Like Warde, he did not know absolutely, but he guessed
+that Scaife had spent another riotous night in town since the match. He
+had read it in the eyes glittering with excitement, in the derisive
+smile of conscious power, in the magnetic audacity of Scaife's glance.
+And then he remembered Lawrence's parting words--
+
+"It will be a fight to a finish, and, mark me, Warde will win!"
+
+Two wretched days and nights passed. More than once John spurred himself
+to the point of going to Warde and saying, "Think what you like of me, I
+am going to warn the boy I loathe that you are at his heels." Still,
+always at the last moment he did not go. Some power seemed to restrain
+him. But when he tried to analyse his feelings, he confessed himself
+muddled. He had obtained, nay, invited, Warde's confidence; and he dared
+not abuse it. It was a time of anguish. He was unable to concentrate his
+mind upon work or play, deprived of sleep, haunted by the conviction
+that if Desmond knew all, he would turn from him for ever. Then, at the
+most difficult moment of his life, the way of escape was opened.
+
+Since the match, John and Cæsar had resumed the former unrestrained and
+continual intimacy and intercourse. John was in and out of Desmond's
+room, Desmond was in and out of John's room, at all hours. They "found"
+together, of course, but it is not, fortunately, at meals that boys or
+men discuss the things nearest to their hearts. But at night, just
+before lights were turned out, or just after, when an Olympian is
+privileged to work a little longer by the light of the useful "tolly,"
+Cæsar and Jonathan would talk freely of past, present, and future. It
+was during these much-valued minutes, or on Sunday afternoons, that John
+would read to his friend the essays or verses which always fired
+Desmond's admiration and enthusiasm. To John's intellectual activities
+Cæsar played, so to speak, gallery; even as John upon many an afternoon
+had sat stewing in the covered racquet-court, applauding Desmond's
+service into the corner, or his hot returns just above the line. At
+home, in the holidays, the boys had always met upon the same plane. Of
+the two, John was the better rider and shot. Both were members of the
+Philathletic Club[38] of Harrow, and the fact that Desmond was
+incomparably his superior as an athlete was counterbalanced by John's
+fine intellectual attainments. If John, at times, wished that he could
+cut behind the wicket in Cæsar's faultless style, Desmond, on the other
+hand, spoke enviously of the Medal, or the Essay, or some other of
+John's successes. John spoke often and well in the Debating Society,
+getting up his subjects with intelligence and care. So it was
+give-and-take between them, and this adjusted the balance of their
+friendship, and without this no friendship can be pronounced perfect.
+
+None the less, free and delightful as this resumption of the old
+intimacy had been, John knew Cæsar too well not to perceive that between
+them lay an unmentionable five weeks, during which something had
+occurred. From signs only too well interpreted before, John guessed that
+Cæsar was once more in debt to the Demon. And finally, Cæsar confessed
+that he had been betting, that he had won, following Scaife's advice,
+and then had lost. The loss was greater than the gain, and the
+difference, some five and twenty pounds, had been sent to Scaife's
+bookmaker by Scaife. As before, Scaife ridiculed the possibility of such
+a debt causing his pal any uneasiness, but it chafed Desmond consumedly.
+
+Upon the Saturday of the semi-final house match, in which the Manor had
+won a great victory by an innings and twenty-three runs, John went to
+Desmond's room after prayers. He noticed at once that his friend was
+unusually excited. John, however, attributed this to Cæsar's big score.
+Success always inflamed Cæsar, just as it seemed to tranquillize John.
+John began to talk, but he noticed that Cæsar was abstracted, answered
+in monosyllables, and twice looked at his watch.
+
+"Have you an appointment, Cæsar?"
+
+"No. What were you saying, Jonathan?"
+
+"You look rather queer to-night."
+
+"Do I?" He laughed nervously.
+
+"You're not bothering over that debt?"
+
+This time Cæsar laughed naturally.
+
+"Rather not. Why, that debt----" He stopped.
+
+"Is it paid?" said John.
+
+"It will be. Don't worry!"
+
+But John looked worried. He perceived that Cæsar's finely-formed hands
+were trembling, whenever they were still.
+
+"Harry," said he--he never called Desmond Harry except when they were at
+home--"Harry, what's wrong?"
+
+"Why, nothing--nothing, that is, which amounts to anything."
+
+"Harry, you are the worst liar in England. Something is wrong. Can't you
+tell me? You must. I'm hanged if I leave you till you do tell me."
+
+He looked steadily at Desmond. In his clear grey eyes were tiny, dancing
+flecks of golden brown, which Desmond had seen once or twice
+before,--which came whenever John was profoundly moved. The dancing
+flecks transformed themselves in Desmond's fancy into sprites, the airy
+creatures of John's will, imposing John's wishes and commands.
+
+"Scaife said I might tell you, if I liked."
+
+"Scaife?" John drew in his breath. "Then Scaife wanted you to tell me; I
+am sure of that." He felt his way by the dim light of smouldering
+suspicion. If Scaife wanted John to know anything, it was because such
+knowledge must prove pain, not pleasure. John did not say this. Then,
+very abruptly, Desmond continued. "You swear that what I'm about to tell
+you will be regarded as sacred?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is a matter which concerns Scaife and me, not you. You won't
+interfere?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I'm going to London."
+
+"_What?_"
+
+"Don't look at me like that, you silly old ass! It's not--not what you
+think," he laughed nervously. "I have bet Scaife twenty-five pounds, the
+amount of my debt in fact, that the bill-of-fare of to-night's supper at
+the Carlton Hotel will be handed to him after Chapel to-morrow morning.
+I bike up to town, and bike back. If I don't go this Saturday, I have
+one more chance before the term is over. That's all."
+
+"That's all," repeated John, stupefied.
+
+"If you can show me an easier way to make a 'pony,' I'll be obliged to
+you."
+
+"Scaife egged you on to this piece of folly?"
+
+"No, he didn't."
+
+"You may as well make a clean breast of it."
+
+Bit by bit John extracted the facts. Behind them, of course, stood
+Scaife, loving evil for evil's sake, planting evil, gleaning evil,
+deliberately setting about the devil's work. Desmond, it appeared, had
+persuaded Scaife not to go to town till the Lord's match was over. Since
+the match Scaife had spent two nights in London, whetting an inordinate
+appetite for forbidden fruit; exciting in Desmond also, not an appetite
+for the fruit itself, but for the mad excitement of a perilous
+adventure. Then, when the thoughtless "I'd like a lark of that sort" had
+been spoken, came the derisive answer, "You haven't the nerve for it."
+And then again the subtle leading of an ardent and self-willed nature
+into the morass, Scaife pretending to dissuade a friend, entreating him
+to consider the risk, urging him to go to bed, as if he were a
+headstrong child. And finally Desmond's challenge, "Bet you I have the
+nerve," and its acceptance, protestingly, by the other, and permission
+given that John should be told.
+
+"And it's to-night?"
+
+"I mean to have that bill-of-fare. Do you think I'd back out now?"
+
+In his mind's eye, our poor John was gazing down a long lane with no
+turning at the end of it. Could he make his friend believe that Scaife
+had brought this thing to pass from no other motive than wishing to hurt
+mortally an enemy by the hand of a friend? No, never would such an
+ingenuous youth as Cæsar accept, or even listen to, such an abominable
+explanation.
+
+"Good night," said John.
+
+"I see you're rather sick with me, Jonathan. Remember, you made me
+speak. To-morrow morning we'll have a good laugh over it. We'll walk to
+the Haunted House, and I'll tell my tale. I shall be on my way in less
+than an hour."
+
+John went back to his room. The necessity for silence and thought had
+become imperative. What could he do? It was certain that Warde was
+waiting and watching. He had inexhaustible patience. Desmond, not the
+Demon, would be caught and expelled. John returned to Desmond's room.
+
+"You've told me so much," he said; "tell me a little more. How are you
+going to do it?"
+
+"To do what?"
+
+"Get out of the house? Get a bike--and all that?"
+
+"Easy. Lovell went out that way, and others. You jump from the sill of
+the first landing window into the horse-chestnut. One must be able to
+jump, of course; but I can jump. Then you shin down the tree, nip
+through the shrubbery, and over the locked wicket-gate."
+
+"Yes," John said slowly, "over the gate."
+
+"I borrowed a bike from one of the Cycle Corps, and have ridden it in
+the garden, in a bush to the right of the gate."
+
+John nodded.
+
+"It's moonlight after ten; I shall enjoy the ride immensely."
+
+"You will try to get back into the house at night?"
+
+"Too dangerous. Lovell did it; but the Demon marches in boldly just
+before Chapel. He may have slipped out on half a dozen errands as soon
+as the door is opened in the morning. I shall sleep under a stack. It's
+a lovely night. Now, old Jonathan, I hope you're satisfied that I'm not
+either the fool or the sinner you took me to be."
+
+"Look here, Harry. If I appeal to you in the name of our friendship; if
+I ask you for my sake and for my mother's sake not to do this thing----"
+
+"Jonathan, I must go. Don't make it harder than it is."
+
+"Then it _is_ hard?"
+
+"I won't whine about that. I courted this adventure, and, by Jove! I'm
+going to see it through. The odds are a hundred to one against my being
+nailed."
+
+"All right; I'll say no more. Good night."
+
+"Good night, old Jonathan."
+
+John went back to his room, waited three minutes, and then, in despair,
+made up his mind to seek Scaife. He felt certain that the Demon's
+extraordinary luck was about to stand between him and expulsion. Desmond
+would be caught red-handed, but not he. John ground his teeth with rage
+at the thought. He found Scaife alone--at work on cricketing accounts.
+
+"Hullo, Verney!"
+
+"Cæsar tells me that he is going up to London to-night."
+
+"Oh, he told you that, did he?"
+
+"Yes; you wished him to tell me?"
+
+"Perhaps." Scaife laughed louder.
+
+"You want to prove to me," said John slowly, "that you are the
+stronger?"
+
+"Perhaps." Scaife laughed.
+
+"Well, if I surrender, if I admit that you are the stronger, that you
+have defeated me, won't that be enough?"
+
+"Eh? I don't quite take you."
+
+"You are the stronger." John's voice was very miserable. "I have tried
+to dissuade him, as you knew I should try, and I have failed. Isn't that
+enough? You have your triumph. But now be generous. Turn round and use
+your strength the other way. Make him give up this folly. You don't want
+to see your own pal--sacked?"
+
+"Precious little chance of that!"
+
+"There is the chance."
+
+Scaife hesitated. Did some worthier impulse stir within him? Who can
+tell? His keen eye softened, and then hardened again.
+
+"No," he said quickly. "If I agree to what you propose, it is, after
+all, you who triumph, not I. And I doubt if I could stop him now, even
+if I tried." He laughed again, for the third time, savagely. "You are
+hoist with your own petard, Verney. You wanted to see me sacked; and now
+that there is a chance in a thousand that Cæsar will be sacked, you
+squirm. I swore to get my knife into you, and, by God, I've done it."
+
+John went out, very pale. He passed through into the private side, and
+tapped at Warde's study door. Mrs. Warde's voice bade him enter. She
+looked at John's face. Afterwards she testified that he looked
+singularly cool and self-possessed.
+
+"I wish to see Mr. Warde," he said.
+
+"He's dining at the Head Master's."
+
+"Will he be in soon?"
+
+"I--er--don't know. Perhaps not. I wouldn't wait for him, Verney, if I
+were you."
+
+"Thank you," said John. "Good night."
+
+He went back to his room. In Mrs. Warde's eyes he had read--what?
+Excitement? Apprehension? Suddenly, conviction came to him that this
+dinner at the Head Master's was a blind. Why, during that very
+afternoon, Warde had mentioned casually to Scaife that he was dining
+out. He had deliberately informed the Demon that the coast was clear.
+And at this moment, probably, Warde lay concealed near the chestnut
+tree, waiting, watching, about to pounce upon the--wrong man!
+
+The temptation to cry "_Cave!_" tore at his vitals. Till this moment the
+tyranny of honour had never oppressed John. Having resolved to tell
+Warde that he meant to break his word, it may seem inexplicable that he
+shouldn't go a step further and break his word without warning the
+house-master. Upon such nice points of conscience hang issues of
+world-wide importance. To John, at any rate, the difference between the
+two paths out of a tangled wood was greater than it might appear to some
+of us. Warde had trusted him implicitly: could he bring himself to
+violate Warde's confidence without giving the man notice?
+
+However, what he might have done under pressure must remain a matter of
+surmise. At this moment a third path became visible. And down it John
+rushed, without consideration as to where it might lead. The one thing
+plain at this crisis was the certainty that he had discovered a plan of
+action which would save two things he valued supremely--his friendship
+for Cæsar and his word of honour.
+
+Here we are to liberty to speculate what John would have done had he
+considered dispassionately the consequences of an action to be
+accomplished at once or not at all. But he had not time to consider
+anything except the fact that action would put to rout some very
+tormenting thoughts.
+
+He crumpled his bed, disarranged his room, and put on a cap and a thin
+overcoat, as all lights in the boys' side of the Manor were
+extinguished. Then he stole out of his room, and crept to the window at
+the end of the passage. A moment later, he had squeezed through it, and
+was standing upon the sill outside, gazing fearfully at the void
+beneath, and the distance between the sill and the branch in front of
+him. Afterwards, he confessed that this moment was the most difficult.
+He was an active boy, but he had never jumped such a chasm. If he
+missed the bough----
+
+To hesitate meant shameful retreat. John felt the sweat break upon him;
+craven fear clutched his heart-strings, and set them a-jangling.
+
+He jumped.
+
+The ease with which he caught the branch was such a physical relief that
+he almost forgot his errand. He slid quietly down the tree, pausing as
+he reached the bottom of it. The moon was just rising above the horizon,
+but under the trees the darkness was Stygian. John pushed quietly
+through the shrubberies, treading as lightly as possible. Every moment
+he expected to see the flash of a lantern, to hear Warde's voice, to
+feel an arresting hand upon the shoulder. It was quite impossible to
+guess with any reasonable accuracy what part of the garden Warde had
+selected for a hiding-place. Very soon he reached the edge of the
+shrubbery, and gazed keenly into the moonlit, park-like meadow below
+him. Peer as he might, he could see no trace of Warde. A dozen trees
+might conceal him. Perhaps with the omniscience of the house-master, he
+had divined that the wicket-gate was the ultimate place of egress.
+Perhaps the wicket had been used for a similar purpose when Warde
+himself was a boy at the Manor. It was vital to John's plan that Warde
+should see him without recognizing him, and give chase. The chase would
+end in capture at some point as reasonably far from the Manor as
+possible. Warde might ask for explanations, but none would be
+forthcoming till the morrow. Meantime, the coast would be clear for
+Desmond. John, in fine, was playing the part of a pilot-engine.
+
+But where was Warde?
+
+The question answered itself within a minute, and after a fashion
+absolutely unforeseen. As John was crossing from the shrubbery to the
+wicket he looked back. To his horror, he saw lights in the boys' side,
+light in the window of Scaife's room. Instantly John divined what had
+come to pass, and cursed himself for a fool. Warde, from some coign of
+vantage, had seen a boy leave his house. Why should he try to arrest the
+boy? why should he risk the humiliation of running after him, and,
+perhaps, failing to capture him? No, no; men forty were not likely to
+work in that boyish fashion. Warde had adopted an infinitely better
+plan. Assured that a boy had left the house, he had nothing to do but
+walk round the rooms and find out which one was absent. He had begun
+with Scaife. Next to Scaife was the room belonging to the Head of the
+House; then came John's room, and then Cæsar's. Long before Warde
+reached Cæsar's room, Cæsar would have heard him. Cæsar, at any rate,
+was saved. John crept back under cover of the shrubberies. He saw the
+light flicker out of Scaife's window, and shine more steadily in the
+next room. The window of this room was open, and John could hear the
+voice of Warde and the Head of the House. John waited. And then the
+light shone in Desmond's room. John crouched against the wall,
+trembling. If Cæsar had not heard the voices, if he were fully dressed,
+if---- Suddenly he caught Warde's reassuring words: "Ah, Desmond, sorry
+to disturb you. Good night."
+
+John waited. Very soon Scaife would come to Desmond's room. Ah! Just so.
+The night was so still that he could hear quite plainly the boys'
+muffled voices.
+
+"What's up?"
+
+"Warde is going his rounds. Perhaps he smells a rat."
+
+And then whispers! John strained his ears. Only a word or two more
+reached him. "Verney---- D----d interfering sneak! Let's see!" It was
+Scaife who was speaking.
+
+John heard his own door opened and shut. Scaife, then, had discovered
+his absence, and naturally leaped to the conclusion that he had warned
+Warde. Let him think so! The boys were still whispering together. "Not
+to-night," Scaife said decisively. "No, no," Desmond replied.
+
+John wondered what remained to be done. Warde, of course, would satisfy
+himself that no boy in his house was missing except John, before he
+pronounced him the absentee. Poor Warde! This would be a hard knock for
+him. John's thoughts were jostling each other freely, when he recalled
+Desmond's words: "I have one more chance before the term is over." He
+had wished to clear the way for his friend, not to block it. Then he
+remembered the terms of the bet, and laughed.
+
+He ran back to the wicket, found the bicycle, lit the lamp, and hoisted
+the machine over the gate. Then he laughed again. After all, this
+escaping from bondage, this midnight adventure beneath the impending
+sword of expulsion, thrilled him to the marrow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When John returned on Sunday to the Manor, shortly after the doors were
+unlocked in the morning, he found Dumbleton awaiting him. Dumber's face
+expressed such amazement and consternation that John nearly laughed in
+spite of himself.
+
+"It's all hup, sir," said the butler. Only in moments of intense
+excitement did Dumber misplace or leave out the aspirate. "You're to
+come with me at once to Mr. Warde's study."
+
+John followed the butler into the familiar room. Warde was not down yet,
+but evidently Dumber had instructions not to leave the prisoner. John
+stared at the writing-desk. Then he turned to Dumbleton, and said
+carelessly--
+
+"This means the sack, eh, Dumber?"
+
+"Yes, sir. 'Ow could you do it, sir? Such a well-be'aved gentleman,
+too!"
+
+"Thank you, Dumber." John took an envelope from the desk, and wrote
+Scaife's name upon it.
+
+"Dumber, please give Mr. Scaife this--with my compliments. It is, as you
+see, a bill of fare."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+John placed the card into the envelope and handed both to Dumbleton.
+
+"With my compliments!"
+
+"Certainly, sir."
+
+"And _after_ Chapel."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+A moment later Warde came in. Dumbleton went out immediately with a
+sorrowful, backward glance at John. The good fellow looked terribly
+bewildered. For John's face, John's deportment, had amazed him. John was
+quite unaware of it, but he looked astonishingly well. Excitement had
+flushed his cheek and lent a sparkle to his grey eyes. He had enjoyed
+his ride to town and back; he had slept soundly under the lee of a
+haystack; and he had washed his face and hands in the horse-trough at
+the foot of Sudbury Hill. And the certainty that Desmond was safe, that
+in the end he, John, had triumphed over Scaife, filled his soul with
+joy. Warde, on the other hand, looked wretched; he had passed a
+sleepless night; he was pale, haggard, gaunt.
+
+"What have you to say, Verney?"
+
+"Nothing, sir."
+
+"Nothing." Warde clenched his hands, and burst into speech, letting all
+that he had suffered and suppressed escape in tumultuous words and
+gestures. "Nothing. You dare to stand there and say--nothing. That you
+should have done this thing! Why, it's incredible! And I who trusted
+you. And you listened to me with a face like brass, laughing in your
+sleeve, no doubt, at the fool who betrayed himself. And you came here,
+so my wife tells me, to see if I was out of the way, if the coast was
+clear. And you were cool as a cucumber. Oh, you hypocrite, you damnable
+hypocrite! I have to see you now, but never again will I look willingly
+upon your face, never! Well, this wretched business must be ended. You
+got out of my house last night. You heard I was dining with the Head
+Master. I returned early, and I saw you jump from the passage window.
+You don't deny that you went up to London, I suppose?"
+
+"No, sir; I don't deny it."
+
+At the moment John, quite unconsciously, looked as if he were glorying
+in what he had done. Warde could have struck his clean, clear face,
+unblushingly meeting his furious glance. In disgust, he turned his back
+and walked to the window. John felt rather than saw that his tutor was
+profoundly moved. When he turned, two tears were trickling down his
+cheeks. The sight of them nearly undid John. When Warde spoke again, his
+voice was choked by his emotion.
+
+"Verney," he said, "I spoke just now in an unrestrained manner, because
+you--you"--his voice trembled--"have shaken my faith in all I hold most
+dear. I say to you--I say to you that I believed in you as I believe in
+my wife. Even now I feel that somehow there is a mistake--that you are
+not what you confess yourself to be--a brazen-faced humbug. You have
+worked as I have worked for this House, and in one moment you undo that
+work. Have you paused to think, what effect this will have upon the
+others?"
+
+"Not yet, sir."
+
+John looked respectfully sympathetic. Poor Warde! This was rough indeed
+upon him.
+
+Suddenly the door was flung open, and Desmond burst into the room, with
+a complete disregard of the customary proprieties, and rushed up to
+Warde.
+
+"Sir," he said vehemently, "Verney did this to save--_me_!"
+
+Warde saw the slow smile break upon John's face. And, seeing it, he came
+as near hysterical laughter as a man of his character and temperament
+can come. He perceived that John, for some amazing reason, had played
+the scape-goat; that, in fact, he was innocent--not a humbug, not a
+hypocrite, not a brazen-faced sinner. And the relief was so stupendous
+that the tutor flung himself back into a chair, gasping. Desmond spoke
+quietly.
+
+"I was going to town, sir. For the first time, I swear. And only to win
+a bet, and for the excitement of jumping out of a window. John tried to
+dissuade me. When he exhausted every argument, he went himself."
+
+"The Lord be praised!" said Warde. He had divined everything; but he let
+Desmond tell the story in detail. Scaife's name was left out of the
+narrative.
+
+Then Warde said slowly, "I shall not refer this business to the Head
+Master; I shall deal with it myself. For your own sake, Desmond, for the
+sake of your father, and, above all else, for the sake of this House, I
+shall do no more than ask you to promise that, for the rest of your time
+at Harrow, you will endeavour to atone for what has been."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All boys worth their salt are creatures of reserves; let us respect
+them. It is easy to surmise what passed between the friends--the
+gratitude, the self-reproach, the humiliation on one side; the sympathy,
+the encouragement and shy, restrained affection on the other. A
+bitter-sweet moment for John this, revealing, without disguise, the
+weakness of Desmond's character, but illuminating the triumph over
+Scaife, the all-powerful. John had been inhuman if this knowledge had
+not been as spikenard to him.
+
+Chapel over, the boys came pouring back into the house. In a minute the
+fags would be hurrying up with the tea and the jam-pots, asking for
+orders; in a minute Scaife would rush in with questions hot upon his
+lips. John chuckled to himself as he heard Scaife's step.
+
+"Hullo, Cæsar! Why did you cut Chapel? And----"
+
+John saw that the Carlton supper-card was in his hand. He chuckled
+again.
+
+"Dumber has just given me--_this_. Did you go, after all?" he asked
+Cæsar. They had not met since Warde's visit of the night before.
+
+"I didn't go," said Cæsar.
+
+"Dumber gave it to me, with Verney's compliments."
+
+"You've lost your bet," said John.
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Jonathan went to town instead of me," said Desmond. "We thought he was
+with Warde--he wasn't. This morning, early, I found out that he hadn't
+slept in his bed. I saw him come back, and I saw Dumber waiting for him.
+When Dumber came out of Warde's room, he told me that Jonathan had been
+up to town, and was going to be--sacked."
+
+He blurted out the rest of the story, to which Scaife listened
+attentively. When Desmond finished, there was a pause.
+
+"You're devilish clever," said Scaife to John.
+
+"I shall pay up the pony," said Desmond.
+
+"No, you won't," said Scaife. "As for the money, I never cared a hang
+about that. I'm glad--and you ought to know it--that you've won the bet.
+All the same, Verney isn't entitled to all the glory that you give him."
+
+"He is, he is--and more, too."
+
+Scaife laughed. John felt rather uncomfortable. Always Scaife exhibited
+his amazing resource at unexpected moments.
+
+"Never mind," Scaife continued, "I won't burst the pretty bubble. And I
+admit, remember, Verney's cleverness."
+
+He was turning to go, but Desmond clutched his sleeve. When he spoke his
+fair face was scarlet.
+
+"You sneer at the wrong man and at the wrong time," he said angrily,
+"and you talk as though I was a fool. Well, I am a fool, perhaps, and I
+blow bubbles. Prick this one, if you can. I challenge you to do it."
+
+Scaife shrugged his shoulders. "It's so obvious," he said coolly, "that
+your kind friend ran no risks other than a sprained ankle or a cold."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"He was certain that you would come forward. He forced your hand. There
+was never the smallest chance of his being sacked, and he knew it."
+
+"Yes," said John, calmly, "I knew it."
+
+"Just so," said Scaife. He went out whistling.
+
+Desmond had time to whisper to John before the fags called them to
+breakfast in John's room--
+
+"I say, Jonathan, I'm glad you knew that I wouldn't fail you. As the
+Demon says, you are clever; you are a sight cleverer than he is."
+
+John shook his head. "I'm slow," he said. "As a matter of fact, the
+thought that you would come to the rescue never occurred to me till I
+was biking back from town."
+
+"Anyway, you saved me from being sacked, and as long as I live I----"
+
+"Come on to breakfast," said John.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[38] The Philathletic Club deals primarily with all matters which
+concern Harrow games; it is also a social club. Distinguished athletes,
+monitors, and so forth, are eligible for membership. The Head of the
+School is _ex-Officio_ President.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+_Good Night_
+
+    "Good night! Sleep, and so may ever
+      Lights half seen across a murky lea,
+    Child of hope, and courage, and endeavour,
+      Gleam a voiceless benison on thee!
+        Youth be bearer
+          Soon of hardihood;
+        Life be fairer,
+          Loyaller to good;
+    Till the far lamps vanish into light,
+    Rest in the dreamtime. Good night! Good night!"
+
+
+The last Saturday of the summer term saw the Manor cock-house at
+cricket: almost a foregone conclusion, and therefore not particularly
+interesting to outsiders. During the morning Scaife gave his farewell
+"brekker"[39] at the Creameries; a banquet of the Olympians to which
+John received an invitation. He accepted because Desmond made a point of
+his so doing; but he was quite aware that beneath the veneer of the
+Demon's genial smile lay implacable hatred and resentment. The breakfast
+in itself struck John as ostentatious. Scaife's father sent quails, _à
+la Lucullus_, and other delicacies. Throughout the meal the talk was of
+the coming war. At that time most of the Conservative papers pooh-poohed
+the possibility of an appeal to arms, but Scaife's father, admittedly a
+great authority on South African affairs, had told his son a fight was
+inevitable. More, he and his friends were already preparing to raise a
+regiment of mounted infantry. At breakfast Scaife announced this piece
+of news, and added that in the event of hostilities he would join this
+regiment, and not try to pass into Sandhurst. And he added that any of
+his friends who were present, and over eighteen years of age, were
+cordially invited to send in their names, and that he personally would
+do all that was possible to secure them billets. The words were hardly
+out of his mouth, when Cæsar Desmond was on his feet, with an eager--
+
+"Put me down, Demon; put me down first!"
+
+And then Scaife glanced at John, as he answered--
+
+"Right you are, Cæsar, and if things go well with us, I fancy that we
+shall get our commissions in regular regiments soon enough. The governor
+had had a hint to that effect. Let's drink success to 'Scaife's Horse.'"
+
+The toast was drunk with enthusiasm.
+
+During the holidays, John saw nothing of Desmond, although they wrote to
+each other once a week. John was reading hard with an eye to a possible
+scholarship at Oxford; Desmond was playing cricket with Scaife. Later,
+Desmond went to the Scaife moor in Scotland. John noted that his
+friend's letters were full of two things only: sport, and the
+ever-increasing probability of war. At the end of August John Verney,
+the explorer, returning to Verney Boscobel after an absence of nearly
+four years, began to write his now famous book on the Far East. Then
+John learned from his mother that his uncle had borne all the charges of
+his education. When he thanked him, the uncle said warmly--
+
+"You have more than repaid me, my dear boy; not another word, please,
+about that. Warde tells me they expect great things of you at Oxford."
+
+Uncle and nephew were alone, after dinner. John had noticed that the
+hardships endured in Manchuria and Thibet had left scars upon the
+traveller. His hair was white, he looked an old man; one whose
+wanderings in wild places must perforce come soon to an end.
+
+"Uncle," said John, "I want to chuck Oxford."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"I should like to go into the Army."
+
+"Bless my soul!"
+
+The explorer eyed his nephew with wrinkled brow. John gave reasons; we
+can guess what they were. The prospect of war had set all ardent souls
+afire.
+
+"I must think this over, my boy," the uncle replied presently. "I must
+sleep on it. Have you told your mother?"
+
+"No; I counted upon you to persuade her."
+
+"Um. Now tell me about Lord's! Ah! I'm sorry I missed that match."
+
+Next day, his uncle said nothing of what lay next to John's heart, but
+the pair rode together over the estate. During that ride it became plain
+to the young man that his uncle had no intention of settling down. Once
+or twice, in the driest, most matter-of-fact tone, the elder spoke as if
+his heir were likely to inherit soon. Finally, John blurted out a
+protest--
+
+"But, uncle, you are a strong man. Why do you talk as if--as if----" the
+boy couldn't finish the phrase.
+
+"Tut, tut," said the uncle. "I know what I know"; and he fell into
+silence.
+
+Not till the evening, after Mrs. Verney had gone to bed, did the man of
+many wanderings speak freely.
+
+"John," said he, quietly, "I have a story to tell you. Years ago, your
+father and I fell in love with the same girl. She married the better
+man." He paused to fill a pipe: John saw that his uncle's fingers
+trembled slightly; but his voice was cool, measured, almost monotonous.
+"I made my first expedition to Patagonia. When I came back you were just
+born; and I asked that I might be your godfather. I went to Africa after
+the christening. And six years later your father died. I think he had
+the purest and most unselfish love of the poor and helpless that I have
+ever known. He wore away his life in the service of the outcast and
+forlorn. And before he died, he expressed a wish that you should work as
+he did, for others, but not in precisely the same way. He knew, none
+better, the limitations imposed upon a parson. He prayed that you might
+labour in a field larger than one parish. And I promised him that I
+would do what I could when the time came. It has come--to-night. In my
+opinion, in Warde's opinion, in your dear mother's opinion, Parliament
+is the place for you. You will be sufficiently well off. Take all Oxford
+can give you, and then try for the House of Commons. Charles Desmond
+will make you one of his Private Secretaries. I have spoken to him. You
+have a great career before you."
+
+"But if war breaks out, uncle----"
+
+"War _will_ break out. Don't misunderstand me! If you are wanted out
+there, and the thing is going to be very serious, if you are wanted, you
+must go; but decidedly you are not wanted yet. And you are an only son;
+all your mother has. John, you must think of her, and you will think of
+her, I know."
+
+The conviction in his quiet voice communicated itself to his nephew.
+There was a pause of nearly a minute; and then John answered, in a voice
+curiously like his uncle's--
+
+"All right."
+
+Verney senior held out his hand. "I knew you would say that," he
+murmured.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the 18th of September, when John returned to the Hill, the country
+had just learned that the proposals of the Imperial Government to accept
+the note of August 19th (provided it were not encumbered by conditions
+which would nullify the intention to give substantial representation to
+the Uitlanders) had not been accepted. That this meant war, none, least
+of all a schoolboy, doubted. Desmond could talk of nothing else. He told
+John that his father had promised to let him leave Harrow before the end
+of the term, if war were declared. The Demon, so John was informed, had
+made already preparations. He was taking out his three polo ponies, and
+had hopes of being appointed Galloper to a certain General. Scaife's
+Horse was being organized, but in any case would not take the field
+before several months had elapsed; the Demon intended to be on the spot
+when the first shot was fired.
+
+To all this gunpowder-talk John listened with envious ears and a curious
+sinking of the heart. He had looked forward to having Desmond to
+himself; and lo! his friend was seven thousand miles away--on the veldt,
+not on the Hill.
+
+"You are not keen," said Desmond.
+
+On the day of the Goose Match, Saturday, September 30th, Scaife came
+down to Harrow to take leave of his friends. Already, John noted an
+extraordinary difference in his manner and appearance. He treated John
+to a slightly patronizing smile, called him Jonathan, asked if he could
+be of service to him, and posed most successfully as a sort of sucking
+Alexander.
+
+That he absorbed Desmond's eyes and mind was indisputable. Everything
+outside South Africa, and in particular the Hill and all things thereon,
+dwindled into insignificance. Scaife made Desmond a present of the very
+best maps obtainable, and nailed them on the wall above the mantelpiece,
+pulling down a fine engraving which John had given to Desmond about a
+year before. Desmond uttered no protest. The engraving was bundled out
+of sight behind a sofa.
+
+And after Scaife's departure, Desmond talked of him continually, and
+always with enthusiasm. Warde added a note or two to the chorus.
+
+"This is an opportunity for Scaife," he told John. "He may distinguish
+himself very greatly, and the discipline of the camp will transmute the
+bad metal into gold. War is an alchemist."
+
+Upon the 11th of October war was declared.
+
+After that, Desmond became as one possessed. He went about saying that
+he pitied his father profoundly because he was a civilian and a
+non-combatant. Warde wrote to Charles Desmond: "If you mean to send
+Harry out, send him at once. He's fretting himself to fiddle-strings,
+doing no work, and causing others to do no work also."
+
+Sir William Symons' victory and death followed, and then the mortifying
+retreat of General Yule. Upon the 30th day of the month eight hundred
+and fifty officers and men were isolated and captured. Who does not
+remember the wave of passionate incredulity that swept across the
+kingdom when the evil tidings flashed over-seas? But Buller and his
+staff were on the _Dunottar Castle_, and all Harrovians believed
+devoutly that within a month of landing the Commander-in-Chief would
+drive the invaders back and conquer the Transvaal.
+
+Day after day, Desmond importuned his father. The "fun" would be over,
+he pointed out, before he got there--and so on. At last word came. A
+billet had been obtained. Desmond received a long envelope from the War
+Office. He showed it to all his friends, old and young. Duff
+junior--Cæsar's fag--became so excited that he asked Warde for
+permission to enlist as a drummer-boy. The School cheered Cæsar at four
+Bill.
+
+And then came the parting.
+
+Cæsar was to join the Headquarters' Staff as soon as possible. He spent
+the last hours with John, but his mind, naturally enough, was
+concentrated upon his kit. He chattered endlessly of saddlery,
+revolvers, sleeping bags, and Zeiss glasses. John packed his
+portmanteau. And on the morrow the friends parted at the station without
+a word beyond--
+
+"Good-bye, old Jonathan. Wish you were coming."
+
+"Good-bye, Cæsar. Good luck!"
+
+And then the shrill whistle, the inexorable rolling of the wheels, the
+bright, eager face leaning far out of the window, the waved
+handkerchief, the last words: "So long!" and John's reply, "So long!"
+
+John saw the face fade; the wheels of the vanishing train seemed to have
+rolled over his heart; the scream of the engine was the scream of
+anguish from himself. He left the station and ran to the Tower. There,
+after the first indescribable moments, some kindly spirit touched him.
+He became whole. But he had ceased to be a boy. Alone upon the tower he
+prayed for his friend, prayed fervently that it might be well with him,
+now and for ever--Amen.
+
+When he returned to the Manor, however, peace seemed to forsake him. The
+horrible gap, ever-widening, between himself and Desmond might, indeed,
+be bridged by prayer, but not by the shouts of boys and the turmoil of a
+Public School.
+
+During the rest of the term he worked furiously. Desmond was now on the
+high seas, whither John followed him at night and on Sundays. Warde,
+guessing, perhaps, what was passing in John's heart, talked much of
+Desmond, always hopefully. From Warde, John learned that Charles Desmond
+had tried to dissuade his favourite son from becoming a soldier.
+
+"He wanted him to go into Parliament," said Warde.
+
+John nodded.
+
+"It was a disappointment. Yes; a great disappointment. Harry would have
+made a debater. Yes; yes; a nimble wit, an engaging manner, and the gift
+of the gab. And the father would have had him under his own eye."
+
+"But he wanted to go to South Africa from the beginning."
+
+"You wanted to go," said Warde; "your uncle told me so. It was a greater
+thing for you, John, to stand aside."
+
+And then John put a question. "Do you think that Harry ought to have
+stood aside too?"
+
+Warde, however, unwilling to commit himself, spoke of Harry's ardour and
+patriotism. But at the end he let fall a straw which indicated the true
+current of his thoughts--
+
+"Mr. Desmond is very lonely."
+
+John swooped on this.
+
+"Then you think, you _do_ think, that Harry should have stayed behind?"
+
+"Perhaps. One hesitates to accuse the boy of anything more than
+thoughtlessness."
+
+"If he wished to serve his country," began John, warmly.
+
+Warde smiled. "Yes, yes," he assented. "Let us believe that, John; but
+there has been too much cheap excitement."
+
+Dark days followed. Who will ever forget Stormberg and Magersfontein? A
+pall seemed to hang over the kingdom. Ladysmith remained in the grip of
+the invader; the Boers were not yet driven out of Natal. Meantime Cæsar
+had reached Sir Redvers Buller. A letter to his father, describing the
+few incidents of the voyage out, and his arrival in South Africa, was
+sent on to John and received by him on the 1st of February. "John will
+understand," said Cæsar, in a postscript, "that I have little time for
+writing." But John did not understand. He wrote regularly to Desmond; no
+answer came in return.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the end of the Christmas holidays John returned to Harrow. He was now
+Head of his House, and very nearly Head of the School. The weeks went by
+slowly. Soon, he and a few others would travel to Oxford for their
+examination; there would be the strenuous excitement of competition, and
+the final announcement of success or failure. To all this John told
+himself that he was lukewarm. Nothing seemed to matter since he had lost
+sight of Cæsar's face, since the train whirled his friend out of his
+life. But he worked hard, so hard that the Head Master bade him beware
+of a breakdown.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hour of triumph came. John had gratified his own and Warde's
+ambition; he was a Scholar of Christ Church. And this well-earned
+success seemed to draw something in his heart. The congratulations, the
+warm hand-clasps, the generous joy of schoolfellows not as fortunate,
+restored his moral circulation. A whole holiday was granted in honour of
+his success at Oxford. He told himself that now he would take things
+easy and enjoy himself. The clouds in South Africa were lifting,
+everybody said the glorious end was in sight. And so far Desmond had
+escaped wounds and sickness. He had received a commission in
+Beauregard's Irregular Horse; in the five days' action about Spion Kop
+he behaved with conspicuous gallantry. Scaife, having obtained his
+billet of Galloper, was with a General under Lord Methuen.
+
+On the last Monday but one in the term, John was entering the Manor just
+before lock-up, when a Sixth Form boy from another house passed him,
+running.
+
+"Have you heard about poor Scaife?" he called out.
+
+"No--what?"
+
+"Warde will tell you; he knows." The boy ran on, not wishing to be late.
+
+John ran, too, with his heart thumping against his side. He felt
+certain, from the expression upon the boy's face, that Scaife was dead.
+And John recalled with intense bitterness and humiliation moments in
+past years when he had wished that Scaife would die. Charles Desmond had
+told him only three weeks before that his Harry hoped to join the smart
+cavalry regiment in which a commission had been promised to Scaife. At
+that moment John was sensible of an inordinate desire for anything that
+might come between this wish and its fulfilment. And now, Scaife might
+be lying dead.
+
+He found Warde in his study staring at a telegram. He looked up as John
+entered, and in silence handed him the message.
+
+    "_Demon dead. Died gloriously._"
+
+The telegram came from an Harrovian, an old Manorite at the War Office.
+
+John sat down, stunned by the news; Warde regarded him gravely. John met
+his glance and could not interpret it. Presently, Warde said nervously--
+
+"Why did the fellow write 'Demon' instead of 'Scaife'? I don't like
+that." He looked sharply at John, who did not understand. Then he added,
+"I've wired for confirmation. There may be a--mistake."
+
+"What mistake?" said John. Warde's manner confused him, frightened him.
+"What mistake, sir?"
+
+Warde, twisting the paper, answered miserably--
+
+"There has been an action, but not in Scaife's part of Africa.
+Beauregard's Horse were engaged and suffered severely. And would any one
+say 'Demon' in such a serious context?"
+
+"Oh, my God!" said John, pale and trembling. At last he understood. Add
+two letters to "Demon" and you have "Desmond." How easily such a mistake
+could be made!--"Desmond," ill-written, handed to an old Manorite to
+copy and despatch.
+
+"It's Scaife--it's Scaife," John cried.
+
+Warde said nothing, staring at the thin slip of paper as if he were
+trying to wrest from it its secret.
+
+"Everybody called him 'Demon,'" said John.
+
+"Still, one ought to be prepared."
+
+For many hideous minutes they sat there, silent, waiting for the second
+telegram. Dumbleton brought it in, and lingered, anxiously expectant;
+but Warde dismissed him with a gesture. As the door closed, Warde stood
+up.
+
+"If our fears are well founded," he said solemnly, "may God give you
+strength, John Verney, to bear the blow."
+
+Then he tore open the envelope and read the truth--
+
+    "_Henry Desmond killed in action._"
+
+"No," said John, fiercely. "It is Scaife, Scaife!"
+
+Warde shook his head, holding John's hand tight between his sinewy
+fingers. John's face appalled him. He had known, he had guessed, the
+strength of John's feeling for Desmond, but, he had not known the
+strength of John's hatred of Scaife. And Desmond had been taken--and
+Scaife left. The irony of it tore the soul.
+
+"Don't speak," commanded Warde.
+
+John closed his lips with instinctive obedience. When he opened them
+again his face had softened; the words fell upon the silence with a
+heartrending inflection of misery.
+
+"And now I shall never know--I shall never know."
+
+He broke down piteously. Warde let the first passion of grief spend
+itself; then he asked John to explain. The good fellow saw that if John
+could give his trouble words it would be lightened enormously. He
+divined what had been suppressed.
+
+"What is it that you will never know, John?"
+
+At that John spoke, laying bare his heart. He gave details of the
+never-ending struggle between Scaife and himself for the soul of his
+friend; gave them with a clearness of expression which proved beyond all
+else how his thoughts had crystallized in his mind. Warde listened,
+holding John's hand, gripping it with sympathy and affection. The
+romance of this friendship stirred him profoundly; the romance of the
+struggle for good and evil; a struggle of which the issues remained
+still in doubt; a romance which Death had cruelly left unfinished--this
+had poignant significance for the house-master.
+
+"I shall never know now," John repeated, in conclusion.
+
+"But you have faith in your friend."
+
+"He never wrote to me," said John.
+
+At last it was out, the thorn in his side which had tormented him.
+
+"If he had written," John continued, "if only he had written once. When
+we parted it was good-bye--just that, nothing more; but I thought he
+would write, and that everything would be cleared up. And now, silence."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The week wore itself away. A few details were forthcoming: enough to
+prove that a glorious deed had been done at the cost of a gallant life.
+England was thrilled because the hero happened to be the son of a
+popular Minister. The name of Desmond rang through the Empire. John
+bought every paper and devoured the meagre lines which left so much
+between them. It seemed that a certain position had to be taken--a small
+hill. For the hundredth time in this campaign too few men were detailed
+for the task. The reek of that awful slaughter on Spion Kop was still
+strong in men's nostrils. Beauregard and his soldiers halted at the foot
+of the hill, halted in the teeth of a storm of bullets. Then the word
+was given to attack. But the fire from invisible foes simply
+exterminated the leading files. The moment came when those behind
+wavered and recoiled. And then Desmond darted forward--alone, cheering
+on his fellows. They were all afoot. The men rallied and followed. But
+they could not overtake the gallant figure pressing on in front. He
+ran--so the Special Correspondent reported--as if he were racing for a
+goal. The men staggered after him, aflame with his ardour. They reached
+the top, captured the guns, drove down the enemy, and returned to the
+highest point to find their leader--shot through the heart, and dead,
+and smiling at death. Of all the men who passed through that blizzard of
+bullets he was the youngest by two years.
+
+Warde told John that the Head Master would preach upon the last Sunday
+evening of the term, with special reference to Harry Desmond. Could John
+bear it? John nodded. Since the first breakdown in Warde's study, his
+heart seemed to have turned to ice. His religious sense, hitherto strong
+and vital, failed him entirely. He abandoned prayer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Evensong was over in Harrow Chapel. The Head Master, stately in surplice
+and scarlet hood, entered the pulpit, and, in his clear, calm tones,
+announced his text, taken from the 17th verse of the First Chapter of
+the Book of Ruth--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and
+me."
+
+The subject of the sermon was "Friendship:" the heart's blood of a
+Public School: Friendship with its delights, its perils, its peculiar
+graces and benedictions.
+
+"To-night," concluded the preacher, amid the breathless silence of the
+congregation, "this thought of Friendship has for us a special
+solemnity. It is consecrated by the memory of one whom we have just
+lost. You, who are leaving the school, have been the friends and
+contemporaries of Henry Julius Desmond; his features are fresh in your
+memories, and will remain fresh as long as you live.
+
+    "Tall, eager, a face to remember,
+      A flush that could change as the day;
+    A spirit that knew not December,
+      That brightened the sunshine of May."
+
+"Those lines, as you know, were written of another Harrovian, who died
+here on this Hill. Henry Desmond died on another hill, and died so
+gloriously that the shadow of our loss, dark as it seemed to us at
+first, is already melting in the radiance of his gain. To die young,
+clean, ardent; to die swiftly, in perfect health; to die saving others
+from death, or worse--disgrace--to die scaling heights; to die and to
+carry with you into the fuller, ampler life beyond, untainted hopes and
+aspirations, unembittered memories, all the freshness and gladness of
+May--is not that cause for joy rather than sorrow? I say--yes. Henry
+Desmond is one stage ahead of us upon a journey which we all must take,
+and I entreat you to consider that, if we have faith in a future life,
+we must believe also that we carry hence not only the record of our
+acts, whether good or evil, but the memory of them; and that memory,
+undimmed by falsehood or self-deception, will create for us Heaven or
+Hell. I do not say--God forbid!--that you should desire death because
+you are still young, and, comparatively speaking, unspotted from the
+world; but I say I would sooner see any of you struck down in the flower
+of his youth than living on to lose, long before death comes, all that
+makes life worth the living. Better death, a thousand times, than
+gradual decay of mind and spirit; better death than faithlessness,
+indifference, and uncleanness. To you who are leaving Harrow, poised for
+flight into the great world of which this school is the microcosm, I
+commend the memory of Henry Desmond. It stands in our records for all we
+venerate and strive for: loyalty, honour, purity, strenuousness,
+faithfulness in friendship. When temptation assails you, think of that
+gallant boy running swiftly uphill, leaving craven fear behind, and
+drawing with him the others who, led by him to the heights, made victory
+possible. You cannot all be leaders, but you can follow leaders; only
+see to it that they lead you, as Henry Desmond led the men of
+Beauregard's Horse, onward and upward."
+
+The preacher ended, and then followed the familiar hymn, always sung
+upon the last Sunday evening of the term:--
+
+    "Let Thy father-hand be shielding
+      All who here shall meet no more;
+    May their seed-time past be yielding
+      Year by year a richer store;
+            Those returning,
+      Make more faithful than before."
+
+The last blessing was pronounced, and with glistening eyes the boys
+streamed out of Chapel; some of them for the last time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon the next Tuesday, John travelled down into the New Forest. April
+was abroad in Hampshire; the larches already were bright green against
+the Scotch firs; the beech buds were bursting; only the oaks retained
+their drab winter's-livery.
+
+During the few days preceding Easter Sunday, John rode or walked to
+every part of the forest which he had visited in company with his dead
+friend. At Beaulieu, standing in the ruins of the Abbey, he could hear
+Desmond's delightful laugh as he recited the misadventures of Hordle
+John; at Stoneycross he sat upon the bank overlooking the moor, whence
+they had seen the fox steal into the woods about Rufus's Stone; at the
+Bell tavern at Brook they had lunched; at Hinton Admiral they had
+played cricket.
+
+To his mother's and his uncle's silent sympathy John responded but
+churlishly. His friend had departed without a word, without a sign; that
+ate into John's heart and consumed it. For the first time since he had
+been confirmed, he refused to receive the Sacrament. He went to church
+as a matter of form; but he dared not approach the altar in his present
+rebellious mood.
+
+Again and again he accused himself of having yielded to a craven fear of
+offending Desmond by speech too plain. Always he had been so terribly
+afraid of losing his friend; and now he had lost him indeed. This
+poignancy of grief may be accounted for in part by the previous
+long-continued strain of overwork. And it is ever the habit of those who
+do much to think that they might have done more.
+
+At the beginning of May, John came back to the Hill, for his last term.
+Out of the future rose the "dreaming spires" of Oxford; beyond them,
+vague and shadowy, the great Clock-tower of Westminster, keeping watch
+and ward over the destinies of our Empire.
+
+In a long letter from Charles Desmond, the Minister had spoken of the
+secretaryship to be kept warm for him, of the pleasure and solace the
+writer would take in seeing his son's best friend in the place where
+that son might have stood.
+
+His best friend? Was that true?
+
+The question tormented John. Because Cæsar had been so much to him, he
+desired, more passionately than he had desired anything in his life, the
+assurance that he had been something--not everything, only something--to
+Cæsar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day, about the middle of the month, John had been playing cricket,
+the game of all games which brought Cæsar most vividly to his mind.
+Then, just before six Bill, he strolled up the Hill and into the Vaughan
+Library, where so many relics dear to Harrovians are enshrined. Sitting
+in the splendid window which faces distant Hampstead, John told himself
+that he must put aside the miseries and perplexities of the past month.
+Had he been loyal to his friend's memory? Would not a more ardent faith
+have burned away doubt?
+
+John gazed across the familiar fields to the huge city on the horizon.
+Soon night would fall, darkness would encompass all things. And then,
+out of the mirk, would shine the lamps of London.
+
+Warde's voice put his thoughts to instant flight. Some intuition told
+John that something had happened. Warde said quietly--
+
+"A letter has come for you in Harry Desmond's handwriting."
+
+John, unable to speak, stretched out his hand.
+
+"Take it," said Warde, "to some quiet spot where you cannot be
+disturbed."
+
+John nodded.
+
+"I have seen how it was with you," Warde continued, with deep emotion,
+"and you have had my acute sympathy, the more acute, perhaps, because
+long ago a friend went out of my life without a sign." Warde paused.
+"Now, unless my whole experience is at fault, you hold in your hand what
+you want--and what you deserve."
+
+Warde left the library; John put the letter into his pocket. Where
+should he go? One place beckoned him. Upon the tower, looking towards
+the Hill, he would read the last letter of his friend.
+
+Within half an hour he was passing through the iron gates. He had not
+visited the garden since that forlorn winter's afternoon, when he came
+here, alone, after bidding Desmond good-bye. He could recall the
+desolation of the scene: bleak Winter dripping tears upon the tomb of
+Summer. With what disgust he had perceived the decaying masses of
+vegetation, the sodden turf, the soot upon the bare trunks of the trees.
+He had rushed away, fancying that he heard Desmond's voice, "There is a
+curse on the place."
+
+Now, May had touched what had seemed dead and hideous, and, lo! a
+miracle. The hawthorns shone white against the brilliant green of the
+laurels; the horse-chestnuts had--to use a fanciful expression of
+Cæsar's--"lit their lamps." Out of the waving grass glimmered and
+sparkled a thousand wild flowers. John heard the glad _Frühlingslied_ of
+bees and birds. Then, opening his lungs, he inhaled the life-renewing
+odours of earth renascent; opening his heart he felt a spiritual essence
+pervading every fibre of his being. Once more the chilled sap in his
+veins flowed generously. It was well with him and well with his friend.
+This conviction possessed him, remember, before he opened the letter.
+
+He ascended the tower, and broke the seal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I have been meaning to write to you, dear old chap, ever since we
+parted; but, somehow, I couldn't bring myself to tackle it in earnest
+till to-night. To-morrow, we have a thundering big job ahead of us; the
+last job, perhaps, for me. Old Jonathan, you have been the best friend a
+man ever had, the only one I love as much as my own brothers--_and even
+more_. It was from knowing you that I came to see what good-for-nothing
+fools some fellows are. You were always so unselfish and _straight!_ and
+you made me feel that I was the contrary, and that you knew it, and that
+I should lose your friendship if I didn't improve a bit. So, if we don't
+meet again in this jolly old world, it may be a little comfort to you to
+remember that what you have done for a very worthless pal was not thrown
+away.
+
+"Good night, Jonathan. I'm going to turn in; we shall be astir before
+daybreak. Over the veldt the stars are shining. It's so light, that I
+can just make out the hill upon which, I hope, our flag will be waving
+within a few hours. The sight of this hill brings back our Hill. If I
+shut my eyes, I can see it plainly, as we used to see it from the
+tower, with the Spire rising out of the heart of the old school. I have
+the absurd conviction strong in me that, to-morrow, I shall get up the
+hill here faster and easier than the other fellows because you and I
+have so often run up our Hill together--God bless it--and you! Good
+night."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[39] Brekker, _i.e._ breakfast.
+
+
+
+
+ PRINTED AND BOUND IN ENGLAND BY
+ WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hill, by Horace Annesley Vachell
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diff --git a/23154-0.zip b/23154-0.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hill, by Horace Annesley Vachell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Hill
+       A Romance of Friendship
+
+Author: Horace Annesley Vachell
+
+Release Date: October 23, 2007 [EBook #23154]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HILL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Stephen Blundell and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+_ALSO BY HORACE A. VACHELL_
+
+QUINNEYS'
+
+
+
+
+           THE HILL
+
+    A ROMANCE OF FRIENDSHIP
+
+
+
+    HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL
+
+
+
+
+
+            LONDON
+ JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
+
+
+
+
+  FIRST EDITION             _April, 1905_
+
+ _Fortieth Impression_      _Jan., 1950_
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Greek
+    text has been transliterated and is shown between {braces}.
+
+
+
+
+ To
+ GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL
+
+I dedicate this Romance of Friendship to you with the sincerest pleasure
+and affection. You were the first to suggest that I should write a book
+about contemporary life at Harrow; you gave me the principal idea; you
+have furnished me with notes innumerable; you have revised every page of
+the manuscript; and you are a peculiarly keen Harrovian.
+
+In making this public declaration of my obligations to you, I take the
+opportunity of stating that the characters in "The Hill," whether
+masters or boys, are not portraits, although they may be called,
+truthfully enough, composite photographs; and that the episodes of
+Drinking and Gambling are founded on isolated incidents, not on habitual
+practices. Moreover, in attempting to reproduce the curious admixture of
+"strenuousness and sentiment"--your own phrase--which animates so
+vitally Harrow life, I have been obliged to select the less common types
+of Harrovian. Only the elect are capable of such friendship as John
+Verney entertained for Henry Desmond; and few boys, happily, are
+possessed of such powers as Scaife is shown to exercise. But that there
+are such boys as Verney and Scaife, nobody knows better than yourself.
+
+                                Believe me,
+                                  Yours most gratefully,
+                              HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL
+
+ BEECHWOOD,
+   _February 22, 1905_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAP.                               PAGE
+
+    I. THE MANOR                        1
+   II. C�SAR                           19
+  III. KRAIPALE                        35
+   IV. TORPIDS                         58
+    V. FELLOWSHIP                      70
+   VI. A REVELATION                    92
+  VII. REFORM                         107
+ VIII. VERNEY BOSCOBEL                123
+   IX. BLACK SPOTS                    140
+    X. DECAPITATION                   158
+   XI. SELF-QUESTIONING               173
+  XII. "LORD'S"                       189
+ XIII. "IF I PERISH, I PERISH"        211
+  XIV. GOOD NIGHT                     230
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+_The Manor_
+
+             "Five hundred faces, and all so strange!
+               Life in front of me--home behind,
+               I felt like a waif before the wind
+             Tossed on an ocean of shock and change.
+
+ "_Chorus._  Yet the time may come, as the years go by,
+               When your heart will thrill
+               At the thought of the Hill,
+             And the day that you came so strange and shy."
+
+
+The train slid slowly out of Harrow station.
+
+Five minutes before, a man and a boy had been walking up and down the
+long platform. The boy wondered why the man, his uncle, was so strangely
+silent. Then, suddenly, the elder John Verney had placed his hands upon
+the shoulders of the younger John, looking down into eyes as grey and as
+steady as his own.
+
+"You'll find plenty of fellows abusing Harrow," he said quietly; "but
+take it from me, that the fault lies not in Harrow, but in them. Such
+boys, as a rule, do not come out of the top drawer. Don't look so
+solemn. You're about to take a header into a big river. In it are rocks
+and rapids; but you know how to swim, and after the first plunge you'll
+enjoy it, as I did, amazingly."
+
+"Ra--ther," said John.
+
+In the New Forest, where John had spent most of his life at his uncle's
+place of Verney Boscobel, this uncle, his dead father's only brother,
+was worshipped as a hero. Indeed he filled so large a space in the boy's
+imagination, that others were cramped for room. John Verney in India, in
+Burmah, in Africa (he took continents in his stride), moved colossal.
+And when uncle and nephew met, behold, the great traveller stood not
+much taller than John himself! That first moment, the instant shattering
+of a precious delusion, held anguish. But now, as the train whirled away
+the silent, thin, little man, he began to expand again. John saw him
+scaling heights, cutting a path through impenetrable forests, wading
+across dismal swamps, an ever-moving figure, seeking the hitherto
+unknowable and irreclaimable, introducing order where chaos reigned
+supreme, a world-famous pioneer.
+
+How good to think that John Verney was _his_ uncle, blood of his blood,
+his, his, his--for all time!
+
+And, long ago, John, senior, had come to Harrow; had felt what John,
+junior, felt to the core--the dull, grinding wrench of separation, the
+sense, not yet to be analysed by a boy, of standing alone upon the edge
+of a river, indeed, into which he must plunge headlong in a few minutes.
+Well, Uncle John had taken his "header" with a stout heart--who dared to
+doubt that? Surely he had not waited, shivering and hesitating, at the
+jumping-off place.
+
+The train was now out of sight. John slipped the uncle's tip into his
+purse, and walked out of the station and on to the road beyond, the road
+which led to the top of the Hill.
+
+_The Hill._
+
+Presently, the boy reached some iron palings and a wicket-gate. His
+uncle had pointed out this gate and the steep path beyond which led to
+the top of the Hill, to the churchyard, to the Peachey tomb on which
+Byron dreamed,[1] to the High Street--and to the Manor. It was pleasant
+to remember that he was going to board at the Manor, with its
+traditions, its triumphs, its record. In his uncle's day the Manor
+ranked first among the boarding-houses. Not a doubt disturbed John's
+conviction that it ranked first still.
+
+The boy stared upwards with a keen gaze. Had the mother seen her son at
+that moment, she might have discerned a subtle likeness between uncle
+and nephew, not the likeness of the flesh, but of the spirit.
+
+September rains, followed by a day of warm sunshine, had lured from the
+earth a soft haze which obscured the big fields at the foot of the Hill.
+John could make out fences, poplars, elms, Scotch firs, and spectral
+houses. But, above, everything was clear. The school-buildings, such as
+he could see, stood out boldly against a cloudless sky, and above these
+soared the spire of Harrow Church, pointing an inexorable finger
+upwards.
+
+Afterwards this spot became dear to John Verney, because here, where
+mists were chill and blinding, he had been impelled to leave the broad
+high-road and take a path which led into a shadowy future. In obedience
+to an impulse stronger than himself he had taken the short cut to what
+awaited him.
+
+For a few minutes he stood outside the palings, trying to choke down an
+abominable lump in his throat. This was not his first visit to Harrow.
+At the end of the previous term, he had ascended the Hill to pass the
+entrance examination. A master from his preparatory school accompanied
+him, an Etonian, who had stared rather superciliously--so John
+thought--at buildings less venerable than those which Henry VI raised
+near Windsor. John, who had perceptions, was elusively conscious that
+his companion, too much of a gentleman to give his thoughts words, might
+be contrasting a yeoman's work with a king's; and when the Etonian,
+gazing across the plains below to where Windsor lay, a soft shadow upon
+the horizon, said abruptly, "I wish Eton had been built upon a hill,"
+John replied effusively: "Oh, sir, it _is_ decent of you to say that."
+The examination, however, distracted his attention from all things save
+the papers. To his delight he found these easy, and, as soon as he left
+the examination-room, he was popped into a cab and taken back to town.
+Coming down the flight of steps, he had seen a few boys hurrying up or
+down the road. At these the Etonian cocked a twinkling eye.
+
+"Queer kit you Harrow boys wear," he said.
+
+John, inordinately grateful at this recognition of himself as an
+Harrovian, forgave the gibe. It had struck him, also, that the shallow
+straw hat, the swallow-tail coat, did look queer, but he regarded them
+reverently as the uniform of a crack corps.
+
+To-day, standing by the iron palings, John reviewed the events of the
+last hour. The view was blurred by unshed tears. His uncle and he had
+driven together to the Manor. Here, the explorer had exercised his
+peculiar personal magnetism upon the house-master, a tall, burly man of
+truculent aspect and speech. John realized proudly that his uncle was
+the bigger of the two, and the giant acknowledged, perhaps grudgingly,
+the dwarf's superiority. The talk, short enough, had wandered into
+Darkest Africa. His uncle, as usual, said little, replying almost in
+monosyllables to the questions of his host; but John junior told himself
+exultantly that it was not necessary for Uncle John to talk; the wide
+world knew what he had done.
+
+Then his house-master, Rutford, had told John where to buy his first
+straw hat.
+
+"You can get one without an order at the beginning of each term," said
+he, in a thick, rasping voice. "But you must ask me for an order if you
+want a second."
+
+Then he had shown John his room, to be shared with two other boys, and
+had told him the hour of lock-up. And then, after tea, came the walk
+down the hill, the tip, the firm grasp of the sinewy hand, and a
+final--"God bless you."
+
+Coming to the end of these reflections, confronted by the inexorable
+future, and the necessity, no less inexorable, of stepping into it, John
+passed through the gate. His heart fluttered furiously, and the lump in
+the throat swelled inconveniently. John, however, had provided himself
+with a "cure-all." Plunging his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a
+cartridge, an unused twenty-bore gun cartridge. Looking at this, John
+smiled. When he smiled he became good-looking. The face, too long,
+plain, but full of sense and humour, rounded itself into the gracious
+curves of youth; the serious grey eyes sparkled; the lips, too firmly
+compressed, parted, revealing admirable teeth, small and squarely set;
+into the cheeks, brown rather than pink, flowed a warm stream of colour.
+
+The cartridge stood for so much. Only a week before, Uncle John, on his
+arrival from Manchuria, had handed his nephew a small leather case and a
+key. The case held a double-barrelled, hammerless, ejector, twenty-bore
+gun, with a great name upon its polished blue barrels.
+
+The sight of the cartridge justified John's expectations. He put it back
+into his pocket, and strode forward and upward.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Close to the School Chapel, John remarked a curly-headed young gentleman
+of wonderfully prepossessing appearance, from whom emanated an air, an
+atmosphere, of genial enjoyment which diffused itself. The bricks of the
+school-buildings seemed redder and warmer, as if they were basking in
+this sunny smile. The youth was smiling now, smiling--at John. For
+several hours John had been miserably aware that surprises awaited him,
+but not smiles. He knew no Harrovians; at his school, a small one, his
+fellows were labelled Winchester, Eton, Wellington; none, curiously
+enough, Harrow. And already he had passed half a dozen boys, the
+first-comers, some strangers, like himself, and in each face he had read
+indifference. Not one had taken the trouble to say, "Hullo! Who are
+you?" after the rough and ready fashion of the private school.
+
+And now this smiling, fascinating person was actually about to address
+him, and in the old familiar style----
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"I met your governor the other day."
+
+"Did you?" John replied. His father had died when John was seven.
+Obviously, a blunder in identity had created this genial smile. John
+wished that his father had not died.
+
+"Yes," pursued the smiling one, "I met him--partridge-shooting at
+home--and he asked me to be on the look-out for you. It's queer you
+should turn up at once, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," said John.
+
+"Your governor looked awfully fit."
+
+"Did he?" Then John added solemnly, "My governor died when I was a kid."
+
+The other gasped; then he threw back his curly head and laughed.
+
+"I say, I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to laugh. If you're not
+Hardacre, who are you?"
+
+"Verney. I've just come."
+
+"Verney? That's a great Harrow name. Are you any relation to the
+explorer?"
+
+"Nephew," said John, blushing.
+
+"Ah--you ought to have been here last Speecher.[2] We cheered him, I can
+tell you. And the song was sung: the one with his name in it."
+
+"Yes," said John. Then he added nervously, "All the same, I don't know a
+soul at Harrow."
+
+Desmond smiled. The smile assured John that his name would secure him a
+cordial welcome. Desmond added abruptly, "My name, Desmond, is a Harrow
+name. My father, my grandfather, my uncles, and three brothers were
+here. It does make a difference. What's your house?"
+
+"The Manor," said John, proudly.
+
+"Dirty Dick's!" Then, seeing consternation writ large upon John's face,
+he added quickly, "We call _him_ Dirty Dick, you know; but the house
+is--er--one of the oldest and biggest--er--houses." He continued
+hurriedly: "I'm going into Damer's next term. Damer's is always
+chock-a-block, you know."
+
+"Why is Rutford called 'Dirty Dick'?" John asked nervously. "He doesn't
+_look_ dirty."
+
+"Oh, we've licked him into a sort of shape," said Desmond. "I _believe_
+he toshes now--once a month or so."
+
+"Toshes?"
+
+"Tubs, you know. We call a tub a 'tosh.' When Dirty Dick came here he
+was unclean. He told his form--oh! the cheek of it!--that in his filthy
+mind one bath a week was plenty," unconsciously the boy mimicked the
+thick, rasping tones--"two, luxury, and three--superfluity! After that
+he was called Dirty Dick. There's another story. They say that years ago
+he went to a Turkish bath, and after a rare good scraping the man who
+was scraping him--nasty job that!--found something which Dirty Dick
+recognized as a beastly flannel shirt he had lost when he was at the
+'Varsity. But only the Fourth Form boys swallow _that_. Hullo! There's a
+pal of mine. See you again."
+
+He ran off gaily. John walked to the shop where straw hats were sold.
+Here he met other new boys, who regarded him curiously, but said
+nothing. John put on his hat, and gave Rutford's name to the young man
+who waited on him. He had an absurd feeling that the young man would
+say, "Oh yes--Dirty Dick's!" One very nice-looking pink-cheeked boy said
+to another boy that he was at Damer's. John could have sworn that the
+hatter's assistant regarded the pink youth with increased deference.
+Why had Uncle John sent him to Dirty Dick's? He hurried out of the shop,
+fuming. Then he remembered the hammerless gun. After all, the Manor had
+been _the_ house once, and it might be _the_ house again.
+
+By this time the boys were arriving. Groups were forming. Snatches of
+chatter reached John's ears. "Yes, I shot a stag, a nine-pointer. My
+governor is going to have it set up for me---- What? Walked up your
+grouse with dogs! We drive ours---- I had some ripping cricket, made a
+century in one match---- By Jove! Did you really?----"
+
+John passed on. These were "bloods," tremendous swells, grown men with a
+titillating flavour of the world about their distinguished persons.
+
+A minute later he was staring disconsolately at a group of his fellows
+just in front of Dir----of Rutford's side door. An impulse seized him to
+turn and flee. What would Uncle John say to that? So he advanced. The
+boys made way politely, asking no questions. As he passed through he
+caught a few eager words. "I was hoping that the brute had gone. It _is_
+a sickener, and no mistake!"
+
+John ascended the battered, worn-out staircase, wondering who the
+"brute" was. Perhaps a sort of Flashman. John knew his _Tom Brown_; but
+some one had told him that bullying had ceased to be. Great emphasis had
+been laid on the "brute," whoever he might be.
+
+Upon the second-floor passage, he found his room and one of its tenants,
+who nodded carelessly as John crossed the threshold.
+
+"I'm Scaife," he said. "Are you the Lord, or the Commoner?" He laughed,
+indicating a large portmanteau, labelled, "Lord Esm� Kinloch."
+
+"I'm Verney," said John.
+
+"I've bagged the best bed," said Scaife, after a pause, "and I advise
+you to bag the next best one, over there. It was mine last term."
+
+"I don't see the beds," said John, staring about him.
+
+Scaife pointed out what appeared to be three tall, narrow wardrobes. The
+rest of the furniture included three much-battered washstands and chests
+of drawers, four Windsor chairs, and a square table, covered with
+innumerable inkstains and roughly-carved names.
+
+"The beds let down," Scaife said, "and during the first school the maids
+make them, and shut them up again. It is considered a joke to crawl into
+another fellow's room at night, and shut him up. You find yourself
+standing upon your head in the dark, choking. It is a joke--for the
+other fellow."
+
+"Did some one do that to you?" asked John.
+
+"Yes; a big lout in the Third Fifth," Scaife smiled grimly.
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"I waited for him next day with a cricket stump. There was an awful row,
+because I let him have it a bit too hard; but I've not been shut up
+since. That bed is a beast. It collapses." He chuckled. "Young Kinloch
+won't find it quite as soft as the ones at White Ladies. Well, like the
+rest of us, he'll have to take Dirty Dick's as he finds it."
+
+The bolt had fallen.
+
+John asked in a quavering voice, "Then it _is_ called that?"
+
+"Called what?"
+
+"This house. Dirty Dick's!"
+
+Scaife smiled cynically. He looked about a year older than John, but he
+had the air and manners of a man of the world--so John thought. Also, he
+was very good-looking, handsomer than Desmond, and in striking contrast
+to that smiling, genial youth, being dark, almost swarthy of complexion,
+with strongly-marked features and rather coarse hands and feet.
+
+"Everybody here calls it Dirty Dick's," he replied curtly.
+
+John stared helplessly.
+
+"But," he muttered, "I heard, I was told, that the Manor was the best
+house in the school."
+
+"It used to be," Scaife answered. "To-day, it comes jolly near being the
+worst. The fellows in other houses are decent; they don't rub it in;
+but, between ourselves, the Manor has gone to pot ever since Dirty Dick
+took hold of it. Damer's is the swell house now."
+
+John began to unstrap his portmanteau. Scaife puzzled him. For instance,
+he displayed no curiosity. He did not put the questions always asked at
+a Preparatory School. Without turning his thought into words, John
+divined that at Harrow it was bad form to ask questions. As he wanted to
+ask a question, a very important question, this enforced silence became
+exasperating.
+
+Presently Scaife said, "I suppose you are one of the Claydon lot."
+
+"No; my home is in the New Forest. My uncle is Verney of Verney
+Boscobel."
+
+"Oh! his name is on the panels at the head of the staircase; and it's
+carved on a bed in the next room."
+
+"Crikey! I must go and look at it."
+
+"You can look at the panels, of course; but don't say 'Crikey!' and
+don't go into the next room. Two Fifth Form fellows have it. It would be
+infernal cheek."
+
+John hoped that Scaife would offer to accompany him to the panels. Then
+he went alone. It being now within half an hour of lock-up, the passages
+were swarming with boys. Soon John would see them assembled in Hall,
+where their names would be called over by Rutford. Everybody--John had
+been told--was expected to be present at this first call-over, except a
+few boys who might be coming from a distance. John worked his way along
+the upper passage, and down the second flight of stairs till he came to
+the first landing. Here, close to the house notice-board, were some oak
+panels covered with names and dates, all carved--so John learned
+later--by a famous Harrow character, Sam Hoare, once "Custos" of the
+School. The boy glanced eagerly, ardently, up and down the panels. Ah,
+yes, here was his father's name, and here--his uncle's. And then out of
+the dull, finely-grained oak, shone other names familiar to all who love
+the Hill and its traditions. John's heart grew warm again with pride in
+the house that had held such men. The name of the great statesman and
+below it a mighty warrior's made him thrill and tremble. They were _Old
+Harrovians_, these fellows, men whom his uncle had known, men of whom
+his dear mother, wise soul! had spoken a thousand times. The landing and
+the passages were roaring with the life of the present moment. Boys, big
+and small, were chaffing each other loudly. Under some circumstances,
+this new-comer, a stranger, ignored entirely, might have felt desolate
+and forlorn in the heart of such a crowd; but John was tingling with
+delight and pleasure.
+
+Suddenly, the noise moderated. John, looking up, saw a big fellow slowly
+approaching, exchanging greetings with everybody. John turned to a boy
+close to him.
+
+"Who is it?" he whispered.
+
+The other boy answered curtly, "Lawrence, the Head of the House."
+
+The big fellow suddenly caught John's eyes. What he read
+there--admiration, respect, envy--brought a slight smile to his lips.
+
+"Your name?" he demanded.
+
+"Verney."
+
+Lawrence held out his hand, simply and yet with a certain dignity.
+
+"I heard you were coming," he said, keenly examining John's face. "We
+can't have too many Verneys. If I can do anything for you, let me know."
+
+He nodded, and strode on. John saw that several boys were staring with a
+new interest. None, however, spoke to him; and he returned to his room
+with a blushing face. Scaife had unpacked his clothes and put them away;
+he was now surveying the bare walls with undisguised contempt.
+
+"Isn't this a beastly hole?" he remarked.
+
+John, always interested in people rather than things, examined the room
+carefully. Passing down the passage he had caught glimpses of other
+rooms: some charmingly furnished, gay with chintz, embellished with
+pictures, Japanese fans, silver cups, and other trophies. Comparing
+these with his own apartment, John said shyly--
+
+"It's not very beefy."
+
+"Beefy? You smell of a private school, Verney. Now, is it worth doing
+up? You see, I shall be in a two-room next term. If we all chip in----"
+he paused.
+
+"I've brought back two quid," said John.
+
+Scaife's smile indicated neither approval nor the reverse. John's
+ingenuous confidence provoked none in return.
+
+"We'll talk about it when Kinloch arrives. I wonder why his people sent
+him here."
+
+John had studied some books, but not the Peerage. The great name of
+Kinloch was new to him, not new to Scaife, who, for a boy, knew his
+"Burke" too odiously well.
+
+"Why shouldn't his people send him here?" he asked.
+
+"Because," Scaife's tone was contemptuous, "because the
+Kinlochs--they're a great cricketing family--go to Eton. The duke must
+have some reason."
+
+"The duke?"
+
+"Hang it, surely you have heard of the Duke of Trent?"
+
+"Yes," said John, humbly. "And this is his son?" He glanced at the label
+on the new portmanteau.
+
+"Whose son should he be?" said Scaife. "Well, it's queer. Dukes[3] and
+dukes' sons come to Harrow--all the Hamiltons were here, and the
+FitzRoys, and the St. Maurs--but the Kinlochs, as I say, have gone to
+Eton. It's a rum thing--very. And why the deuce hasn't he turned up?"
+
+The clanging of a bell brought both boys to their feet.
+
+"Lock-up, and call-over," said Scaife. "Come on!"
+
+They pushed their way down the passage. Several boys addressed Scaife.
+
+"Hullo, Demon!--Here's the old Demon!--Demon, I thought you were going
+to be sacked!"
+
+To these and other sallies Scaife replied with his slightly ironical
+smile. John perceived that his companion was popular and at the same
+time peculiar; quite different from any boy he had yet met.
+
+They filed into a big room--the dining-room of the house--a square,
+lofty hall, with three long tables in it. On the walls hung some
+portraits of famous Old Harrovians. As a room it was disappointing at
+first sight, almost commonplace. But in it, John soon found out,
+everything for weal or woe which concerned the Manor had taken place or
+had been discussed. There were two fireplaces and two large doors. The
+boys passed through one door; upon the threshold of the other stood the
+butler, holding a silver salver, with a sheet of paper on it.
+
+"What cheek!" murmured Scaife.
+
+"Eh?" said John.
+
+"Dirty Dick isn't here. Just like him, the slacker! And when he does
+come over on our side of the House, he slimes about in carpet
+slippers--the beast!"
+
+Lawrence entered as Scaife spoke. John saw that his strongly-marked
+eyebrows went up, when he perceived the butler. He approached, and took
+the sheet of paper. The butler said impressively--
+
+"Mr. Rutford is busy. Will you call over, sir?"
+
+At any rate, the butler, Dumbleton, was worthy of the best traditions of
+the Manor. He had a shrewd, clean-shaven face, and the deportment of an
+archbishop. The Head of the House took the paper, and began to call
+over the names. Each boy, as his name was called, said, "Here," or, if
+he wished to be funny, "Here, _sir_!"
+
+"Verney?"
+
+The name rang out crisply.
+
+"Here, _sir_," said John.
+
+The Head of the House eyed him sharply.
+
+"Kinloch?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Kinloch?"
+
+Scaife answered dryly: "Kinloch's portmanteau has come." Then Dumbleton
+said in his smooth, bland voice, "His lordship is in the drawing-room
+with Mr. Rutford."
+
+The boys exchanged knowing glances. Scaife looked contemptuous. The next
+moment the last name had been called, and the boys scurried into the
+passages. Lawrence was the first to leave the hall. Impulsively, John
+rushed up to him.
+
+"I didn't mean to be funny, I didn't really," he panted.
+
+"Quite right. It doesn't pay," Lawrence smiled grimly, "for new boys to
+be funny. I saw you didn't mean it."
+
+Lawrence spoke in a loud voice. John realized that he had so spoken
+purposely, trying to wipe out a new boy's first blunder.
+
+"Thanks awfully," said John.
+
+He reached his room to find three other boys busily engaged in abusing
+their house-master. They took no notice of John, who leaned against the
+wall.
+
+"His lordship is in the drawing-room with Mr. Rutford."
+
+A freckle-faced, red-headed youth, with a big elastic mouth had imitated
+Dumbleton admirably.
+
+"What a snob Dick is!" drawled a very tall, very thin,
+aristocratic-looking boy.
+
+"And a fool," added Scaife. "This sort of thing makes him loathed."
+
+"It _is_ a sell his being here."
+
+All three fell to talking. The question still festering in John's mind
+was answered within a minute. The "brute" was Rutford. Towards the end
+of the previous term gossip had it that the master of the Manor had been
+offered an appointment elsewhere. Whereat the worthier spirits in the
+ancient house rejoiced. Now the joy was turned into wailing and gnashing
+of teeth.
+
+"Is he a beast to _us_?" said John.
+
+The freckle-faced boy answered affably, "That depends. His Imperial
+Highness"--he kicked the new portmanteau hard--"will not find Mr.
+Richard Rutford a beast. Far from it. And he's civil to the Demon,
+because his papa is a man of many shekels. But to mere outsiders, like
+myself, a beast of beasts; ay, the very king of beasts, is--Dirty Dick."
+
+And then--oh, horrors!--the door of No. 15 opened, and Rutford appeared,
+followed by a seemingly young and very fashionably dressed lady. The
+boys jumped to their feet. All, except Scaife, looked preternaturally
+solemn. The house-master nodded carelessly.
+
+"This is Scaife, Duchess," he said in his thick, rasping tones. "Scaife
+and Verney, let me present you to the Duchess of Trent."
+
+He mouthed the illustrious name, as if it were a large and ripe
+greengage.
+
+The duchess advanced, smiling graciously. "These"--Rutford named the
+other boys--"are Egerton, Lovell, and--er--Duff."
+
+Scaife, alone of those present, appreciated the order in which his
+schoolfellows had been named. Egerton--known as the Caterpillar--was the
+son of a Guardsman; Lovell's father was a judge; Duff's father an
+obscure parson.
+
+The duchess shook hands with each boy. "Your father and I are old
+friends," she said to Egerton; "and I have had the pleasure of meeting
+your uncle," she smiled at John.
+
+Duff looked unhappy and ill at ease, because it was almost certain that
+his last sentence had been overheard by the house-master. The duchess
+asked a few questions and then took her leave. She and her son were
+dining with the Head Master. Rutford accompanied her.
+
+"Did the blighter hear?" said Duff.
+
+"How could he help it with his enormous asses' ears?" said the tall,
+thin Egerton.
+
+Duff, an optimist, like all red-headed, freckled boys, appealed to the
+others, each in turn. The verdict was unanimous.
+
+"He hates me like poison," said Duff. "I shall catch it hot. What an
+unlucky beggar I am!"
+
+"Pooh!" said Scaife. "He knows jolly well that the whole school calls
+him Dirty Dick."
+
+But whatever hopes Duff may have entertained of his house-master's
+deafness were speedily laid in the dust. Within five minutes Rutford
+reappeared. He stood in the doorway, glaring.
+
+"Just now, Duff," said he, "I happened to overhear your voice, which is
+singularly, I may say vulgarly, penetrating. You were speaking of me,
+your house-master, as 'Dick.' But you used an adjective before it. What
+was it?"
+
+Duff writhed. "I don't--remember."
+
+"Oh yes, you do. Why lie, Duff?"
+
+John's brown face grew pale.
+
+"The adjective you used," continued Rutford, "was 'dirty.' You spoke of
+_me_ as 'Dirty Dick,' and I fancy I caught the word 'beast.' You will
+write out, if you please, one hundred Greek lines, accents and stops,
+and bring them to me, or leave them with Dumbleton, _twenty-five_ lines
+at a time, _every_ alternate half hour during the afternoon of the next
+half holiday. Good night to you."
+
+"Good night, sir," said all the boys, save John and Scaife.
+
+"Good night, Verney."
+
+Master and pupil confronted each other. John's face looked impassive;
+and Rutford turned from the new boy to Scaife.
+
+"Good night, Scaife."
+
+Scaife drew himself up, and, in a quiet, cool voice, replied--
+
+"Good night, sir."
+
+Duff waited till Rutford's heavy step was no longer heard; then he
+rushed at John.
+
+"I say," he spluttered, "you're a good sort--ain't he, Demon? Refusing
+to say 'Good night' to the beast because he was ragging me. But he'll
+never forgive you--never!"
+
+"Oh yes, he will," said Scaife. "It won't be difficult for Dirty Dick to
+forgive the future Verney of Verney Boscobel."
+
+John stared. "Verney Boscobel?" he repeated. "Why, that belongs to my
+uncle. Mother and I hope he'll marry and have a lot of jolly kids of his
+own."
+
+"You hope he'll marry? Well, I'm----"
+
+John's jaw stuck out. The emphasis on the "hope" and the upraised
+eyebrow smote hard.
+
+"You don't mean to say," he began hotly, "you don't _think_ that----"
+
+"I can think what I please," said Scaife, curtly; "and so can you." He
+laughed derisively. "_Thinking_ what they please is about the only
+liberty allowed to new boys. Even the Duffer learned to hold his tongue
+during his first term."
+
+The Caterpillar--the tall, thin, aristocratic boy--spoke solemnly. He
+was a dandy, the understudy--as John soon discovered--of one of the
+"Bloods"; a "Junior Blood," or "Would-be," a tremendous authority on
+"swagger," a stickler for tradition, who had been nearly three years in
+the school.
+
+"The Demon is right," said he. "A new boy can't be too careful, Verney.
+Your being funny in hall just now made a dev'lish bad impression."
+
+"But I didn't mean to be funny. I told Lawrence so directly after
+call-over."
+
+The Caterpillar pulled down his cuffs.
+
+"If you didn't mean to be funny," he concluded, "you must be an ass."
+
+Duff, however, remembered that John was nephew to an explorer.
+
+"I say," he jogged John's elbow, "do you think you could get me your
+uncle's autograph?"
+
+"Why, of course," said John.
+
+"Thanks. I've not a bad collection," the Duffer murmured modestly.
+
+"And the gem of it," said Scaife, "is Billington's, the hangman! The
+Duffer shivers whenever he looks at it."
+
+"Yes, I do," said Duff, grinning horribly.
+
+After supper and Prayers, John went to bed, but not to sleep for at
+least an hour. He lay awake, thinking over the events of this memorable
+day. Whenever he closed his eyes he beheld two objects: the spire of
+Harrow Church and the vivid, laughing face of Desmond. He told himself
+that he liked Desmond most awfully. And Scaife too, the Demon, had been
+kind. But somehow John did not like Scaife. Then, in a curious
+half-dreamy condition, not yet asleep and assuredly not quite awake, he
+seemed to see the figure of Scaife expanding, assuming terrific
+proportions, impending over Desmond, standing between him and the spire,
+obscuring part of the spire at first, and then, bit by bit,
+overshadowing the whole.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Byron, writing to John Murray, May 26, 1822, and giving directions
+for the burial of poor little Allegra's body, says--
+
+"I wish it to be buried in Harrow Church. There is a spot in the
+churchyard, near the footpath, on the brow of the hill looking towards
+Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie, or
+Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours as a boy: this was my
+favourite spot; but, as I wish to erect a tablet to her memory, the body
+had better be deposited in the church."
+
+See also "Lines written beneath an elm in the churchyard of Harrow," in
+"Hours of Idleness."
+
+[2] "Speecher"--_i.e._ Speech-Day. At Harrow "er" is a favourite
+termination of many substantives. "Harder," for hard-ball racquets,
+"Footer," "Ducker," etc.
+
+[3] The Duke of Dorset was Byron's fag. _Cf._--
+
+    "Though the harsh custom of our youthful band
+    Bade thee obey, and gave me to command."
+                                  _Hours of Idleness._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+_C�sar_
+
+    "You come here where your brothers came,
+      To the old school years ago,
+    A young new face, and a Harrow name,
+      'Mid a crowd of strangers? No!
+    You may not fancy yourself alone,
+      You who are memory's heir,
+    When even the names in the graven stone
+      Will greet you with 'Who goes there--
+          You?--
+          Pass, Friend--All's well.'"
+
+
+John never forgot that memorable morning when he learned for the first
+time what place he had taken in the school. He sat with the other
+new-comers, staring, open-eyed, at nearly six hundred boys, big and
+small, assembled together in the Speech-room. So engrossed was he that
+he scarcely heard the Head Master's opening prayers. John was obsessed,
+inebriated, with the number of Harrovians, each of whom had once felt
+strange and shy like himself. From his place close to the great organ,
+he could look up and up, seeing row after row of faces, knowing that
+amongst them sat his future friends and foes.
+
+Suddenly, a neighbour nudged him. The Head Master was reading from a
+list in his hand the school-removes, and the names and places taken by
+new boys. He began at the lowest form with the name of a small urchin
+sitting near John. The urchin blinked and blushed as he realized that he
+was "lag of the school." John knew that he had answered fairly well the
+questions set by the examiners; he had no fear of finding himself
+pilloried in the Third Fourth; still, as form after form did not include
+his name, he grew restless and excited. Had he taken a higher place
+than the Middle Shell? Yes; no Verney in the Middle Shell. The Head
+Master began the removes of the top Shell. Now, now it must be coming.
+No; the clear, penetrating tones slowly articulated name after name, but
+not his.
+
+"Verney."
+
+At last. Many eyes were staring at him, some enviously, a few
+superciliously. John had taken the Lower Remove, the highest form but
+one open to new boys. He was sipping the wine called Success.
+
+Moreover, Desmond of the frank, laughing face and sparkling blue eyes,
+and Scaife and Egerton were also in the Lower Remove.
+
+After this, John sat in a blissful dream, hardly conscious of his
+surroundings, seeing his mother's face, hearing her sigh of pleasure
+when she learned that already her son was halfway up the school.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+You may be sure those first forty-eight hours were brim-full of
+excitements. First, John bought his books, stout leather-tipped,
+leather-backed volumes, on which his name will be duly stamped on
+fly-leaf and across the edges of the pages. And he bought also, from
+"Judy" Stephens,[4] a "squash" racquet, "squash" balls, and a yard ball.
+From the school Custos--"Titchy"--a noble supply of stationery was
+procured. Moreover, young Kinloch announced that his mother had given
+him three pounds to spend upon the decoration of No. 15, so Scaife
+declared his intention of spending a similar sum, and in consequence No.
+15 became a gorgeous apartment, the cynosure of every eye that passed.
+The characters of the three boys were revealed plainly enough by their
+simple furnishings. Scaife bought sporting prints, a couple of
+D�taille's lithographs, and an easy-chair, known to dwellers upon the
+Hill as a "frowst"; Kinloch hung upon his side of the wall four pretty
+reproductions of French engravings, and with the help of three yards of
+velveteen and some cheap lace he made a very passable imitation of the
+mantel-cover in his mother's London boudoir; John scorned velveteen,
+lace, "frowsts," and French engravings. He put his money into a pair of
+red curtains, and one excellent photogravure of Landseer's "Children of
+the Mist." Having a few shillings to spare, he bought half a dozen
+ferns, which were placed in a box by the window, and watered so
+diligently that they died prematurely.
+
+Secondly, John played in a house-game at football, and learned the
+difference between a scrimmage at a small preparatory school and the
+genuine thing at Harrow. Lawrence insisted that all new boys should
+play, and the Caterpillar informed him that he would have to learn the
+rules of Harrow "footer" by heart, and pass a stiff examination in them
+before the House Eleven, with the penalty of being forced to sing them
+in Hall if he failed to satisfy his examiners. The Duffer lent him a
+House-shirt of green and white stripes, and a pair of white duck shorts,
+and with what pride John put them on, thinking of the far distant day
+when he would wear a "fez"[5] instead of the commonplace house-cap!
+Lawrence said a few words.
+
+"You'll have to play the compulsory games, Verney, which begin after the
+Goose Match,[6] but I want to see you playing as hard as ever you can in
+the house-games. You'll be knocked about a bit; but a Verney won't mind
+that--eh?"
+
+"Rather not," said John, feeling very valiant.
+
+Thirdly, there was the first Sunday, and the first sermon of the Head
+Master, with its plain teaching about the opportunities and perils of
+Public School life. John found himself mightily affected by the singing,
+and the absence of shrill treble voices. The booming basses and
+baritones of the big fellows made him shiver with a curious bitter-sweet
+sensation never experienced before.
+
+Lastly, the pleasant discovery that his Form treated him with courtesy
+and kindness. Desmond, in particular, welcomed him quite warmly. And
+then and there John's heart was filled with a wild and unreasonable
+yearning for this boy's friendship. But Desmond--he was called "C�sar,"
+because his Christian names were Henry Julius--seemed to be very
+popular, a bright particular star, far beyond John's reach although for
+ever in his sight. C�sar never offered to walk with him: and he refused
+John's timid invitation to have food at the "Tudor Creameries."[7] Was
+it possible that a boy about to enter Damer's would not be seen walking
+and talking with a fellow out of Dirty Dick's? This possibility
+festered, till one morning John saw his idol walking up and down the
+School Yard with Scaife. That evening he said to Scaife--
+
+"Do you like Desmond?"
+
+"Yes," Scaife replied decisively. "I like him better than any fellow at
+Harrow. You know that his father is Charles Desmond--the Cabinet
+Minister and a Governor of the school?"
+
+"I didn't know it. I suppose C�sar Desmond likes you--_awfully_."
+
+"Do you? I doubt it."
+
+No more was said. John told himself that C�sar--he liked to think of
+Desmond as C�sar--could pick and choose a pal out of at least three
+hundred boys, half the school. How extremely unlikely that he, John,
+would be chosen! But every night he lay awake for half an hour longer
+than he ought to have done, wondering how, by hook or crook, he could do
+a service to C�sar which must challenge interest and provoke,
+ultimately, friendship.
+
+Meantime, he was slowly initiated by the Caterpillar into Harrow ways
+and customs. Fagging, which began after the first fortnight, he found a
+not unpleasant duty. After first and fourth schools the other fags and
+he would stand not far from the pantry, and yell out "Breakfast," or
+"Tea," as it might be, "for Number So-and-So." Perhaps one had to nip up
+to the Creameries to get a slice of salmon, or cutlets, or sausages.
+Fagging at Harrow--which varies slightly in different houses--is hard or
+easy according to the taste and fancy of the fag's master. Some of the
+Sixth Form at the Manor made their fags unlace their dirty football
+boots. Kinloch, who since he left the nursery had been waited upon by
+powdered footmen six feet high, now found, to his disgust, that he had
+to varnish Trieve's patent-leathers for Sunday. Trieve was second in
+command, and had been known as "Miss" Trieve. John would have gladly
+done this and more for Lawrence, his fag-master; but Lawrence, a manly
+youth, scorned sybaritic services. The Caterpillar taught John to carry
+his umbrella unfolded, to wear his "straw" straight (a slight list to
+port was allowed to "Bloods" only), not to walk in the middle of the
+road, and so forth. How he used to envy the members of the Elevens as
+they rolled arm-in-arm down the High Street! How often he wondered if
+the day would ever dawn when C�sar and he, outwardly and inwardly linked
+together, would stroll up and down the middle-walk below the Chapel
+Terrace: that sunny walk, whence, on a fair day, you can see the
+insatiable monster, London, filling the horizon and stretching red,
+reeking hands into the sweet country--the middle-walk, from which all
+but Bloods were rigidly excluded.
+
+Much to his annoyance--an annoyance, be it said, which he managed to
+hide--John seemed to attract young Kinloch almost as magnetically as he
+himself was attracted to C�sar. John had not the heart to shake off the
+frail, delicate child, who was christened "Fluff" after his first
+appearance in public. Fluff had taken the First Fourth and ingenuously
+confessed to any one who cared to listen that he ought to have gone to
+Eton. A beast of a doctor prescribed the Hill. And even the almighty
+duke failed to get him into Damer's, another grievance. He had been
+entered since birth at the crack house at Eton; and now to be
+pitchforked into Dirty Dick's at Harrow----! The Duffer kicked him,
+feeling an unspeakable cad when poor Fluff burst into tears.
+
+"Sorry," said the Duffer. "Only you mustn't slang Harrow. And you'd
+better get it into your silly head that it's the best school in this or
+any other world--isn't it, Demon?"
+
+"I'm sure the Verneys, and the Egertons, and the Duffs have always
+thought so."
+
+"But it isn't really," whimpered poor Fluff. "You fellows know that
+everybody talks of Eton and Harrow. Who ever heard of Harrow and Eton?
+People say--I've heard my eldest brother, Strathpeffer, say it again and
+again--'Eton and Harrow,' just as they say 'Gentlemen and Players.'"
+
+"Oh," said the Caterpillar. "The Etonians are the gentlemen--eh? Well,
+Fluff, after their performance at Lord's last year, you couldn't expect
+us to admit that they're--players."
+
+The Duffer chuckled.
+
+"I say, Caterpillar, that was a good 'un."
+
+"Not mine," said the Caterpillar, solemnly; "my governor's, you know."
+
+The Duffer continued: "Now, Fluff, I won't touch your body, because you
+might tumble to pieces, but if I hear you slanging the school or our
+house, I'll pull out handfuls of fluff. D'ye hear?"
+
+"Yes," said Fluff, meekly.
+
+"Say '_Floreat Herga_' on your bended knees!"
+
+Fluff obeyed.
+
+"And remember," said the Duffer, impressively, "that we've had a king
+here, haven't we, Caterpillar?"
+
+"Yes," said the Caterpillar.
+
+"I never believed it," said Scaife.
+
+"He was a Spaniard,[8] or an Italian, you know," the Duffer explained.
+"The duke of something or t'other; and an ambassador came down and
+offered the beggar the Spanish crown, when he was in the First Fourth,
+and of course he gobbled it--who wouldn't? And then Victor Emmanuel
+interfered. That's all true, you can take your Bible oath, because my
+governor told me so, and he--well, he's a parson."
+
+"Then it _must_ be true," said Scaife. "Now, young Fluff, don't forget
+that Harrow is a school fit for a king and nearer to Heaven than Eton by
+at least six hundred feet."
+
+So saying, the Demon marched out of the room, followed by Fluff,
+slightly limping.
+
+"Sorry I turfed[9] that little ass so hard," said the Duffer to John. "I
+say, Verney, the Demon is rather a rum 'un, ain't he? Sometimes I can't
+quite make him out. He's frightfully clever and all that, but I had a
+sort of beastly feeling just now that he didn't--eh?--quite mean what he
+said. Was he laughin' at _us_, pullin' our legs--what?"
+
+John's brain worked slowly, as he had found out to his cost under a
+form-master who maintained that it was no use having a fact stored in
+the head unless it slipped readily out of the mouth. The Duffer, who
+never thought, because speaking was so much easier, grew impatient at
+John's silence.
+
+"Well, you needn't look like an owl, Verney. You know that Scaife's
+grandfather was a navvy."
+
+"I don't know," John replied.
+
+"And I don't care," said the Duffer. "Let's go and have some food at the
+Creameries."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Looking back afterwards, John often wondered whether, unconsciously,
+the Duffer had sown a grain of mustard-seed destined to grow into a
+large tree. Or, had the intuition that Scaife was other than what he
+seemed furnished the fertile soil into which the seed fell? In any case,
+from the end of this first week began to increase the suspicion, which
+eventually became conviction, that the Demon, keen at games, popular in
+his house, clever at work--clever, indeed! inasmuch as he never achieved
+more or less than was necessary--generous with his money, handsome and
+well-mannered, blessed, in fine, with so many gifts of the gods, yet
+lacked a soul.
+
+This, of course, is putting into words the vague speculations and
+reasonings of a boy not yet fourteen. If an Olympian--one of the
+masters, for instance, or the Head of the House--had said, "Verney, has
+the Demon a soul?" John would have answered promptly, "Ra--ther! He's
+been awfully decent to Fluff and me. We'd have had a hot time if it
+hadn't been for him," and so forth.... And, indeed, to doubt Scaife's
+sincerity and goodness seemed at times gross disloyalty, because he
+stood, firm as a rock, between the two urchins in his room and the
+turbulent crowd outside. This defence of the weak, this guarding of
+green fruit from the maw of Lower School boys, afforded Scaife an
+opportunity of exercising power. He had the instincts of the potter,
+inherited, no doubt; and he moulded the clay ready to his hand with the
+delight of a master-workman. Nobody else knew what the man of millions
+had said to his boy when he despatched him to Harrow; but the Demon
+remembered every word. He had reason to respect and fear his sire.
+
+"I'm sending you to Harrow to study, not books nor games, but boys, who
+will be men when you are a man. And, above all, study their weaknesses.
+Look for the flaws. Teach yourself to recognize at a glance the liar,
+the humbug, the fool, the egotist, and the mule. Make friends with as
+many as are likely to help you in after life, and don't forget that one
+enemy may inflict a greater injury than twenty friends can repair.
+Spend money freely; dress well; swim with the tide, not against it."
+
+A year at Harrow confirmed Scaife's confidence in his father's worldly
+wisdom. Big for his age, strong, with his grandsire's muscles, tough as
+hickory, he had become the leader of the Lower School boys at the Manor.
+The Fifth were civil to him, recognizing, perhaps, the expediency of
+leaving him alone ever since the incident of the cricket stump. The
+Sixth found him the quickest of the fags and uncommonly obliging. His
+house-master signed reports which neither praised nor blamed. To Dirty
+Dick the boy was the son of a man who could write a cheque for a
+million.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two things worthy of record happened within a month; the one of lesser
+importance can be set down first. Charles Desmond, C�sar's father, came
+down to Harrow and gave a luncheon at the King's Head. From time
+immemorial the Desmonds had been educated on the Hill. The family had
+produced some famous soldiers, a Lord Chancellor, and a Prime Minister.
+In the Fourth Form Room the stranger may read their names carved in oak,
+and they are carved also in the hearts of all ardent Harrovians. Mr.
+Desmond, though a Cabinet Minister, found time to visit Harrow once at
+least in each term. He always chose a whole holiday, and after attending
+eleven-o'clock Bill[10] in the Yard, would carry off his son and his
+son's friends. The School knew him and loved him. To the thoughtful he
+stood for the illustrious past, the epitome of what John Lyon's[11] boys
+had fought for and accomplished. Four sons had he--Harrovians all. Of
+these C�sar was youngest and last. Each had distinguished himself on the
+Hill either in work or play, or in both.
+
+Charles Desmond stood upon the step just above the master who was
+calling Bill.
+
+"That's C�sar's father," said Scaife. "I'm going to lunch with him.
+Isn't he a topper?"
+
+John's eyes were popping out of his face. He had never seen any man like
+this resplendent, stately personage, smiling and nodding to the biggest
+fellows in the school.
+
+"And my governor says," Scaife added, "that he's not a rich man, nothing
+much to speak of in the way of income over and above his screw as a
+Cabinet Minister."
+
+Scaife moved away, and John could hear him say to another boy, in an
+easy, friendly tone, "Mr. Desmond told C�sar that he wanted to meet
+_me_--very civil of him--eh?"
+
+Presently John was in line waiting to pass by the steps.
+
+"Verney?"
+
+"Here, sir."
+
+He was hurrying by, with a backward glance at the great man. Suddenly
+C�sar's father beckoned, nodding cheerily. John ascended the steps, to
+feel the grasp of a strong hand, to hear a ringing voice.
+
+"You're John Verney's nephew. Just so. I think I should have spotted
+you, even if Harry had not told me you were in his form. You must lunch
+with us. Cut along, now."
+
+So John was dismissed, brim-full of happiness, which almost overflowed
+when C�sar met him with an eager--
+
+"I'm so glad, Verney. I say, the governor's a nailer at picking out the
+old names, isn't he?"
+
+So John ate his luncheon in distinguished company, and felt himself for
+the first time to be somebody. As the youngest guest present, to him was
+accorded the place of honour, next the most charming host in
+Christendom, who put him at ease in a jiffy. How good the cutlets and
+the pheasant tasted! And how the talk warmed the cockles of his heart!
+The brand of the Crossed Arrows shone upon all topics. Who could expect,
+or desire, aught else! C�sar's governor seemed to know what every
+Harrovian had done worth the doing. Easily, fluently, he discoursed of
+triumphs won at home, abroad, in the camp, on the hustings, at the bar,
+in the pulpit. And his anecdotes, which illustrated every phase of life,
+how pat to the moment they were! One boy complained ruefully of having
+spent three terms under a form-master who had "ragged" him. Charles
+Desmond sympathized--
+
+"Bless my soul," said he, "don't I remember being three terms in the
+Third Fifth when that tartar old Heriot had it? I dare swear I got no
+more than my deserts. I was an idle vagabond, but Heriot made my life
+such a burden to me that I entreated my people to take me away from
+Harrow. And then my governor urged me to put my back into the work and
+get a remove. And I did. And would you believe it, upon the first day of
+the next term I wired to my people, 'You must take me away. I've got my
+remove all right--and so has Heriot.'"
+
+How gaily the speaker led the laugh which followed this recital! And the
+chaff! Was it possible that C�sar dared to chaff a man who was supposed
+to have the peace of Europe in his keeping? And, by Jove! C�sar could
+hold his own.
+
+So the minutes flew. But John noticed, with surprise, that the Demon
+didn't score. In fact, John and he were the only guests that contributed
+nothing to the feast save hearty appetites. It was strange that the
+Demon, the wit of his house and form, never opened his mouth except to
+fill it with food. He answered, it is true, and very modestly, the
+questions addressed to him by his host; but then, as John reflected, any
+silly fool in the Fourth Form could do that.
+
+After luncheon, the boys were dismissed, each with a hearty word of
+encouragement and half a sovereign. John was passing the plate-glass
+splendours of the Creameries, when the Demon overtook him, and they
+walked down the winding High Street together. Scaife had never walked
+with John before.
+
+"That was worth while," Scaife said quietly. John could not interpret
+this speech, save in its obvious meaning.
+
+"Rather," he replied.
+
+"Why?" said Scaife, very sharply.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Why was it worth while?"
+
+John stammered out something about good food and jolly talk.
+
+"Pooh!" said Scaife, contemptuously. "I thought you had brains, Verney."
+He glanced at him keenly. "Now, speak out. What's in that head of yours?
+You can be cheeky, if you like."
+
+John wondered how Scaife had divined that he wished to be cheeky. His
+mentor had said so much to Fluff and him about the propriety of not
+putting on "lift" or "side" in the presence of an older boy, that he had
+choked back a retort which occurred to him.
+
+"You're thinking," continued the Demon, in his clear voice, "that I
+didn't use my brains just now, but, my blooming innocent, I can assure
+you I did. Very much so. I played 'possum. Put that into your little
+pipe and smoke it."
+
+At four-o'clock Bill, John noticed C�sar's absence: a fact accounted for
+by the presence of a mail-phaeton, which, he knew, belonged to Mr.
+Desmond, drawn up--oddly enough--opposite the Manor. What a joke to
+think that C�sar was drinking tea with Dirty Dick!
+
+After Bill, having nothing better to do, John and Fluff went for a walk
+on the Sudbury road. They had played football before Bill, and each had
+realized his own awkwardness and insignificance. Poor Fluff, almost
+reduced to tears, with a big black bruise upon his white forehead,
+confessed that he preferred peaceful games--like croquet, and intended
+to apply for a doctor's certificate of exemption. Demanding sympathy, he
+received a slating.
+
+"I play nearly as rotten a game as you do, Fluff," John said; "but
+Scaife expects us to be Torpids,[12] so we jolly well have to buck up.
+That bruise over your eye has taken off your painted-doll look. Now, if
+you're going to blub, you'd better get behind that hedge."
+
+Fluff exploded.
+
+"This is a beastly hole," he cried. "And I loathe it. I'm going to write
+to my father and beg him to take me away."
+
+"You ought to be at a girls' school."
+
+"I hate everything and everybody. I thought you were my friend, the only
+friend I had."
+
+John was somewhat mollified.
+
+"I am your friend, but not when you talk rot."
+
+"Verney, look here, if you'll be decent to me, I _will_ try to stick it
+out. I wish I was like you; I do indeed. I wish I was like Scaife. Why,
+I'd sooner be the Duffer, freckles and all, than myself."
+
+John looked down upon the delicately-tinted face, the small, regular,
+girlish features, the red, quivering mouth. Suddenly he grasped that
+this was an appeal from weakness to strength, and that he, no older and
+but a little bigger than Fluff, had strength to spare, strength to
+shoulder burdens other than his own.
+
+"All right," he said stiffly; "don't make such a fuss!"
+
+"You'll have me for a friend, Verney?"
+
+"Yes; but I ain't going to kiss your forehead to make it well, you
+know."
+
+"May I call you John, when we're alone? And I wish you'd call me Esm�,
+instead of that horrid 'Fluff.'"
+
+John pondered deeply.
+
+"Look here," he said. "You can call me John, and I'll call you Esm�,
+when we're Torpids. And now, you'd better cut back to the house. I must
+think this all out, and I can't think straight when I look at you."
+
+"May I call you John once?"
+
+"You are the silliest idiot I ever met, bar none. Call me 'John,' or
+'Tom Fool,' or anything; but hook it afterwards!"
+
+"Yes, John, I will. You're the only boy I ever met whom I really wanted
+for a friend." He displayed a radiant face, turned suddenly, and ran
+off. John watched him, frowning, because Fluff was a good little chap,
+and yet, at times, such a bore!
+
+He walked on alone, chewing the cud of a delightful experience; trying,
+not unsuccessfully, to recall some of Mr. Desmond's anecdotes. How proud
+C�sar was of his father! And the father, obviously, was just as proud of
+his son. What a pair! And if only C�sar were his friend! By Jove! It was
+rather a rum go, but John was as mad keen to call C�sar friend as poor
+Fluff to call John friend. Serious food for thought, this. "But I would
+never bother him," said John to himself, "as Fluff has bothered me,
+never!"
+
+"Hullo, Verney!"
+
+"Hullo!" said John.
+
+Coincidence had thrust C�sar out of his thought and on to the narrow
+path in front of him.
+
+"I'm not a ghost," said C�sar.
+
+John hesitated.
+
+"I was thinking of you," he confessed; "and then I heard your voice and
+saw you. It gave me a start. I say, it _was_ good of your governor to
+ask me."
+
+"Hang my governor! He's the----"
+
+C�sar closed his lips firmly, as if he feared that terrible adjectives
+might burst from them. John missed the sparkling smile, the gay glance
+of the eyes.
+
+"What's up?" he demanded.
+
+C�sar hesitated; looked at John, read, perhaps, the sympathy, the honest
+interest, possibly the affection, in the grey orbs which met his own so
+steadily.
+
+"What's up?" he repeated. "Why, I'm not going into Damer's, after all."
+
+"Oh!" said John.
+
+"My governor has just told me. I came down here to curse and swear."
+
+"Not going into Damer's? What rot--for you!"
+
+"It is sickening. Look here, Verney; I feel like telling you about it. I
+know you won't go bleating all over the shop. No. I said to myself,
+'Mum's the word,' but----"
+
+John's heart beat, his body glowed, his grey eyes sparkled.
+
+"It's like this," continued C�sar, after a slight pause. "Damer told the
+governor that two fellows he had expected to leave at the end of this
+term were staying on. The governor hinted that Damer added something
+about straining a point, and letting me in ahead of three other fellows;
+but the governor wouldn't listen to that----"
+
+"Jolly decent of him," said John.
+
+"Was it? In my opinion he ought to have thought of me first. All my
+brothers have been at Damer's. And he knew I'd set my heart on going
+there. Look how civil the fellows are to me. I've been in and out of the
+house like a tame cat. Confound it! if Damer did want to strain a point,
+why shouldn't he? The governor played his own game, not mine. What right
+has he to be so precious unselfish at my expense? I argued with him; but
+he can put his foot down. Let's cut all that. Of course, I don't want to
+stop in a beastly Small House for ever, and, if Damer's is closed to me,
+I should like Brown's, but Brown's is full too. And there are other good
+houses. But where--where do you think I _am_ going?"
+
+"Reeds?"
+
+"I don't call Reed's so bad. No; I'm going to Dirty Dick's. I'm coming
+to you."
+
+"Oh, I say."
+
+"Why, dash it all, you're grinning. I don't want to be a cad--Dirty
+Dick's is _your_ house--but--after Damer's! O Lord!"
+
+The grin faded out of John's face. C�sar's loss outweighed his own gain.
+
+"Your governor was a Manorite," he said slowly.
+
+"Yes, in its best days; and he's always had a sneaking liking for it;
+but he knows, he knows, I say, that now it's rotten, and yet he sends me
+there. Why?"
+
+"Ask another," said John.
+
+"I asked him another, and what do you think he said, in that peculiar
+voice of his which always dries me up? 'Harry,' said he, 'when you're a
+little older and a good deal wiser, you'll be able to answer that
+question yourself.'"
+
+John's face brightened. A glimmering of the truth shone out of the
+darkness. He tried to advance nearer to it, gropingly.
+
+"I dare say----"
+
+"Well, go on!"
+
+"Your governor may feel that we want a fellow like you."
+
+John was blushing because he remembered what the Head of the House had
+said about the Verneys. Desmond glanced at him keenly. He detested
+flattery laid on too thick. But this was a genuine tribute. For the
+first time he smiled.
+
+"Thank you, Verney," he said, more genially. "What you say is utter rot;
+but it was decent of you to say it, and I'm glad that you and I are
+going to be in the same house."
+
+For his life John could not help adding, "And Scaife, you forget
+Scaife?" Jealousy pierced him as Scaife's name slipped out.
+
+"Yes, there's the Demon. I always liked him."
+
+"And he likes you."
+
+"Does he? Good old Demon! I like to be liked. That's the Irish in me.
+I'm half Irish, you know. I want fellows to be friendly to me. I'd
+forgotten Scaife. That's rum too, because he's not the sort one forgets,
+is he? No, I wonder if I could get into the Demon's room next term?"
+
+"I'm in his room. It's a three-room."
+
+"A two-room is much jollier."
+
+"Our room is not bad."
+
+C�sar was hardly listening. John caught a murmur: "The old Demon and I
+would get along capitally."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] The racquet Professional.
+
+[5] The cap of honour worn by the House Football Eleven.
+
+[6] The Goose Match, the last cricket-match of the year, played between
+the Eleven and Old Boys, on the nearest half-holiday to Michaelmas Day.
+
+[7] A fashionable "tuck"-shop.
+
+[8] H.R.H. Prince Thomas of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, was elected King by
+the Cortes of Spain, October 3, 1869, while he was a boy at Harrow. The
+crown was finally declined January 1, 1870. The Prince was nick-named
+"King Tom."
+
+[9] To "turf," _i.e._ to kick.
+
+[10] Calling over.
+
+[11] John Lyon founded Harrow School, 1571.
+
+[12] Boys who have not been more than two years in the school are
+eligible as "Torpids;" out of each house a Torpid football Eleven is
+chosen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+_Kraipale_[13]
+
+    "Life is mostly froth and bubble;
+      Two things stand like stone--
+    Kindness in another's trouble,
+      Courage in your own."
+
+
+Some five years afterwards John Verney learned what had passed between
+Cabinet Minister and Head Master upon that eventful day which sent C�sar
+to curse and swear upon the Sudbury road. The Head Master was not an
+Harrovian, and on that account was the better able to perceive
+time-honoured abuses. At Harrow the dominant chord among masters and
+boys is a harmony of strenuousness and sentiment. Inevitably, the
+sentiment becomes, at times, sentimental; and then strenuousness pushes
+it into a corner. When honoured veterans are wearing out, loyalty,
+gratitude for past service, reluctance to inflict pain, keep them in
+positions of responsibility which mentally and physically they are unfit
+to administer. It is almost as difficult to turn an Eton or Harrow
+master out of his house, as to turn a parson of the Church of England
+out of his pulpit. More, in selecting a house-master as in selecting a
+parson, a man's claims to preferment are too often determined by
+scholarship, by length of former service, by interest with authority,
+rather than by ability to govern a body of boys made up of widely
+different parts. A capable form-master may prove an incapable
+house-master. Richard Rutford, to give a concrete example, came to
+Harrow knowing nothing about Public Schools, and caring as little for
+the traditions of the Hill, but with the prestige of being a Senior
+Classic. Nobody questioned his ability to teach Greek. In his own line,
+and not an inch beyond, the Governors were assured that Rutford was a
+success. In due time he accepted a Small House, so small that its
+autocrat's incapacity as an administrator escaped notice. Rutford waited
+patiently for a big morsel. He wrote a couple of text-books; he married
+a wife with money and influence; he entertained handsomely. It is true
+he became popular neither with masters nor boys, but his wine was as
+sound as his scholarship, and his wife had a peer for a second cousin.
+Eventually he accepted the Manor. Within a month, those in authority
+suspected that a blunder had been made; within a year they knew it. The
+house began to go down. Leaven lay in the lump, but not enough to make
+it rise, because the baker refused to stir the dough. First and last,
+Rutford disliked boys, misunderstood them, insulted them, ignored those
+who lacked influential connections, toadied and pampered the "swells."
+
+Just before John Verney came to Harrow, the Manor was showing
+unmistakable signs of decay. A new Head Master, recognizing "dry-rot,"
+realizing the necessity of cutting it out, was confronted with that
+bristling obstacle--Tradition. He possessed enough moral courage to have
+told Rutford to resign, because in a thousand indescribable ways the man
+had neglected his duty; but, so said the Tories, such a step might
+provoke a public scandal, and if Rutford refused to go--what then?
+Nothing definite could be proved against the man. His sins had been of
+omission. Dismayed, not defeated, the Head Master considered other
+methods of regenerating the Manor. Very quietly he made his appeal to
+the Old Harrovians, many of whom were sending their sons and nephews to
+other houses. He invited co-operation. John Verney, the Rev. Septimus
+Duff, Colonel Egerton--half a dozen enthusiastic Manorites--stepped
+forward. Lastly, for Charles Desmond the Head Master baited his hook.
+
+"The reform which we have at heart," said he, "must come from within
+and from below. The house wants a Desmond in it. I was not allowed to
+wield the axe; but, after all, there are more modern methods of
+decapitation. And, believe me, I am not asking any man more than I am
+prepared to do myself. My own nephew goes to the Manor after next
+holidays."
+
+"Um!" said Mr. Desmond, stroking his chin.
+
+"Lawrence, the Head of the House, is a tower of strength, like all the
+Lawrences."
+
+"How did you beguile the Duke of Trent?"
+
+"Fortune gave me that weapon. The duke"--he laughed genially----
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Will turn scales which my heaviest arguments won't budge. A bit of
+luck! The duke wanted to send his son, a delicate lad, to Harrow, and I
+did mention to him that Rutford had a vacancy."
+
+"O Ulysses! And Scaife? How did you handle that large bale of
+bank-notes?"
+
+"Rutford captured Scaife."
+
+"Handsome boy--his son. Lunched with us this morning. Well, well, you
+have persuaded me. But what an unpleasant quarter of an hour I shall
+have with Harry!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As a new boy, John slaved at "footer," and displayed a curious
+inaptitude for squash racquets. At all games C�sar and Scaife were
+precociously proficient. John's clumsiness annoyed them. Often the
+Caterpillar joined him and Fluff, giving them to understand that this
+must be regarded as an act of grace and condescension which might be
+suitably acknowledged at the Tudor Creameries.
+
+The Caterpillar mightily impressed the two small boys. He had acquired
+his nick-name from the very leisurely pace at which he advanced up the
+school. He wore "Charity tails," as they were called, the swallow-tail
+coat of the Upper School mercifully given to boys of the Lower School
+who are too tall to wear with decency the short Eton jacket; he
+possessed a trouser-press; and his "bags" were perfectly creased and
+quite spotless. From tip to toe, at all seasons and in all weathers, he
+looked conspicuously spick and span. Chaff provoked the solemn retort:
+"One should be well groomed." He spoke impersonally, considering it bad
+form to use for first person singular. Amongst the small boys he ranked
+as the Petronius of the Lower School.
+
+One day the Caterpillar said grandiloquently, "You kids will oblige me
+by not shouting and yelling when you speak to me. I've a bit of a head."
+
+"What's wrong with it?" said Fluff.
+
+"It looks splendid _outside_," said John, in his serious voice.
+
+The Caterpillar, detecting no cheek, answered gravely--
+
+"Some of us had a wet night of it, last night."
+
+"Wet?" exclaimed the innocent Fluff. "Why, all the stars were shining."
+
+"Your brothers at Eton know what a 'wet night' means," said the
+Caterpillar. "I was talking with one of the Fifth, when a fellow came in
+with a flask. A gentleman ought to be able to carry a few glasses of
+wine, but one is not accustomed to spirits."
+
+"Spirits?"
+
+"Whisky, not prussic acid, you know."
+
+"But where do they get the whisky?" demanded John.
+
+"Comparing it with my father's old Scotch, I should say at the
+grocer's," replied the Caterpillar. "There's some drinking going on in
+our house, and--and other things. One mentions it to you kids as a
+warning."
+
+"Thanks," said John.
+
+"Not at all; you're rather decent little beggars. They" (the Fifth Form
+was indicated), "they've let you alone so far, but you may have trouble
+next term, so look out! And if you want advice, come to me."
+
+Beneath his absurd pompous manner beat a kindly heart, and the small
+boys divined this and were grateful. None the less the word "spirits"
+frightened them. Next day John happened to find himself alone with
+C�sar. Very nervously he asked the question--
+
+"I say, do any of the big fellows at Damer's drink?"
+
+"Drink? Drink--what?"
+
+"Well, spirits."
+
+C�sar snorted an indignant denial. The fellows at Damer's were above
+that sort of thing. The house prided itself upon its tone. Tone
+constituted Damer's glory, and was the secret of its success. John
+nodded, but two days afterwards the Demon took him by the arm, twisted
+it sharply, and said--
+
+"What the deuce did you mean by telling C�sar that the Manorites drink?"
+
+"Oh, Scaife--I didn't."
+
+"You gave us away."
+
+"_Us?_" John's eyes opened. "_You_ don't drink with 'em?" he faltered.
+
+"Don't bother your head about what I do, or don't do." Scaife answered
+roughly; "and because you took the Lower Remove don't think for an
+instant that you are on a par with C�sar and me, or even the old
+Caterpillar--for you ain't."
+
+"I know that," said John, humbly.
+
+"Don't forget it, or there may be ructions."
+
+"I shan't forget it."
+
+"That's right. And, by the way, you're getting into the habit of hanging
+about C�sar, which bores him to death. Stop it."
+
+But to this John made no reply. He read dislike in Scaife's bold eyes,
+detected it in his clear, peremptory voice, felt it in the cruel twist
+of the arm. And he had brains enough to know that Scaife was not the boy
+to dislike any one without reason. John crawled to the conclusion that
+Scaife had become jealous of his increasing intimacy with Desmond.
+
+However, when the three boys were preparing their Greek for First
+School, Scaife seemed his old self, friendly, amusing, and cool as a
+cucumber. Long ago he had initiated John into Manorite methods of work.
+
+"Our object is," he explained to the new boy, "to get through the 'swat'
+with as little squandering of valuable time as possible. It doesn't pay
+to be skewed. We must mug up our 'cons' well enough to scrape along
+without 'puns' and extra school."
+
+The three co-operated. Out of forty lines of Vergil, Scaife would be
+fifteen, John fifteen, and the Caterpillar ten; _ten_, because, as he
+pointed out, he had been nearly three years in the school. Then each
+fellow in turn construed his lines for the benefit of the others. A
+difficult passage was taken by Scaife to a clever friend in the Fifth.
+Sometimes Scaife would be absent twenty minutes, returning flushed of
+face, and slightly excited. John wondered if he had been drinking, and
+wondered also what C�sar would say if he knew. About this time fear
+possessed his soul that C�sar would come into the Manor and be taught by
+Scaife to drink. An occasional nightmare took the form of a desperate
+struggle between himself and Scaife, in which Scaife, by virtue of
+superior strength and skill, had the mastery, dragging off the beloved
+C�sar, to plunge with him into fathomless pools of Scotch whisky.
+Somehow in these horrid dreams, C�sar played an impressive part. Scaife
+and John fought for his body, while he looked on, an absurd state of
+affairs, never--as John reflected in his waking hours--likely to happen
+in real life. Of all boys C�sar seemed to be the best equipped to fight
+his own battles, and to take, as he would have put it, "jolly good care
+of himself."
+
+After the first of the football house-matches, Scaife got his "fez" from
+Lawrence, the captain of the House Eleven, and the only member of the
+School Eleven in Dirty Dick's. Some of the big fellows in the Fifth
+seized this opportunity to "celebrate," as they called it. Scaife was
+popular with the Fifth because--as John discovered later--he cheerfully
+lent money to some of them and never pressed for repayment. And
+Scaife's getting his "fez" before he was fifteen might be reckoned an
+achievement. C�sar, in particular, could talk of nothing else. He
+predicted that the Demon would be Captain of both Elevens, school
+racquet-player, and bloom into a second C. B. Fry.
+
+John, upon this eventful evening, soon became aware of a shindy. It
+happened that Rutford was giving a dinner-party, and extremely unlikely
+to leave the private side of the house. John heard snatches of song,
+howls, and cheers. Ordinarily Lawrence (in whose passage the shindy was
+taking place) would have stopped this hullabaloo; but Lawrence was
+dining with his house-master, and Trieve, an undersized, weakly
+stripling, lacked the moral courage to interfere. John was getting a
+"con" from Trieve when an unusually piercing howl penetrated the august
+seclusion.
+
+"What _are_ they doing?" asked Trieve, irritably.
+
+John hesitated. "It's the Fifth," he blurted out. "They've got Scaife in
+there, you know."
+
+"Oh, indeed! Scaife is an excuse, is he, for this fiendish row? Go and
+tell Scaife I want to see him."
+
+John looked rather frightened. He felt like a spaniel about to retrieve
+a lion. And scurrying along the passage he ran headlong into the Duffer,
+to whom he explained his errand.
+
+"Phew-w-w!" said that young gentleman. "I'd sooner it was you than me,
+Verney. They're pretty well ginned-up, I can tell you."
+
+John tapped timidly at the door of the room whence the songs and
+laughter proceeded. Then he tapped again, and again. Finally, summoning
+his courage, he rapped hard. Instantly there was silence, and then a
+furtive rustling of papers, followed by a constrained "Come in!"
+
+John entered.
+
+Most of the boys--there were about six of them--gazed at him in
+stupefaction. Scaife, very red in the face, burst into shrill shouts of
+laughter. Somehow the laughter disconcerted John. He forgot to deliver
+his message, but stood staring at Scaife, quaking with a young boy's
+terror of the unknown. Upon the table were some siphons, syrups, and the
+remains of a "spread."
+
+"What the blazes do you want?" said Lovell, the owner of the room.
+
+"I want Scaife," said John. "I mean that Trieve wants Scaife."
+
+"Oh, Miss Trieve wants Master Scaife, does she? Well, young 'un, you
+tell Trieve, with my compliments, that Scaife can't come. See? Now--hook
+it!"
+
+But John still stared at Scaife. The boy's dishevelled appearance, his
+wild eyes, his shrill laughter, revealed another Scaife.
+
+"You'd better come, Scaife," he faltered.
+
+"Not I," said Scaife. He spoke in a curiously high-pitched voice, quite
+unlike his usual cool, quiet tone. "Wait a mo'--I'm not Trieve's fag.
+I'm nobody's fag now, am I?"
+
+He appealed to the crowd. It was an unwritten rule at the Manor that
+members of the House cricket or football Elevens were exempt from
+fagging. But the common law of fagging at Harrow holds that any lower
+boy is bound to obey the Monitors, provided such obedience is not
+contrary to the rules of the school. In practice, however, no boy is
+fagged outside his own house, except for cricket-fagging in the summer
+term.
+
+"Fag? Not you? Tell Miss Trieve to mind her own business."
+
+John departed, feeling that an older and wiser boy might have tact to
+cope with this situation. For him, no course of action presented itself
+except delivering what amounted to a declaration of war.
+
+"Won't come? Is he mad?"
+
+"'Can't come,' they said."
+
+"Oh, can't come? Has he hurt himself--sprained anything?"
+
+John was truthful (more of a habit than some people believe). He told
+the truth, just as some boys quibble and prevaricate, simply and
+naturally. But now, he hesitated. If he hinted--a hint would
+suffice--that Scaife had hurt himself--and what more likely after the
+furious bit of playing which had secured his "fez"?--Trieve, probably,
+would do nothing. John felt in his bones that Trieve would be glad of an
+excuse to do--nothing.
+
+"No; he hasn't sprained himself."
+
+"Then why don't he come?"
+
+"I--I----" Then he burst into excited speech. "He looks as if he _was_ a
+little mad. Oh, Trieve, won't you leave him alone? Please do! They must
+stop before prayers, and then Lawrence will be here."
+
+O unhappy John--thou art not a diplomatist! Why lug in Lawrence, who has
+inspired mordant jealousy and envy in the heart of his second in
+command?
+
+"Tell Scaife to come here at once," said Trieve, eyeing a couple of
+canes in the corner. "And if he should happen to ask what I want him
+for, say that I mean to whop him."
+
+John fled.
+
+"Whop him?"
+
+The Fifth howled rage and remonstrance. Scaife fiercely announced his
+intention of not taking a whopping from Trieve. None the less, the
+announcement had a sobering effect upon the elder boys. The consequence
+of a refusal must prove serious. Sooner or later Scaife would be
+whopped, probably by Lawrence, no ha'penny matter that!
+
+"You'd better go, Demon," said Lovell. "Trieve can't hurt you. I'd speak
+to the idiot, only he hates me so poisonously, just as I hate him."
+
+"I'll go," said the Caterpillar.
+
+John had not noticed the Caterpillar before. He stood up, spick and
+span, carefully adjusting his coat, pulling down his immaculate cuffs.
+
+"Good old Caterpillar," said somebody. "By Jove, he really thinks that
+Trieve will listen to--him!"
+
+"Any one who has been nearly three years in this house," said the
+Caterpillar, "has the right to tell Miss Trieve that she is--er--not
+behaving like a lady."
+
+"And he'll tell you you're screwed, you old fool."
+
+"I am not screwed," replied the Caterpillar, solemnly. "Whisky and
+potass does not agree with everybody; but I am not screwed, not at all."
+So speaking he sat down rather suddenly.
+
+Lovell shrugged his shoulders, glanced at the Caterpillar and Scaife,
+and left the room. Within two minutes he returned, chapfallen and
+frowning.
+
+"I knew it would be useless. Look here, Demon, you must grin and bear
+it."
+
+"No," said Scaife, "not from Miss Trieve."
+
+He laughed as before. The Fifth exchanged glances. Then Scaife said
+thickly, "Give me another drink, I want a drink; so does young Verney.
+Look at him!"
+
+John was white about the gills and trembling, but not for himself.
+
+"Do go, Scaife!" he entreated.
+
+The Fifth formed a group; holding a council of war, engrossed in trying
+to find a way out of a wood which of a sudden had turned into a tangled
+thicket. And so what each would have strenuously prevented came to pass.
+Scaife pulled a bottle from under a sofa-cushion, and put it to his
+lips--John, standing at the door, could not see what was taking place.
+
+When the bottle was torn from Scaife's hands, the mischief had been
+done. The boy had swallowed a quantity of raw spirit. Till now the
+whisky had been much diluted with mineral water.
+
+"I'm going to him," yelled Scaife, struggling with his friends. "And I'm
+going to take a cricket stump with me. Le'me go--le'me go!"
+
+The Caterpillar surveyed him with disgust. After a brief struggle Scaife
+succumbed, helpless and senseless.
+
+"One is reminded sometimes," said the Caterpillar, solemnly, "that the
+poor Demon is the son of a Liverpool merchant, bred in or about the
+Docks."
+
+Nobody, however, paid any attention to Egerton, who, to do him justice,
+was the only boy present absolutely unmindful of his own peril.
+Expulsion loomed imminent. The window was flung wide open, eau de
+Cologne liberally applied. Scaife lay like a log.
+
+And then, in the middle of the confusion, Trieve walked in.
+
+"Scaife has had a sort of fit," explained an accomplished liar. "You
+know what his temper is, Trieve? And when he heard that you meant to
+'whop' him, he went stark, staring mad."
+
+This explanation was so near the truth that Trieve accepted it, probably
+with mental reservations.
+
+"You had better send for Mrs. Puttick," he replied coldly.
+
+The Caterpillar was despatched for the matron; but before that worthy
+woman panted upstairs, Scaife had been carried to his own room, hastily
+undressed and put into bed, where he lay breathing stertorously. The
+matron, good, easy soul, accepted the boys' story unhesitatingly. A fit,
+of course, poor dear child! Mr. Rutford must be summoned.
+
+With the optimism of youth, those present began to hope that dust might
+be thrown into the eyes of Dirty Dick. And, with a little discreet
+delay, the Demon might recover, when he could be relied upon to play his
+part with adroitness and ability. Accordingly, the matron was urged to
+try her ministering hand first, amid the chaff, which, even in
+emergencies, slips so easily out of boys' mouths.
+
+"Mrs. Puttick, you're better than any doctor--Scaife is all right,
+_really_. We knew that he was subject to fits--Rather! Some one was
+telling me that one of his aunts died in a fit"--"Shut up, you silly
+fool," this in a whisper, emphasized by a kick; "do you want to send her
+out of this with a hornets' nest tied to her back hair?--That's a lie,
+Mrs. Puttick. He's humbugging you. Scaife told me that his fits were
+nothing. Yes; he had a slight sun-stroke when he was a kid, you know,
+and the least bit of excitement affects him."
+
+"Perhaps I'd better fetch a drop of brandy," said Mrs. Puttick, staring
+anxiously at Scaife. "He looks very bad."
+
+"Yes, please do, Mrs. Puttick."
+
+She bustled away.
+
+"Now we _must_ bring him to," said the Fifth Form.
+
+Everything was tried, even to the expedient of flicking Scaife's body
+with a wet towel; but the body lay motionless, his face horribly red
+against the white pillow, his heavy breathing growing more laboured and
+louder. And despite the perfume of the eau de Cologne which had drenched
+pillow and pyjamas, the smell of whisky spread terror to the crowd. If
+Rutford came in, he would swoop on the truth.
+
+"We'll souse the brandy all over him," said the Caterpillar; "and then
+no one can guess."
+
+"How about burnt feathers?" suggested Lovell. He had seen a fainting
+housemaid treated with this family restorative.
+
+Mrs. Puttick appeared with the brandy, which Lovell administered
+externally. Still, Scaife remained unconscious. Then a pillow was ripped
+open, and enough feathers burned to restore--as the Caterpillar put it
+afterwards--a ruined cathedral. The stench filled the passage and
+brought to No. 15 a chattering crowd of Lower Boys. And then the
+conviction seized everybody that Scaife was going to die.
+
+"Make way, make way, please!"
+
+It was Rutford, who, followed by Lawrence, strode down the passage into
+No. 15, and up to the bed.
+
+"If you please, sir," said Lovell, "Scaife has had a fit."
+
+"It looks like a fit," said Rutford, gravely. "I have telephoned for the
+doctor. You've tried," he sniffed the air, "all the wrong remedies, of
+course. Feathers--phaugh!--perfume--brandy! The boy must be propped up
+and the blood drawn from his head by applying hot water to his feet."
+
+The Fifth exchanged glances. Why had this not occurred to them? What a
+fool Mrs. Puttick was!
+
+"A rush of blood to the head!" Rutford liked to hold forth, and he had
+been told that he was a capital after-dinner speaker. He had just risen
+from an excellent dinner; he was not much alarmed; and his audience
+listened with flattering attention. Scaife was lifted into a chair; ice
+was applied to his head; his feet were thrust into a "tosh" filled with
+steaming water.
+
+"Note the effect," said Rutford. Already a slight change might be
+perceived; the breathing became easier, the face less red. Rutford
+continued in his best manner: "Mark the _vis medicatrix natur�_. Nature,
+assisted by hot water, gently accomplishes her task. Very simple, and
+not one of you had the wit to think of a remedy close at hand, and so
+easy to administer. The breathing is becoming normal. In a few minutes I
+predict that we shall have the satisfaction of seeing the poor dear
+fellow open his eyes, and he will tell us that he is but little the
+worse. Yes, yes, a rush of blood to the head producing cerebral
+disturbance."
+
+He smiled blandly, receiving the homage of the Fifth.
+
+"And now, Lovell, what do you know about this? Did this fit take place
+here?"
+
+"In my room, sir."
+
+"In your room--eh? What was Scaife, a Lower Boy, doing in your room?"
+
+"Lawrence gave him his 'fez' to-day, sir."
+
+Lawrence nodded.
+
+"Ah! And Scaife was excited, perhaps unduly excited--eh?"
+
+The Fifth joined in a chorus of, "Yes, sir--Oh, yes, sir--awfully
+excited, sir--never saw a boy so excited, sir."
+
+"That will do. Now, Lovell, go on!"
+
+"We had some siphons in our room, sir." A stroke of genius this--for the
+siphons were still on the table and the syrups, and the _d�bris_ of
+cakes and meringues. Rutford would be sure to examine the scene of the
+catastrophe; and the whisky bottle was carefully hidden. "We were having
+a spread, sir, and we asked Scaife to join us. His play to-day made him
+one of us."
+
+The other boys gazed admiringly at Lovell. What a cool, knowing hand!
+
+"Yes, yes, I see nothing objectionable about that."
+
+"Well, sir--we were rather noisy----"
+
+"Go on."
+
+"To speak the exact truth, sir, I fear we were _very_ noisy; and Trieve,
+it seems, heard us. Instead of sending for me, sir, he sent Verney for
+Scaife----"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Lovell's hesitation at this point was really worthy of Coquelin _cadet_.
+
+"Of course you know, sir, that Scaife's getting his 'fez' releases him
+from house-fagging. We thought Trieve had forgotten that, sir; and that
+it would be rather fun--I'm not excusing myself, sir--we thought it
+would be a harmless joke if we persuaded Scaife not to go."
+
+"Um!"
+
+"We were very foolish, sir. And then Trieve sent another message saying
+that Scaife was to go to his room at once to be--whopped."
+
+"To be whopped. Um! Rather drastic that, very drastic under the
+circumstances."
+
+"So we thought, sir; and I went to represent the facts to Trieve----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I'm not much of a peacemaker, I fear, sir. Trieve refused to listen to
+me. He insisted upon whopping Scaife for what he called disobedience and
+impudence. Upon my honour, sir, I tried, we all tried, to persuade
+Scaife to take his whopping quietly, but he seemed to go quite mad. He
+has a violent temper, sir----"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"A very violent temper. He--he----"
+
+"Frothed at the mouth," put in a bystander. "I particularly noticed
+that."
+
+"Really, really----"
+
+"Yes," said Lovell, nodding his head reflectively. "He frothed at the
+mouth, and then----"
+
+"Grew quite black in the face," interpolated a third boy, who was
+determined that Lovell should not carry off all the honours.
+
+"I should say--purple," amended Lovell. "And then he gave----"
+
+"A beastly gurgle----"
+
+"A sort of snort, and fell flat on his face. I'm not sure that he didn't
+strike the edge of the table as he fell."
+
+"He did," said one of the boys. "I saw that."
+
+At this moment Scaife moved in his chair, drawing all eyes to his face.
+John, peering from behind the circle of big boys, could see the first
+signs of returning consciousness, a flicker of the eyelids, a convulsive
+tremor of the limbs. Rutford bent down.
+
+"Well, my dear Scaife, how are you? We've been a little anxious, all of
+us, but, I ventured to predict, without cause. Tell us, my poor boy, how
+do you feel?"
+
+Scaife opened his eyes. Then he groaned dismally. Rutford was standing
+to the right of the chair and foot-bath. The Fifth were facing Scaife.
+He met their anxious, admonishing glances, unable to interpret them.
+
+Lovell senior repeated the house-master's question--
+
+"How are you, old chap?"
+
+But, in his anxiety to convey a warning, he came too near, obscuring
+Rutford's massive figure. Scaife groaned again, putting his hand to his
+head.
+
+"How am I?" he repeated thickly. "Why, why, I'm jolly well screwed,
+Lovell; that's how I am! Jolly well screwed--hay? Ugh! how screwed I am.
+Ugh!"
+
+The groans fell on a terrifying silence. Rutford glanced keenly from
+face to face. Then he said slowly--
+
+"The wretched boy is--_drunk_!"
+
+At the sound of his house-master's voice, Scaife relapsed into an
+insensibility which no one at the moment cared to pronounce counterfeit
+or genuine. Rutford glared at Lovell.
+
+"Who was in your room, Lovell?"
+
+Without waiting for Lovell to answer, the other boys, each in turn,
+said, "I, sir," or "Me, sir." John came last.
+
+"Anybody else, Lovell?"
+
+A discreet master would not have asked this question, but Dirty Dick was
+the last man to waive an advantage. Now, the Caterpillar had quietly
+left No. 15, as soon as Rutford entered it. Not from any cowardly
+motive, but--as he put it afterwards--"because one makes a point of
+retiring whenever a rank outsider appears. One ought to be particular
+about the company one keeps." It says something for the boy's character,
+that this statement was accepted by the house as unvarnished truth.
+Lovell glanced at the other Fifth Form boys, as Rutford repeated the
+question.
+
+"Anybody else, Lovell? Be careful how you answer me!"
+
+"Nobody else," said Lovell.
+
+"On your honour, sir?"
+
+"On my honour, sir."
+
+And, later, all Manorites declared that Lovell had lied like a
+gentleman. Rutford and he stared at each other, the boy pale, but
+self-possessed, the big, burly man flushed and ill at ease.
+
+"You will all go to my study. A word with you, Lawrence."
+
+The boys filed quietly out. Rutford looked at John and Fluff. Large, fat
+tears were trickling down Fluff's cheeks. Somehow he felt convinced
+that John was involved in a frightful row.
+
+"Run away, Kinloch," said his house-master. "I wish to speak with
+Lawrence and Verney."
+
+He turned to Lawrence as he spoke. John glanced at Scaife. His eyes were
+open. Silently, Scaife placed a trembling finger upon his lips. The
+action, the expression in the eyes, were unmistakable. John understood,
+as plainly as if Scaife had spoken, that silence, where expulsion
+impended, was not only expedient but imperative. Kinloch crept out of
+the room. Rutford examined Scaife, who feigned insensibility. Then he
+addressed Lawrence.
+
+"Go to Lovell's room, Lawrence, and institute a thorough search. If you
+find wine or spirits, let me know at once."
+
+Lawrence left the room.
+
+"Now, Verney, I am going to ask you a few questions." He assumed his
+rasping, truculent tone. "And don't you dare to tell me lies, sir!"
+
+John was about to repudiate warmly his house-master's brutal injunction,
+when the habit of thinking before he spoke closed his half-opened lips.
+Immediately, his face assumed the obstinate, expressionless look which
+made those who searched no deeper than the surface pronounce him a dull
+boy. Rutford, for instance, interpreted this stolidity as unintelligence
+and lack of perception. John, meantime, was struggling with a thought
+which shaped itself slowly into a plan of action. He had just heard
+Lovell lie to save the Caterpillar. John knew well enough that he might
+be called upon to lie also, to save not himself, but Scaife. If he held
+his tongue and refused to answer questions, Rutford would assume, and
+with reason, that Scaife had been made drunk by the Fifth Form fellows.
+
+Then John said quietly, "I am not a liar, sir."
+
+"Certainly, I have never detected you in a lie," said Rutford.
+
+"All the same," continued John, in a hesitating manner, "I _would_ lie,
+if I thought a lie might save a friend's life."
+
+Rutford was so unprepared for this deliberate statement, that he could
+only reply--
+
+"Oh, you would, would you?"
+
+"Yes," said John; then he added, "Any decent boy or man would."
+
+"Oh! Oh, indeed! This is very interesting. Go on, Verney."
+
+"Scaife said he _felt_ as if he was jolly well screwed, sir; but he
+isn't. I'm quite sure he isn't. He may feel like it; but he isn't."
+
+John could see Scaife's eyes, slightly blood-shot, but sparkling with a
+sort of diabolical sobriety. At that moment, one thing alone seemed
+certain, Scaife had regained full possession of his faculties. Rutford
+stared at John, frowning.
+
+"You dare to look me in the face and tell me that Scaife is not drunk?"
+
+Very seriously, John answered, "I'm sure he's not drunk, sir."
+
+Rutford eyed the boy keenly.
+
+"Have you ever seen anybody drunk?" he demanded.
+
+"I live in the New Forest," said John, as gravely as before, "and on
+Whit-Monday----" He was aware that he had made an impression upon this
+big, truculent man.
+
+"Don't try to be funny with me, Verney."
+
+"On no, sir, as if I should dare!"
+
+"Well, well, we are wasting time. Trieve sent you to Lovell's room to
+fetch Scaife?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And what was Scaife doing when you went into the room? Be very
+careful!"
+
+John considered. "He was laughing, sir."
+
+"Laughing, was he?"
+
+"But he stopped laughing when I gave him Trieve's message, and then he
+said what Lovell told you, sir."
+
+"Never mind what Lovell told me. Give me your version of the story."
+
+"Scaife asked the other fellows if Trieve had any right to fag him, now
+that he had got his 'fez.' If he had been drunk, sir, he wouldn't have
+thought of that, would he?"
+
+"Um," said Rutford, slightly shaken. John described his return to
+Trieve's room, and Trieve's threat.
+
+"Lovell and you tell the same story."
+
+"Why, yes, sir." John made no deliberate attempt to look simple; but his
+face, to the master studying it, seemed quite guileless.
+
+Just then, Dumbleton ushered in the doctor. To him Rutford recited what
+he knew and what he suspected. He had hardly finished speaking, when
+Scaife opened his eyes for the second time. By a curious coincidence,
+the doctor used the words of the house-master.
+
+"Well, sir, how do you feel?"
+
+And then Scaife answered, in the same dazed fashion as before--
+
+"I feel as if I was jolly well screwed, sir."
+
+Rutford nodded portentously.
+
+"I feel," continued Scaife, "as I did once long ago, when I was a kid
+and got hold of some cura�oa at one of my father's parties."
+
+"Just so," said the doctor.
+
+"Same buzzing in the head, same beastly feeling, same--same old--same
+old--giddiness." He closed his eyes, and his head fell heavily upon his
+chest.
+
+"It looks like concussion," said the doctor, doubtfully. "You say he
+fell?" He turned to John.
+
+"I was just outside the door," said John.
+
+"We'll put him into the sick-room, Mr. Rutford. And in a day or two
+he'll be himself again."
+
+"Are you sure that what I--er--feared--er----?"
+
+The doctor frowned. "The boy has had brandy, of course."
+
+"Mrs. Puttick and Lovell gave him plenty of that," John interpolated.
+
+"I believe you can exonerate the boy entirely," said the doctor.
+
+John saw that Rutford seemed relieved.
+
+"I have ordered Lovell's room to be searched. If no wine or spirits are
+found, I shall be glad to believe that I have made a very pardonable
+mistake."
+
+While Scaife was being removed, Lawrence came in with his report.
+Nothing alcoholic had been discovered in Lovell's room. After prayers,
+which were late that night, Dirty Dick made a short speech.
+
+"I had reason to suspect," said he, "that a gross breach of the rules of
+the school had been made to-night by certain boys in this house. It
+appears I was mistaken. No more will be said on the subject by me; and I
+think that the less said by you, big and small, the better. Good night."
+
+He strode away into the private side.
+
+Two days later, Scaife came back to No. 15. John wondered why he stared
+at him so hard upon the first occasion when they happened to be alone.
+Then Scaife said--
+
+"Well, young Verney, I shan't forget that, if it hadn't been for you, I
+should have been sacked. And I shan't forget either that you're not half
+such a fool as you look."
+
+John exhibited surprise.
+
+"The way you handled the beast," continued Scaife, "was masterly. I
+heard every word, though my head was bursting. I shall tell Lovell that
+you saved us. Oh, Lord--didn't I give the show away?"
+
+He never tried to read the perplexity upon the other's face, but went
+away laughing. He came back with the Caterpillar half an hour later, and
+the three boys sat down as usual to prepare some Livy. John was sensible
+that his companions treated him not only as an equal--a new and
+agreeable experience--but as a friend. In the course of the first ten
+minutes Scaife said to the Caterpillar--
+
+"He told Dick to his face that he would lie to save a pal."
+
+And the Caterpillar replied seriously, "Good kid, very good kid. Lovell
+says he's going to give a tea in his honour."
+
+"No, he isn't. It's my turn."
+
+Accordingly, upon the next half-holiday, Scaife gave a tea at the
+Creameries. Of all the strange things that had happened during the past
+fortnight, this to our simple John seemed the strangest. He was not
+conscious of having done or said anything to justify the esteem and
+consideration in which Scaife, the Caterpillar, and Lovell seemed to
+hold him.
+
+"You've forgotten Desmond," he said to Scaife, when the latter mentioned
+the names of his guests.
+
+"C�sar isn't coming. By the way, Verney, you've not been talking to
+C�sar about the row in our house?"
+
+"No," said John. "Lawrence came round and said that I must keep my mouth
+shut."
+
+"And naturally you did what you were told to do?"
+
+The half-mocking tone disappeared in a burst of laughter as John
+answered--
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"And I suppose it never entered your head that Lawrence would not have
+been so particular about shutting your mouth without good reason."
+
+"Perhaps," said John, after a pause, "Lawrence was in a funk lest,
+lest----"
+
+"Go on!"
+
+"Lest the thing should be exaggerated."
+
+"Exactly. Lots of fellows would go about saying that I was dead
+drunk--eh?"
+
+"They might."
+
+"And that would be coming dangerously near the truth."
+
+"Oh, Scaife! Then you really _were_----"
+
+Scaife laughed again. "Yes, I really was, my Moses in the bulrushes!
+Don't look so miserable. I guessed all along that you weren't _quite_ in
+the know. Well, I'm every bit as grateful. You stood up to Dick like a
+hero. And my tea is in your honour."
+
+"Oh, Scaife--you--you won't do it again?"
+
+"Get screwed?" said Scaife, gravely. "I shall not. It isn't good enough.
+We've chucked the stuff away."
+
+"If they'd found it----"
+
+"Ah--if! The old Caterpillar attended to that. He's a downy bird, I can
+tell you. When Dick came into our room, he slipped back to Lovell's
+room, carried off the whisky, hid it, washed the glasses, and then
+dirtied them with siphon and syrup. The Caterpillar and you showed great
+head. We shall drink your healths to-morrow--in tea and chocolate."
+
+John wondered what Scaife had said to the Fifth. At any rate, they asked
+John no questions, and treated him with distinguished courtesy and
+favour; but that evening, when John was fagging in Lawrence's room, the
+great man said abruptly--
+
+"I saw you walking with Lovell senior this afternoon."
+
+John explained. Lawrence frowned.
+
+"Oh, you've been celebrating, have you? Thanksgiving service at the
+Creameries. Now, look here, Verney, I've met your uncle, and he asked me
+to keep an eye on you. Because of that I made you my fag--you, a green
+hand, when I had the pick of the House."
+
+"It was awfully good of you," said John, warmly.
+
+"We'll sink that. I'm five years older than you, and I know every
+blessed--and _cursed_"--he spoke with great emphasis--"thing that goes
+on in this house. I know, for instance, that dust was thrown, and very
+cleverly thrown, into Rutford's eyes, and you helped to throw it. Don't
+speak! You didn't quite know what you were up to. Well, it's lucky for
+Lovell and Co. that one innocent kid was mixed up in that affair. But
+it's been rather unlucky for you. I'd sooner see you kicked about a bit
+by those fellows than petted. I'm sorry--sorry, do you hear?--the whole
+lot were not sacked. And now you can hook it. I've said enough, perhaps
+too much, but I believe I can trust you."
+
+After this John showed his gratitude by painstaking attention to
+fagging. Lawrence became aware of faithful service: that his toast was
+always done to a turn, that his daily paper was warmed, as John had seen
+the butler at home warm the _Times_, that his pens were changed, his
+blotting-paper renewed, and so forth. In John's eyes, Lawrence occupied
+a position near the apex of the world's pyramid of great men.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] {kraipal�} is translated by Liddell and Scott as "the result of a
+debauch."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+_Torpids_
+
+    "Again we rush across the slush,
+      A pack of breathless faces,
+    And charge and fall, and see the ball
+      Fly whizzing through the bases."
+
+
+The remainder of the term slipped away without farther accident or
+incident. Apart from the preparation of work, John saw little of Scaife
+or Egerton. The Fifth nodded to him in a friendly fashion when he passed
+them in the street, and, greater kindness on their part, left him alone.
+Possibly, Lawrence had said a word to Lovell. Such leisure as John
+enjoyed (a new boy at Harrow has not much) he spent with the devoted
+Fluff. Desmond and Scaife walked together on Sunday afternoons. But the
+fact that Desmond seemed to be vanishing out of his horizon made no
+difference to John's ever-increasing affection for him. Very humbly, he
+worshipped at a distance. On clear, dry days Fluff and he would climb to
+the top of the wall of the squash racquet-courts to see Scaife and
+Desmond play a single. They were extraordinarily well-matched in
+strength, activity, and skill. John noticed, however, that the Demon
+lost his temper when he lost a game, whereas C�sar only laughed. Somehow
+John divined that the Demon was making the effort of his life to secure
+Desmond's friendship. And C�sar had ideals, standards to which the Demon
+pretended to attain. Good, simple John made sure that C�sar would
+elevate the Demon to his plane, that evil would be exorcised by good.
+Only in his dreams did the Demon have the advantage.
+
+Just before the end of the term, C�sar said to him--
+
+"After all, I'm jolly glad I'm coming into your House, because the old
+Demon is such a ripper; and he and I have been talking things over. He's
+as mad keen as I am about games, and although the Manorites have not
+played in a cock-house match at cricket or footer for years, still there
+is a chance for us at Torpids next term. You'll play, Verney. You've
+improved a lot, so the Demon says, and he'll be captain. Then there are
+the sports. If only Dirty Dick could be knocked on the head, the Manor
+might jump to the front again."
+
+"It will," said John.
+
+When the School reassembled after Christmas, Desmond entered the Manor,
+and found himself with Scaife in a two-room. A civil note from the man
+of millions had arranged this. To John was given a two-room, also, with
+the Duffer as stable companion. Fluff remained in No. 15. The Duffer had
+got his remove from the Top Shell into John's form. Scaife and Desmond
+were elevated into the Upper Remove. It followed, therefore, that Scaife
+and Desmond prepared work in their own room, the Caterpillar joining the
+Duffer and John. Thus it will be seen that, although Desmond had become
+a Manorite, he was, practically speaking, out of John's orbit.
+
+The Caterpillar had now been three years in the school, and he governed
+himself accordingly. He put on a "barmaid"[14] collar and spent much
+time on the top step of the boys' entrance to the Manor. No mere
+two-year-old presumed to occupy this sacred spot. Had he dared to do so,
+the Caterpillar would have made things very sultry for him. Also, he
+informed the Duffer and John that, by virtue of his position, he
+proposed to prepare no work at all. Each "con" was divided into two
+equal parts: the Duffer "mugged" up one; John the other. Then the
+Caterpillar would be summoned, and glean the harvest. The Duffer had a
+crib or two, but the Caterpillar forbade their use.
+
+"You kids," said he, "ought not to use 'Bohns.' Besides, it's
+dangerous."
+
+The Caterpillar's deportment and coolness filled John and the Duffer
+with respect and admiration. The master in charge of the Lower Remove
+happened to be short-sighted. The Caterpillar took shameful advantage of
+this. At repetitions, for instance, he would read Horace's odes off a
+torn-out page concealed in the palm of his hand, or--if practicable--pin
+the page on to the master's desk.
+
+He had genius for extricating himself (and others) out of what boys call
+tight places. One anecdote, well known to the Lower School and repeated
+as proof of the Caterpillar's masterly methods, may serve to illustrate
+the sort of influence Egerton wielded. When he was in the Fourth, his
+form met in the Old Schools in a room not far from that august chamber
+used by the Head Master and Upper Sixth. One day, the master in charge
+of the form happened to be late. The small boys in the passage
+celebrated his absence with dance and song. When the belated man
+arrived, a monitor awaited him. The Head Master presented his
+compliments to Mr. A---- and wished to learn the names of the boys who
+had created such a scandalous disturbance. Mr. A---- invited the
+roysterers to give up their names under penalties of extra school.
+Hateful necessity! Silence succeeded. A---- grew irate. The monitor
+tried to conceal a smile.
+
+"Any boy who was making any noise at all--stand up."
+
+The Caterpillar rose slowly, long and thin, spick and span.
+
+"If you please, sir," said he, "I was _whispering_!"
+
+A----'s sense of humour was tickled.
+
+"My compliments to the Head Master," said he, "and please tell him that
+I find, on careful inquiry, that Egerton was--whispering."
+
+A shout of laughter from Olympus proclaimed that the message had been
+delivered. The Caterpillar had saved the situation.
+
+John became a disciple of this accomplished young gentleman and tried
+to imitate him. For Egerton represented, faithfully enough, traditions
+to which John bowed the knee. Upon any point of schoolboy honour his
+authority ruled supreme. He told the truth among his peers; he loathed
+obscenity; he disliked and condemned bad language.
+
+"The best men don't swear much," he would say. "It's doosid bad form. I
+allow myself a 'damn' or two, nothing more. My great-grandfather, who
+was one of the Regency lot, was known as Cursing Egerton, but nowadays
+we leave that sort of thing to bargees."
+
+Quite unconsciously, John assimilated the Caterpillar's axioms.
+
+"We're not sent here at enormous expense to learn only Latin and Greek.
+At Harrow and Eton one is licked into shape for the big things:
+diplomacy, politics, the Services. One is taught manners, what? I'm not
+a marrying sort of man, but if I do have sons I shall send 'em here,
+even if I have to pinch a bit."
+
+This was the side of Egerton which appealed so strongly to John. The
+Caterpillar was an Harrovian to the core, like the Duffer and C�sar
+Desmond. He deplored the increasing predominance of sons of very rich
+men. And he anathematized Harrovian fathers who were persuaded by
+Etonian wives to send their sons to the Plain instead of to the Hill.
+That some of the famous Harrow families, who owed so much to the School,
+should forsake it, seemed to Egerton the unpardonable sin.
+
+During this term, regretfully must it be recorded that John scamped his
+"prep" and "ragged" in form whenever a suitable chance presented itself.
+The Duffer and he bribed a "Chaw"[15] to throw gravel against the
+windows of the room where the boys were supposed to be mastering the
+problems of Euclid and algebra. The "tique"[16] master had been Third
+Wrangler, but he couldn't tackle his Division properly. Upon this
+occasion the "chaw" created such a disturbance that (on audacious
+demand) leave was granted to the Duffer and John to capture the
+offender. The young rascals pursued the "chaw" as far as the
+Metropolitan Station, and presented that conscientious youth with
+another sixpence. Then it occurred to John that it might be expedient to
+capture some bogus prisoner; so by means of talk, sugared with
+chocolates, they persuaded a little girl to impersonate the thrower of
+gravel. The little girl, carefully coached in her part, was led to the
+Wrangler, but stage-fright made her burst into tears at the critical
+moment. Somehow or other the truth leaked out; the Duffer and John were
+sent up to the Head Master and "swished." Each collected a few twigs of
+the birch, carefully preserved to this day.
+
+Meantime, the Torpid house-matches were coming on, and the School
+agreed, wonderingly, that Dirty Dick's had a chance of being cock-house.
+The fact that the Manor has lost caste brought about this possibility.
+Boys just under fifteen found room at the Manor when other houses were
+full. All the Manorites in the Shell and Removes were fellows who had
+come to Harrow rather over than under fourteen years of age.
+
+And when the list of the Torpid Eleven was posted, didn't John's heart
+boil with pride when he read his own name at the bottom of it?
+
+The Manor won the first and the second of the matches. Then came the
+semi-final, with Damer's. When the teams met in the playing-fields the
+difference in the size of the players was remarked. Damer's Torpids were
+small boys, not much bigger than John or the Duffer. But they had behind
+them that stupendous force which is fashioned out of pride, _esprit de
+corps_, self-confidence begotten of long-continued success, and,
+strongest of all, the conviction that every man-Jack would fight till he
+dropped for the honour and glory of the crack house at Harrow. Not a boy
+in Damer's team was Scaife's equal as a player, but in Scaife's
+strength lay the weakness of the Manorites. They relied upon one player;
+Damer's pinned faith to eleven.
+
+As it happened to be a fine day, the School turned out in force to
+witness the match. Most of the masters were present, and some ladies.
+Rutford, however, had business elsewhere. The School commented upon his
+absence with sly smiles and shrugs of the shoulder. Some of the
+Manorites were indifferent; the better sort raged. The Caterpillar
+appeared upon the ground in a faultless overcoat, carrying a large bag
+of lemons. His straw hat was cocked at a slight angle.
+
+"One is really uncommonly obliged to Dirty Dick for staying away," he
+told everybody. "Speaking personally, the mere sight of him is very
+upsetting to me. Keen as one feels about this match, one can't deny that
+there is not room in a footer field for Dirty Dick and a self-respecting
+person."
+
+None the less, the absence of their house-master had a bad effect upon
+the Torpids. Damer, you may be sure, had come down, prepared to cheer
+louder than any boy in his house; Damer, it was whispered, had been
+known to shed tears when his house suffered defeat; Damer, in fine,
+inspired ardours--a passion of endeavour.
+
+Scaife won the toss and kicked off.
+
+For the first five minutes nothing of interest happened. Damer's played
+collectively; the Manorites rather waited upon the individual. When
+Scaife's chance came, so it was predicted, he would go through the
+Damer's centre as irresistibly as a Russian battleship cuts through a
+fleet of fishing-smacks.
+
+Rutford being absent, Dumbleton, the butler, stood well to the fore. He
+never missed a house-match, and no one could guess, looking at his
+wooden countenance, how the game was going; for he accepted either
+defeat or victory with a dignified self-restraint. A smart bit of work
+provoked a bland, "Well played, sir, _very well_ played, sir!" uttered
+in the same respectful tone in which he requested Lovell, let us say, to
+go to Mr. Rutford's study after prayers. The fags believed that
+"Dumber," who had begun his career as boot-boy at the Manor in the
+glorious days of old, had given notice to leave when he learned that
+Dirty Dick was about to assume command; but had been prevailed upon to
+stay by the promise of an enormous salary. Nothing disturbed his
+equanimity. On the previous Saturday evening, John had heated the wrong
+end of the poker in No. 15, knowing that Dumber's duty constrained him
+to march round the House after "lights out," to rake out any fires that
+might be still burning. Snug under his counterpane, the practical joker
+awaited, chuckling, a choleric word from the impassive and impeccable
+butler. How did Dumber divine that the poker was unduly hot and black
+with soot underneath? Who can answer that question? The fact remains
+that he seized John's best Sunday trousers which were laid out on a
+chair, and holding the poker with these, accomplished his task without
+remark or smile. The trousers had to be sent to the tailor's to be
+cleaned.
+
+Not far from Dumber stood a group of small boys, including the unhappy
+Fluff--unhappy because he was not playing, despite arduous training
+(entirely to please John) and systematic coaching. His failure meant
+further separation from John, whom, it will be remembered, he would have
+been allowed to call by his Christian name, had he been included amongst
+the Torpids. Of late, Fluff had not seen much of John, and in his dark
+hours he allowed his thoughts to linger, not unpleasantly sometimes,
+upon premature death and John's subsequent remorse.
+
+Meantime, Scaife and Desmond were playing a furious game which must have
+proved successful had it not been for the admirable steadiness of the
+enemy. Lawrence watched their efforts with compressed lips and frowning
+brows. He knew--who better?--that his cracks were tearing themselves to
+tatters; but his protests were drowned by the shrill cheers of the
+fags.
+
+"Rutfords--Rutfor-r-r-r-r-ds! Go it, old Demon!--Jolly well played,
+C�sar!--Sky him![17]--Well skied, sir!--Ah-h-h-h! Well given--well
+taken!"
+
+The last, long-drawn-out exclamation proclaimed that "Yards"[18] had
+been given to Scaife right in front of Damer's base. Damer's retreated;
+Scaife, with heaving chest, balanced the big ball between the tips of
+his fingers.
+
+"Oh-h-h-h-h!"
+
+Scaife had missed an easy shot. Lawrence could see that the boy was
+trembling with disappointment and mortification. Barbed arrows from
+Damer's small boys pierced Manorite hearts.
+
+"Jolly well boshed, Scaife!--Good, kind, old Demon!--Thank you,
+Scaife!--" and like derisive approbation rolled from lip to lip. The
+Caterpillar turned to Lovell.
+
+"Showing temper, ain't he?"
+
+"Yes," said Lovell.
+
+"Clever chap," said the Caterpillar, reflectively; "but one is reminded
+that a stream can't rise higher than its source. Not mine that--the
+governor's! C�sar is facing the chaff with a grin."
+
+The game began again. But soon it became evident that Scaife had lost,
+not only his temper, but his head. He rushed here and there with so
+little judgment that the odds amongst the sporting fellows went to six
+to four against the Manor. At the beginning of the game they were six to
+four the other way. And, inevitably, Scaife's wild and furious efforts
+unbalanced Desmond's play. Both boys were out of their proper places to
+the confusion of the rest of the team. Within half an hour Damer's had
+scored two bases to nothing.
+
+The Caterpillar distributed halves of lemons. Lawrence went up to
+Scaife. The captain of the Torpids was standing apart, not far from
+Desmond, who was sucking a lemon with a puzzled expression. Gallant,
+sweet-tempered, and always hopeful, C�sar could not understand his
+friend's passion of rage and resentment. With the tact of his race,
+however, he held aloof, smiling feebly, because he had sworn to himself
+not to frown. Had he looked to his right, he would have seen John, also
+sucking a lemon, but understudying his idol's nonchalant attitude and
+smile. John was sensible of an overpowering desire to fling himself upon
+the ground and howl. Instead he sucked his lemon, stared at Desmond, and
+smiled--valiantly.
+
+"Scaife," said Lawrence, gravely, "you're not playing the game."
+
+Scaife scowled. "I only know I've half killed myself," he muttered.
+
+Lawrence continued in the same steady voice, "Yes; because you missed an
+easy base which has happened to me and every other player scores of
+times. Come here, Desmond."
+
+Desmond joined them. Lawrence's face brightened when he saw hopeful eyes
+and a gallant smile.
+
+"You don't despair?"
+
+"We'll knock 'em into smithereens yet."
+
+"That's the Harrow spirit, but temper your determination to win with a
+little common sense. You've overdone it, both of you. Take my tip:
+they'll play up like blazes. Defend your own base; and then, when
+they're spent, trample on 'em."
+
+"Thank you," said Desmond.
+
+Scaife nodded sulkily.
+
+None the less he had too great respect for Lawrence's ability and
+experience as a captain to disregard his advice. After the kick-off,
+Damer's _did_ play up, and the Manor had to defend its base against
+sustained and fierce attack. Again and again a third base was almost
+kicked, again and again superior weight prevailed in the scrimmages.
+Within ten minutes Damer's were gasping and weary. And then, the ball
+was forced out of the scrimmage and kicked to the top side, Desmond's
+place in the field. Comparatively fresh, seeing the glorious
+opportunity, grasping it, hugging it, C�sar swooped on the ball. He had
+the heels of any boy on the opposite side. Down the field he sped,
+faster and faster, amid the roars of the School, roars which came to his
+ears like the deep booming of breakers upon a lee shore. To many of
+those watching him, the sight of that graceful figure, that shining,
+ardent face, revealing the promise which youth and beauty always offer
+to a delighted world, became an ineffaceable memory. Damer turned to the
+Head of his house.
+
+"And Desmond ought to be one of _us_," he groaned.
+
+And now C�sar had passed all forwards. If he keeps his wits a base is
+certain. The full back alone lies between him and triumph. But this is
+the moment, the psychological moment, when one tiny mistake will prove
+irrevocable. The Head of Damer's whispers as much to Damer, who smiles
+sadly.
+
+"His father's son will not blunder now," he replies.
+
+Nor does he. The mistake--for mistake there must be on one side or
+t'other--is made by Damer's back. As the ball rolls halfway between
+them, the back hesitates and falters.
+
+One base to two--and eighteen minutes to play!
+
+The second base was kicked by Scaife five minutes later.
+
+By this time the School knew that they were looking on at a cock-house
+match, not a semi-final. It was the wealth of Dives against the widow's
+mite that the winner of this match would defeat easily either of the two
+remaining houses. And not a man or boy on the ground could name with any
+conviction the better eleven. The betting languished at evens.
+
+Moreover, both sides were playing "canny," risking nothing, nursing
+their energies for the last furious five minutes. Damer began to fidget;
+than he dropped out of the front rank of spectators. He couldn't stand
+still to see his boys win--or lose. He paced up and down behind the
+fags, who winked at each other.
+
+"Damer's got the needle," they whispered.
+
+Dumbleton, however, stood still; a graven image of High Life below
+Stairs.
+
+"What do you think, Dumber?" asked Fluff.
+
+"I think, my lord," replied Dumber, solemnly, "that every minute
+improves our chance, but if it goes on _much_ longer," he added
+phlegmatically, "I shall fall down dead. My 'eart's weak, my lord."
+
+This was an ancient joke delivered by Dumber as if it were brand-new,
+and received by the fags in a like spirit.
+
+"Bless you, you've got no heart, Dumber. It's turned into tummy long
+ago," or, in scathing accents, "It's not your heart that's out of whack,
+Dumber, but your blithering old headpiece. What a pity you can't buy a
+new one!" and so on and so forth.
+
+Very soon, however, this chaff ceased. Excitement began to shake the
+spectators. They felt it up and down their spinal columns; it formed
+itself into lumps in their throats; it gave one or two cramp in the
+calves of their legs; it reddened many cheeks and whitened as many more.
+The Caterpillar pulled out his watch.
+
+"Three and a half minutes," he announced in a voice which fell like the
+crack of doom upon the silent crowd. If they could have cheered or
+chaffed! But the absolute equality of the last desperate struggle
+prevented any demonstration. The ball was worried through a scrimmage,
+escaped to the right, slid out to the left, only to be returned whence
+it came. It seemed as if both sides were unable to kick it, and when
+kicked it seemed to refuse to move as if weighted by the ever-increasing
+burden of suspense....
+
+"Now--now's your chance!" yelled the Manorites. To their flaming senses
+the ball appeared to be lying, a huge blurred sphere, upon the muddy
+grass; and the Elevens were stupidly staring at it. The Saints be
+praised! Some fellow can move. Who is it? The players, big and little,
+are so daubed with mud from head to foot as to be unrecognizable.
+Ah-h-h! It's young Verney.
+
+"Good kid! Well played--I say, well played, well pla-a-a-a-yed!"
+
+Our John has, it seems, distinguished himself. He has charged valiantly
+into the captain of Damer's at the moment when that illustrious chief is
+about to kick the ball to a trusted lieutenant on the left. He succeeds
+in kicking the ball into John's face. John goes over backwards; but the
+ball falls just in front of the Duffer.
+
+"Kick it, Duffer--kick it, you old ass!"
+
+The Duffer kicks it most accurately, kicks it well out to the top side.
+Now, can Desmond repeat his amazing performance? Yes--No--he can't. The
+conditions are no longer the same. Half a dozen fellows are between him
+and the Damer base.
+
+Alas! The Manor is about to receive a second object-lesson upon the
+fatuity of trusting to individuals. Confident in C�sar's ability to take
+the ball at least within kicking distance of the base, they have rushed
+forward, leaving unguarded their own citadel. C�sar, going too fast,
+misjudges the distance between himself and the back. A second later the
+ball is well on its way to the Manor's base. The back awaits it, coolly
+enough; knowing that Damer's forwards are offside. Then he kicks the
+sodden, slippery ball--hard. An exclamation of horror bursts from the
+Manorites. Their back has kicked the ball straight into the hands of the
+Damerite captain, the steadiest player on the ground.
+
+"_Yards!_"
+
+The chief collects himself for a decisive effort, and then despatches
+the ball straight and true for the target.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It passed between the posts within forty-five seconds of time.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[14] The "barmaid" collar is the double collar, at that time just coming
+into fashion.
+
+[15] "Chaw," short for Chawbacon.
+
+[16] "Tique," ab. for arithmetic. "Tique-beaks" are mathematical
+masters.
+
+[17] To "sky," _i.e._ to charge and overthrow.
+
+[18] In the Harrow game a boy may turn and kick the ball into the hands
+of one of his own side. The boy who catches it calls "Yards!" and, the
+opposite side withdrawing three yards, the catcher is allowed a free
+kick.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+_Fellowship_
+
+    "Fellowship is Heaven, and the lack of it is Hell."
+
+
+John was squelching through the mud, wondering whether his nose was
+broken or not, when Lawrence touched his shoulder.
+
+"Never mind, Verney," he said cheerily; "the Manor will be cock-house at
+Torpids next year, and I venture to prophesy that you'll be Captain."
+
+"Oh, thanks, Lawrence," said John.
+
+But, much as he appreciated this tribute from the great man, and much as
+it served to mitigate the pangs of defeat, a yet happier stroke of
+fortune was about to befall him. Desmond, who always walked up from the
+football field with Scaife, conferred upon John the honour of his
+company.
+
+"Where's Scaife?" said John.
+
+"The Demon is demoniac," said Desmond. "He's lost his hair, and he
+blames me. Well, I did my best, and so did he, and there's no more to be
+said. It's a bore that we shall be too old to play next year. I told the
+Demon that if we had to be beaten, I would sooner take a licking from
+Damer's than any other house; and he told me that he believed I wanted
+'em to win. When a fellow's in that sort of blind rage, I call him
+dotty, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," said John.
+
+"You played jolly well, Verney; I expect Lawrence told you so."
+
+"He did say something decent," John replied.
+
+The Caterpillar joined them as they were passing through the stile. "We
+should have won," he said deliberately, "if the Demon hadn't behaved
+like a rank outsider."
+
+"Scaife is my pal," said Desmond, hotly.
+
+The Caterpillar shrugged his shoulders, and held high his well-cut,
+aquiline nose, as he murmured--
+
+"One doesn't pretend to be a Christian, but as a gentleman one accepts a
+bit of bad luck without gnashing one's teeth. What? That Spartan boy
+with the fox was a well bred 'un, you can take my word for it. Scaife
+isn't."
+
+The Caterpillar joined another pair of boys before Desmond could reply.
+John looked uncomfortable. Then Desmond burst out with Irish vehemence--
+
+"Egerton is always jawing about breeding. It's rather snobbish. I don't
+think the worse of Scaife because his grandfather carried a hod. The
+Egertons have been living at Mount Egerton ever since they left Mount
+Ararat, but what have they done? And he ought to make allowances for the
+old Demon. He was simply mad keen to win this match, and he has a
+temper. You like him, Verney, don't you?"
+
+John hesitated, realizing that to speak the truth would offend the one
+fellow in the school whom he wished to please and conciliate. Then he
+blurted out--
+
+"No--I don't."
+
+"You don't?" Desmond's frank, blue eyes, Irish eyes, deeply blue, with
+black lashes encircling them, betrayed amazement and curiosity--so John
+thought--rather than anger. "You don't?" he continued. "Why not? The old
+Demon likes you; he says you got him out of a tight place. Why don't you
+like him, Verney?"
+
+John's mind had to speculate vaguely whether or not Desmond knew the
+nature of the tight place--_tight_ was such a very descriptive
+adjective--out of which he had pulled Scaife. Then he said nervously--
+
+"I don't like him because--because he likes--you."
+
+"Likes me? What a rum 'un you are, Verney! Why shouldn't he like me?"
+
+"Because," said John, boldly meeting the emergency with the conviction
+that he had burnt his ships, and must advance without fear, "because
+he's not half good enough for you."
+
+Desmond burst out laughing; the clear, ringing laugh of his father,
+which had often allayed an incipient mutiny below the gangway, and
+charmed aside the impending disaster of a snatch-division. And it is on
+_one's own side_ in the House of Commons that good temper tells
+pre-eminently.
+
+"Not good enough for me!" he repeated. "Thanks awfully. Evidently you
+have a high opinion of--_me_."
+
+"Yes," said John.
+
+The quiet monosyllable, so soberly, so seriously uttered, challenged
+Desmond's attention. He stared for a moment at John's face--not an
+attractive object. Blood and mud disfigured it. But the grey eyes met
+the blue unwaveringly. Desmond flushed.
+
+"You've stuck me on a sort of pedestal." His tone was as serious as
+John's.
+
+"Yes," said John.
+
+They were opposite the Music Schools. The other Manorites had run on.
+For the moment they stood alone, ten thousand leagues from Harrow, alone
+in those sublimated spaces where soul meets soul unfettered by flesh.
+Afterwards, not then, John knew that this was so. He met the real
+Desmond for the first time, and Desmond met the real John in a
+thoroughfare other than that which leads to the Manor, other than that
+which leads to any house built by human hands, upon the shining highway
+of Heaven.
+
+Shall we try to set down Desmond's feelings at this crisis? Till now,
+his life had run gaily through fragrant gardens, so to speak:
+pleasaunces full of flowers, of sweet-smelling herbs, of stately trees,
+a paradise indeed from which the ugly, the crude, the harmful had been
+rigorously excluded. Happy the boy who has such a home as was allotted
+to Harry Desmond! And from it, ever since he could remember, he had
+received tender love, absolute trust, the traditions of a great family
+whose name was part of English history, an exquisite refinement, and
+with these, the gratification of all reasonable desires. And this
+magnificent upbringing shone out of his radiant face, the inexpressible
+charm of youth unspotted--white. Scaife's upbringing, of which you shall
+know more presently, had been far different, and yet he, the cynic and
+the unclean, recognized the God in Harry Desmond. He had not, for
+instance, told Desmond of the nature of that "tight" place; he had kept
+a guard over his tongue; he had interposed his own strong will between
+his friend and such attention as a boy of Desmond's attractiveness might
+provoke from Lovell senior and the like. It is true that Scaife was well
+aware that without these precautions he would have lost his friend; none
+the less, above and beyond this consciousness hovered the higher, more
+subtle intuition that the good in Desmond was something not lightly to
+be tampered with, something awe-inspiring; the more so because, poor
+fellow! he had never encountered it before.
+
+Desmond stood still, with his eyes upon John's discoloured face. Not the
+least of C�sar's charms was his lack of self-consciousness. Now, for the
+first time, he tried to see himself as John saw him--on a pedestal. And
+so strong was John's ideal that in a sense Desmond did catch a glimpse
+of himself as John saw him. And then followed a rapid comparison, first
+between the real and the ideal, and secondly between himself and Scaife.
+His face broke into a smile.
+
+"Why, Verney," he exclaimed, "you mustn't turn me into a sort of Golden
+Calf. And as for Scaife not being good enough for me, why, he's miles
+ahead of me in everything. He's cleverer, better at games, ten thousand
+times better looking, and one day he'll be a big power, and I shall
+always be a poor man. Why, I--I don't mind telling you that I used to
+keep out of Scaife's way, although he was always awfully civil to me,
+because he has so much and I so little."
+
+"He's not half good enough for you," repeated John, with the Verney
+obstinacy. Unwittingly he slightly emphasized the "good."
+
+"Good? Do you mean 'pi'? He's not _that_, thank the Lord!"
+
+This made John laugh, and Desmond joined in. Now they were Harrow boys
+again, within measurable distance of the Yard, although still in the
+shadow of the Spire. The Demon described as "pi" tickled their ribs.
+
+"You must learn to like the Demon," Desmond continued, as they moved on.
+Then, as John said nothing, he added quickly, "He and I have made up our
+minds not to try for remove this term. You see, next term is the
+jolliest term of the year--cricket and 'Ducker'[19] and Lord's. And we
+shall know the form's swat thoroughly, and have time to enjoy ourselves.
+You'll be with us. Your remove is a 'cert'--eh?"
+
+John beamed. He had made certain that C�sar would be in the Third Fifth
+next term and hopelessly out of reach.
+
+"Oh yes, I shall get my remove. So will the Caterpillar."
+
+"Hang the Caterpillar," said Desmond.
+
+"He'd ask for a silken rope, as Lord Ferrers did," said John, with one
+of his unexpected touches of humour. Again Desmond bent his head in the
+gesture John knew so well, and laughed.
+
+"I say, Verney, you _are_ a joker. Well, the old Caterpillar's a good
+sort, but he's not fair to Scaife. Here we are!"
+
+They ran upstairs to "tosh" and change. John found the Duffer just
+slipping out of his ducks. He looked at John with a rueful grin.
+
+"Are you going to chuck me?" he asked.
+
+"Chuck you?"
+
+"Fluff says you've chucked him. He was in here a moment ago to ask if
+your nose was squashed. I believe the silly little ass thinks you the
+greatest thing on earth."
+
+"I don't chuck anybody," said John, indignantly. And he made a point of
+asking Fluff to walk with him on Sunday.
+
+After the Torpid matches the school settled down to train (more or less)
+for the athletic sports. John came to grief several times at Kenton
+brook, essaying to jump it at places obviously--as the Duffer pointed
+out--beyond his stride. The Duffer and he put their names down for the
+house-handicaps, and curtailed their visits to the Creameries. After
+this self-denial it is humiliating to record that neither boy succeeded
+in winning anything. C�sar won the house mile handicap; Scaife won the
+under sixteen high jump--a triumph for the Manor; and Fluff, the
+despised Fluff, actually secured an immense tankard, which one of the
+Sixth offered as a prize because he was quite convinced that his own
+particular pal would win it. The distance happened to be half a mile.
+Fluff was allowed an enormous start and won in a canter.
+
+The term came to an end soon after these achievements, and John spent a
+week of the holidays at White Ladies, the Duke of Trent's Shropshire
+place. Here, for the first time, he saw that august and solemn
+personage, a Groom of the Chambers, with carefully-trimmed whiskers, a
+white tie, a silky voice, and the appearance of an archdeacon. This
+visit is recorded because it made a profound impression upon a plastic
+mind. John had never sat in the seats of the mighty. Verney Boscobel was
+a delightful old house, but it might have been put, stables and all,
+into White Ladies, and never found again. Fluff showed John the famous
+Reynolds and Gainsborough portraits, the Van Dycks and Lelys, the
+Romneys and Richmonds. Fair women and brave men smiled or frowned at our
+hero wherever he turned his wondering eyes. After the first tour of the
+great galleries, he turned to his companion.
+
+"I say," he whispered solemnly, "some of 'em look as if they didn't like
+my calling you--Fluff."
+
+"I wish you'd call me Esm�."
+
+"All right," said John, "I will; and--er--although you didn't get into
+the Torpids, you can call me--John."
+
+"Oh, John, thanks awfully."
+
+Ponies were provided for the boys to ride, and they shot rabbits in the
+Chase. Also, they appeared at dinner, a tremendous function, and were
+encouraged by some of the younger guests to spar (verbally, of course)
+with the duke's Etonian sons. Fluff looked so much stronger and happier
+that his parents, delighted with their experiment, were inclined to cry
+up the Hill, much to the exasperation of the dwellers in the Plain.
+
+When he left White Ladies John had learned one valuable lesson. His
+sense of that hackneyed phrase, _noblesse oblige_, the sense which
+remains nonsense with so many boys (old and young), had been quickened.
+Little more than a child in many ways, he realized, as a man does, the
+true significance of rank and wealth. The Duke of Trent had married a
+pleasure-loving dame; White Ladies was essentially a pleasure-house, to
+which came gladly enough the wit and beauty of the kingdom. And yet the
+duke, not clever as compared to his guests, not even good-looking as
+compared to the splendid gentlemen whom Van Dyck and Lely had painted,
+_undistinguished_, in fine, in everything save rank and wealth, worked,
+early and late, harder than any labourer upon his vast domain. And when
+John said to Fluff, "I say, Esm�, why does the duke work so beastly
+hard?" Fluff replied with emphasis, "Why, because he has to, you know.
+It's no joke to be born a duke, and I'm jolly glad that I'm a younger
+son. Father says that he has no amusements, but plenty of occupation.
+Mother says he's the unpaid land-agent of the Trent property."
+
+John went back to Verney Boscobel, and repeated what Fluff had said, as
+his own.
+
+"It was simply splendid, mum, like a sort of castle in fairyland and all
+that, but I _am_ glad I'm not a duke. And I expect that even an earl has
+a lot of beastly jobs to do which never bother _us_."
+
+"Oh, you've found that out, have you, John? Well, I hesitated when the
+invitation came; but I'm glad now that you went."
+
+"Yes; and it's ripping to be home again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The summer term began in glorious sunshine; and John forgot that he
+owned an umbrella. The Caterpillar and he had achieved their remove, but
+the unhappy Duffer was left behind alone with the hideous necessity of
+doing his form's work by himself. The boys occupied the same rooms, but
+John prepared his Greek and Latin with Scaife, C�sar, and the
+Caterpillar; whom he was now privileged to call by their nick-names.
+They began to call him John, hearing young Kinloch do so; and then one
+day, Scaife, looking up with his derisive smile, said--
+
+"I'm going to call you Jonathan."
+
+"Good," said Desmond. "All the same, we can't call either the Duffer or
+Fluff--David, can we?"
+
+"I was not thinking of Kinloch or Duff," said Scaife, staring hard at
+John. And John alone knew that Scaife read him like a book, in which he
+was contemptuously amused--nothing more. After that, as if Scaife's will
+were law, the others called John--Jonathan.
+
+Very soon, the sun was obscured by ever-thickening clouds. John happened
+to provoke the antipathy of a lout in his form known as Lubber Sprott.
+Sprott began to persecute him with a series of petty insults and
+injuries. He accused him of "sucking up" to a lord, of putting on "lift"
+because he was the youngest boy in the Upper Remove, of kow-towing to
+the masters--and so forth. Then, finding these repeated gibes growing
+stale, he resorted to meaner methods. He upset ink on John's books, or
+kicked them from under his arm as he was going up to the New Schools.
+He put a "dringer"[20] into the pocket of John's "bluer."[21] He pinched
+him unmercifully if he found himself next to John in form, knowing that
+John would not betray him. When occasion offered he kicked John. In
+short, he was successful in taking all the fun and sparkle out of the
+merrie month of May.
+
+Finally, C�sar got an inkling of what was going on.
+
+"Is Sprott ragging you?" he asked point-blank.
+
+"Ye-es," said John, blushing. "It's n-nothing," he added nervously.
+"He'll get tired of it, I expect."
+
+"I saw him kick you," said Desmond, frowning. "Now, look here, Jonathan,
+you kick him; kick him as hard as ever you can where, where he kicks
+you--eh? And do it to-morrow in the Yard, at nine Bill, when everybody
+is looking on. You can dodge into the crowd; but if I were you I'd kick
+him at the very moment he gets into line, and then he can't pursue. And
+if he does pursue--which I'll bet you a bob he don't, he'll have to
+tackle you and me."
+
+"I'll do it," said John.
+
+Next day, a whole holiday, at nine Bill, both C�sar and John were
+standing close to the window of Custos' den, waiting for Lubber Sprott
+to appear. While waiting, an incident occurred which must be duly
+chronicled inasmuch as it has direct bearing upon this story. Only the
+week before Rutford had come up to the Yard late for Bill, he being the
+master whose turn it was to call over. Such tardiness, which happens
+seldom, is reckoned as an unpardonable sin by Harrow boys. Briefly it
+means that six hundred suffer from the unpunctuality of one. Therefore,
+when Rutford appeared, slightly flushed of countenance and visibly
+annoyed, the School emphasized their displeasure by derisive cheers.
+Rutford, ever tactless where boys were concerned, was unwise enough to
+make a speech from the steps condemning, in his usual bombastic style, a
+demonstration which he ought to have known he was quite powerless to
+punish or to prevent. When he had finished, the School cheered more
+derisively than before. After Bill, he left the Yard, purple with rage
+and humiliation.
+
+Upon this particular morning, one of the younger masters, Basil Warde,
+was calling Bill. The School knew little of Warde, save that he was an
+Old Harrovian in charge of a Small House, and that his form reported
+him--_queer_. He had instituted a queer system of punishments, he made
+queer remarks, he looked queer: in fine, he was generally regarded as a
+radical, and therefore a person to be watched with suspicion by boys
+who, as a body, are intensely conservative. He was of a clear red
+complexion with lapis-lazuli blue eyes, that peculiar blue which is the
+colour of the sea on a bright, stormy day. The Upper School knew that,
+as a member of the Alpine Club, Warde had conquered half a dozen
+hitherto unconquerable peaks.
+
+Into the Yard and into this book Warde comes late. As he hurried to his
+place, the School greeted him as they had greeted Rutford only the week
+before. If anything, the demonstration was slightly more hostile. That
+Bill should be delayed twice within ten days was unheard-of and
+outrageous. When the hoots and cheers subsided, Warde held up his hand.
+He smiled, and his chin stuck out, and his nose stuck up at an angle
+familiar to those who had scaled peaks in his company. In silence, the
+School awaited what he had to say, hoping that he might slate them,
+which would afford an excuse for more ragging. Warde, guessing, perhaps,
+the wish of the crowd, smiled more genially than before. Then, in a
+loud, clear voice, he said--
+
+"I beg pardon for being late. And I thank you for cheering me. I haven't
+been cheered in the Yard since the afternoon when I got my Flannels."
+
+A deafening roar of applause broke from the boys. Warde might be queer,
+but he was a good sort, a gentleman, and, henceforward, popular with
+Harrovians.
+
+He began to call over as Lubber Sprott neared the place where Desmond
+and John awaited him. The Lubber took up his position near the boys,
+turning a broad back to them. He stood with his hands in his pockets,
+talking to another boy as big and stupid as himself. The Lubber, it may
+be added, ought to have worn "Charity" tails, but he had not applied for
+permission to do so. He was fat and gross rather than tall, and
+certainly too large for his clothes.
+
+"Now," said C�sar.
+
+John measured the distance with his eye, as C�sar thoughtfully nudged
+other members of the Upper Remove. John had room for a very short run.
+The Lubber was swaying backwards and forwards. John timed his kick,
+which for a small boy he delivered with surprising force, so accurately
+that the Lubber fell on his face. The boys looking on screamed with
+laughter. The Lubber, picking himself up (John dodged into the crowd,
+who received him joyfully) and glaring round, encountered the
+contemptuous face of Desmond.
+
+"Let me have a shot," said C�sar.
+
+The Lubber advanced, spluttering with rage.
+
+"Where is he--where is he, that infernal young Verney?"
+
+By this time fifty boys at least were interested spectators of the
+scene. Desmond stood square in the Lubber's path.
+
+"You like to kick small boys," said C�sar, in a very loud voice. "I'm
+small, half your size, why don't you kick me?"
+
+The Lubber could have crushed the speaker by mere weight; but he
+hesitated, and the harder he stared at Desmond the less he fancied the
+job of kicking him. Quality confronted quantity.
+
+"Kick me," said Desmond, "if--if you dare, you big, hulking coward and
+cad!"
+
+"Come on, Lubber, get into line!" shouted some boy.
+
+Sprott turned slowly, glancing over his vast, fat shoulder to guard
+against further assault. Then he took his place in the line, and passed
+slowly out of the Yard and out of these pages. He never persecuted John
+again.[22]
+
+Not yet, however, was the sun to shine in John's firmament. As the days
+lengthened, as June touched all hearts with her magic fingers,
+insensibly relaxing the tissues and warming the senses, John became more
+and more miserably aware that, in the fight between Scaife and himself
+for the possession of Desmond, the odds were stupendously against him.
+Truly the Demon had the subtlety of the serpent, for he used the
+failings which he was unable to hide as cords wherewith to bind his
+friend more closely to him. When the facts, for instance, of what had
+taken place in Lovell's room came to Desmond's ears, he denied fiercely
+the possibility of Scaife, his pal, making a "beast" of himself. The
+laughter which greeted his passionate protest sent him hot-foot to
+Scaife himself.
+
+"They say," panted C�sar, "that last winter you were dead drunk in
+Lovell's room. I told the beasts they lied."
+
+Scaife's handsome face softened. Was he touched by C�sar's loyalty? Who
+can tell? Always he subordinated emotion to intelligence: head commanded
+heart.
+
+"Perhaps they did," he answered steadily; "and perhaps they didn't. I
+deny nothing; I admit nothing. But"--his fine eyes, so dark and
+piercing, flamed--"C�sar, if I was dead drunk at your feet now, would
+you turn away from me, would you chuck me?"
+
+Desmond winced. Scaife pursued his advantage.
+
+"If you _are_ that sort of a fellow--the Pharisee"--Desmond winced
+again--"the saint who is too pure, too holy, to associate with a
+sinner, say so, and let us part here--and now. For I _am_ a--sinner. You
+are not a sinner. Hold hard! let me have my say. I've always known that
+this moment was coming. Yes, I am a sinner. And my governor is a sinner,
+a hardened sinner. His father made our pile by what you would call
+robbery. The whole world knows it, and condones it, because we are so
+rich. Even my mother----"
+
+He paused, trembling, white to the lips.
+
+"Don't," said Desmond. "Please don't."
+
+"You're right. I won't. But I'm handicapped on both sides. It's only
+fair that you should know what sort of a fellow you've chosen for a pal.
+And it's not too late to chuck me. Rutford will put Verney in here, if I
+ask him. And, by God! I'm in the mood to ask him _now_. Shall I go to
+him, Desmond, or shall I stay?"
+
+He had never raised his voice, but it fell upon the sensitive soul of
+the boy facing him as if it were a clarion-call to battle.
+
+Desmond sprang forward, ardent, eager, afire with generous
+self-surrender.
+
+"Forgive me," he cried. "Oh, forgive me, because I can't forgive
+myself!"
+
+After this breaking of barriers, Scaife took less pains to disguise a
+nature which turned as instinctively to darkness as Desmond's to light.
+A score of times protest died when Scaife murmured, "There I go again,
+forgetting the gulf between us"; and always Desmond swore stoutly that
+the gulf, if a gulf did yawn between them, should be bridged by
+friendship and hope. But, insensibly, C�sar's ideals became tainted by
+Scaife's materialism. Scaife, for instance, spent money lavishly upon
+"food" and clothes. So far as a Public Schoolboy is able, he never
+denied his splendid young body anything it coveted. Desmond, too proud
+to receive favours without returning them, tried to vie with this
+reckless spendthrift, and found himself in debt. In other ways a keen
+eye and ear would have marked deterioration. John noticed that C�sar
+laughed, although he never sneered, at things he used to hold sacred;
+that he condemned, as Scaife did, whatever that clever young reprobate
+was pleased to stigmatize as narrow-minded or intolerant.
+
+Cricket, however, kept them fairly straight. Each was certain to get his
+"cap,"[23] if, as Lawrence told them, they stuck to the rigour of the
+game. This was Lawrence's last term. He had stayed on to play at Lord's,
+and when he left Trieve would become the Head of the House--a prospect
+very pleasing to the turbulent Fifth.
+
+About the middle of June John suffered a parlous blow. He was never so
+happy as when he was sitting in Scaife's room, cheek by jowl with
+Desmond, sharing, perhaps, a "dringer," poring over the same dictionary.
+This delightful intimacy came to a sudden end in this wise. The
+form-master of the Upper Remove happened to be a precisian in English. A
+sure road to his favour was the right use of a word. The Demon,
+appreciating this, bought a dictionary of synonyms, and made a point of
+discarding the commonplace and obvious, substituting a phrase likely to
+elicit praise and marks. Desmond and John joined in this hunt of the
+right word with enthusiasm.
+
+One evening the four boys encountered the simple sentence--"_majoris
+pretii quam quod �stimari possit_."
+
+"'Priceless''ll cover that," said C�sar.
+
+"Or 'inest_ee_mable,'" said the Demon.
+
+The three other boys stared at the Demon, and then at each other. The
+Caterpillar, something of a purist in his way, drawled out--
+
+"One pronounces that 'inestimable.'"
+
+"My father doesn't," said Scaife, hotly. "I've heard him say
+'inesteemable.'"
+
+"No doubt," said Egerton, coldly. "How does _your_ father pronounce it,
+C�sar?"
+
+Desmond said hurriedly, "Oh, 'inestimable'; but what does it matter?"
+
+The Demon sprang up, furious. "It matters this," he cried. "I'm d----d
+if I'll have Egerton sitting in my room sneering at my governor. After
+this he'll do his work in his own room, or I'll do mine in the passage."
+
+Before Desmond could speak, Scaife had whirled out of the room, slamming
+the door. John looked stupefied with dismay.
+
+The Caterpillar shrugged his shoulders. Then he said slowly--
+
+"Scaife's father pronounces 'connoisseur' 'connoysure,' and so does
+Scaife."
+
+Desmond stood up, flushed and distressed, but emphatic.
+
+"Scaife is right about one thing," he said. "He won't sit here like a
+cad and listen to Egerton sneering at his father. I'm very sorry, but
+after this we'd better split up. Verney and you, Egerton; and Scaife and
+I."
+
+"Certainly," said the Caterpillar, rising in his turn.
+
+Poor John cast a distracted and imploring glance at Desmond, which
+flashed by unheeded. Then he got up, and followed the Caterpillar out of
+the room. The passage was empty.
+
+The Caterpillar sniffed as if the atmosphere in Scaife's room had been
+polluted.
+
+"One has nothing to regret," he remarked. "Scaife has good points,
+and--er--bad. You've noticed his hands--eh! _Very_ unfinished! And his
+foot--short, but broad." The Caterpillar surveyed his long, slender feet
+with infinite satisfaction; then he added, with an accent of finality,
+"Scaife talks about going into the Grenadiers; but they'll give him a
+hot time there, a very hot time. One is really sorry for the poor
+fellow, because, of course, he can't help being a bounder. What does
+puzzle me is, why did C�sar want such a fellow for his pal?"
+
+"But he didn't," said John.
+
+"Eh?--what?"
+
+"Scaife wanted C�sar," John explained. "And I've noticed, Caterpillar,
+that whatever Scaife wants he gets."
+
+"He wants breeding, Jonathan, but he'll never get that--never."
+
+After this, John saw but little of Desmond; and Scaife hardly spoke to
+him. Accordingly, much of our hero's time was spent in the company of
+the Duffer and Fluff. The three passed many delightful hours together at
+"Ducker." Armed with buns and chocolate, they would rush down the hill,
+bathe, lie about on the grass, eat the buns, and chaff the kids who were
+learning to swim.
+
+    "Long, long, in the misty hereafter
+      Shall echo, in ears far away,
+    The lilt of that innocent laughter,
+      The splash of the spray."
+
+During the School matches they spent the afternoons on the Sixth Form
+ground, carefully criticizing every stroke. The theory of the game lay
+pat to the tongue, but in practice John was a shocking bungler. At his
+small preparatory school in the New Forest, he had not been taught the
+elementary principles of either racquets or cricket; but he had a good
+eye, played a capital game of golf, rode and shot well for a small boy.
+Fluff, although still delicate, gave promise of being a cricketer as
+good, possibly, as his brothers, when he became stronger.
+
+Upon Speech Day John's mother and uncle came down to Harrow, and you may
+be sure that John escorted them in triumph to the Manor. Mrs. Verney has
+since confessed that John's expression as she greeted him surprised and
+distressed her. He looked quite unhappy. And the dear woman, thinking
+that he must be in debt, seriously considered the propriety of tipping
+him handsomely _in advance_. A moment later, as she slipped out of an
+old and shabby dust-cloak, revealing the splendours of a dress fresh
+from Paris, she divined from John's now radiant face what had troubled
+him.
+
+"John," she said, "you didn't really think that I was going to shame you
+by wearing this dreadful cloak--did you?"
+
+"I wasn't quite sure," John answered; then he burst out, "Mum, you look
+simply lovely. All the fellows will take you for my sister."
+
+And after the great function in Speech-room came the cheering. How
+John's heart throbbed when the Head of the School, standing just outside
+the door, proclaimed the illustrious name--
+
+"Three cheers for Mr. John Verney."
+
+And how the boys in the road below cheered, as the little man descended
+the steps, hat in hand, bowing and blushing! Everybody knew that he was
+on the eve of departure for further explorations in Manchuria. He would
+be absent, so the papers said, three years at least. The School cheered
+the louder, because each boy knew that they might never see that gallant
+face again.
+
+Later in the afternoon a selection of Harrow songs was given in the
+Speech-room. "Five Hundred Faces," as usual, was sung by a new boy, who
+is answered, in chorus, by the whole School. How John recalled his own
+feelings, less than a year ago, as he stood shivering upon the bank of
+the river, funking the first plunge! And his uncle, now sitting beside
+him, had said that he would soon enjoy himself amazingly--and so he had!
+The new boy began the second verse. His voice, not a strong one,
+quavered shrilly--
+
+    "A quarter to seven! There goes the bell!
+      The sleet is driving against the pane;
+      But woe to the sluggard who turns again
+    And sleeps, not wisely, but all too well!"
+
+In reply to the weak, timid notes came the glad roar of the School--
+
+    "Yet the time may come, as the years go by,
+      When your heart will thrill
+      At the thought of the Hill,
+    And the pitiless bell, with its piercing cry!"
+
+Ah, that pitiless bell! And yet because of it one wallowed in Sunday and
+whole-holiday "frowsts."[24] John, you see, had the makings of a
+philosopher. And now the Eleven were grunting "Willow the King." And
+when the last echo of the chorus died away in the great room, Uncle John
+whispered to his nephew that he had heard Harrow songs in every corner
+of the earth, and that convincing proof of merit shone out of the fact
+that their charm waxed rather than waned with the years; they improved,
+like wine, with age.
+
+C�sar's father came down with the Duke of Trent. The duke tipped John
+magnificently and asked him to spend his exeat at Trent House, and to
+witness the Eton and Harrow match at Lord's from the Trent coach. John
+accepted gratefully enough; but his heart was sore because, just before
+the row over that infernal word "inestimable," C�sar had asked John if
+he would like to occupy an attic in Eaton Square. After the row nothing
+more was said about the attic; but John would have preferred bare boards
+in Eaton Square to a tapestried chamber in Park Lane.
+
+Now, during the whole of this summer term there was much animated
+discussion in regard to the rival claims of lines or spots upon the
+white waistcoat worn by all self-respecting Harrovians at Lord's. Upon
+this important subject John had betrayed scandalous indifference.
+Accordingly, just before the match, the Caterpillar took him aside and
+spoke a solemn word.
+
+"Look here," he said; "one doesn't as a rule make personal remarks, but
+it's rather too obvious that you buy your clothes in Lyndhurst. I was
+sorry to see that the Duke of Trent was the worst-dressed man at
+Speecher; but a duke can look like a tinker, and nobody cares."
+
+"I'd be awfully obliged if you'd tell me what's wrong," said John,
+humbly.
+
+"Everything's wrong," said the Caterpillar, decisively. He looked
+critically at John's boots. "Your boots, for instance--most excellent
+boots for wading through the swamps in the New Forest, but quite
+impossible in town. And the 'topper' you wear on Sunday! Southampton,
+you say? Ah, I thought it was a Verney heirloom. Now, it wouldn't
+surprise me to hear that your mother, who dresses herself quite
+charmingly, bought your kit."
+
+"She did," John confessed.
+
+"Just so. One need say no more. Now, you come along with me."
+
+They marched down the High Street to the most fashionable of the School
+tailors, where John was measured for an Eton jacket of the best, white
+waistcoat with blue spots, light bags; while the Caterpillar selected a
+new "topper," an umbrella, a pair of gloves, and a tie.
+
+"Be _very_ careful about the bags," said the Caterpillar. "They are
+cutting 'em in town a trifle tighter about the lower leg, but loose
+above. You understand?"
+
+"Perfectly, Mr. Egerton," replied the obsequious snip. "What we call the
+'tighto-looso' style, sir."
+
+"I don't think they call it that in Savile Row," said the Caterpillar;
+"but be careful."
+
+The tailor was assured that he would receive an order properly signed by
+Mr. Rutford. And then John was led to the bootmaker's, and there
+measured for his first pair of patent-leathers. The Caterpillar was so
+exhausted by these labours that a protracted visit to the Creameries
+became imperative.
+
+"You've always looked like a gentleman," said the Caterpillar, after his
+"dringer," "and it's a comfort to me to think that now you'll be dressed
+like one."
+
+So John went up to town looking very smart indeed; and Fluff (who had
+ordered a similar kit) whispered to John at luncheon that his brothers,
+the Etonians, had expressed surprise at the change for the better in
+their general appearance.
+
+This luncheon was eaten on the top of the duke's coach, and it happened
+that the next coach but one belonged to Scaife's father. John could just
+see Scaife's handsome head, and C�sar sitting beside him. The boys
+nodded to each other, and the Etonians asked questions. At the name of
+Scaife, however, the young Kinlochs curled contemptuous lips.
+
+"Unspeakable bounder, old Scaife, isn't he?" they asked; and the duchess
+replied--
+
+"My dears, his cheques are honoured to any amount, even if _he_ isn't."
+
+Her laughter tinkled delightfully; but John reflected that Desmond was
+eating the Scaife food and drinking the Scaife wine--all bought with
+ill-gotten gold.
+
+Later in the afternoon it became evident that the Scaife champagne was
+flowing freely. To John's dismay, the Harrovians (including C�sar) on
+the top of the Scaife coach became noisy. The Caterpillar and his
+father, Colonel Egerton, sauntered up, and were invited by the duke to
+rest and refresh themselves. John was amused to note that the colonel
+was even a greater buck than his son. He quite cut out the poor old
+Caterpillar, challenging and monopolizing the attention of all who
+beheld him.
+
+"Those boys are makin' the devil of a row," said the colonel, fixing his
+eyeglass. "Ah, the Scaifes! A man I know dined with them last week. He
+reported everything _over_done, except the food. Their _chef_ is
+Marcobruno, you know."
+
+Presently, to John's relief, Desmond left the Scaifes and joined the
+Trent party, upon whom his gay, radiant face and charming manners made a
+most favourable impression. He laughed at the duchess's stories, and
+made love to her quite unaffectedly. The Etonians looked rather glum,
+because their wickets were falling faster than had been expected.
+Desmond told the duke, in answer to a question, that his father was in
+his seat in the pavilion, with his eyes glued to the pitch.
+
+"He's awfully keen," said C�sar.
+
+"You boys are not so keen as we were," said the duke, nodding
+reflectively.
+
+"Oh, but we are, sir--indeed we are," said C�sar. "Aren't we,
+Caterpillar?"
+
+The Caterpillar replied, thoughtfully, "One bottles up that sort of
+thing, I suppose."
+
+"Ah," said the duke, kindly, "if it's the right sort of thing, it's none
+the worse for being bottled up."
+
+The boys went to the play that night and enjoyed themselves hugely. Next
+day, however, the match ended in a draw. John was standing on the top of
+the coach, very disconsolate, when he saw Desmond beckoning to him from
+below. The expression on C�sar's face puzzled him.
+
+"How can you pal up with those Etonians?" whispered C�sar, after John
+had descended. "Every Eton face I see now I want to hit." Then he added,
+with a smile and a chuckle, "I say, there's going to be a ruction in
+front of the Pavvy. Come on."
+
+A minute later John was in the thick of a very pretty scrimmage between
+the Hill and the Plain. Hats were bashed in; cornflowers torn from
+buttonholes; pale-blue tassels were captured; umbrellas broken. Finally,
+the police interfered.
+
+"Short, but very, very sweet," said C�sar, panting.
+
+John and he were lamentable objects for fond parents to behold, but the
+sense of depression had vanished. And then C�sar said suddenly--
+
+"By Jove! I _have_ got a bit of news. It quite takes the sting out of
+this draw."
+
+"What's happened?"
+
+"My governor has been talking with Warde. Rutford is leaving Harrow."
+
+John gasped. "That is ripping."
+
+"Isn't it? But who do you think is coming to us? Why, Warde himself. He
+was at the Manor when it was _the_ house, and the governor says that
+Warde will make it _the_ house, again. He's got his work cut out for
+him--eh?"
+
+"You bet your life," said John.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] "Duck-Puddle," the school bathing-place.
+
+[20] A "Dringer" is composed of the following ingredients: a layer of
+strawberries is secreted in sugar and cream at the bottom of a clean
+jam-pot; and this receives a decent covering of strawberry ice, which
+brings the surface of the dringer and the top edge of the jam-pot into
+the same plane. The whole may be bought for sixpence. (P. C. T., 1905.)
+
+[21] A "Bluer" is the blue-flannel jacket worn in the playing fields. It
+must be worn _buttoned_ by boys who have been less than three years in
+the school.
+
+[22] Small boys are not advised to copy John's tactics. The victory is
+not always to the weak.
+
+[23] The house-cap, only worn by members of the House Cricket Eleven.
+
+[24] Lying in bed in the morning when there is no First School is a
+"frowst." By a subtle law of association, an armchair is also a
+"frowst."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+_A Revelation_
+
+    "Forty years on, when afar and asunder
+      Parted are those who are singing to-day,
+    When you look back, and forgetfully wonder
+      What you were like in your work and your play;
+    Then, it may be, there will often come o'er you
+      Glimpses of notes like the catch of a song,--
+    Visions of boyhood shall float them before you,
+      Echoes of dreamland shall bear them along."
+
+
+Before the end of the summer term, both Desmond and Scaife received
+their "caps" and a word of advice from Lawrence.
+
+"There are going to be changes here," said he; "and I wish I could see
+'em, and help to bring 'em about. Now, I'm not given to buttering
+fellows up, but I see plainly that the rebuilding of this house depends
+a lot upon you two. It's not likely that you're able to measure your
+influence; if you could, there wouldn't be much to measure. But take it
+from me, not a word, not an action of yours is without weight with the
+lower boys. Everything helps or hinders. Next term there will be war--to
+the knife--between Warde and some fellows I needn't name, and Warde will
+win. Remember I said so. I hope you," he looked hard at Desmond, "will
+fight on the right side."
+
+The boys returned to their room, jubilant because the house-cap was
+theirs, but uneasy because of the words given with it. As soon as they
+were alone, Scaife said sullenly--
+
+"Does Lawrence expect us to stand in with Warde against Lovell and his
+pals? If he does, he's jolly well mistaken, as far as I'm concerned."
+
+Desmond flushed. He had spent nearly five terms at Harrow, but only two
+at the Manor. Of what had been done or left undone by certain fellows in
+the Fifth he was still in twilight ignorance. He discerned shadows,
+nothing more, and, boylike, he ran from shadows into the sunlight.
+Desmond knew that there were beasts at the Manor. Had you forced from
+him an expression approaching, let us say, definiteness, he would have
+admitted that beasts lurked in every house, in every school in the
+kingdom. You must keep out of their way (and ways)--that was all. And he
+knew also that too many beasts wreck a house, as they wreck a regiment
+or a nation.
+
+But once or twice within the past few months he had suspected that his
+cut-and-dried views on good and evil were not shared by Scaife. Scaife
+confessed to Desmond that the Old Adam was strong in him. He liked,
+craved for, the excitement of breaking the law. Hitherto, this breaking
+of the law had been confined to such offences as smoking or drinking a
+glass of beer at a "pub,"[25] or using cribs, or, generally speaking,
+setting at naught authority. That Scaife had escaped severe punishment
+was due to his keen wits.
+
+Now, when Scaife gave Desmond the unexpurgated history of the row which
+so nearly resulted in the expulsion of six boys, Desmond had asked a
+question--
+
+"Do you _like_ whisky? I loathe it."
+
+Scaife laughed before he answered. Doubtless one reason why he exacted
+interest and admiration from Desmond lay in a rare (rare at fifteen)
+ability to analyse his own and others' actions.
+
+"I loathe it, too," he admitted. "Really, you know, we drank precious
+little, because it _is_ such beastly stuff. But I liked, we all liked,
+to believe that we were doing the correct thing--eh? And it warmed us
+up. Just a taste made the Caterpillar awfully funny."
+
+"I see."
+
+"Do you see? I doubt it, C�sar. Perhaps I shall horrify you when I tell
+you that vice interests me. I used to buy the _Police News_ when I was a
+kid, and simply wallow in it. I told a woman that last Easter, and she
+laughed--she was as clever as they make 'em--and said that I suffered
+from what the French call _la nostalgie de la boue_; that means, you
+know, the homesickness for the gutter. Rather personal, but dev'lish
+sharp, wasn't it?"
+
+"I think she was a beast."
+
+"Not she, she's a sort of cousin; she came from the same old place
+herself; that's why she understood. You don't want to know what goes on
+in the slums, but I do. Why? Because my grand-dad was born in 'em."
+
+"He pulled himself out by brains and muscles."
+
+"But he went back--sometimes. Oh yes, he did. And the governor--I'm up
+to some of _his_ little games. I could tell you----"
+
+"Oh--shut up!" said C�sar, the colour flooding his cheeks.
+
+Upon the last Saturday of the term the School Concert took place. Few of
+the boys in the Manor, and none out of it, knew that John Verney had
+been chosen to sing the treble solo; always an attractive number of the
+programme. John, indeed, was painfully shy in regard to his singing, so
+shy that he never told Desmond that he had a voice. And the
+music-master, enchanted by its quality, impressed upon his pupil the
+expediency of silence. He wished to surprise the School.
+
+The concerts at Harrow take place in the great Speech-room. Their
+characteristic note is the singing of Harrow songs. To any boy with an
+ear for music and a heart susceptible of emotion these songs must appeal
+profoundly, because both words and music seem to enshrine all that is
+noble and uplifting in life. And, sung by the whole School (as are most
+of the choruses), their message becomes curiously emphatic. The spirit
+of the Hill is acclaimed, gladly, triumphantly, unmistakably, by
+Harrovians repeating the creed of their fathers, knowing that creed will
+be so repeated by their sons and sons' sons. Was it happy chance or a
+happier sagacity which decreed that certain verses should be sung by the
+School "Twelve," who have struggled through form after form and know
+(and have not yet had time to forget) the difficulties and temptations
+which beset all boys? They, to whom their fellows unanimously accord
+respect at least, and often--as in the case of a Captain of the Cricket
+Eleven--enthusiastic admiration and fealty; these, the gods, in a word,
+deliver their injunction, transmit, in turn, what has been transmitted
+to them, and invite their successors to receive it. To many how poignant
+must be the reflection that the trust they are about to resign might
+have been better administered! But to many there must come upon the
+wings of those mighty, rushing choruses the assurance that the Power
+which has upheld them in the past will continue to uphold them in the
+future. In many--would one could say in all--is quickened, for the first
+time, perhaps, a sense of what they owe to the Hill, the overwhelming
+debt which never can be discharged.
+
+Desmond sat beside Scaife. Scaife boasted that he could not tell "God
+save the Queen" from "The Dead March in Saul." He confessed that the
+concert bored him. Desmond, on the other hand, was always touched by
+music, or, indeed, by anything appealing to an imagination which gilded
+all things and persons. He was Scaife's friend, not only (as John
+discovered) because Scaife had a will strong enough to desire and secure
+that friendship, but because--a subtler reason--he had never yet seen
+Scaife as he was, but always as he might have been.
+
+Desmond told Scaife that he could not understand why John had bottled up
+the fact that he was chosen to sing upon such an occasion. Scaife smiled
+contemptuously.
+
+"You never bottle up anything, C�sar," said he.
+
+"Why should I? And why should he?"
+
+"I expect he'll make an awful ass of himself."
+
+"Oh no, he won't," Desmond replied. "He's a clever fellow is Jonathan."
+
+As he gave John his nickname, Desmond's charming voice softened. A boy
+of less quick perceptions than Scaife would have divined that the
+speaker liked John, liked him, perhaps, better than he knew. Scaife
+frowned.
+
+"There are several Old Harrovians," he said, indicating the seats
+reserved for them. "It's queer to me that they come down for this
+caterwauling."
+
+Desmond glanced at him sharply, with a wrinkle between his eyebrows. For
+the moment he looked as if he were short-sighted, as if he were trying
+to define an image somewhat blurred, conscious that the image itself was
+clear enough, that the fault lay in the obscurity of his own vision.
+
+"They come down because they're keen," he replied. "My governor can't
+leave his office, or he'd be here. I like to see 'em, don't you, Demon?"
+
+"I could worry along without 'em," the Demon replied, half-smiling. "You
+see," he added, with the blend of irony and pathos which always
+captivated his friend, "you see, my dear old chap, I'm the first of my
+family at Harrow, and the sight of all your brothers and uncles and
+fathers makes me feel like Mark Twain's good man, rather _lonesome_."
+
+At once Desmond responded, clutching Scaife's arm.
+
+"You're going to be Captain of the cricket and footer Elevens, and
+School racquet-player, and a monitor; and after you leave you'll come
+down here, and you'll see that Harrow hasn't forgotten you, and then
+you'll know why these fellows cut engagements. My governor says that an
+hour at a School Concert is the finest tonic in the world for an Old
+Harrovian."
+
+"Oh, shut up!" said Scaife; "you make me feel more of an outsider than
+good old Snowball." He glanced at a youth sitting close to them.
+Snowball was as black as a coal: the son of the Sultan of the Sahara.
+"Yes, C�sar, you can't get away from it, I _am_ an 'alien.'"
+
+"You're a silly old ass! I say, who's the guest of honour?"
+
+Next to the Head Master was sitting a thin man upon whose face were
+fixed hundreds of eyes. The School had not been told that a famous Field
+Marshal, the hero of a hundred fights, was coming to the concert. And,
+indeed, he had accepted an invitation given at the last moment--accepted
+it, moreover, on the understanding that his visit was to be informal.
+None the less, his face was familiar to all readers of illustrated
+papers. And, suddenly, conviction seized the boys that a conqueror was
+among them, an Old Etonian, making, possibly, his first visit to the
+Hill. Scaife whispered his name to Desmond.
+
+"Why, of course," Desmond replied eagerly. "How splendid!"
+
+He leaned forward, devouring the hero with his eyes, trying to pierce
+the bronzed skin, to read the record. From his seat upon the stage John,
+also, stared at the illustrious guest. John was frightfully nervous, but
+looking at the veteran he forgot the fear of the recruit. Both Desmond
+and he were wondering what "it felt like" to have done so much.
+And--they compared notes afterwards--each boy deplored the fact that the
+great man was not an Old Harrovian. There he sat, cool, calm, slightly
+impassive. John thought he must be rather tired, as a man ought to be
+tired after a life of strenuous endeavour and achievement. He had
+done--so John reflected--an awful lot. Even now, he remained the active,
+untiring servant of Queen and country. And he had taken time to come
+down to Harrow to hear the boys sing. And, dash it all! he, John, was
+going to sing to him.
+
+At that moment Desmond was whispering to Scaife--
+
+"I say, Demon; I'm jolly glad that I've not got to sing before _him_. I
+bet Jonathan is in a funk."
+
+"A big bit of luck," replied Scaife, reflectively. Then, seeing the
+surprise on Desmond's face, he added, "If Jonathan can sing--and I
+suppose he can, or he wouldn't be chosen--this is a chance----"
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"C�sar, sometimes I think you've no brains. Why, a chance of attracting
+the notice of a tremendous swell--a man, they say, who never
+forgets--never! Jonathan may want a commission in the Guards, as I do;
+and if he pleases the great man, he may get it."
+
+"Jonathan's not thinking of that," said Desmond. "Shush-h-h!"
+
+The singers stood up. They faced the Field Marshal, and he faced them.
+He looked hardest at Lawrence, pointed out to him by the Head Master.
+Perhaps he was thinking of India; and the name of Lawrence indelibly cut
+upon the memories of all who fought in the Mutiny. And Lawrence, you may
+be sure, met his glance steadily, being fortified by it. The good fellow
+felt terribly distressed, because he was leaving the Hill; and, being a
+humble gentleman, the old songs served to remind him, not of what he had
+done, but of what he had left undone--the words unspoken, the actions
+never now to be performed. The chief caught his eye, smiled, and nodded,
+as if to say, "I claim your father's son as a friend."
+
+When the song came to an end, John was seized with an almost
+irresistible impulse to bolt. His turn had come. He must stand up to
+sing before nearly six hundred boys, who would stare down with gravely
+critical and courteously amused eyes. And already his legs trembled as
+if he were seized of a palsy. John knew that he could sing. His mother,
+who sang gloriously, had trained him. From her he had inherited his
+vocal chords, and from her he drew the knowledge how to use them.
+
+When he stood up, pale and trembling, the silence fell upon his
+sensibilities as if it were a dense, yellow fog. This silence, as John
+knew, was an unwritten law. The small boy selected to sing to the
+School, as the representative of the School, must have every chance. Let
+his voice be heard! The master playing the accompaniment paused and
+glanced at his pupil. John, however, was not looking at him; he was
+looking within at a John he despised--a poltroon, a deserter about to
+run from his first engagement. He knew that the introduction to the song
+was being played a second time, and he saw the Head Master whispering to
+his guest. Paralysed with terror, John's intuition told him that the
+Head Master was murmuring, "That's the nephew of John Verney. Of course
+you know him?" And the Field Marshal nodded. And then he looked at John,
+as John had seen him look at Lawrence, with the same flare of
+recognition in the steel-grey eyes. Out of the confused welter of faces
+shone that pair of eyes--twin beacons flashing their message of
+encouragement and salvation to a fellow-creature in peril--at least, so
+John interpreted that piercing glance. It seemed to say, far plainer
+than words, "I have stood alone as you stand; I have felt my knees as
+wax; I have wished to run away. But--_I didn't_. Nor must you. Open your
+mouth and sing!"
+
+So John opened his mouth and sang. The first verse of the lyric went
+haltingly.
+
+Scaife growled to Desmond, "He _is_ going to make an ass of himself."
+
+And Desmond, meeting Scaife's eyes, half thought that the speaker wished
+that John would fail--that he grudged him a triumph. None the less, the
+first verse, sung feebly, with wrong phrasing and imperfect
+articulation, revealed the quality of the boy's voice; and this quality
+Desmond recognized, as he would have recognized a fine painting or a bit
+of perfect porcelain. All his short life his father had trained him to
+look for and acclaim quality, whether in things animate or inanimate. He
+caught hold of Scaife's arm.
+
+"Make an ass of himself!" he whispered back. "Not he. But he may make an
+ass of me."
+
+Even as he spoke he was aware that tears were horribly near his eyes.
+Some catch in John's voice, some subtle inflection, had smitten his
+heart, even as the prophet smote the rock.
+
+"Rot!" said Scaife, angrily.
+
+He was angry, furiously angry, because he saw that C�sar was beyond his
+reach, whirled innumerable leagues away by the sound of another's voice.
+John had begun the second verse. He stared, as if hypnotized, straight
+into the face of the great soldier, who in turn stared as steadily at
+John; and John was singing like a lark, with a lark's spontaneous
+delight in singing, with an ease and self-abandonment which charmed eye
+almost as much as ear. Higher and higher rose the clear, sexless notes,
+till two of them met and mingled in a triumphant trill. To Desmond, that
+trill was the answer to the quavering, troubled cadences of the first
+verse; the vindication of the spirit soaring upwards unfettered by the
+flesh--the pure spirit, not released from the pitiful human clay without
+a fierce struggle. At that moment Desmond loved the singer--the singer
+who called to him out of heaven, who summoned his friend to join him, to
+see what he saw--"the vision splendid."
+
+John began the third and last verse. The famous soldier covered his face
+with his hand, releasing John's eyes, which ascended, like his voice,
+till they met joyfully the eyes of Desmond. At last he was singing to
+his friend--_and his friend knew it_. John saw Desmond's radiant smile,
+and across that ocean of faces he smiled back. Then, knowing that he was
+nearer to his friend than he had ever been before, he gathered together
+his energies for the last line of the song--a line to be repeated three
+times, loudly at first, then more softly, diminishing to the merest
+whisper of sound, the voice celestial melting away in the ear of
+earth-bound mortals. The master knew well the supreme difficulty of
+producing properly this last attenuated note; but he knew also that
+John's lungs were strong, that the vocal chords had never been strained.
+Still, if the boy's breath failed; if anything--a smile, a frown, a
+cough--distracted his attention, the end would be--weakness, failure. He
+wondered why John was staring so fixedly in one direction.
+
+Now--now!
+
+The piano crashed out the last line; but far above it, dominating it,
+floated John's flute-like notes. The master played the same bars for the
+second time. He was still able to sustain, if it were necessary, a
+quavering, imperfect phrase. But John delivered the second repetition
+without a mistake, singing easily from the chest. The master put his
+foot upon the soft pedal. Nobody was watching him. Had any one done so,
+he would have seen the perspiration break upon the musician's forehead.
+The piano purred its accompaniment. Then, in the middle of the phrase,
+the master lifted his hands and held them poised above the instrument.
+John had to sing three notes unsupported. He was smiling and staring at
+Desmond. The first note came like a question from the heart of a child;
+the second, higher up, might have been interpreted as an echo to the
+innocent interrogation of the first, the head no wiser than the heart;
+but the third and last note had nothing in it of interrogation: it was
+an answer, all-satisfying--sublime. Nor did it seem to come from John at
+all, but from above, falling like a snowflake out of the sky.
+
+And then, for one immeasurable moment--_silence_.
+
+John slipped back to his seat, crimson with bashfulness, while the
+School thundered applause. The Field Marshal shouted "Encore," as loudly
+as any fag; but the Head Master whispered--
+
+"We don't encourage _encores_. A small boy's head is easily turned."
+
+"Not his," the hero replied.
+
+Two numbers followed, and then the School stood up, and with them all
+Old Harrovians, to sing the famous National Anthem of Harrow, "Forty
+Years on." Only the guests and the masters remained seated.
+
+    "Forty years on, growing older and older,
+      Shorter in wind, as in memory long,
+    Feeble of foot and rheumatic of shoulder,
+      What will it help you that once you were strong?
+    God give us bases to guard or beleaguer,
+      Games to play out, whether earnest or fun;
+    Fights for the fearless, and goals for the eager,
+      Twenty, and thirty, and forty years on!
+    Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! Follow up!
+    Till the field ring again and again,
+      With the tramp of the twenty-two men.
+                Follow--up!"
+
+As the hundreds of voices, past and present indissolubly linked
+together, imposed the mandate, "_Follow up!_" the Head Master glanced at
+his guest, but left unsaid the words about to be uttered. Tears were
+trickling down the cheeks of the man who, forty years before, had won
+his Sovereign's Cross--For Valour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After the concert, but before he left the Speech-room, the Field Marshal
+asked the Head Master to introduce Lawrence and John, and, of course,
+the Head of the School. When John came up, there was a twinkle in the
+veteran's eye.
+
+"Ha--ha!" said he; "you were in a precious funk, John Verney."
+
+"I was, sir," said John.
+
+"Gad! Don't I know the feeling? Well, well," he chuckled, smiling at
+John, "you climbed up higher than I've ever been in my life. What was
+it--hey? 'F' in 'alt'?"
+
+"'G,' sir."
+
+"You sang delightfully. Tell your uncle to bring you to see me next time
+you are in town. You must consider me a friend," he chuckled again--"an
+old friend. And look ye here," his pleasant voice sank to a whisper, "I
+daren't tip these tremendous swells, but I feel that I can take such a
+liberty with you. Shush-h-h! Good-bye."
+
+John scurried away, bursting with pride, feeling to the core the strong
+grip of the strong man, hearing the thrill of his voice, the thrill
+which had vibrated in thousands of soldier-hearts. Outside, Fluff was
+awaiting him.
+
+"Oh, Jonathan, you can sing, and no mistake."
+
+"Five--six--seven mistakes," John answered.
+
+The boys laughed.
+
+John told Fluff what the hero had said to him, and showed the piece of
+gold.
+
+"What ho! The Creameries! Come on, Esm�."
+
+At the Creameries several boys congratulated John, and the Caterpillar
+said--
+
+"You astonished us, Jonathan; 'pon my soul you did. Have a 'dringer'
+with me? And Fluff, too? By the way, be sure to keep your hair clipped
+close. These singing fellows with manes may be lions in their own
+estimation, but the world looks upon 'em as asses."
+
+"That's not bad for you, Caterpillar," said a boy in the Fifth.
+
+"Not my own," said the Caterpillar, solemnly--"my father's. I take from
+him all the good things I can get hold of."
+
+John polished off his "dringer," listening to the chaff, but his
+thoughts were with Desmond. He had an intuition that Desmond would have
+something to say to him. As soon as possible he returned to the Manor.
+
+There he found his room empty. John shut the door and sat down, looking
+about him half-absently. The Duffer had not contributed much to the
+mural decoration, saying, loftily, that he preferred bare walls to
+rubbishy engravings and Japanese fans. But, with curious inconsistency
+(for he was the least vain of mortals), he had bought at a "leaving
+auction" a three-sided mirror--once the property of a great buck in the
+Sixth. The Duffer had got it cheap, but he never used it. The lower boys
+remarked to each other that Duff didn't dare to look in it, because what
+he would see must not only break his heart but shatter the glass.
+Generally, it hung, folded up, close to the window, and the Duffer said
+that it would come in handy when he took to shaving.
+
+John's eye rested on this mirror, vacantly at first, then with gathering
+intensity. Presently he got up, crossed the room, opened the two
+folding panels, and examined himself attentively, pursing up his lips
+and frowning. He could see John Verney full face, three-quarter face,
+and half-face. And he could see the back of his head, where an obstinate
+lock of hair stuck out like a drake's tail. John was so occupied in
+taking stock of his personal disadvantages that a ringing laugh quite
+startled him.
+
+"Why, Jonathan! Giving yourself a treat--eh?"
+
+John turned a solemn face to Desmond. "I think my head is hideous," he
+said ruefully.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"It's too long," John explained. "I like a nice round head like yours,
+C�sar. I wish I wasn't so ugly."
+
+Desmond laughed. John always amused him. C�sar was easily amused, saw
+the funny side of things, and contrasts tickled his fancy agreeably. But
+he stopped laughing when he realized that John was hurt. Then, quickly,
+impulsively, he said--
+
+"Your head is all right, old Jonathan. And your voice is simply
+beautiful." He spoke seriously, staring at John as he had stared in the
+Speech-room when John began to sing. "I came here to tell you that. I
+felt odd when you were singing--quite weepsy, you know. You like me, old
+Jonathan, don't you?"
+
+"Awfully," said John.
+
+"Why did you look at me when you sang that last verse? Did you know that
+you were looking at me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You looked at me because--well, because--bar chaff--you--liked--me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You--you like me better than any other fellow in the school?"
+
+"Yes; better than any other fellow in the world."
+
+"Is it possible?"
+
+"I have always felt that way since--yes--since the very first minute I
+saw you."
+
+"How rum! I've forgotten just where we did meet--for the first time."
+
+"I shall never forget," said John, in the same slow, deliberate fashion,
+never taking his eyes from Desmond's face. Ever since he had sung, he
+had known that this moment was coming. "I shall never forget it," he
+repeated--"never. You were standing near the Chapel. I was poking about
+alone, trying to find the shop where we buy our straws. And I was
+feeling as all new boys feel, only more so, because I didn't know a
+soul."
+
+"Yes," said Desmond, gravely; "you told me that. I remember now; I
+mistook you for young Hardacre."
+
+"You smiled at me, C�sar. It warmed me through and through. I suppose
+that when a fellow is starving he never forgets the first meal after
+it."
+
+"I say. Go on; this is awfully interesting."
+
+"I can remember what you wore. One of your bootlaces had burst----"
+
+"Well; I'm----"
+
+"I had a wild sort of wish to run off and buy you a new lace----"
+
+"Of all the rum starts I----"
+
+"Afterwards," John continued, "I tried to suck-up. I asked you to come
+and have some 'food.' Do you remember?"
+
+"I'll bet I came, Jonathan."
+
+"No; you didn't. You said 'No.'"
+
+"Dash it all! I certainly said, 'No thanks.'"
+
+"I dare say; but the 'No' hurt awfully because I did feel that it was
+cheek asking you."
+
+"Jonathan, you funny old buster, I'll never say 'No' again. 'Pon my
+word, I won't. So I said 'No.' That's odd, because it's not easy for me
+to say 'No.' The governor pointed that out last hols. Somehow, I can't
+say 'No,' particularly if there's any excitement in saying 'Yes.' And my
+beastly 'No' hurt, did it? Well, I'm very, _very_ sorry."
+
+He held out his hand, which John took. Then, for a moment, there was a
+pause before Desmond continued awkwardly--
+
+"You know, Jonathan, that the Demon is my pal. You like him better than
+you did, don't you?"
+
+John had the tact not to speak; but he shook his head dolefully.
+
+"And I couldn't chuck him, even if I wanted to, which I don't--which I
+don't," he repeated, with an air of satisfying himself rather than John.
+And John divined that Scaife's hold upon Desmond's affections was not so
+strong as he had deemed it to be. Desmond continued, "But I want you,
+too, old Jonathan, and if--if----"
+
+"All right," said John, nobly. He perceived that Desmond's loyalty to
+Scaife made him hesitate and flush. "I understand, C�sar, and if I can't
+be first, let me be second; only, remember, with me you're first, rain
+or shine."
+
+Desmond looked uneasy. "Isn't that a case of 'heads I win, tails you
+lose'?"
+
+John considered; then he smiled cheerfully, "You know you are a winner,
+C�sar. You're cut out for a winner; you can win whatever you want to
+win."
+
+"Oh, that's all rot," said Desmond. He looked very grave, and in his
+eyes lay shadows which John had never seen before.
+
+And so ended John's first year at Harrow.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[25] All Public Houses are out of bounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+_Reform_
+
+    "'It must be a gran' thing to be a colledge profissor.'
+
+    "'Not much to do,' said Mr. Hennessy.
+
+    "'But a gr--reat deal to say,' said Mr. Dooley."
+
+
+When John returned to the Hill at the beginning of the winter term the
+great change had taken place. Rutford had assumed the duties of
+Professor of Greek at a Scotch University; Warde was in possession of
+the Manor; Scaife and Desmond and John--but not the Caterpillar--had got
+their remove. They were Fifth Form boys--and in tails! John, it is true,
+although tougher and broader, was still short for his years and juvenile
+of appearance, but Scaife and Desmond were quite big fellows, and their
+new coats became them mightily. Trieve was Head of the House; Lovell,
+Captain of the House football Eleven and in the Lower Sixth.
+
+"Lovell will have to behave himself now," the Duffer remarked to Scaife,
+who laughed derisively, as he answered--
+
+"He couldn't, even if he tried."
+
+Warde welcomed the House at lock-up, and introduced the boys to his wife
+and daughter. Mrs. Warde had a plain, pleasant face. Miss Warde,
+however, was a beauty, and she knew it, the coquette, and had known it
+from the hour she could peep into a mirror. The Caterpillar pronounced
+her "fetching." Being only fifteen, she wore her hair in a plait tied by
+a huge bow, and the hem of her skirt barely touched the neatest ankle on
+Harrow Hill. Give her a saucy, pink-and-white face, pop a pert,
+tip-tilted nose into the middle of it just above a pouting red mouth,
+and just below her father's lapis-lazuli eyes, and you will see Iris
+Warde. Her hair was reddish, not red--call it warm chestnut; and she had
+a dimple.
+
+After the introductions, mother and daughter left the hall. Warde stood
+up, inviting the House to sit down. Warde was about half the width of
+the late Rutford, but somehow he seemed to take up more room. He had
+spent the summer holidays in Switzerland, climbing terrific peaks. Snow
+and sun had coloured his clear complexion. John, who saw beneath tanned
+skins, reflected that Warde seemed to be saturated with fresh air and
+all the sweet, clean things which one associates with mountains. "He
+loves hills," thought John, "and he loves our Hill." Warde began to
+speak in his jerky, confidential tones. Dirty Dick had always been
+insufferably dull, pompous, and didactic.
+
+"I don't like speechmaking," said Warde, "but I want to put one thing to
+you as strongly as a man may. I have always wished to be master of the
+Manor. Some men may think mine a small ambition. Master of a house at
+Harrow? Nothing big about that. Perhaps not. But I think it big. And it
+is big--for me. Understand that I'm in love with my job--head over
+heels. I'd sooner be master of the Manor than Prime Minister. I couldn't
+tackle his work. Enough of that. Now, forget for a moment that I'm a
+master. Let me talk as an Old Harrovian, an old Manorite who remembers
+everything, ay--everything, good and bad. Some lucky fellows remember
+the good only; we call them optimists. Others remember the bad.
+Pessimists those. Put me between the two. The other day I had an eye,
+_one_ eye, fixed on the top of a certain peak--by Jove! how I longed to
+reach that peak!--but the other eye was on a _crevasse_ at my feet. Had
+I kept both eyes on the peak, I should be lying now at the bottom of
+that _crevasse_. You take me? Well, twenty years ago I sat here, in
+hall, my last night in the old house, and I hoped that one day I might
+come back. Why? This is between ourselves, a confidence. I came to the
+Manor from a beastly school, such schools are hardly to be found
+nowadays--a hardened young sinner at thirteen. The Manor licked me into
+shape. Speaking generally, I suppose the tone of the house insensibly
+communicated itself to me. The Manor was cock-house at games and work. I
+began by shirking both. But the spirit of the Hill was too much for me.
+I couldn't shirk that. Some jolly old boys, we all know them and like
+them, are always saying that their early school-days were the happiest
+of their lives. They're fond of telling this big lie just as they're
+settling down to their claret. I really believe that they believe what
+they say, but it _is_ a lie. The smallest boy here knows it's a lie.
+Let's hark back a bit. I said I was licked into shape--and I mean
+_licked_. I had a lot of really hard fagging--much harder than any of
+you boys know--I was sent up and swished, I had whoppings innumerable,
+and it wasn't pleasant. My mother had pinched herself to send me here,
+because my father had been here before me; and I wondered why she did
+it. At that time I couldn't see why cheaper schools shouldn't be not
+only as good as Harrow, but perhaps better. Not till I was in the Fifth
+did I get a glimmering of what my mother and the Manor were doing for
+me. When I got into the Sixth and into the Eleven, I knew. And my last
+year here made up, and more, too, for the previous four. I enjoyed that
+year thoroughly; I had ceased to be a slacker. I tell you, all of you,
+that happiness, like liberty, must be earned before we can enjoy it. And
+you are sent here to earn it. I'm not going to keep you much longer. I
+have come to the marrow of the matter. I owe the Manor a debt which I
+hope to pay to--you. Just as you, in turn, will pay back to boys not yet
+born the money your people have gladly spent on you, and other greater
+things besides. I want to see this house at the top of the tree again:
+cock-house at cricket, cock-house at footer, with a Balliol Scholar in
+it, and a school racquet-player. And now Dumbleton is going to bring in
+a little champagne. We'll drink high health and fellowship to the Manor
+and the Hill!"
+
+His face broke into the smile his form knew so well; he sat down, as the
+house roared its welcome to a friend.
+
+As soon as the champagne was drunk ("Dumber" was careful to put more
+froth than wine into the glasses of the kids), the boys filed out of the
+Hall. The Duffer, Desmond, John, and the Caterpillar assembled in John's
+room. Desmond, you may be sure, was afire with resolution. Warde was the
+right sort, a clinker, a first flighter. And he meant to stick by him
+through thick and thin. John said nothing. The Caterpillar drawled out--
+
+"Warde didn't surprise me--much. I've found out that he's one of the
+Wardes of Warde-Pomeroy, the real old stuff. Our families intermarried
+in Elizabeth's reign."
+
+"Chance to do it again, Caterpillar," said the Duffer. "Warde's daughter
+is an uncommonly pretty girl."
+
+Then the Caterpillar used the epithet "fetching."
+
+"She's fetching, very fetching," he said. "It's a pleasure to remember
+that we're of kin. One must be civil to Warde. He's a well bred 'un."
+
+"You think too much of family," said Desmond.
+
+"_One can't_," replied the Caterpillar, solemnly. "One knows that family
+is not everything, but, other things being equal, it means refinement.
+The first of the Howards was a swineherd, I dare say, but generations of
+education, of association with the best, have turned them from
+swine-herds into gentlemen, and it takes generations to do it."
+
+"Good old Caterpillar!" said the Duffer.
+
+"Not my own," said the Caterpillar; adding, as usual, "My governor's,
+you know."
+
+"Warde hasn't a soft job ahead of him," said Desmond.
+
+"Soft or hard, he'll handle it his own way."
+
+Desmond went out, wondering what had become of Scaife. Scaife was in his
+room, talking to Lovell senior, who spent a fortnight with Scaife's
+people in Scotland, fishing and grousing. Desmond had been asked also,
+but his father, rather to C�sar's disgust (for the Scaife moor was
+famous), had refused to let him go. Lovell and Scaife were arguing
+about something which Desmond could not understand.
+
+"I left it to my partner," said Scaife, "and the fool went no trumps
+holding two missing suits. The enemy doubled, my partner redoubled, and
+the others redoubled again: that made it ninety-six a trick. The fellow
+on the left held my partner's missing suits; he made the Little Slam,
+and scored nearly six hundred below the line. It gave 'em the rubber,
+too, and I had to fork out a couple of quid."
+
+"What are you jawing about, Demon?" said Desmond.
+
+"Bridge. It's the new game. It's going to be the rage. Do you play
+bridge, C�sar?"
+
+"No. I want to learn it."
+
+"All right, I must teach you."
+
+"We could get up a four in this house," said Lovell. "We three and the
+Caterpillar. He plays, I know. The Colonel is one of the cracks at the
+Turf. It would be an awful lark. A mild gamble: small points--eh? A bob
+a hundred. What do you say, C�sar?"
+
+Desmond hesitated. Bridge had not yet reached its delirious stage. But
+Desmond had seen it played, had heard his father praise it as the most
+fascinating of card-games, and had determined to learn it at the first
+convenient opportunity. None the less Warde's words still echoed in his
+ear.
+
+"I think we ought to give Warde a chance," he said.
+
+"You don't mean to say you were taken in by him?" said Lovell,
+contemptuously.
+
+Desmond burst into enthusiastic praise of Warde and his methods. Lovell
+shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room, nodding to Scaife,
+but ignoring Desmond.
+
+"You must go canny with Lovell," said Scaife. "He's the fellow who ought
+to give you your 'fez' after the first house-game."
+
+"Never mind that. You won't play bridge, Demon, will you?"
+
+"Why not?" said Scaife. "Where's the harm? Your governor plays----"
+
+"Yes; but----"
+
+"You're afraid of getting sacked?"
+
+"I'm not."
+
+"All right; I'll take that back. You're not a funk, C�sar, but you're so
+easily humbugged. Warde caught you with his 'pi jaw' and a glass of
+gooseberry."
+
+"The champagne was all right, wasn't it?"
+
+"Oh, ho! So you do mean to stand in with Warde against Lovell and me?
+Thanks for being so candid. Now I'll be candid with you. I like Lovell.
+There's no nonsense about him. He don't put on frills because he's in
+the Sixth, and he don't mean to take to their sneaking, spying ways.
+He's just as anxious as Warde to see the Manor cock-house at footer and
+cricket, and I'm as keen as he is; but we stop there. The Balliol
+Scholarship may go hang. And as for sympathy and fellowship and pulling
+together between masters and boys, I never did believe in it, and never
+shall. My hand is against the masters, so long as they interfere with
+anything I want to do. I like bridge, and I mean to play it. And I'll
+take jolly good care that I'm not nailed. That's part of the fun, as the
+drinking used to be. I chucked that because it wasn't good enough; but
+bridge is ripping, and, take my word for it, you'll be keener than I
+when you begin."
+
+"Perhaps. But I'm not going to begin here."
+
+"Right--oh!"
+
+Scaife turned aside, whistling, but out of the corner of his shrewd eye
+he marked the expression of Desmond's face, the colour ebbing and
+flowing in the round, boyish cheeks, the perplexity on the brow. Then he
+spoke in a different voice.
+
+"Don't worry, old chap. You've stuck to me through thick and thin, and
+I'm grateful, really and truly. You're right, and I'm wrong; I always am
+wrong. I was looking forward to larks. If you count 'em purple sins, I
+don't blame you for letting me go to the devil by myself."
+
+"I never said bridge was a purple sin."
+
+"Warde thinks it is. If you're going to look at life here with his eyes,
+you'll have to rename things. Babies play Beggar my Neighbour for
+chocolates; why shouldn't we play bridge for a bob a hundred? The game
+is splendid for the brain; ten thousand times better than translating
+Greek choruses."
+
+"But it is--gambling, Demon; you can't get away from that."
+
+"Pooh! It's gambling if I bet you a 'dringer' that you won't make ten
+runs in a house-match; it's gambling if I raffle a picture and you take
+a sixpenny ticket. Are you going to give up that sort of gambling?"
+
+"No; but----"
+
+"What would Warde say to our co-operative system of work--eh? You're not
+prepared to go the whole hog? You want to pick and choose. Good! But
+give me the same right, that's all. Play bridge with your old pals, or
+don't play, just as you please."
+
+No more was said. Scaife's manner rather than his matter confounded the
+younger and less experienced boy. Scaife, too, tackled problems which
+many men prefer to leave alone. Here heredity cropped up. Scaife's sire
+and grandsire were earning their bread before they were sixteen. Of
+necessity they faced and overcame obstacles which the ordinary Public
+School-boy never meets till he leaves the University.
+
+For some time after this bridge was not mentioned. Lovell, acting,
+possibly, under advice from Scaife, treated Desmond courteously, and
+gave him his "fez" after the first house-game. Both boys now were
+members of the Manor cricket and football Elevens, and, as such, persons
+of distinction in their small world. Scaife, moreover, began to play
+football with such extraordinary dash and brilliancy, that it seemed to
+be quite on the cards that he might get his School Flannels. This
+possibility, and the Greek in the Fifth, absorbed his energies for the
+first six weeks of the winter quarter. John had come back to Scaife's
+room to prepare work. Desmond felt that Scaife had been generous in
+proposing that John should join them, because in many small ways it had
+become evident that the Demon disliked John, although he still spoke of
+the tight place out of which John had hauled him. Through Scaife John
+received his "fez"; and when John wore it for the first time, Scaife
+came up and said, smiling--
+
+"I'm nearly even with you, Verney."
+
+"What do you mean?" said John.
+
+"You know well enough what I mean," said Scaife, winking his eye
+maliciously.
+
+John flushed, because in his heart he did know. But when he told Egerton
+what Scaife had said, that experienced man of the world turned up his
+nose.
+
+"Just like him," he said. "He wants you to feel that he has wiped out
+his debt."
+
+"Do you think my 'fez' ought to have been given to young Lovell?"
+
+The Caterpillar, who played back for the Manor, considered the question.
+
+"I don't know," he said. "You are pretty nearly equal; but it's a fact
+that the Demon turned the scale. He pointed out to Lovell that if he
+gave a 'fez' to his young brother, the house might accuse him of
+favouritism. That did the trick."
+
+This made John uneasy and unhappy for a week or two; but the
+consciousness that another might be better entitled to the coveted "fez"
+made him play up with such energy that he succeeded in proving to all
+critics that he had honestly earned what luck had bestowed on him.
+
+During the last week of October, John began those long walks with
+Desmond which, afterwards, he came to regard as perhaps the most
+delightful hours spent at Harrow. Scaife detested walking. He had his
+father's power of focusing attention and energy upon a single object.
+For the moment he was mad about football. Talk about books, scenery,
+people, bored him, and he said so with his usual frankness and
+impatience of restraint. Desmond, on the other hand, was also like his
+father, inasmuch as his tastes were catholic. He was a bit of a
+naturalist, learned in the lore of woods and fields, and he liked to
+talk about books, and he liked to talk about his home. Simple John would
+sooner hear C�sar talk than listen to the heavenly choir. So it came to
+pass that once a week at least the boys would stroll down the avenue at
+Orley Farm (where Anthony Trollope's sad boyhood was passed), or take
+the Northwick Walk, which winds through meadows to the Bridge, or visit
+John Lyon's farm at Preston, or, getting signed for Bill, attempt a
+longer ramble to Ruislip Reservoir, or Oxhey Wood, or Headstone with its
+moated grange, or Horsington Hill with its long-stretching view across
+the Uxbridge plain.
+
+Very soon it became the natural thing for C�sar to give John a glimpse,
+at least, of whatever floated in and out of his mind. John, being
+himself a creature of reserves, could not quite understand this unlocking
+of doors, but he appreciated his privileges. C�sar's ingenuousness,
+sympathy, and impulsiveness, seemed the more enchanting because John
+himself was of the look-before-you-leap, think-before-you-speak, sort.
+One Sunday evening they were hurrying back to Chapel, when they passed a
+woman carrying a heavy child. The poor creature appeared to be almost
+fainting with fatigue and possibly hunger. Her pinched face, her bent
+figure, her thin garments, bespoke a passionate protest against
+conditions which obviously she was powerless to avert or control. The
+boys glanced at her with pitying eyes as they passed. Then Desmond said
+quickly--
+
+"I say, Jonathan, she looks as if she was going to fall down."
+
+John, seeing what was in his friend's mind, said--
+
+"We must hurry up, or we shall miss Chapel."
+
+They offered the woman sixpences, and blushes, because through the
+tattered shawl might be seen a shrunken bosom.
+
+The woman stared, stammered, and burst into tears.
+
+"We shall miss Chapel," John repeated.
+
+"Hang Chapel," said Desmond.
+
+He was looking at the child. When the woman took the silver, she let the
+child slip to the ground, where it lay inert.
+
+"What's the matter with it?" said Desmond.
+
+Half sobbing, the woman explained that the child had sprained its ankle.
+
+"I'm just about done," she gasped; "an' the sight o' you two young
+gen'lemen runnin' up the 'ill finished me. I ain't the leaky sort," she
+added fiercely, still gasping and trembling.
+
+Then she bent down and tried to lift the heavy child, which moaned
+feebly.
+
+"You run on, Jonathan," said Desmond.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I'm going to carry this kid up the hill."
+
+"I'll help."
+
+"No--hook it, you ass."
+
+"I won't hook it."
+
+Between them they carried the child as far as the Speech-room, where a
+policeman accepted a shilling, and gave in return a positive assurance
+that he would see woman and child to their destination. When the boys
+were alone, John said--
+
+"C�sar----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"What a fellow you are! I wouldn't have thought of that. It was
+splendid."
+
+"Oh, shut up." There was a slight pause; then C�sar said defiantly, "I
+thought of carrying that kid; but I wouldn't have done it, unless I'd
+known that every boy was safe in Chapel. I couldn't have faced the
+chaff. And--you could."
+
+They were punished for cutting Chapel, because C�sar refused to give the
+reason which would have saved them.
+
+"I'd have told the truth," he admitted to John, "if I could have
+shouldered that kid with the Manorites looking on."
+
+John agreed that this was an excellent and a C�sarean (he coined the
+adjective on this occasion) reason.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among the Fifth Form boys of the Manor was a big, coarse-looking youth
+of the name of Beaumont-Greene. Everybody called him Beaumont-Greene in
+full, because upon his first appearance at Bill he had stopped the line
+of boys by refusing to answer to the name of Greene.
+
+"My name," said he, in a shrill pipe, "is Beaumont-Greene, and we spell
+the Greene with a final 'e'."
+
+Beaumont-Greene was a type of boy, unhappily, too common at all Public
+Schools. He had no feeling whatever for Harrow, save that it was a place
+where it behoved a boy to escape punishment if he could, and to run, hot
+foot, towards anything which would yield pleasure to his body. He was
+known to the Manorites as a funk at footer, and a prodigious consumer of
+"food" at the Creameries. His father, having accumulated a large fortune
+in manufacturing what was advertised in most of the public prints as the
+"Imperishable, Seamless, Whale-skin Boot," gave his son plenty of money.
+As a Lower Boy, Beaumont-Greene had but a sorry time of it. Somebody
+discovered that he was what Gilbert once described as an "imperfect
+ablutioner." The Caterpillar made a point of telling new boys the nature
+of the punishment meted out to the unclean. He had assisted at the
+"toshing" of Beaumont-Greene.
+
+"A nasty job," the Caterpillar would remark, looking at his own
+speckless finger-nails: "but it had to be done. We took the Greene
+person" (the Caterpillar alone refused to defame the fine name of
+Beaumont by linking it to Greene) "and placed him naked in a large
+tosh. Into that tosh the house was invited to pour any fluid that could
+be spared. One forgets things; but, unless I'm mistaken, the particular
+sheep-wash used was made up of lemonade, syrups, ink--plenty of
+that--milk (I bought a quart myself), tooth-powder, paraffin, and a cake
+of Sapolio--Monkey Brand! We scrubbed the Yahoo thoroughly, washed its
+teeth, ears, hair, and then we dried it. I don't know who smeared
+marmalade on to the towel, but the drying part was not very successful.
+Rather tough--eh? Yes, very tough--on _us_, but effective. The Greene
+person has toshed regularly ever since. At least, so I'm told; I never
+go near him myself, and he's considerate enough to keep out of my way."
+
+Beaumont-Greene had not, it is true, the appetite for reckless breaking
+of the law which distinguished Lovell and his particular pals; but
+Lovell's good qualities cancelled to a certain extent what was vicious.
+A fine cricketer, a plucky football-player, he might have proved a
+credit to his house had a master other than Dirty Dick been originally
+in command of it. Before he was out of the Shell, he had declared war
+against Authority. Beaumont-Greene, on the other hand, detested games,
+and sneered at those who played them. Pulpy, pimply, gross in mind and
+body, he stood for that heavy, amorphous resistance to good, which is so
+difficult to overcome.
+
+During the first half of the winter quarter, John saw but little of Esm�
+Kinloch. It is one of the characteristics of a Public School that the
+boys--as in the greater world for which it is a preparation--are in
+layers. Some layers overlap; others never touch. Fluff was a fag; his
+friend John was in the Fifth Form, and a "fez." In a word, an Atlantic
+rolled between them. John, however, would often give Fluff a "con," and
+occasionally they would walk together. Fluff was no longer the delicate,
+girlish child of a year ago. He had bloomed into a very handsome boy,
+attractive, like all the members of his mother's family, with engaging
+manners, and he had also shown signs of developing into a cricketer.
+Fluff could paddle his own canoe, provided, of course, that he kept out
+of the rapids.
+
+But about the middle of the term John noticed that Fluff was losing
+colour and spirits, the latter never very exuberant. It was not in
+John's nature to ask questions which he might answer for himself by
+taking pains to do so. He watched Fluff closely. Then he demanded
+bluntly--
+
+"What's up?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"That's a cram," said John, severely. "I didn't believe you'd tell me a
+cram, Esm�."
+
+"You don't care tuppence whether I tell crams or not--_now_."
+
+John weighed the "now" deliberately.
+
+"That's another cram," he said slowly. "Has anybody been rotting you?"
+
+Silence. John repeated the question. Still silence. Then John added--
+
+"You know, Esm�, that I shall stick to you till I find out what's up; so
+you may as well save time by telling me at once."
+
+"It's Beaumont-Greene," faltered Fluff.
+
+"That fat beast! What's he done?"
+
+"He hasn't done much--yet."
+
+"Tell everything!"
+
+"He came into my room one night and turned me up in my bed. I woke, on
+my head, in the dark, half-smothered, and couldn't think what had
+happened; it was simply awful. Then I heard his beastly voice saying,
+'If I let you down, will you do what I ask you?' I'd have promised
+anything to get out of that horrible, choking prison, and now he
+threatens to turn me up every night, and I dream of it----"
+
+"Go on," said John, grimly. "No, you needn't go on. I can guess what
+this low cad is up to."
+
+"He said he'd be my friend; as if I'd have a beast like that for a
+friend."
+
+"Did you tell him that?"
+
+"Yes, I did."
+
+"You're a good-plucked 'un, Esm�. And he's made it warm for you ever
+since?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But he hasn't turned you up again?"
+
+"N-no; but he will. I'd almost sooner he'd do it, and have done with it.
+I can't sleep."
+
+"Now, don't be a silly fool," John commanded. "I'm going to think this
+out, and I'll bet I make that fat, pimply beast sit up and howl."
+
+"Thanks awfully, John."
+
+But the more John thought of what he had undertaken to do, the less
+clearly he saw his way to do it. Evidently Beaumont-Greene was too
+prudent to bully Fluff; he had resorted to the crueller alternative of
+terrorizing him. Lawrence would have settled this fellow's hash--so John
+reflected--in a jiffy, but Trieve, "Miss Trieve," was hopelessly
+incapable. Presently inspiration came. He seized an opportunity when
+Beaumont-Greene happened to be by himself; then he marched boldly into
+his room, leaving the door ajar.
+
+"Hullo! what do you want?"
+
+Beaumont-Greene was sitting opposite the fire, reading a novel and
+leisurely consuming macaroons.
+
+"I want you to leave young Kinloch alone--_please_."
+
+Beaumont-Greene nearly choked; then he spluttered out--
+
+"Say that again, will you?"
+
+"I want you to leave young Kinloch alone."
+
+"Really? Anything else?"
+
+"Nothing more, thank you."
+
+Beaumont-Greene slowly raised himself out of his chair and glared at
+John, whose head came to his chin.
+
+"You've plenty of cheek."
+
+"What I have isn't spotty, anyway."
+
+John saw the veins begin to swell in Beaumont-Greene's throat. He
+thought with relief of the door ajar, but it was part of his policy--a
+carefully devised policy--to provoke, if possible, a scene. Then others
+would interfere, explanations would be in order, and public opinion
+would accomplish the rest.
+
+"You infernal young jackanapes!"
+
+"You pretty pet!"
+
+"Get out of my room! Hook it!"
+
+"I want to," said John, coolly enough, although his heart was throbbing.
+"It's horribly fuggy in here, and I've Jambi[26] to do; but I'm not
+going till you give me your word that you'll leave young Kinloch alone."
+
+"If you don't walk out I'll chuck you out."
+
+"You must catch me first," said John.
+
+And then a very pretty chase took place. Beaumont-Greene, fat, scant of
+breath, full of macaroons, began to pursue John round and round the
+table. John skilfully interposed chairs, sofa-cushions, anything he
+could lay hands on. Passing the washstand, he secured an enormous
+sponge, which an instant later flew souse into the face of the grampus.
+An abridged edition of Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon followed. This
+nearly brought the big fellow to grass. In his rage he, too, began to
+hurl what objects happened to be within reach, but he was a shocking bad
+shot; he missed, or John dodged every time. John did not miss. Finally,
+as John had foreseen, a couple of Sixth Form fellows rushed in.
+
+"What's the meaning of this infernal row?" asked one.
+
+"Ask him," said John.
+
+Authority stared at Beaumont-Greene, and then at his wrecked room.
+
+"I told him to hook it, and he wouldn't," spluttered the gasping Greene.
+
+"Why?"
+
+Half a dozen other fellows had come into the room. Amongst them the
+Duffer and the Caterpillar.
+
+"I wanted to hook it," John explained, "because it's so beastly fuggy;
+but Beaumont-Greene wouldn't promise me to do something he ought to do."
+
+"This is mysterious."
+
+"The swaggering young blackguard cheeked me," growled Greene.
+
+"I was very polite--at first," pleaded John.
+
+"Hook it now, anyway," said Authority.
+
+"Not till he promises. If you turn me out, I'll come back after you're
+gone."
+
+"What is it you want him to promise?"
+
+John had achieved his object.
+
+"I want him to leave young Kinloch _alone_."
+
+The two Sixth Form boys glanced at each other; at John; at the gross,
+spotted face of Beaumont-Greene. Then the senior said coldly--
+
+"I suppose you have no objection, Beaumont-Greene, to promising Verney
+or any one else that you will leave young Kinloch alone?"
+
+"I've never laid a finger on the kid," growled the big fellow; but he
+looked pale and frightened.
+
+"Then you promise--eh?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"On your word of honour?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+That night John told Fluff with great glee how Beaumont-Greene had been
+made to "sit up and howl."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] "Jambi"--Iambic verses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_Verney Boscobel_
+
+    "In honour of all who believe that life was made for friendship."
+
+
+The immediate result of the incident described in the last chapter was
+to strengthen the bond between John and Desmond. Desmond had the epic
+from Fluff, from the Caterpillar, and finally from John himself.
+
+"You bearded that poisonous beast in his den," exclaimed he; "you
+plotted and planned for the scrimmage; you foresaw what would happen.
+Well, you are a corker, Jonathan."
+
+"You'd have thought of something much better."
+
+"Not I," Desmond replied.
+
+Scaife, however, made no remarks. Possibly, because Desmond made too
+many, singing John's praises behind his back and to his face, in and out
+of season. This, of course, was indiscreet, and led to hard words and
+harder feelings. Beaumont-Greene realized that John had tarred and
+feathered him. The fags, you may be sure, rubbed the tar in. If
+Beaumont-Greene threatened to kick an impudent Fourth Form boy, that
+youngster would bid him be careful.
+
+"If you don't behave yourself," he would say, "I shall have to send
+Verney to your room."
+
+Lovell senior remarked that Beaumont-Greene was a "swine," but that
+Verney had put on "lift" and must be snubbed. What? A boy who had not
+been two years in the school _dared_ to take the law into his own hands!
+The matter ought to have been laid before the Head of the House.
+
+Accordingly, John found himself, much to his dismay, unpopular with the
+Olympians. The last month of this term was, in some ways, the most
+disagreeable he had yet spent at Harrow.
+
+But the gain of Desmond's friendship far outweighed the loss of
+popularity. John tingled with pleasure when he reflected that he had
+achieved his ambition to stand between Scaife and Desmond. At the same
+time, he was uncomfortably aware that Scaife seemed to have climbed high
+above Desmond, who had stood still. In moments of depression John told
+himself that he was a makeshift, that Desmond would leave him and join
+the Demon whenever that splendid young person chose to whistle him up.
+Scaife had failed to get his Football Flannels, but he came so near to
+beating all previous records that the School began to regard him as a
+"Blood." He was seen arm-in-arm with Lovell, strolling up and down the
+High Street, and the fags breathlessly repeated what Desmond had
+predicted a year ago: the Demon was the coming man. And always, when
+John and Desmond passed him, John thought he could read a derisive
+triumph upon the Demon's handsome face, an expression which said
+plainly: "You young fool, don't you know that I'm playing cat and mouse
+with _you_?"
+
+The three still met twice daily to prepare work. But the moment that was
+done, Scaife disappeared, leaving John and Desmond together.
+
+"He's playing bridge in Lovell's room," said Desmond.
+
+More facts were gleaned from the Caterpillar, who had joined the
+bridge-players, but played seldom.
+
+"One draws the line," said he, "at playing for stakes one can't afford
+to lose. Lovell and the Demon have made it too hot."
+
+"And Warde will make it hotter," said John.
+
+"Not he," replied the Caterpillar. "The Demon is a wonder. Thanks to his
+brains, detection is impossible. He suggested that Lovell's room should
+be used. Warde wouldn't dare to burst in upon one of the Sixth. And you
+ought to see their dodgy arrangements. Lovell has his young brother on
+guard. I'm hanged if the Demon didn't invent a sort of drill, which they
+go through with a stop-watch. It's a star performance, I tell you. Young
+Lovell bolts in. In thirty-five seconds--they have got it down to
+that--the cards and markers are hidden; and the four of 'em are jawing
+away about footer."
+
+"All the same," said John, obstinately, "Warde will be too much for
+'em."
+
+"Oh, rot!" said the Caterpillar.
+
+The Manor got into the semi-finals of the football matches, and when the
+School broke up for the Christmas holidays it was generally conceded
+that the fortunes of the ancient house were mending. In the Manor itself
+Warde's influence was hardly yet perceptible: only a very few knew that
+it was diffusing itself, percolating into nooks and crevices undreamed
+of: the hearts of the Fourth Form, for instance. In Dirty Dick's time
+there had been almost universal slackness. In pupil-room Rutford read a
+book; boys could work or not as they pleased, provided their tutor was
+not disturbed. Warde, on the other hand, made it a point of honour to
+work with his pupils. His indefatigable energies, his good humour, his
+patience, were never so conspicuous as when he was coaching duffers. In
+other ways he made the boys realize that he was at the Manor for their
+advantage, not his own. The gardens and park were kept strictly private
+by Dirty Dick. Warde threw them open: a favour hardly appreciated in the
+whiter quarter, but the House admitted that it would be awfully jolly in
+the summer to lie under the trees far from the "crowd." In a word--a
+"privilege."
+
+Upon the last Saturday, to John's delight, Desmond asked him to spend a
+week in Eaton Square. John had paid two visits to White Ladies; he was
+now about to experience something entirely new. White Ladies and Verney
+Boscobel were typical of the past; they illustrated the history of the
+families who had inhabited them. The great world went to White Ladies to
+see the pictures and the gardens, the Gobelin tapestries, the Duchess
+and her guests; but the same world dined in Eaton Square to see Charles
+Desmond.
+
+During this visit, our John first learned what miracles one individual
+may accomplish. At White Ladies, he had dimly perceived, as has been
+said, the duties and responsibilities imposed upon rank and wealth. In
+Eaton Square he saw more plainly the duties and responsibilities imposed
+upon a man of great talents. Both Charles Desmond and the Duke of Trent
+were hard workers, but the labours of the duke seemed to John (and to
+other wise persons) drab-coloured. Charles Desmond's work, in contrast,
+presented all the colours of the spectrum. John left White Ladies,
+thanking his stars that he was not a duke; he came away from Eaton
+Square filled with the ambition to be Private Secretary to the great
+Minister. And when Mr. Desmond said to him with his genial smile, "Well,
+young John, Harry, I hope, will be my secretary, and the crutch of my
+declining years. But what would you like to be?" John replied fervently,
+"Oh, sir, I should like to be Harry's understudy."
+
+"Would you?"
+
+And then John saw the face of his kind host change. The smile faded. Mr.
+Desmond had taken his answer as John meant it to be taken--seriously. He
+examined John as if he were already a candidate for office. The piercing
+eyes probed deep. Then he said slowly, "I should like to have you under
+me, John. We shall talk of this again, my boy. My own sons----" He
+paused, sighed, and then laughed, tapping John's cheek with his slender,
+finely-formed fingers. But he passed on without finishing his sentence.
+John knew that, of C�sar's brothers, Hugo, the eldest, was Secretary of
+Legation at Teheran; Bill "devilled" for a famous barrister; Lionel wore
+her Majesty's livery. Strange that none had elected to serve his own
+father! C�sar explained later.
+
+"You see," he said, "the dear old governor outshines everybody. Hugo
+and the others felt that under him they would be in eclipse, for ever
+and ever--eh?"
+
+"I see," said John, gravely. "Yes, there's something in that. He wants
+you, C�sar."
+
+"Dear old governor!" the other replied. "Yes--he's keen on that. But I
+hope to make my own little mark. I'd like to have my name on a brass
+tablet in Harrow Chapel; that would be something." His eyes began to
+glow and sparkle.
+
+Next day, at dinner, Rodney's name cropped up.
+
+"Rodney paved the way for Nelson," Mr. Desmond observed. "I look upon
+him as one of our greatest Harrovians. We ought to have a building to
+Rodney's memory. I put him before Peel or Byron."
+
+"Oh, I say, father----" Hot protest from C�sar.
+
+"Act before word, Harry; practice before precept. Rodney was a man of
+action. I should like to have been Rodney."
+
+"I should like to have been Sheridan," said C�sar. "I often look at his
+name on the third panel of the Fourth Form Room."
+
+He glanced at his father, who smiled, knowing that a delicate compliment
+was intended, for enthusiastic admirers had spoken of Charles Desmond as
+the Richard Brinsley Sheridan of the modern House of Commons. The father
+said curtly--
+
+"A sky-rocket, my dear Harry." Then he turned to John. "And of all our
+famous Harrovians whom would you like to take as a pattern, young John?"
+
+John hesitated. Two or three of the guests present were celebrities.
+Amongst them was England's greatest critic sitting beside an ambassador.
+There happened to be a lull in the talk. All looked curiously at John.
+
+"I'd like to be another Lord Shaftesbury," he said slowly.
+
+"Good! Capital!" Mr. Desmond nodded his head. "I knew him well." He
+poured out anecdote after anecdote illustrating the character and
+temperament of the statesman-philanthropist: his self-sacrifice, his
+devotion to an ideal, his curious exclusiveness, his refinement, his
+faith in an aristocracy never diminished by the indefatigable zeal
+wherein he laboured to better the condition of the poor. "If every rich
+man were animated by Shaftesbury's spirit," said Mr. Desmond, in
+conclusion, "extreme poverty would be wiped out of England, and yet we
+should retain all that makes life charming and profitable. He was no
+leveller, save of foul rookeries. First and last he believed in order,
+particularly his own--a true nobleman. And the inspiration of his great
+career came to him on the Hill."
+
+"Indeed?" said the Critic.
+
+"John Verney will tell you all about it," said Mr. Desmond, glancing
+cheerily at our hero. His was ever the habit to draw out the humblest of
+his guests.
+
+So John recited how young Anthony Ashley, standing on the Hill, just
+below the churchyard, chanced to see a pauper's coffin fall to the
+ground and burst open, revealing the pitiful corpse within, and how he
+had exclaimed in horror, "Good heavens! Can this be permitted simply
+because the man was poor and friendless?" And how, then and there, the
+boy had sworn to devote his powers to the amelioration of
+poverty-stricken lives.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Desmond. "He told me that the next fifteen minutes
+decided his career. Ah, he succeeded greatly. Why, when I was at Harrow
+we used to cross from Waterloo to Euston through some of the worst slums
+in the world. You boys can't realize what they looked like. And
+Shaftesbury's work and example wiped them out of our civilization."[27]
+
+When John returned to his uncle's house of Verney Boscobel (his home
+since his father's death), C�sar Desmond accompanied him. Then it seemed
+to John that his cup brimmed, that everything he desired had been
+granted unto him. Verney Boscobel stood in the heart of the great
+forest, one of the few large manors within that splendid demesne. The
+boys arrived at Lyndhurst Road Station late in the evening, long after
+dusk, and were driven in darkness through Bartley and Minstead up to the
+high-lying moors of Stoneycross. Next morning, early, John woke his
+friend, and opened the shutters.
+
+"Jolly morning," he said. "Have a look at the Forest, old chap."
+
+C�sar jumped out of bed, and drew a long breath.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed; "it's fairyland."
+
+Frost had silvered all things below. Above, motionless upon the blue
+heavens, as if still frozen by the icy fingers of a December night, were
+some aerial transparencies of aqueous vapour, amethystine in colour,
+with edges of white foam. In the east, obscured, but not concealed, by
+grey mist, hung the crimson orb of the sun. From it faint rays shot
+forth, touching the clouds beneath, which, roused, so to speak, out of
+sleep, drifted lethargically in a southerly direction.
+
+        "Underneath the young grey dawn
+    A multitude of dense, white, fleecy clouds
+    Were wandering in thick flocks, ...
+    Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind."
+
+Desmond drew in his breath, sighing with purest delight. From the lawns
+encompassing the house his eyes strayed into a glade of bracken, gold
+gleaming through silver--a glade shadowed by noble oaks and beeches,
+with one birch tree in the middle of it surpassingly graceful. Upon this
+each delicate bough and spray were outlined sharply against the sky.
+Beyond the glade stretched the moor, rugged, bleak, and treeless,
+sloping sharply upward. Beyond the moor lay the Forest--belts of firs
+darkly purple; and flanking these the irregular masses of oaks and
+beeches, varying in tint from palest lavender to rose and brown, some
+still in shadow, some in ever-increasing glow of sunlight; not one the
+same and each in itself containing a thousand differing forms, yet all
+harmonious parts of the resplendent whole.
+
+"I'm so glad you like my home," said John. "Shall we have a gallop
+before breakfast? It's only a white frost."
+
+So they galloped away into fairyland, returning with mortal appetites to
+the oak-panelled dining-hall, whence a Verney had ridden forth to join
+his kinsman, Sir Edmund, in arms for the King upon the distant field of
+Edge Hill. After breakfast the boys explored the quaint old house; and
+John showed C�sar the twenty-bore gun, and promised his guest much
+rabbit-shooting, and two days' hunting, at least, with the New Forest
+Hounds, and some pike-fishing, and possibly an encounter with a big
+grayling--which, later, the boys saw walloping about in the Test above
+Broadlands--a splendid fish, once hooked by John, and lost--a
+three-pounder, of course.
+
+O golden age! You will never forget that Christmas--will you, John? If
+you live to be Prime Minister of England, the memory of those first days
+alone with your friend will remain green when the colour has been sucked
+by Time out of everything else. Fifty years hence, maybe, you will see
+C�sar's curly head and his blue eyes full of fun and life, and you will
+hear his joyous laughter--peal upon peal--echoing through the corridors
+of Verney Boscobel. Your mother took him to her heart--didn't she? And
+all the servants, from butler to scullery maid, voted him the jolliest,
+cheeriest boy that ever came to Hampshire. Why, Mrs. Osman, the cook,
+with a temper like tinder from too much heat, refused flatly to let
+C�sar make toffee in her kitchen. But just then a barrel-organ turned
+up, and before she could open her mouth, C�sar was dancing a polka with
+her; and after that he could make toffee, or hay, or anything else,
+wherever and whenever he pleased.
+
+When they returned to the Manor, John hoped and prayed that this blessed
+intimacy would continue. It did--for a time. The three boys got their
+remove, and found themselves in the Second Fifth, where they proposed to
+linger till after the summer term. Lovell and Scaife seemed inseparable,
+and bridge began again, apparently an inexhaustible source of amusement
+and excitement. Then came the Torpid matches; and John, as Lawrence
+predicted, was captain of the cock-house Eleven--the first great victory
+of the Manorites. During the term, Scaife and Desmond won no races,
+being in age betwixt and between winners of Upper and Lower School
+races. Scaife refused to train. Desmond took a few runs, but abandoned
+them for racquets, the chief game in the Easter term, but only played
+regularly by boys whose purses are well lined. John confined his
+attention to "Squash." C�sar played "Harder" with the Demon. The three
+worked together as of yore. John now perceived that Scaife had joined a
+clique pledged to fight Reform. It was in the air that something might
+happen. Warde eyed the big fellows shrewdly, as if measuring weapons. He
+confounded some by asking them to dine with him. At dessert he would
+talk of sport, or games, or politics--everything, in fine, except
+"shop." The more worthy came away from these pleasant evenings with
+rather a hangdog expression, as if they had been receiving goods under
+false pretences. John and Desmond were made especially welcome. And,
+after dinner, John, whose voice had not yet cracked, would sing, to Mrs.
+Warde's accompaniment, such songs as "O Bay of Dublin, my heart yu're
+throublin'," or "Think of me sometimes," or Handel's "Where'er you
+walk." The Caterpillar made no secret of a passion for Iris Warde, and
+became a dangerous rival of one of the younger masters. He talked to
+Warde about genealogies and hunting, topics of conversation in which
+they had a common interest outside Harrow. John guessed that Warde was
+making an effort to secure Egerton, who, for his part, took the world
+as he found it, consorting alike with John and his friends, and also
+with Lovell and Co. From the Caterpillar John learned that
+Beaumont-Greene had begun to play bridge.
+
+"Scaife and Lovell are skinning the beast," he added confidentially.
+"Green he is, and no error."
+
+"Ructions soon," said John.
+
+"I don't believe it," replied the Caterpillar. "Take my word, Warde
+knows what he's about. He's playing up to the younger members of the
+house--you, C�sar, and you, Jonathan--and he's letting the others
+slide."
+
+"Giving 'em rope," said John, "to hang 'emselves."
+
+"Well, now, there's something in that. That hadn't occurred to me. What?
+You think that he's eggin' 'em on, eh? Eggin' 'em on!"
+
+"I think that, if I were you, Caterpillar, I'd cut loose from that
+gang."
+
+"They've made it rather warm for you."
+
+"I don't care a hang about that."
+
+As a matter of fact, John's life had been made very unpleasant by the
+fast set. Upon the other hand, the Duffer, Fluff, and many Lower School
+boys reckoned him their leader and adviser. And--such is the irony of
+Fate--John's popularity with friends caused him more anxiety than
+unpopularity with enemies. Towards the end of the term, Desmond spoke of
+applying to Warde for a certain room to be shared by himself and John.
+John had to decline an arrangement desired passionately, because he had
+indiscreetly promised not to chuck the Duffer. C�sar dropped the
+subject. After this, John noticed a slight coldness. He wondered whether
+C�sar were jealous, jealousy being John's own besetting sin. Finally, he
+came to the conclusion that his friend might be not jealous but
+unreasonable. In any case, during the last three weeks of the term, John
+saw less of C�sar, and more--more, indeed, than he wanted--of the Duffer
+and Fluff.
+
+And then came the paralysing news that Desmond had promised to spend ten
+days with Scaife's people, that a Professional had been hired, and that
+both boys were going to give their undivided energies to cricket.
+
+Afterwards, John often wondered whether Scaife, with truly demoniac
+insight into Desmond's character, had let him go, so as to seize him
+with more tenacious grasp when an opportunity presented itself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As soon as John saw C�sar after the Easter holidays, he knew that,
+temporarily, at any rate, he had lost his friend. C�sar, indeed, was
+demonstratively glad to see him, and dragged him off next day to walk to
+a certain bridge where a few short weeks before the boys had carved
+their names upon the wooden railing, surrounding them with a circle and
+the Crossed Arrows. But C�sar could talk of nothing else but Scaife and
+cricket. They had both "come on" tremendously. Scaife's people had a
+splendid cricket-ground.
+
+Poor John! If he could have submerged the Scaife cricket-ground and the
+Scaife family by nodding his head, I fear that he would have nodded it,
+although he told himself that he was an ungenerous beast and cad not to
+sympathize with his pal.
+
+And before the boys got back to the Manor, C�sar said, not without a
+blush, that he had learned to play bridge.
+
+"I shall teach you, Jonathan."
+
+"No."
+
+"I say--yes."
+
+"You're not going to play with Lovell and that beast Beaumont-Greene?"
+
+"The Demon says no cards this term, when lock-up's late. And look here,
+Jonathan, I've made the Demon promise to make the peace between Lovell
+and you. You'll play for the House, of course, and we must all pull
+together, as Warde says."
+
+John might have smiled at this opportune mention of Warde, but sense of
+humour was swamped in apprehension. Desmond went on to talk about
+Scaife.
+
+"He'll make 'em sit up, you see! The 'pro.' we had is the finest
+cover-point in England. I never saw such a chap. He dashes at the ball.
+Hit it as hard as you please, he runs in, picks it up, and snaps it back
+to the wicket-keeper as easy as if he was playing pitch and toss. And,
+by Jove! the Demon can do it. You wait. I never saw any fellow like him.
+He's only just sixteen, and he'll get his Flannels. You needn't shake
+your old head, I know he will. And we must work like blazes to get ours
+next summer."
+
+John discounted much of this talk, but he soon found out that C�sar had
+not overestimated the Demon's activity. The draw at Lord's in the
+previous summer had been attributed, by such experts as Webbe and
+Hornby, to bad fielding. The Demon told John, with his hateful, derisive
+smile, that he had remembered this when he selected a "pro." Not for the
+first time, John realized Scaife's overpowering ability to achieve his
+own ends. Who, but Scaife, would have made fielding the principal object
+of his holiday practice?
+
+Within a fortnight, Scaife was put into the Sixth Form game. Desmond
+found himself--thanks to Scaife--playing in the First Fifth game; but
+John was placed in Second Fifth Beta. Fortunately, he found an ally in
+Warde, who had a private pitch in the small park surrounding the Manor,
+where he coached the weaker players of his House. John told himself that
+he ought to get his "cap"; but, as the weeks slipped by, despite several
+creditable performances, he became aware that the "cap" was withheld,
+although it had been given to Fluff. There were five vacancies in the
+House Eleven, but, according to precedent, these need not be filled up
+till after the last House-match, and possibly not even then. In a word,
+John might play for the House, and even distinguish himself, without
+receiving the coveted distinction. How sore John felt!
+
+About the end of May he noticed that something was amiss with C�sar.
+Generally they walked together on Sunday, but not always. During these
+walks, as has been said, C�sar did most of the talking. Now, of a
+sudden, he became a half-hearted listener, and to John's repeated
+question, "What's up?" he would reply irritably, "Oh, don't
+bother--nothing."
+
+Finally, John heard from the Caterpillar that C�sar was playing bridge,
+and losing.
+
+"They don't play often," the Caterpillar added; "but on wet afternoons
+they make up for lost time. C�sar is outclassed. I've told him, but he's
+mad keen about the game."
+
+Later, John learned from the same source that Sunday afternoon was a
+bridge-fixture with Lovell and Co. At any rate, C�sar did not play on
+Sunday. That was something.
+
+Upon the following Saturday, after making an honest fifteen runs and
+taking three wickets in a closely-contested game, John was running into
+the Yard just before six Bill, when Lovell stopped him.
+
+"You can get your 'cap,'" he said coldly.
+
+"Oh, thanks; thanks awfully!"
+
+C�sar received this agreeable news with indifference.
+
+"You ought to have had it before Fluff," he growled.
+
+"To-morrow, we'll walk to John Lyon's farm," said John, eagerly.
+
+"Engaged," C�sar replied.
+
+"Oh, C�sar, you're--you're----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You're going to play bridge?"
+
+"Yes. What of it? It's only once in a way. I _do_ bar cards on Sunday;
+but there are reasons."
+
+"What reasons?"
+
+"Reasons which--er--I'll keep to myself."
+
+"All right," said John, stiffly, but with a breaking heart.
+
+Next day he asked Fluff to walk with him, but Fluff was walking with
+some one else. The Duffer had letters to write, and stigmatized walking
+as a beastly grind. John determined to walk by himself; but as he was
+leaving the Manor he met the Caterpillar, a tremendous buck, arrayed in
+his best--patent-leather boots, white waistcoat, a flower in his
+buttonhole.
+
+"Where are you off to, Jonathan?"
+
+"To Preston. You'd better come, Caterpillar."
+
+"I never walk far in these boots. Peal made 'em."
+
+"Change 'em, can't you?"
+
+"Right."
+
+While he was absent, John seriously considered the propriety of taking
+Egerton into his confidence. Sincerely attached to Egerton, and valuing
+his advice, he knew, none the less, that the Caterpillar looked at
+everybody and everything with the eyes of a colonel in the Guards. To
+tell Colonel Egerton's son that one's heart was lacerated because C�sar
+Desmond was playing bridge on Sunday seemed to invite jeers. And,
+besides, that wasn't the real reason. John felt wretched because the
+Sunday walk had been sacrificed to Moloch. Presently Egerton came
+downstairs, spick and span, but not quite so smart. The boys walked
+quickly, talking of cricket.
+
+"The Demon'll get his Flannels," said Egerton. "I'm glad Lovell gave you
+your cap, Jonathan; you deserved it a month ago. It wasn't my fault you
+didn't get it at the beginning of the term."
+
+"I'm sure of that," said John, gratefully.
+
+"You don't look particularly bucked-up. A grin improves your face, my
+dear fellow."
+
+At this John burst into explosive speech. Those beasts had got hold of
+C�sar. The Caterpillar stared; he had never heard John let himself go.
+John's vocabulary surprised him.
+
+"Whew-w-w!" he whistled. "Gad! Jonathan, you do pile on the agony.
+C�sar's all right. Don't worry."
+
+"He's not all right. I thought C�sar had backbone, I----"
+
+"Hold on," said the Caterpillar, gravely.
+
+John thought he was about to be rebuked for disloyalty to a pal, an
+abominable sin in the Caterpillar's eyes.
+
+"Well?" said John.
+
+"I'm going to tell you something," said Egerton. "But you must swear not
+to give me away."
+
+"I'll swear."
+
+"You're a good little cove, Jonathan, but sometimes you smell just a
+little bit of--er--bread and butter. Keep cool. Personally, I would
+sooner that you, at your age, did smell of bread and butter than whisky.
+Well, you think that C�sar is going straight to the bow-wows because he
+plays bridge. You accuse him in your own little mind of feebleness, and
+so forth. Yes, just so. And it's doosid unfair to C�sar, because he's
+given up his walk to-day entirely on your account. Ah! I thought that
+would make you sit up."
+
+"My account?" John repeated blankly.
+
+"Yes; C�sar would be furious if he knew that I was peaching, but he
+won't know, and instead of this--er--trifling affair weakening your good
+opinion of your pal, it will strengthen it."
+
+"Oh, do go on, Caterpillar."
+
+"Yesterday I was in Lovell's room. We were talking of the first House
+match. Scaife and C�sar were there. I took it upon myself to say you
+ought to be given your 'cap'; and then C�sar burst out, 'Oh yes, Lovell,
+do give him his "cap." If you knew how he'd slaved to earn it.' But
+Lovell only laughed. And then Scaife chipped in, 'Look here, C�sar,' he
+said, 'do I understand that you put this thing, which after all is none
+of your business or mine, as a favour which Lovell might do _you_?' And
+C�sar answered, 'You can put it that way, if you like, Demon.' And then
+Scaife laughed. I don't like Scaife's laugh, Jonathan."
+
+"I loathe it," said John.
+
+"Well, when Scaife laughed, Lovell looked first at him and then at
+C�sar. It came to me that Lovell was primed to say something. At any
+rate, he turned to C�sar, and said slowly, 'Tit for tat. If I do this
+for you, will you do something for me?' And C�sar spoke up as usual,
+without a second's hesitation, 'Of course I will.' And then Scaife
+laughed again, just as Lovell said, 'All right, I'll give Verney his
+"cap" before tea, and you will make a fourth at bridge with us to-morrow
+afternoon.'"
+
+"Oh, oh!" groaned John.
+
+"Dash it all, don't look so wretched. There's not much more. C�sar
+hesitated a moment. Then he said quietly enough, 'Done!' Personally, I
+don't think Lovell was playing--well--cricket, but I do know that he
+wanted a fourth at bridge, because I'd just refused to make that fourth
+myself. They play too high for me."
+
+"It's awfully good of you to have told me this."
+
+"Pray don't mention it! Hullo! What's up now?"
+
+John's face was very red, and his fists were clenched.
+
+"Nothing," he gasped. "Only this--I'd like to kill Scaife. I'd like to
+cut off his infernal head."
+
+The Caterpillar laughed indulgently. "Jonathan, you're a rum 'un. You
+think it wicked to play cards on Sunday; but you would like"--he
+imitated John's trembling, passionate voice--"you would like to cut off
+Scaife's infernal head."
+
+"Yes--I would," said John.
+
+That same week he had a memorable talk with Warde; recorded because it
+illustrates Warde's methods, and because, ultimately, it came to be
+regarded by John as the turning-point of his intellectual life. Since he
+had taken the Lower Remove, John's energies of mind and body had been
+concentrated upon improving himself at games. Vaguely aware that some of
+the School-prizes were within his grasp, he had not deemed them worth
+the winning. To him, therefore, Warde abruptly began--
+
+"You pride yourself upon being straight--eh, Verney?"
+
+"Why, yes," said John, meeting Warde's blue eyes not without misgiving.
+
+"Well, to me, you're about as straight as a note of interrogation. I
+never see you without saying to myself, 'Is Verney going to bury his
+talents in the cricket-ground?'"
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Some parents, too many of them, send their boys here to make a few nice
+friends, to play games, to scrape up the School with a remove once a
+year. That, I take it, is not what Mrs. Verney wants?"
+
+"N--no, sir."
+
+"You ought to be in the Sixth--and you know it. Twice, or oftener, you
+have deliberately taken things easy, because you wanted a soft time of
+it during the summer term, and because you wished to remain in the same
+form with Desmond, who, intellectually, is your--inferior. Is that
+square dealing with your people?"
+
+John was silent, but red of countenance. Warde went on, more
+vehemently--
+
+"I know all about your co-operative system of work. I have a harder name
+for it. And I know just what you can do, and I want to see you do it,
+for your own sake, for the sake of Mrs. Verney, and for the Hill's sake.
+I've pushed you on at cricket a bit, haven't I? Yes. You owe me
+something. Pay up by entering for a School-prize, and winning it!"
+
+"A School-prize?"
+
+"Yes; Lord Charles Russell's Shakespeare Medal. The exam. is next
+October. I'll coach you. Is it a bargain?"
+
+He held out his hand, staring frankly, but piercingly, into John's eyes.
+
+"All right, sir," said John, after a pause. "I'll try."
+
+"And buck up for your remove."
+
+John smiled feebly, and sighed.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[27] There is a tablet on the wall of the Old Schools which bears the
+following inscription:--Near this spot ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER Afterwards
+the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G. While yet a boy in Harrow School Saw
+with shame and indignation The pauper's funeral Which helped to awaken
+his lifelong Devotion to the service of the poor And the oppressed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+_Black Spots_
+
+    "The Avon bears to endless years
+      A magic voice along,
+    Where Shakespeare strayed in Stratford's shade,
+      And waked the world to song.
+    We heard the music soft and wild,
+      We thrilled to pulses new;
+    The winds that reared the Avon's child
+      Were Herga's[28] nurses too."
+
+
+That evening John told C�sar what Warde had said to him, and then added,
+"I mean to have a shot at 'the Swan of Avon.'" C�sar looked glum.
+
+"But how about the remove? We'd agreed to stay in the Second Fifth till
+Christmas. It's the jolliest form in the school."
+
+"If we put our backs--and heads--into Trials,[29] we can easily get a
+remove."
+
+"Blow Trials."
+
+John turned aside.
+
+"Look here, Jonathan," said C�sar, eagerly. "To please me, give up your
+swatting scheme. We can't spoil the end of this jolly term."
+
+He caught hold of John's arm, squeezing it affectionately. Never had our
+hero been so sorely tempted.
+
+"We must stick together, you and I," entreated Desmond.
+
+"No," said John.
+
+"As you please," C�sar replied coldly.
+
+A detestable week followed. John tackled his Shakespeare alone, working
+doggedly. Then, quite suddenly, the giant gripped him. He had always
+possessed a remarkable memory, and as a child he had learnt by heart
+many passages out of the plays (a fact well known to the crafty Warde);
+but these he had swallowed without digesting them. Now he became keen,
+the keener because he met with violent opposition from the Caterpillar
+and the Duffer, who were of opinion that Shakespeare was a "back
+number."
+
+John won the prize, and on the following Speech Day saw his mother's
+face radiant with pride and happiness, as he received the Medal from the
+Head Master's hands.
+
+"You look as pleased as if I'd got my Flannels," said John.
+
+"Surely this Medal is a greater thing?"
+
+"Oh, mum, you don't know much about boys."
+
+"Perhaps not, but," her eyes twinkled, "I know something about
+Shakespeare, and he's a friend that will stand by you when cricketing
+days are over."
+
+"If you're pleased, so am I," said John.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Scaife got his Flannels; and at Lord's his fielding was mentioned as the
+finest ever seen in a Public School match. John witnessed the game from
+the top of the Trent coach, and he stopped at Trent House. But he didn't
+enjoy his exeat, because he knew that C�sar was in trouble. C�sar owed
+Scaife thirteen pounds, and the fact that this debt could not be paid
+without confession to his father was driving him distracted. Scaife, it
+is true, laughed genially at C�sar's distress. "Settle when you please,"
+he said, "but for Heaven's sake, don't peach to your governor! Mine
+would laugh and pay up; yours will pay up and make you swear not to
+touch another card while you're at Harrow."
+
+"Just what he _will_ do," C�sar told John.
+
+"And the best thing that could happen," John said bluntly. "If you don't
+cut loose now, it will be much worse next term."
+
+"Rot," Desmond had replied. "I'm paying the usual bill for learning a
+difficult game. That's how the Demon puts it. But I've a turn for
+bridge, and now I can hold my own. I'm better than Beaumont-Greene, and
+quite as good as Lovell. The Demon, of course, is in another class."
+
+"And therefore he oughtn't to play with you. It's robbery."
+
+"Now you're talking bosh."
+
+The Eton and Harrow match ended in another draw. Time and Scaife's
+fielding saved Harrow from defeat. The fact of a draw had significance.
+A draw spelled compromise. John had indulged in a superstitious fancy
+common enough to persons older than he. "If Harrow wins," he put it to
+himself, "C�sar will triumph; if Eton wins, C�sar will lose." When the
+match proved a draw, John drew the conclusion that his pal would "funk"
+telling the truth; an apprehension presently confirmed.
+
+"I didn't tell the governor," said C�sar, when John and he met. "My
+eldest brother, Hugo, is coming home, and I shall screw it out of him.
+He's a good sort, and he's going to marry a girl who is simply rolling.
+He'll fork out, I know he will. I feel awfully cheery."
+
+"I don't," said John.
+
+He had good reason to fear that C�sar and he were drifting apart. Now he
+worked by himself. And his voice had broken. A small thing this, but
+John was sensible that his singing voice touched corners in C�sar's soul
+to which his speaking voice never penetrated. More, C�sar and he had
+agreed to differ upon points of conscience other than card-playing. And
+every point of conscientious difference increases the distance between
+true friends in geometrical progression. Poor Jonathan!
+
+But we have his grateful testimony that Warde stood by him. And Warde
+made him see life at Harrow (and beyond) in a new light. Warde, indeed,
+decomposed the light into primary colours, a sort of experiment in
+moral chemistry, and not without fascination for an intelligent boy.
+Sometimes, it became difficult to follow Warde--members of the Alpine
+Club said that often it was impossible--because he jumped where others
+crawled. And he clipped words, phrases, thoughts so uncommonly short.
+
+"You're beginning to see, Verney, eh? Scales crumbling away, my boy. And
+strong sunshine hurts the eyes--at first. Black spots are dancing before
+you. I know the little devils."
+
+Or again--
+
+"This remove will wipe a bit more off the debt, won't it? Ha, ha! I've
+made you reckon up what you owe Mrs. Verney. But there are others----"
+
+"I'm awfully grateful to you, sir."
+
+"Never mind me."
+
+"What do you mean, sir?"
+
+"New Testament; Matthew; twenty-fifth chapter--I forget verse.[30] Look
+it up. Christ answers your question. Make life easier and happier for
+some of the new boys. Pass on gratitude. Set it a-rolling. See?"
+
+John had appetite for such talk, but Warde never gave much of it--half a
+dozen sentences, a smile, a nod of the head, a keen look, and a striding
+off elsewhere. But when John repeated what Warde had said to C�sar, that
+young gentleman looked uneasy.
+
+"Warde means well," he said; "and he's doing wonders with the Manor, but
+I hope he's not going to make a sort of tin parson of you?"
+
+"As if he could!" said John.
+
+"You're miles ahead of me, Jonathan."
+
+"No, no."
+
+"I say--yes."
+
+"C�sar," said John, in desperation, "perhaps we _are_ sliding apart, but
+it isn't my fault, indeed it isn't. And think what it means to--me.
+You've heaps of friends, and I never was first, I know that. You can do
+without me, but I can't do without you."
+
+"Dear old Jonathan." C�sar held out his hand, smiling.
+
+"I'm a jealous ass, C�sar. And, as for calling me a parson," he laughed
+scornfully, "why, I'd sooner walk with you, even if you were the worst
+sinner in the world, than with any saint that ever lived."
+
+The feeling in John's voice drove C�sar's gay smile from his face. Did
+he realize, possibly, for the first time, that if John and he remained
+friends, he might drag John down? Suddenly his face brightened.
+
+"Jonathan," he said gravely, "to please you, I'll not touch a card again
+this term, and we'll have such good times these last three weeks that
+you'll forget the rest of it."
+
+    "And what delights can equal those
+      That stir the spirit's inner deeps,
+      When one that loves but knows not reaps
+    A truth from one that loves and knows?"
+
+The Manor played in the cock-house match at cricket, being but barely
+beaten by Damer's. Everybody admitted that this glorious state of
+affairs was due to Warde's coaching of the weaker members of the Eleven.
+Scaife fielded brilliantly, and John, watching him, said to himself that
+at such times the Demon was irresistible. Warde invited the Eleven to
+dinner, and spoke of nothing but football, much to every one's
+amusement.
+
+"He's right," said the Caterpillar; "we're not cock-house at cricket
+this year, but we may be at footer."
+
+John spent his holidays abroad with his mother, and when the School
+reassembled, he found himself in the First Fifth _alone_. With
+satisfaction he reflected that this was Lovell's last term, and
+Beaumont-Greene's, too. Warde said a few words at first lock-up.
+
+"We are going to be cock-house at footer, I hope," he began, "and next
+term Scaife will show the School what he can do at racquets; but I want
+more. I'm a glutton. How about work, eh? Lot o' slacking last term. Is
+it honest? You fellows cost your people a deal of money. And it's well
+spent, if, _if_ you tackle everything in school life as you tackled Mr.
+Damer's last July. That's all."
+
+"He's giving you what he gave me," said John.
+
+"Good fellow, Warde," observed the Caterpillar; "in his room every night
+after prayers to mug up his form work."
+
+"What?" Murmurs of incredulity.
+
+"Fact, 'pon my word. And he never refuses a 'con' to a fellow who wants
+it."
+
+"He's paid for it," sneered Scaife.
+
+The other boys nodded; enthusiasm was chilled. Yes, of course Warde was
+paid for it. John caught Scaife's eye.
+
+"You don't believe that he's in love with his job, as he told us?"
+
+"Skittles--that!"
+
+John looked solemn. He had a bomb to throw.
+
+"Skittles, is it?" he echoed. The other boys turned to listen. "Do you
+think he'd take a better paid billet?"
+
+Scaife laughed derisively. "Of course he would, like a shot. But he's
+not likely to get the chance."
+
+"He has just been offered the Head Mastership of Wellborough. It's worth
+about four thousand a year."
+
+"Pooh! who told you that?"
+
+"C�sar's father."
+
+"It's true," said C�sar.
+
+"And he refused it," said John, triumphantly.
+
+"Then he's a fool," said Scaife, angrily. He marched out of the room,
+slamming the door. But the Manor, as a corporate body, when it heard of
+Warde's refusal to accept promotion, was profoundly impressed. Thus the
+term began with good resolutions upon the part of the better sort.
+
+Very soon, however, with the shortening days, bridge began again. John
+made no protest, afraid of losing his pal. He called himself coward, and
+considered the expediency of learning bridge, so as to be in the same
+boat with C�sar. C�sar told him that he had not asked his brother Hugo
+for the thirteen pounds. Hugo, it seemed, had come back from Teheran
+with a decoration and the air of an ambassador. He spoke of his
+"services."
+
+"I knew that Hugo would make me swear not to play again," said C�sar to
+John, "and naturally I want to get some of the plunder back. I am
+getting it back. I raked thirty bob out of Beaumont-Greene last night."
+
+John said nothing.
+
+Presently it came to his ears that C�sar was getting more plunder back.
+The Caterpillar, an agreeable gossip, because he condemned nothing
+except dirt and low breeding, told John that Beaumont-Greene was losing
+many shekels. And about the middle of October C�sar said to John--
+
+"What do you think, old Jonathan? I've jolly nearly paid off the Demon.
+And you wanted me to chuck the thing. Nice sort of counsellor."
+
+"Beaumont-Greene must have lost a pot?"
+
+"You bet," said C�sar; "but that doesn't keep me awake at night. He has
+got the _Imperishable Seamless Whaleskin Boot_ behind him."
+
+Next time John met Beaumont-Greene he eyed him sharply. The big fellow
+was pulpier than ever; his complexion the colour of skilly. Yes; he
+looked much worried. Perhaps the "Imperishable Boot" lasted too long.
+And, nowadays, so many fellows wore shoes. Thus John to himself.
+
+Beaumont-Greene, indeed, not only looked worried, he was worried,
+hideously worried, and with excellent reason. He had an absurdly,
+wickedly, large allowance, but not more than a sovereign of it was left.
+More, he owed Scaife twenty pounds, and Lovell another ten. Both these
+young gentlemen had hinted plainly that they wanted to see their money.
+
+"I must have the stuff now," said Lovell, when Beaumont-Greene asked for
+time. "I'm going to shoot a lot this Christmas, and the governor makes
+me pay for my cartridges."
+
+"So does mine," said Scaife, grinning. He was quite indifferent to the
+money, but he liked to see Beaumont-Greene squirm. He continued suavely,
+"You ought to settle before you leave. Ain't your people in Rome? Yes.
+And you're going to join 'em. Why, hang it, some Dago may stick a knife
+into you, and where should we be then--hey? Your governor wouldn't
+settle a gambling debt, would he?"
+
+This was too true. Scaife grinned diabolically. He knew that
+Beaumont-Greene's father was endeavouring to establish a credit-account
+with the Recording Angel. Originally a Nonconformist, he had joined the
+Church of England after he had made his fortune (cf. _Shavings from the
+Workshops of our Merchant Princes_, which appeared in the pages of
+"Prattle"). Then, the famous inventor of the Imperishable Boot had taken
+to endowing churches; and he published pamphlets denouncing drink and
+gambling, pamphlets sent to his son at Harrow, who (with an eye to
+backsheesh) had praised his sire's prose somewhat indiscreetly.
+
+"You shall have your confounded money," said Beaumont-Greene, violently.
+
+"Thanks," said Scaife, sweetly. "When we asked you to join us" (slight
+emphasis on the "us"), "we knew that we could rely on you to settle
+promptly."
+
+The Demon grinned for the third time, knowing that he had touched a weak
+spot; not a difficult thing to do, if you touched the big fellow at all.
+A young man of spirit would have told his creditors to go to Jericho.
+Beaumont-Greene might have said, "You have skinned me a bit. I don't
+whine about that; I mean to pay up; but you'll have to wait till I have
+the money. I'm stoney now." Scaife and Lovell must have accepted this as
+an ultimatum. But Beaumont-Greene's wretched pride interfered. He had
+posed as a sort of Golden Youth. To confess himself pinchbeck seemed an
+unspeakable humiliation.
+
+Men have been known to take to drink under the impending sword of
+dishonour. Beaumont-Greene swallowed instead large quantities of food at
+the Creameries; and then wrote to his father, saying that he would like
+to have a cheque for thirty pounds by return of post. He was leaving
+Harrow, he pointed out, and he wished to give his friends some handsome
+presents. Young Desmond, for instance, the great Minister's son, had
+been kind to him (Beaumont-Greene prided himself upon this touch), and
+Scaife, too, he was under obligations to Scaife, who would be a power
+by-and-by, and so forth.... To confess frankly that he owed thirty
+pounds gambled away at cards required more cheek than our stout youth
+possessed. His father refused to play bridge on principle, because he
+could never remember how many trumps were out.
+
+The father answered by return of post, but enclosed no cheque. He
+pointed out to his dear Thomas that giving handsome presents with
+another's money was an objectionable habit. Thomas received a large,
+possibly too large an allowance. He must exercise self-denial, if he
+wished to make presents. His quarterly allowance would be paid as usual
+next Christmas, and not a minute before. There would be time then to
+reconsider the propriety of giving young Desmond a suitable gift....
+
+Common sense told Beaumont-Greene to show this letter to Scaife and
+Lovell. But he saw the Demon's derisive grin, and recoiled from it.
+
+At this moment temptation seized him relentlessly. Beaumont-Greene never
+resisted temptation. For fun, so he put it, he would write the sort of
+letter which his father ought to have written, and which would have put
+him at his ease. It ran thus--
+
+ "MY DEAR THOMAS,
+
+"No doubt you will want to give some leaving presents, and a spread or
+two. I should like my son to do the thing handsomely. You know better
+than I how much this will cost, but I am prepared to send you, say,
+twenty-five or thirty pounds for such a purpose. Or, you can have the
+bills sent to me.
+
+                              "With love,
+                                "Your affectionate father,
+                                  "GEORGE BEAUMONT-GREENE."
+
+Beaumont-Greene, like the immortal Mr. Toots, rather fancied himself as
+a letter-writer. The longer he looked at his effusion, the more he liked
+it. His handwriting was not unlike his father's--modelled, indeed, upon
+it. With a little careful manipulation of a few letters----!
+
+The day was cold, but Beaumont-Greene suddenly found himself in a
+perspiration. None the less, it seemed easier to forge a letter than to
+avow himself penniless. Detection? Impossible! Two or three tradesmen in
+Harrow would advance the money if he showed them this letter. Next
+Christmas they would be paid. Within a quarter of an hour he made up his
+mind to cross the Rubicon, and crossed it with undue haste. He forged
+the letter, placed it in an envelope which had come from Rome, and went
+to his tailor's.
+
+Under pretext of looking at patterns, he led the man aside.
+
+"You can do me a favour," he began, in his usual, heavy, hesitating
+manner.
+
+"With pleasure," said the tradesman, smiling. Then, seeing an
+opportunity, he added, "You are leaving Harrow, Mr. Beaumont-Greene, but
+I trust, sir, you will not take your custom with you. We have always
+tried to please you."
+
+Beaumont-Greene, in his turn, saw opportunity.
+
+"Yes, yes," he answered. Then he produced the letter, envelope and all.
+"I have here a letter from my father, who is in Rome. I'll read it to
+you. No; you can read it yourself."
+
+The tailor read the letter.
+
+"Very handsome," he replied; "_very_ handsome indeed, sir. Your father
+is a true gentleman."
+
+"It happens," said Beaumont-Greene, more easily, for the thing seemed to
+be simpler than he had anticipated--"it happens that I _do_ want to make
+some presents, but I'm not going to buy them here. I shall send to the
+Stores, you know. I have their catalogue."
+
+"Just so, sir. Excellent place the Stores for nearly everything; except,
+perhaps, my line."
+
+"I should not think of buying clothes there. But at the Stores one must
+pay cash. I've not got the cash, and my father is in Rome. I should like
+to have the money to-day, if possible. Will you oblige me?"
+
+The tradesman hesitated. In the past there have been grave scandals
+connected with lending money to boys. And Harrow tradesmen are at the
+mercy of the Head Master. If a school-tailor be put out of bounds, he
+can put up his shutters at once. Still----
+
+"I'll let you have the money," said the man, eyeing Beaumont-Greene
+keenly.
+
+"Thanks."
+
+The tailor observed a slight flush and a sudden intake of breath--signs
+which stirred suspicion.
+
+"Will you take it in notes, sir?"
+
+Here Beaumont-Greene made his first blunder. He had an ill-defined idea
+that paper was dangerous stuff.
+
+"In gold, please."
+
+He forgot that gold is not easily sent in a letter. The tailor
+hesitated, but he had gone too far to back out.
+
+"Very well, sir. I have not twenty-five pounds----"
+
+"Thirty, if you please. I shall want thirty."
+
+"I have not quite that amount here, but I can get it."
+
+When the man came back with a small canvas bag in his hand,
+Beaumont-Greene had pocketed the letter. He received the money, counted
+it, thanked the tailor, and turned to go.
+
+"If you please, sir----"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I should like to keep your father's letter, sir. As a form of receipt,
+sir. When you settle I'll return it. If--if anything should happen
+to--to you, sir, where would I be?"
+
+Beaumont-Greene's temper showed itself.
+
+"You all talk as if I was on my death-bed," he said.
+
+The tailor stared. Others, then, had suggested to this large,
+unwholesome youth the possibility of premature decease.
+
+"Not at all, sir, but we do live in the valley of shadders. My wife's
+step-father, as fine and hearty a specimen as you'd wish to see, sir,
+was taken only last month; at breakfast, too, as he was chipping his
+third egg."
+
+Beaumont-Greene said loftily, "Blow your wife's step-father and his
+third egg. Here's the letter."
+
+He flung down the letter and marched out of the shop. The tradesman
+looked at him, shaking his head. "He'll never come back," he muttered.
+"I know his sort too well." Then, business happening to be slack, he
+re-read the letter before putting it away. Then he whistled softly and
+read it for the third time, frowning and biting his lips. The
+"Beaumont-Greene" in the signature and on the envelope did not look to
+be written by the same hand.
+
+"There's something fishy here," muttered the tradesman. "I must show
+this to Amelia."
+
+It was his habit to consult his wife in emergencies. The chief cutter
+and two assistants said that Amelia was the power behind the throne.
+Amelia read the letter, listened to what her husband had to say, stared
+hard at the envelope, and delivered herself--
+
+"The hand that wrote the envelope never wrote the letter, that's
+plain--to me. Now, William, you've got me and the children to think of.
+This may mean the loss of our business, and worse, too. You put on your
+hat and go straight to the Manor. Mr. Warde's a gentleman, and I don't
+think he'll let me and the children suffer for your foolishness. Don't
+you wait another minute."
+
+Nor did he.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After prayers that night, Warde asked Beaumont-Greene to come to his
+study. Beaumont-Greene obeyed, smiling blandly. Within three weeks he
+was leaving; doubtless Warde wanted to say something civil. The big
+fellow was feeling quite himself. He had paid Scaife and Lovell, not
+without a little pardonable braggadocio.
+
+"You fellows have put me to some inconvenience," he said. "I make it a
+rule not to run things fine, but after all thirty quid is no great sum.
+Here you are."
+
+"We don't want to drive you into the workhouse," said Scaife. "Thanks.
+Give you your revenge any time. I dare say between now and the end of
+the term you'll have most of it back."
+
+Warde asked Beaumont-Greene to sit down in a particular chair, which
+faced the light from a large lamp. Then he took up an envelope. Suddenly
+cold chills trickled down Beaumont-Greene's spine. He recognized the
+envelope. That scoundrel had betrayed him. Not for a moment, however,
+did he suppose that the forgery had been detected.
+
+"On the strength of this letter," said Warde, gravely, "you borrowed
+thirty pounds from a tradesman?"
+
+Denial being fatuous, Beaumont-Greene said--
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You know, I suppose, that Harrow tradesmen are expressly forbidden to
+lend boys money?"
+
+"I am hardly a boy, sir. And--er--under the circumstances----"
+
+Warde smiled very grimly.
+
+"Ah--under the circumstances. Have you any objection to telling me the
+exact circumstances?"
+
+"Not at all, sir. I wished to make some presents to my friends. I am
+going to give a large leaving-breakfast."
+
+"Oh! Still, thirty pounds is a large sum----"
+
+"Not to my father, sir. I--er--thought of coming to you, sir, with that
+letter."
+
+"Did you?"
+
+Warde took the letter from the envelope, and glanced at it with faint
+interest, so Beaumont-Greene thought. Then he picked up a magnifying
+glass and played with it. It was a trick of his to pick up objects on
+his desk, and turn them in his thin, nervous fingers. Beaumont-Greene
+was not seriously alarmed. He had great faith in a weapon which had
+served him faithfully, his lying tongue.
+
+"Yes, sir. I thought you would be willing to advance the money for a few
+days, and then----"
+
+"And then?"
+
+"And then I thought I wouldn't bother you. It never occurred to me that
+I was getting a tradesman into trouble. I hope you won't be hard on him,
+sir."
+
+"I shall not be hard on him," said Warde, "because"--for a moment his
+eyes flashed--"because he came to me and confessed his fault; but I
+won't deny that I gave him a very uncomfortable quarter of an hour. He
+sat in your chair."
+
+Beaumont-Greene shuffled uneasily.
+
+"Have you this thirty pounds in your pocket?" asked Warde, casually.
+
+Beaumont-Greene began to regret his haste in settling.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Some of it?"
+
+"None of it."
+
+"You sent it to London? To buy these handsome presents?"
+
+"Ye-es, sir."
+
+"You hadn't much time. Lock-up's early, and you received the money in
+gold. Did you buy Orders?"
+
+Beaumont-Greene's head began to buzz. He found himself wondering why
+Warde was speaking in this smooth, quiet voice, so different from his
+usual curt, incisive tones.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"At the Harrow post-office?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Ah."
+
+Again the house-master picked up the letter, but this time he didn't lay
+down the lens. Instead he used it, very deliberately. Beaumont-Greene
+shivered; with difficulty he clenched his teeth, so as to prevent them
+clicking like castanets. Then Warde held up the sheet of paper to the
+light of the lamp. Obviously he wished to examine the watermark. The
+paper was thin notepaper, the kind that is sold everywhere for foreign
+correspondence. Beaumont-Greene, economical in such matters, had bought
+a couple of quires when his people went abroad. The paper he had bought
+did not quite match the Roman envelope. Warde opened a drawer, from
+which he took some thin paper. This also he held up to the light.
+
+"It's an odd coincidence," he said, tranquilly; "your father in Rome
+uses the same notepaper that I buy here. But the envelope is Italian?"
+
+He spoke interrogatively, but the wretch opposite had lost the power of
+speech. He collapsed. Warde rose, throwing aside his quiet manner as if
+it were a drab-coloured cloak. Now he was himself, alert, on edge,
+sanguine.
+
+"You fool!" he exclaimed; "you clumsy fool! Why, a child could find you
+out. And you--you have dared to play with such an edged tool as forgery.
+Now, do the one thing which is left to you: make a clean breast of it to
+me--at once."
+
+In imposing this command, a command which he knew would be obeyed,
+inasmuch as he perceived that he dominated the weak, grovelling
+creature in front of him, Warde overlooked the possibility that this
+boy's confession might implicate other boys. Already he had formed in
+his mind a working hypothesis to account for this forged letter. The
+fellow, no doubt, was in debt to some Harrow townsman.
+
+"For whom did you _steal_ this money? To whom did you pay it to-day?
+Answer!"
+
+And he was answered.
+
+"I owed the money to Scaife and Lovell."
+
+Then he told the story of the card-playing. At the last word he fell on
+his knees, blubbering.
+
+"Get up," said Warde, sharply. "Pull yourself together if you can."
+
+The master began to walk up and down the room, frowning and biting his
+lips. From time to time he glanced at Beaumont-Greene. Seeing his utter
+collapse, he rang the bell, answered by the ever-discreet Dumbleton.
+
+"Dumbleton, take Mr. Beaumont-Greene to the sick-room. There is no one
+in it, I believe?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"You will fetch what he may require for the night; quietly, you
+understand."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+"Follow Dumbleton," Warde addressed Beaumont-Greene. "You will consider
+yourself under arrest. Your meals will be brought to you. You will hold
+no communication with anybody except Dumbleton and me; you will send no
+messages; you will write no notes. Do you hear?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Then go."
+
+Dumbleton opened the door. Young man and servant passed out and into the
+passage beyond. Warde waited one moment, then he followed them into the
+passage; but instead of going upstairs, he paused for an instant with
+his fingers upon the handle of the door which led from the private side
+to the boys' quarters. He sighed as he passed through.
+
+At this moment Lovell was sitting in his room alone with Scaife. They
+had no suspicion of what had taken place in the study. In the afternoon
+there had been a match with an Old Harrovian team, and both Scaife and
+Lovell had played for the School. But as yet neither had got his
+Flannels. As Warde passed through the private side door, Scaife was
+saying angrily--
+
+"I believe Challoner" (Challoner was captain of the football Eleven and
+a monitor) "has a grudge against us. If we had a chance--and we had--of
+getting our Flannels last year, why isn't it a cert. this, eh?"
+
+Lovell shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It is a cert.," he answered; "and you're right. Challoner doesn't like
+us, and it amuses him to keep us out of our just rights. The monitors
+know I detest 'em, and they don't think you're called the Demon for
+nothing. Challoner is more of a monitor than a footer-player. How about
+a rubber? There's just time."
+
+"I don't mind."
+
+Lovell went to the door and opened it.
+
+"Bo-o-o-o-o-o-y!"
+
+The familiar cry--that imperious call which makes an Harrovian feel
+himself master of more or less willing slaves--echoed through the house.
+Immediately the night-fag came running; it was not considered healthy to
+keep Lovell waiting.
+
+"Ask Beaumont-Greene to come up here and----" He paused. Warde had just
+turned the corner, and was approaching. Lovell hesitated. Then he
+repeated what he had just said, with a slight variation for Warde's
+benefit. "Tell him I want to ask him a question about the
+house-subscriptions."
+
+"Right," said the fag, bustling off.
+
+Lovell waited to receive his house-master. He had very good manners.
+
+"Can I do anything for you, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said Warde, deliberately. He entered Lovell's room and looked at
+Scaife, who rose at once.
+
+"I wish to speak with you alone, Lovell."
+
+"Certainly, sir. Won't you sit down?"
+
+Warde waited till Scaife had closed the door; then he said quietly--
+
+"Lovell, does Beaumont-Greene owe you money?"
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[28] The Anglo-Saxon form of Harrow.
+
+[29] The terminal examination.
+
+[30] "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My
+brethren, ye have done it unto Me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+_Decapitation_
+
+    "Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the
+    first magnitude!"
+
+
+Lovell betrayed his astonishment by a slight start; however, he faced
+Warde with a smile. Warde, clean-shaven, alert, with youthful figure,
+looked but little older than his pupil. For a moment the two stared
+steadily at each other; then, very politely, Lovell said--
+
+"No, sir, he does not."
+
+Warde continued curtly, "Then he has paid you what he did owe you?"
+
+Lovell nodded, shrugging his shoulders. Plainly, Warde had discovered
+the fact of the debt. Probably that fool Beaumont-Greene had applied to
+his father, and the father had written to Warde. It was unthinkable that
+Warde knew more than this. Having reached this conclusion, Lovell turned
+over in his mind two or three specious lies that might meet the
+exigency.
+
+"Yes," he replied, with apparent frankness, "Beaumont-Greene did owe me
+money, and he has paid me."
+
+After a slight pause, Warde said quietly, "It is my duty, as your tutor,
+to ask you how Beaumont-Greene became indebted to you?"
+
+"I lent him the money," said Lovell.
+
+"Ah! Please call 'Boy.'"
+
+Lovell went into the passage. Had he an intuition that he was about to
+call "Boy" for the last time, or did the pent-up excitement find an
+outlet in sound? He had never called "Boy" so loudly or clearly. The
+night-fag scurried up again.
+
+"Tell him to send Scaife here," said Warde.
+
+Lovell's florid face paled. Scaife would introduce complications. And
+yet, if it had come to Warde's ears that Beaumont-Greene was in debt to
+two of his schoolfellows, and if he had found out the name of one, it
+was not surprising that he knew the name of the other also. As he gave
+the fag the message, he regretted that Scaife and he could not have a
+minute's private conversation together.
+
+"You lent Beaumont-Greene ten pounds, Lovell?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Scaife came in, cool, handsomer than usual because of the sparkle in his
+eyes.
+
+"Shut the door, Scaife. Look at me, please. Beaumont-Greene owed you
+money?"
+
+Scaife glanced at Lovell, whose left eyelid quivered.
+
+"Kindly stand behind Scaife, Lovell. Thank you. Answer my question,
+Scaife."
+
+"Yes, sir; he owed me money."
+
+"Have _you_ lent him money, too?" said Lovell.
+
+It was admirably done--the hint cleverly conveyed, the mild amazement.
+Warde smiled grimly. Scaife understood, and took his cue.
+
+"Yes; I have lent him money," said he, after a slight pause.
+
+"Twenty pounds?"
+
+"I believe, sir, that is the amount."
+
+"And can you offer me any explanation why Beaumont-Greene, whose father,
+to my knowledge, has always given him a very large allowance, should
+borrow thirty pounds of you two?"
+
+"I haven't the smallest idea, have you, Lovell?"
+
+"No," said Lovell. "Unless his younger brother, who is at Eton, has got
+into trouble. He's very fond of his brothers."
+
+"Um! You speak up for your--friend."
+
+Lovell frowned. "A friend, sir--no."
+
+"Of course," said Warde, reflectively, "if it is true that
+Beaumont-Greene borrowed this money to help a brother----"
+
+He paused, staring at Lovell. From the bottom of a big heart he was
+praying that Lovell would not lie.
+
+"Beaumont-Greene certainly gave me to understand that the affair was
+pressing. Having the money, I hadn't the heart to refuse."
+
+"But you pressed for repayment?" said Warde, sharply.
+
+"That is true, sir. I'm on an allowance; and I shall have many expenses
+this holidays."
+
+"You, Scaife, asked for your money?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, between you, you have driven this unhappy wretch into crime."
+
+"Crime, sir?"
+
+At last their self-possession abandoned them. Crime is a word which
+looms large in the imaginations of youth. What had Beaumont-Greene done?
+
+"What crime, sir?"
+
+Scaife, the more self-possessed, although fully two years the younger,
+asked the question.
+
+"Forgery."
+
+"Forgery?" Lovell repeated. He was plainly shocked.
+
+"The idiot!" exclaimed Scaife.
+
+"Yes--forgery. Have you anything to say? It is a time when the truth,
+all the truth, might be accepted as an extenuating circumstance. I speak
+to you first, Lovell. You're a Sixth Form boy--remember, I have been one
+myself--and it is your duty to help me."
+
+"I beg pardon, sir," Lovell replied. "I have never considered it my duty
+as a Sixth Form boy to play the usher."
+
+"Nor did I; but you ought to work on parallel lines with us. You
+accepted the privileges of the Sixth."
+
+Lovell's flush deepened.
+
+"More," continued Warde, "you know that we, the masters, have implicit
+trust in the Sixth Form, a trust but seldom betrayed. For instance, I
+should not think of entering your room without tapping on the door;
+under ordinary circumstances I should accept your bare word
+unhesitatingly. I say emphatically that if you, knowing these things,
+have accepted the privileges of your order with the deliberate intention
+of ignoring its duties, you have not acted like a man of honour."
+
+"Sir!"
+
+"Don't bluff! Now, for the last time, will you give me what I have given
+you--trust?"
+
+"I have nothing more to say," Lovell answered stiffly.
+
+"And you, Scaife?"
+
+"I am sorry, sir, that Beaumont-Greene has been such a fool. We lent him
+this money, because he wanted it badly; and he said he would pay us back
+before the end of the term."
+
+"You stick to that story?"
+
+"Why, yes, sir. Why should we tell you a lie?"
+
+"Ah, why, indeed?" sighed Warde. Then his voice grew hard and sharp. The
+persuasiveness, the carefully-framed sentences, gave place to his
+curtest manner. "This matter," said he, "is out of my hands. The Head
+Master will deal with it. I must ask you for your keys, Lovell."
+
+"And if I refuse to give them up?"
+
+"Then we must break into your boxes. Thanks." He took the keys. "Follow
+me, please."
+
+The pair followed him into the private side, upstairs, and into the
+sick-room. There were three beds in it; upon one sat Beaumont-Greene.
+His complexion turned a sickly drab when he saw Lovell and Scaife. He
+even glanced at the window with a hunted expression. The window was
+three stories from the ground, and heavily barred ever since a boy in
+delirium had tried to jump from it.
+
+"Your night-things will be brought to you," said Warde.
+
+He went out slowly. The boys heard the key turn in the massive lock.
+They were prisoners. Scaife walked up to Beaumont-Greene.
+
+"You told Warde about the bridge?"
+
+"Ye-es; I had to. Scaife, don't look at me like that. Lovell"--his voice
+broke into a terrified scream--"don't let him hit me. I couldn't help
+it--I swear I----"
+
+"You cur!" said Scaife. "I wouldn't touch you with a forty-foot pole."
+
+Just what passed between Warde and the Head Master must be surmised.
+Carefully hidden in Lovell's boxes were found cards and markers. Upon
+the latter remained the results of the last game played, and under the
+winning column a rough calculation in pounds, shillings, and pence.
+There were no names.
+
+Next day, during first school, a notice came round to each Form to be in
+the Speech-room at 8.30. Not a boy knew or guessed the reason of this
+summons. The Manorites, aware that three of their House were in the
+sick-room, believed that an infectious disease had broken out. Only
+Desmond, John, and the Caterpillar experienced heart-breaking fears that
+a catastrophe had taken place.
+
+When the School assembled at half-past eight, the monitors came in,
+followed by the Head Master in cap and gown. Then, a moment later, the
+School Custos entered with Scaife. They sat down upon a small bench near
+the door. Immediately the whispers, the shuffling of feet, the
+occasional cough, died down into a thrilling silence. The Head Master
+stood up.
+
+He was a man of singularly impressive face and figure. And his voice had
+what may be described as an edge to it--the cutting quality so
+invaluable to any speaker who desires to make a deep impression upon his
+audience. He began his address in the clear, cold accents of one who
+sets forth facts which can neither be controverted nor ignored. Slowly,
+inexorably, without wasting a word or a second, he told the School what
+had happened. Then he paused.
+
+As his voice melted away, the boys moved restlessly. Upon their faces
+shone a curious excitement and relief. Gambling in its many-headed forms
+is too deeply rooted in human hearts to awaken any great antipathy. So
+far, then, the sympathy of the audience lay with the culprits; this the
+Head Master knew.
+
+When he spoke again, his voice had changed, subtly, but unmistakably.
+
+"You were afraid," he said, "that I had something worse--ah, yes,
+unspeakably worse--to tell you. Thank God, this is not one of those
+cases from which every clean, manly boy must recoil in disgust. But, on
+that account, don't blind yourselves to the issues involved. This
+playing of bridge--a game you have seen your own people playing night
+after night, perhaps--is harmless enough in itself. I can say more--it
+is a game, and hence its fascination, which calls into use some of the
+finest qualities of the brain: judgment, memory, the faculty of making
+correct deductions, foresight, and patience. It teaches restraint; it
+makes for pleasant fellowship. It does all this and more, provided that
+it never degenerates into gambling. The very moment that the game
+becomes a gamble, if any one of the players is likely to lose a sum
+greater than he can reasonably afford to pay, greater than he would
+cheerfully spend upon any other form of entertainment, then bridge
+becomes cursed. And because you boys have not the experience to
+determine the difference between a mere game and a gamble, card-playing
+is forbidden you, and rightly so. Now, let us consider what has
+happened. A stupid, foolish fellow, playing with boys infinitely
+cleverer than himself, has lost a sum of money which he could not pay.
+To obtain the means of paying it, he deliberately forged a letter and a
+signature. And then followed the inevitable lying--lie upon lie. That is
+always the price of lies--'to lie on still.'
+
+"I would mitigate the punishment, if I could, but I must think of the
+majority. This sort of malignant disease must be cut out. Two of the
+three offenders are young men; they were leaving at the end of this
+term. They will leave, instead--to-day. The third boy is much younger.
+Because of his youth, I have been persuaded by his house-master to give
+him a further chance."
+
+Again he paused. Then he exclaimed loudly, "Scaife!"
+
+Scaife stood up, very pale. "Here, sir!"
+
+"Scaife, you will go into the Fourth Form Room,[31] and prepare to
+receive the punishment which no member of the Eleven should ever
+deserve."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+John sat with his Form while the Head Master was addressing the School.
+Not far off was the Caterpillar, less cool than usual, so John remarked.
+His collar, for instance, seemed to be too tight; and he moved
+restlessly upon his chair. Many very brave men become nervous when a
+great danger has passed them by. Egerton said afterwards, "I felt like
+getting down a hole, and pulling the hole after me. Not my own. Some
+Yankee's, you know." Still, he displayed remarkable self-possession
+under trying circumstances. Two of Lovell's particular friends were seen
+to turn the colour of Cheddar cheese. But Desmond, so John noticed, grew
+red rather than yellow. Nor did he tremble, but his fists were clenched,
+and his eyes kindled.
+
+As Scaife left the Speech-room, followed by Titchener (the provider of
+birches, whose duty it is to see that boys about to be swished are
+properly prepared to receive punishment), the boys began to shuffle in
+their places. But the Head Master held up his hand. It was then that
+Lovell's two particular friends, who had partially recovered, felt that
+the earth was once more slipping from under them.
+
+"It takes four to play bridge." The Caterpillar's fingers went to
+his collar again. "In this case there must have been a fourth,
+possibly a fifth and a sixth. Not more, I think, because the secret
+was too well kept. We are confronted with the disagreeable fact that
+three boys are going to receive the most severe punishments I can
+inflict, and that another escapes scot-free. _For I do not know
+the--name--of--the--fourth._"
+
+The Head Master waited to let each deliberate word soak in. Perhaps he
+had calculated the effect of his voice upon a boy of sensibility and
+imagination. That Scaife, his friend, should suffer the indignity of a
+swishing, and that he should escape scot-free, seemed to C�sar Desmond
+not a bit of rare good fortune--as it appeared to the others--but an
+incredible miscarriage of justice. To submit tamely to such a burden was
+unthinkable. He sprang to his feet, ardent, impetuous, afire with the
+spirit which makes men accept death rather than dishonour; and then, in
+a voice that rang through the room, thrilling the coldest and most
+callous heart, he exclaimed--
+
+"I was the fourth."
+
+A curious sound escaped from the audience--a gasp of surprise, of
+admiration, and of dismay; at least, so the Head Master interpreted it.
+And looking at the faces about him, he read approval or disapproval,
+according as each boy betrayed the feeling in his heart.
+
+"You, Desmond?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The Caterpillar rose slowly. He was cool enough now.
+
+"I was the fifth."
+
+But Lovell's two particular friends sat tight, as they put it. Let us
+not blame them.
+
+"You, Egerton?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+For a moment the Head Master hesitated. Into his mind there flashed the
+image of two notable figures--the fathers whom he had entreated to send
+sons to the Manor. If--if by so doing he had compassed the boys' ruin,
+could he ever have forgiven himself? But now, the boys themselves had
+justified his action; they had proved worthy of their breeding and the
+traditions of the Hill.
+
+"Come here," he said.
+
+When they stood opposite to him, he continued--
+
+"You give yourselves up to receive the punishment I am about to inflict
+upon Scaife?"
+
+The boys did not answer, save with their eyes. The silence in the great
+room was so profound that John made sure that the beating of his heart
+must be heard by everybody.
+
+"I shall not punish you. This voluntary confession has done much to
+redeem your fault. Meet me in my study at nine this evening, and I will
+talk to you. When I came here I hardly hoped to find saints, but I did
+expect to find--gentlemen. And I have not been disappointed." He
+addressed the others. "You will return to your boarding-houses, and
+quietly, if you please."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The immediate and most noticeable effect of Lovell's expulsion was the
+loss of the next House match. Damer's defeated the Manor easily. Some of
+the fags whispered to each other that the injuries inflicted by the Head
+Master on Scaife had been so severe as to incapacitate the star-player
+of the House. Two boys had concealed themselves in the Armoury (which is
+just below the Fourth Form Room) upon the morning when Scaife was
+flogged. But they reported--nothing. However severe the punishment might
+have been, Scaife received it without a whimper.
+
+In truth, Scaife received but one cut, and that a light one. The Head
+Master wished to lay stripes upon the boy's heart, not his body. When he
+saw him prepared to receive punishment, he said gravely--
+
+"I have never flogged a member of the Eleven. And now, at the last
+moment, I offer you the choice between a flogging and expulsion."
+
+"I prefer to be flogged."
+
+_And then--one cut._
+
+But Scaife never forgot the walk from the Yard to the Manor, after
+execution. He was too proud to run, too proud not to face the boys he
+happened to meet. They turned aside their eyes from his furious glare.
+But he met no members of his own House. They had the delicacy to leave
+the coast clear. When he reached his room, he found Desmond alone.
+Desmond said nervously--
+
+"I asked Warde if we could have breakfast here this morning, instead of
+going into Hall. I've got some ripping salmon."
+
+Scaife had faced everything with a brazen indifference, but the sympathy
+in his friend's voice overpowered him. He flung himself upon the sofa by
+the window and wept, not as a boy weeps, but with the cruel, grinding
+sobs of a man. He wept for his stained pride, for his vain-glory, not
+because he had sinned and caused others to sin. The boy watching him,
+seeing the hero self-abased, hearing his heartbreaking sobs, interpreted
+very differently those sounds. Infinitely distressed, turning over and
+over in his mind some soothing phrases, some word of comfort and
+encouragement, Desmond waited till the first paroxysm had passed. What
+he said then shall not be set down in cold print. You may be sure he
+proved that friendship between two strong, vigorous boys is no frail
+thread, but a golden chain which adversity strengthens and refines.
+Scaife rose up with his heart softened, not by his own tears, but by the
+tears he saw in Desmond's eyes.
+
+"I'm all right now," he said. Then, with frowning brows, he added
+thoughtfully, "I deserve what I got for being a fool. I ought to have
+foreseen that such a swine as Beaumont-Greene would be sure to betray us
+sooner or later. I shall be wiser next time."
+
+"Next--time?" The dismay in Desmond's voice made Scaife smile.
+
+"Don't worry, C�sar. No more bridge for me; but," he laughed harshly,
+"the leopard can't change his spots, and he won't give up hunting
+because he has fallen into a trap, and got out of it. Come, let's tackle
+the salmon."
+
+The winter term came to an end, and the School broke up. Upon the
+evening of the last Sunday, Warde said a few words to John.
+
+"I propose to make some changes in the house," he said abruptly. "Would
+you like to share No. 7 with Desmond?"
+
+No. 7 was the jolliest two-room at the Manor. It overlooked the gardens,
+and was larger than some three-rooms. Then John remembered Scaife and
+the Duffer.
+
+"Desmond has been with Scaife ever since he came to the house, sir."
+
+"True. But I'm going to give Scaife a room to himself. He's entitled to
+it as the future Captain of the Eleven. That is--settled. You and Duff
+must part. He's two forms below you in the school, and never likely to
+soar much higher than the Second Fifth. Next term you will be in the
+Sixth, and by the summer I hope Desmond will have joined you. You will
+find[32] together. Of course Scaife can find with you, if you wish. I've
+spoken to him and Desmond."
+
+And so, John's fondest hope was realized. When he came back to the
+Manor, Desmond and he spent much time and rather more money than they
+could afford in making No. 7 the cosiest room in the house. Consciences
+were salved thus:--John bought for Desmond some picture or other
+decorative object which cost more money than he felt justified in
+spending on himself; then Desmond made John a similar present. It was
+whipping the devil round the stump, John said, but oh! the delight of
+giving his friend something he coveted, and receiving presents from him
+in return.
+
+During this term, Scaife became one of the school racquet-players. In
+many ways he was admittedly the most remarkable boy at Harrow, the
+Admirable Crichton who appears now and again in every decade. He won the
+high jump and the hurdle-race. These triumphs kept him out of mischief,
+and occupied every minute of his time. He associated with the "Bloods,"
+and one day Desmond told John that he considered himself to have been
+"dropped" by this tremendous swell. John discreetly held his tongue; but
+in his own mind, as before, he was convinced that Scaife and Desmond
+would come together again. The inexorable circumstance of Scaife's
+superiority at games had separated the boys, but only for a brief
+season. Desmond would become a "Blood" soon, and then it would be John's
+turn to be "dropped." Being a philosopher, our hero did not worry too
+much over the future, but made the most of the present, with a grateful
+and joyous heart. In his humility, he was unable to measure his
+influence on Desmond. In athletic pursuits an inferior, in all
+intellectual attainments he was pulling far ahead of his friend. The
+artful Warde had a word to say, which gave John food for thought.
+
+"You can never equal your friend at cricket or footer, Verney. If you
+wish to score, it is time to play your own game."
+
+Shortly after this, John realized that Warde had read C�sar aright.
+Charles Desmond's son, as has been said, acclaimed quality wherever he
+met it. John's intellectual advance amazed and then fascinated him. When
+John discovered this, he worked harder. Warde smiled. John ran second
+for the Prize Poem. He had genuine feeling for Nature, but he lacked as
+yet the technical ability to display it. A more practised versifier won
+the prize; but John's taste for history and literature secured him the
+Bourchier, not without a struggle which whetted to keenness every
+faculty he possessed. More, to his delight, he realized that his
+enthusiasm was contagious. C�sar entered eagerly into his friend's
+competitions; struggle and strife appealed to the Irishman. He talked
+over John's themes, read his verses, and predicted triumphs. Warde told
+John that C�sar Desmond might have stuck in the First Fifth, had it not
+been for this quickening of the clay. The days succeeded each other
+swiftly and smoothly. Warde was seen to smile more than ever during this
+term. Certain big fellows who opposed him were leaving or had already
+left. Bohun, now Head of the House, was a sturdy, straightforward
+monitor, not a famous athlete, but able to hold his own in any field of
+endeavour. Just before the Christmas holidays, Warde discovered, to his
+horror, that the drainage at the Manor was out of order. At great
+expense a new and perfect system was laid down. At last Warde told
+himself his house might be pronounced sanitary within and without.
+
+When the summer term came, Desmond joined John in the Sixth Form. They
+were entitled to single rooms, but they asked and obtained permission to
+remain in No. 7. Desmond was invested with the right to fag, and the
+right to "find." How blessed a privilege the right to find is, boys who
+have enjoyed it will attest. The cosy meals in one's own room, the
+pleasant talk, the sense of intimacy, the freedom from restraint. Custom
+stales all good things, but how delicious they taste at first!
+
+The privilege of fagging is not, however, unadulterated bliss. When
+Warde said to C�sar, "Well, Desmond, how do you like ordering about your
+slave?" Desmond replied, ruefully, "Well, sir, little Duff has broken my
+inkstand, spilt the ink on our new carpet, and let Verney's bullfinch
+escape. I think, on the whole, I'd as lief wait on myself."
+
+Early in June it became plain that unless the unforeseen occurred,
+Harrow would have a strong Eleven, and that Desmond would be a member of
+it. John and Fluff were playing in the Sixth Form game; but John had no
+chance of his Flannels, although he had improved in batting and bowling,
+thanks to Warde's indefatigable coaching. Scaife hardly ever spoke to
+John now, but occasionally he came into No. 7 to talk to Desmond. Upon
+these rare occasions John would generally find an excuse for leaving the
+room. Always, when he returned, Desmond seemed to be restless and
+perplexed. His admiration for Scaife had waxed rather than waned.
+Indeed, John himself, detesting Scaife--for it had come to that--fearing
+him on Desmond's account, admired him notwithstanding: captivated by
+his amazing grace, good looks, and audacity. His recklessness held even
+the "Bloods" spellbound. A coach ran through Harrow in the afternoons of
+that season. Scaife made a bet that he would drive this coach from one
+end of the High Street to the other, under the very nose of Authority.
+The rules of the school set forth rigorously that no boy is to drive in
+or on any vehicle whatever. Only the Cycle Corps are allowed to use
+bicycles. Scaife's bet, you may be sure, excited extraordinary interest.
+He won it easily, disguised as the coachman--a make-up clever enough to
+deceive even those who were in the secret. His friends knew that he kept
+two polo-ponies at Wembley. One afternoon he dared to play in a match
+against the Nondescripts. Warde's daughter, just out of the schoolroom,
+happened to be present, and she rubbed her lovely eyes when she saw
+Scaife careering over the field. Scaife laughed when he saw her; but
+before she left the ground a note had reached her.
+
+ "DEAR MISS WARDE,
+
+"I am sure that you have too much sporting blood in your veins to tell
+your father that you have seen me playing polo.
+
+                              "Yours very sincerely,
+                                            "REGINALD SCAIFE."
+
+To run such risks seemed to John madness; to Desmond it indicated
+genius.
+
+"There never was such a fellow," said C�sar to John.
+
+When C�sar spoke in that tone John knew that Scaife had but to hold up a
+finger, and that C�sar would come to him even as a bird drops into the
+jaws of a snake. C�sar was strong, but the Demon was stronger.
+
+After the Zingari Match, Desmond got his Flannels. He was cheered at six
+Bill. Everybody liked him; everybody was proud of him, proud of his
+father, proud of the long line of Desmonds, all distinguished,
+good-looking, and with charming manners. The School roared its
+satisfaction. John stood a little back, by the cloisters. C�sar ran past
+him, down the steps and into the street, hat in hand, blushing like a
+girl. John felt a lump in his throat. He thrilled because glory shone
+about his friend; but the poignant reflection came, that C�sar was
+running swiftly, out of the Yard and out of his own life. And before
+lock-up he saw, what he had seen in fancy a thousand times, C�sar
+arm-in-arm with Scaife and the Captain of the Eleven, C�sar in his new
+straw,[33] looking happier than John had ever seen him, C�sar, the
+"Blood," rolling triumphantly down the High Street, the envied of all
+beholders, the hero of the hour.
+
+John called himself a selfish beast, because he had wished for one
+terrible moment, wished with heart and soul, that C�sar was unpopular
+and obscure.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[31] The place of execution.
+
+[32] "Finding" is the privilege, accorded to the Sixth Form, of having
+breakfast and tea served in their own rooms instead of in Hall.
+
+[33] The black-and-white straw hat only worn by members of the School
+Cricket Eleven.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_Self-questioning_
+
+    "Friend, of my infinite dreams
+      Little enough endures;
+    Little howe'er it seems,
+      It is yours, all yours.
+    Fame hath a fleeting breath,
+      Hope may be frail or fond;
+    But Love shall be Love till death,
+      And perhaps beyond."
+
+
+Until the Metropolitan Railway joined Harrow to Baker Street, the Hill
+stood in the midst of genuine and unspoilt country, separated by five
+miles of grass from the nearest point of the metropolis, and encompassed
+by isolated dwellings, ranging in rank and scale from villas to country
+houses.[34] Most of the latter have fallen victims to the speculative
+builder, and have been cut up into alleys of brick and stucco. But one
+or two still remain among their hayfields and rhododendrons.
+
+John Verney had an eager curiosity, not common in schoolboys, to know
+something about the countryside in which he dwelt. As a Lower Boy,
+whenever released from "Compulsory" and House-games, he used to wander
+with alert eyes and ears up and down the green lanes of Roxeth and
+Harrow Weald, enjoying fresh glimpses of the far-seen Spire, making
+friends with cottagers, picking up traditions of an older and more
+lawless[35] epoch, and, with these, an ever-increasing love and loyalty
+to Harrow. So Byron had wandered a hundred years before.
+
+These solitary rambles, however, were regarded with disfavour by
+schoolfellows who lacked John's imaginative temperament. The
+Caterpillar, for instance, protested, "Did I see you hobnobbing with a
+chaw the other day? I thought so; and you looked like a confounded
+bughunter." The Duffer's notions of topography were bounded by the
+cricket-ground on the one side of the Hill, and the footer-fields on the
+other; and his traditions held nothing much more romantic than A. J.
+Webbe's scores at Lord's. Fluff, as has been said, was too far removed
+from John to make him more than an occasional companion. And so, for
+several terms, John, for the most part, walked alone. By the time
+Desmond joined him, he had gleaned a knowledge which fascinated a friend
+of like sensibility and imagination. Together they revisited the old and
+explored the new. One never-to-be-forgotten day the boys discovered a
+deserted house of some pretensions about a mile from the Hill. Its
+grounds, covering several acres, were enclosed by a high oak paling,
+within which stood a thick belt of trees, effectually concealing what
+lay beyond. Grim iron gates, always locked, frowned upon the wayfarer;
+but John, flattening an inquisitive nose against the ironwork, could
+discern a carriage-drive overgrown with grass and weeds, and at the end
+of it a white stone portico. After this the place became to both boys a
+sort of Enchanted Castle. A dozen times they peered through the gates.
+No one went in or out of the grass-grown drive. The gatekeeper's lodge
+was uninhabited; there were no adjacent cottages where information might
+be sought. The boys called it "The Haunted House," and peopled it with
+ghosts; gorgeous bucks of the Regency, languishing beauties such as
+Lawrence painted, fiery politicians, duellists, mysterious black-a-vised
+foreigners. John connected it in fancy with the days when the gorgeous
+Duke of Chandos (who had Handel for his chapel-organist and was a
+Governor of Harrow and guardian of Lord Rodney) kept court at Cannons.
+He told C�sar anecdotes of Dr. Parr, with his preposterous wig, his
+clouds of tobacco, his sesquipedalian quotations, coming down from
+Stanmore; and also of the great Lord Abercorn, another Governor of the
+school, who used to go out shooting in the blue riband of the Garter,
+and who entertained Pitt and Sir Walter Scott at Bentley Priory.
+
+"What a lot you know!" said C�sar. "And you have a memory like my
+father's. I'm beginning to think, Jonathan, that you'll be a swell like
+him some day--in the Cabinet, perhaps."
+
+"Ah," said John, with shining eyes.
+
+"I hope I shall live to see it," Desmond added, with feeling.
+
+"Thanks, old chap. A crust or a triumph shared with a pal tastes twice
+as good."
+
+One soft afternoon in spring, after four Bill, Desmond and John were
+approaching the iron gates of the Haunted House. They had not taken this
+particular walk since the day when Desmond got his Flannels. During the
+winter term, Scaife and Desmond became members of the Football Eleven.
+During this term Scaife won the hundred yards and quarter-mile; Desmond
+won the half-mile and mile. In a word, they had done, from the athletic
+point of view, nearly all that could be done. A glorious victory at
+Lord's seemed assured. Scaife, Captain and epitome of the brains and
+muscles of the Eleven, had grown into a powerful man, with the mind, the
+tastes, the passions of manhood. Desmond, on the other hand, while
+nearly as tall (and much handsomer in John's eyes), still retained the
+look of youth. Indeed, he looked younger than John, although a year his
+senior; and John knew himself to be the elder and wiser, knew that
+Desmond leaned upon him whenever a crutch was wanted.
+
+The chief difficulty which besets a school friendship between two boys
+is that of being alone together. In Form, in the playing-fields, in the
+boarding-house, life is public. Even in the most secluded lane, a Harrow
+boy is not secure against the unwelcome salutations of heated athletes
+who have been taking a cross-country run, or leaping over, or into, the
+Pinner brook. To John the need of sanctuary had become pressing.
+
+Upon this blessed spring afternoon--ever afterwards recalled with
+special affection--a retreat was suddenly provided. As the boys jumped
+over the last stile into the lane which led to the Haunted House,
+Desmond exclaimed--
+
+"By Jove, the gates are open!"
+
+Then they saw that a man, a sort of caretaker, was in the act of
+shutting them.
+
+"May we go in?" John asked civilly.
+
+The man hesitated, eyeing the boys. Desmond's smile melted him, as it
+would have melted a mummy.
+
+"There's nothing to see," he said.
+
+Then, in answer to a few eager questions, he told the story of the
+Haunted House; haunted, indeed, by the ghosts of what might have been. A
+city magnate owned the place. He had bought it because he wished to
+educate his only son at Harrow as a "Home-Boarder," or day-boy. A few
+weeks before the boy should have joined the school, he fell ill with
+diphtheria, and died. The mother, who nursed him, caught the disease and
+died also. The father, left alone, turned his back upon a place he
+loathed, resolving to hold it till building-values increased, but never
+to set eyes on it again. The caretaker and his wife occupied a couple of
+rooms in the house.
+
+The boys glanced at the house, a common-place mansion, and began to
+explore the gardens. To their delight they found in the shrubberies, now
+a wilderness of laurel and rhododendron, a tower--what our forefathers
+called a "Gazebo," and their neighbours a "Folly." The top of it
+commanded a wide, unbroken view--
+
+    "Of all the lowland western lea,
+      The Uxbridge flats and meadows,
+    To where the Ruislip waters see
+      The Oxhey lights and shadows."
+
+"There's the Spire," said John.
+
+The man, who had joined them, nodded. "Yes," said he, "and my mistress
+and her boy are buried underneath it. She wanted him to be there--at the
+school, I mean--and there he is."
+
+"We're very much obliged to you," said Desmond. He slipped a shilling
+into the man's hand, and added, "May we stay here for a bit? and perhaps
+we might come again--eh?"
+
+"Thank you, sir," the man replied, touching his hat. "Come whenever you
+like, sir. The gates ain't really locked. I'll show you the trick of
+opening 'em when you come down."
+
+He descended the steep flight of steps after the boys had thanked him.
+
+"Sad story," said John, staring at the distant Spire.
+
+Desmond hesitated. At times he revealed (to John alone) a curious
+melancholy.
+
+"Sad," he repeated. "I don't know about that. Sad for the father, of
+course, but perhaps the son is well out of it. Don't look so amazed,
+Jonathan. Most fellows seem to make awful muddles of their lives. You
+won't, of course. I see you on pinnacles, but I----" He broke off with a
+mirthless laugh.
+
+John waited. The air about them was soft and moist after a recent
+shower. The south-west wind stirred the pulses. Earth was once more
+tumid, about to bring forth. Already the hedges were green under the
+brown; bulbs were pushing delicate spears through the sweet-smelling
+soil; the buds upon a clump of fine beeches had begun to open. In this
+solitude, alone with teeming nature, John tried to interpret his
+friend's mood; but the spirit of melancholy eluded him, as if it were a
+will-o'-the-wisp dancing over an impassable marsh. Suddenly, there came
+to him, as there had come to the quicker imagination of his friend, the
+overpowering mystery of Spring, the sense of inevitable change, the
+impossibility of arresting it. At the moment all things seemed
+unsubstantial. Even the familiar Spire, powdered with gold by the
+slanting rays of the sun, appeared thinly transparent against the rosy
+mists behind it. The Hill, the solid Hill, rose out of the valley, a
+lavender-coloured shade upon the horizon.
+
+"He came here," continued Desmond, dreamily--John guessed that he was
+speaking of the father--"a rich, prosperous man. I dare say he worked
+like a slave in the city. And he wanted peace and quiet after the Stock
+Exchange. Who wouldn't? And he planted out these gardens, thinking that
+every plant would grow up and thrive, and his son with them. And then
+the boy died; and the wife followed; and the enchanted castle became a
+place of horror; and now it is a wilderness. Haunted? I should think it
+was--haunted! I wish we'd never set foot in it. There's a curse on it."
+
+"Let's go," said John.
+
+"Too late. We'll stay now, and we'll come again, every Sunday. Wild and
+desolate as things look, they will be lovely when we get back in summer.
+Don't talk. I'm going to light a pipe."
+
+Through the circling cloud of tobacco-smoke John stared at the face
+which had illumined nearly every hour of his school-life. Its peculiar
+vividness always amazed John, the vitality of it, and yet the perfect
+delicacy. Scaife's handsome features were full of vitality also, but
+coarseness underlay their bold lines and peered out of the keen,
+flashing eyes. When the Caterpillar left Harrow he had said to John--
+
+"Good-bye, Jonathan. Awful rot your going to such a hole as Oxford! One
+has had quite enough schooling after five years here. It's settled I'm
+going into the Guards. My father tells me that old Scaife tried to get
+the Demon down on the Duke's list. But we don't fancy the Scaife brand."
+
+Often and often John wondered whether Desmond saw the brand as plainly
+as the Caterpillar and he did. Sometimes he felt almost sure that a
+word, a look, a gesture betraying the bounder, had revolted Desmond;
+but a few hours later the bounder bounded into favour again, captivating
+eye and heart by some brilliant feat. And then his brains! He was so
+diabolically clever. John could always recall his face as he lay back in
+the chair in No. 15, sick, bruised, befuddled, and yet even in that
+moment of extreme prostration able to "play the game," as he put it, to
+defeat house-master and doctor by sheer strength of will and intellect.
+It was Scaife who had persuaded Desmond to smoke.... C�sar's voice broke
+in upon these meditations.
+
+"I say--what are you frowning about?"
+
+John, very red, replied nervously, "Now that you're in the Sixth, you
+ought to chuck smoking."
+
+"What rot!" said C�sar. "And here, in this tower, where one couldn't
+possibly be nailed----"
+
+"That's it," said John. "It's just because you can't possibly be nailed
+that it seems to me not quite square."
+
+C�sar burst out laughing. "Jonathan, you _are_ a rum 'un. Anyway--here
+goes!"
+
+As he spoke he flung the pipe into the bushes below.
+
+"Thanks," said John, quietly.
+
+"We'll come here again. I like this old tower."
+
+"You won't come here without me?"
+
+"Oh, ho! I'm not to let the Demon into our paradise--eh? What a jealous
+old bird you are! Well, I like you to be jealous." And he laughed again.
+
+"I am jealous," said John, slowly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The School broke up on the following Tuesday, and Desmond went home with
+John.
+
+This happened to be the first time that the friends had spent Easter
+together. John wondered whether C�sar would take the Sacrament with his
+mother and him. He and C�sar had been confirmed side by side in the
+Chapel at Harrow. He felt sure that Desmond would not refuse if he were
+asked. On Easter Eve, Mrs. Verney said, in her quiet, persuasive
+voice--
+
+"You will join us to-morrow morning, Harry?"
+
+Desmond flushed, and said, "Yes."
+
+Not remembering his own mother, who had died when he was a child, he
+often told John that he felt like a son to Mrs. Verney. Upon Easter
+morning, the three met in the hall, and Desmond asked for a Prayer-book.
+
+"I've lost mine," he murmured.
+
+That afternoon, when they were alone upon the splendid moor above
+Stoneycross, Desmond said suddenly--
+
+"Religion means a lot to you, Jonathan, doesn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But you never talk about it."
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I don't know how to begin."
+
+"There's such sickening hypocrisy in this world."
+
+John nodded.
+
+"But your religion is a help to you, eh? Keeps you straight?"
+
+John nodded again. Then Desmond said with an air of finality--
+
+"I wish I'd some of your faith. I want it badly."
+
+"If you want it badly, you will get it."
+
+A long silence succeeded. Then Desmond exclaimed--
+
+"Hullo! By Jove, there's a fox, a splendid fellow! He's come up here
+amongst the rabbits for a Sunday dinner. Gone awa-a-a-ay!"
+
+He put his hand to his mouth and halloaed. A minute later he was talking
+of hunting. Religion was not mentioned till they were approaching the
+house for tea. On the threshold, Desmond said with a nervous laugh--
+
+"I'd like your mother to give me a Prayer-book--a small one, nothing
+expensive."
+
+During the following week they hunted with foxhounds or staghounds every
+day, except Wednesday. In the New Forest the Easter hunting is unique.
+Tremendous fellows come down from the shires--masters of famous packs,
+thrusters, keen to see May foxes killed. And the Forest entertains them
+handsomely, you may be sure. Big hampers are unpacked under the oaks
+which may have been saplings when William Rufus ruled in England; there
+are dinners, and, of course, a hunt-ball in the ancient village of
+Lyndhurst. But as each pleasant day passed, John told himself that the
+end was drawing near. This was almost the last holidays C�sar and he
+would spend together; and, afterwards, would this friendship, so
+romantic a passion with one at least of them--would it wither away, or
+would it endure to the end?
+
+At the end of a fortnight, Desmond returned to Eaton Square. Upon the
+eve of departure, Mrs. Verney gave him a small Prayer-book.
+
+"I have written something in it," she said; "but don't open it now."
+
+He looked at the fly-leaf as the train rolled out of Lyndhurst Station.
+Upon it, in Mrs. Verney's delicate handwriting, were a few lines. First
+his name and the date. Below, a text--"Unto whomsoever much is given, of
+him shall be much required." And, below that again, a verse--
+
+    "Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
+    As if Thy blessings had spare days:
+    But such a heart whose pulse may be--
+          Thy praise."
+
+Desmond stared at the graceful writing long after the train had passed
+Totton. "Am I ungrateful?" he asked himself. "Not to them," he muttered;
+"surely not to them." He recalled what Warde had said about ingratitude
+being the unpardonable sin. Ah! it was loathsome, ingratitude! And much
+had been given to him. How much? For the first time he made, so to
+speak, an inventory of what he had received--his innumerable blessings.
+_What had he given in return?_ And now the fine handwriting seemed
+blurred; he saw it through tears which he ought to have shed. "Oh, my
+God," he murmured, "am I ungrateful?" The question bit deeper into his
+mind, sinking from there into his soul.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the School reassembled, a curious incident occurred. John happened
+to be going up the fine flight of steps that leads to the Old Schools.
+He was carrying some books and papers. Scaife, running down the steps,
+charged into him. By great good fortune, no damage was done except to a
+nicely-bound Sophocles. John, however, felt assured that Scaife had
+deliberately intended to knock him down, seized, possibly, by an ecstasy
+of blind rage not uncommon with him. Scaife smiled derisively, and
+said--
+
+"A thousand apologies, Verney."
+
+"_One_ is enough," John replied, "if it is sincere."
+
+They eyed each other steadily. John read a furious challenge in Scaife's
+bold eyes--more, a menace, the threatening frown of power thwarted.
+Scaife seemed to expand, to fill the horizon, to blot out the glad
+sunshine. Once again the curious certainty gripped the younger that
+Scaife was indeed the personification of evil, the more malefic because
+it stalked abroad masked. For Scaife had outlived his reputation as a
+breaker of the law. Since that terrible experience in the Fourth Form
+Room, he had paid tithe of mint and cummin. As a Sixth Form boy he
+upheld authority, laughing the while in his sleeve. He knew, of course,
+that one mistake, one slip, would be fatal. And he prided himself on not
+making mistakes. He gambled, but not with boys; he drank, not with boys;
+he denied his body nothing it craved; but he never forgot that expulsion
+from Harrow meant the loss of a commission in a smart cavalry regiment.
+When it was intimated to him that the Guards did not want his father's
+son, he laughed bitterly, and swore to himself that he would show the
+stuck-up snobs what a soldier they had turned away. A soldier he fully
+intended to be--a dashing cavalry leader, if the Fates were kind. His
+luck would stand by him; if not--why--what was life without luck? He had
+never been a reader, but he read now the lives of soldiers. Murat,
+Uxbridge, Cardigan, Hodson, were his heroes. Talking of their
+achievements, he inflamed his own mind and Desmond's.
+
+The pleasant summer days passed. May melted into June. And each Sunday
+John and Desmond walked to the Haunted House, ascended the tower, and
+talked. Scaife was leaving at the end of the summer. Desmond was staying
+on for the winter term; then John would have him entirely to himself.
+This thought illumined dark hours, when he saw his friend whirled away
+by Scaife, transported, as it were, by the irresistible power of the man
+of action. That nothing should be wanting to that trebly-fortunate
+youth, he had helped to win the Public Schools' Racquets Championship.
+The Manor was now the crack house--cock-house at racquets and football,
+certain to be cock-house at cricket. And Scaife got most of the credit,
+not Warde, who smiled more than ever, and talked continually of Balliol
+Scholarships. He never bragged of victories past.
+
+Meantime, John was devoting all energies to the competition for the
+Prize Essay. The Head Master had propounded as theme: "The History and
+Influence of Parliamentary Oratory." Bit by bit, John read or declaimed
+it to Desmond. Then, according to custom, Desmond copied it out for his
+friend. Signed "_Spero Infestis_," with a sealed envelope containing
+John's name inside and the motto outside, the MS. was placed in the Head
+Master's letter-box. John, cooling rapidly after the fever of
+composition, condemned his stuff as hopelessly bad; C�sar went about
+telling everybody that Jonathan would win easily, "with a bit to spare."
+John did win, but that proved to be the least part of his triumph. The
+Essay had to be declaimed upon Speech Day. Once more John experienced
+the pangs that had twisted him at the concert, long ago, when he had
+sung to the Nation's hero. And as before, he began weakly. Then, the
+fire seizing him, self-consciousness was exorcised by feeling, and
+forgetful of the hundreds of faces about him, he burst into genuine
+oratory. Thrilled himself, he thrilled others. His voice faltered
+again, but with an emotion that found an echo in the hearts of his
+audience; his hand shook, feeling the pulse of old and young in front of
+him. Dominated, swept away by his theme, he dominated others. When he
+finished, in the silence that preceded the roar of applause, he knew
+that he had triumphed, for he saw Desmond's glowing countenance, radiant
+with pleasure, transfigured by amazement and admiration. Next day a
+great newspaper hailed the Harrow boy as one destined to delight and to
+lead, perhaps, an all-conquering party in the House of Commons. And yet,
+warmed to the core by this praise, John counted it as nothing compared
+with his mother's smile and Desmond's fervent grip.
+
+Fortune, however, comes to no man--or boy--with both hands full.
+Immediately after Speech Day, John's bubble of pride and happiness was
+pricked by Scaife. Midsummer madness seized the Demon. One may conceive
+that the innate recklessness of his nature, suppressed by an iron will,
+and smouldering throughout many months, burst at last into flame.
+Desmond told John that the Demon had spent a riotous night in town. He
+had slipped out of the Manor after prayers, had driven up to a certain
+club in Regent Street, returned in time for first school, fresh as
+paint--so Desmond said--and then, not content with such an achievement,
+must needs brag of it to Desmond.
+
+"And if he's nailed, Eton wins," concluded Desmond. "I've told you,
+because together we must put a stop to such larks."
+
+John slightly raised his thick eyebrows. It was curious that C�sar
+always chose to ignore the hatred which he must have known to exist
+between his two friends. Or did he fatuously believe that, because John
+exercised an influence over himself, the same influence would or could
+be exercised over Scaife?
+
+"We?" said John.
+
+"I've tried and failed. But together, I say----"
+
+"I shan't interfere, C�sar."
+
+"Jonathan, you must."
+
+"It would be a fool's errand."
+
+"We three have gone up the School together. You have never been fair to
+Scaife. I tell you he's sound at core. Why, after he was swished----"
+
+Desmond told John what had passed; John shook his head. He could
+understand better than any one else why Scaife had broken down.
+
+"He has splendid ambitions," pursued Desmond. "He's going to be a great
+soldier, you see. He thinks of nothing else. You never have liked him,
+but because of that I thought you would do what you could."
+
+The disappointment and chagrin in his voice shook John's resolution.
+
+"To please you, I'll try."
+
+And accordingly the absurd experiment was made. Afterwards, John asked
+himself a thousand times why he had not foreseen the inevitable result.
+But the explanation is almost too simple to be recorded: he wished to
+convince a friend that he would attempt anything to prove his
+friendship.
+
+That night they went together to Scaife's room. The second-best room in
+the Manor, situated upon the first floor, it overlooked the back of the
+garden, where there was a tangled thicket of laurustinus and
+rhododendron. Scaife had spent much money in making this room as
+comfortable as possible. It had the appearance of a man's room, and
+presented all the characteristics of the man who lived in it. Everything
+connected with Scaife's triumphal march through the School was
+preserved. On the walls were his caps, fezes, and cups. You could hardly
+see the paper for the framed photographs of Scaife and his fellow
+"bloods." Scaife as cricketer, Scaife as football-player, Scaife as
+racquet-player and athlete, stared boldly and triumphantly at you. He
+had a fine desk covered with massive silver ornaments. Upon this, as
+upon everything else in the room, was the hall-mark of the successful
+man of business. The papers, the pens and pencils, the filed bills and
+letters, the books of reference, spoke eloquently of a mind that used
+order as a means to a definite end. All his books were well bound. His
+boots were on trees. His racquets were in their press. Had you opened
+his chest of drawers, you would have found his clothes in perfect
+condition. Obviously, to an observant eye, the owner of this room gave
+his mind to details, because he realized that on details hang great and
+successful enterprises.
+
+Scaife stared at John, but welcomed him civilly enough. Cricket, of
+course, explained this unexpected visit. As Desmond blurted out what was
+in his mind, Scaife frowned; then he laughed unpleasantly.
+
+"And so I told Jonathan," concluded Desmond.
+
+"So you told Jonathan," repeated Scaife. "Are you in the habit of
+telling Jonathan,"--the derisive inflection as he pronounced the name
+warned John at least that he had much better have stayed away--"things
+which concern others and which don't concern him?"
+
+"If you're going to take it like that----"
+
+"Keep cool, C�sar. I'll admit that you mean well. I should like to hear
+what Verney has to say."
+
+At that John spoke--haltingly. Fluent speech upon any subject very dear
+to him had always been difficult. He could talk glibly enough about
+ordinary topics; his sense of humour, his retentive memory, made him
+welcome even in the critical society of Eaton Square, but you know him
+as a creature of unplumbed reserves. The matter in hand was so vital
+that he could not touch it with firm hands or voice. He spoke at his
+worst, and he knew it; concluding an incoherent and slightly
+inarticulate recital of the reasons which ought to keep Scaife in his
+house at night with a lame "Two heads ought to prevail against one."
+
+Scaife showed his fine teeth. "You think that? Your head and C�sar's
+against mine?"
+
+The challenge revealed itself in the derisive, sneering tone.
+
+John shrugged his shoulders and rose. "I have blundered; I am sorry."
+
+"Hold hard," said Scaife. He read censure upon Desmond's ingenuous
+countenance. Then his temper whipped him to a furious resentment against
+John, as an enemy who had turned the tables with good breeding; who had
+gained, indeed, a victory against odds. Scaife drew in his breath; his
+brows met in a frown. "You have not blundered; and you are not sorry,"
+he said deliberately. "I'm not a fool, Verney; but perhaps I have
+underrated your ability. You're as clever as they make 'em. You knew
+well enough that you were the last person in the world to lead me in a
+string; you knew that, I say, and yet you come here to pose as the
+righteous youth, doing his duty--eh?--against odds, and accepting credit
+for the same from C�sar. Why, it's plain to me as the nose upon your
+face that in your heart you would like me to be sacked."
+
+Desmond interrupted. "You are mad, Demon. Take that back; take it back!"
+
+"Ask him," said Scaife. "He hates me, and common decency ought to have
+kept him out of this room. But he's not a liar. Ask him. Put it your own
+way. Soften it, make pap of it, if you like, but get an answer."
+
+"Jonathan, it is not true, is it? You don't like Scaife; but you would
+be sorry, very sorry, to see him--sacked."
+
+"I'm glad you've not funked it," said Scaife. "You've put it squarely.
+Let him answer it as squarely."
+
+John was white to the lips, white and trembling; despicable in his own
+eyes, how much more despicable, therefore, in the eyes of his friend,
+whose passionate faith in him was about to be scorched and shrivelled.
+
+Scaife began to laugh.
+
+"For God's sake, don't laugh!" said Desmond. "Jonathan, I know you are
+too proud to defend yourself against such an abominable charge."
+
+"He's not a liar," said Scaife.
+
+"It's true," said John, in a strangled voice.
+
+"You have wished that he might be sacked?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+John met Desmond's indignant eyes with an expression which the other was
+too impetuous, too inexperienced to interpret. Into that look of
+passionate reproach he flung all that must be left unsaid, all that
+Scaife could read as easily as if it were scored in letters of flame.
+Because, in his modesty and humility, he had ever reckoned that Scaife
+would prevail against himself--because, with unerring instinct, he had
+apprehended, as few boys could apprehend, the issues involved, he had
+desired, fervently desired, that Scaife should be swept from C�sar's
+path. But this he could not plead as an excuse to his friend; and Scaife
+had known that, and had used his knowledge with fiendish success. John
+lowered his eyes and walked from the room.
+
+When he met Desmond again, nothing was said on either side. John told
+himself that he would speak, if Desmond spoke first. But evidently
+Desmond had determined already the nature of their future relations.
+They no longer shared No. 7, John being in the Upper Sixth with a room
+to himself, but they still "found" together. To separate would mean a
+public scandal from which each shrank in horror. No; let them meet at
+meals as before till the end of the term. Indeed, so little change was
+made in their previous intercourse, that John began to hope that C�sar
+would walk with him as usual upon the following Sunday. And if he
+did--if he did, John felt that he would speak. On the top of the tower,
+looking towards the Spire, alone with his friend, exalted above the
+thorns and brambles of the wilderness, words would come to him.
+
+But on the following Sunday Desmond walked with Scaife.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[34] Of these, the Park, now a boarding-house, was a characteristic
+specimen. It belonged to Lord Northwick, Lord of the Manor of Harrow.
+
+[35] In the thirties Harrow boys played "Jack o' Lantern," or nocturnal
+Hare and Hounds. They used to attend Kingsbury Races and Pinner Fair.
+Lord Alexander Russell, when he was a boy at the Grove, kept a pack of
+beagles at the foot of the Hill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+_"Lord's"_
+
+    "There we sat in the circle vast,
+      Hard by the tents, from noon,
+    And looked as the day went slowly past
+      And the runs came all too soon;
+    And never, I think, in the years gone by,
+      Since cricketer first went in,
+    Did the dying so refuse to die,
+      Or the winning so hardly win."
+
+
+"My dear Jonathan, I'm delighted to see you. You know my father, I
+think?" It was the Caterpillar that spoke.
+
+John shook hands with Colonel Egerton.
+
+The three were standing in the Members' Enclosure at Lord's. The
+Caterpillar, gorgeous in frock-coat, with three corn-flowers[36] in the
+lapel of it, was about as great a buck as his sire, quite as
+conspicuous, and, seemingly, as cool. It happened to be a blazing hot
+day, but heat seldom affected Colonel Egerton.
+
+"By Jove," he said to John, "I'm told it's a certainty this year, and
+I've come early, too early for me, to see a glorious victory. There's
+civil war raging on the top of the Trent coach, I give you my word."
+
+"We've won the toss," said John.
+
+"Ah, there's Charles Desmond, an early bird, too."
+
+He bustled away, leaving John and the Caterpillar together. The great
+ground in front of them was being cleared. One could see, through the
+few people scattered here and there, the wickets pitched in the middle
+of that vast expanse of lawn, and the umpires in their long white coats.
+Upon the top of the steps, in the middle of the pavilion, the Eton
+captain was collecting his Eleven. The Duffer, who had got his Flannels
+at the last moment, came up and joined John and the Caterpillar.
+
+"The Manor's well to the front," said the Caterpillar. "By Jove! I never
+thought to see Fluff in the Eleven."
+
+"Fluff came on tremendously this term," the Duffer replied.
+
+"Of course the Kinlochs are a cricketing family."
+
+"Good joke the brothers playing against each other," said John.
+
+"Warde," the Duffer nodded in the direction of Warde, who was talking
+with Charles Desmond and Colonel Egerton, "has worked like a slave. He
+made a cricketer out of Fluff and a scholar out of Jonathan. He's so mad
+keen to see us win, that he's given me the jumps."
+
+"You must keep cool," the Caterpillar murmured. "I've just come from the
+Trent coach. Fluff has it from the brother who is playing that the Eton
+bowling is weak. But Strathpeffer, the eldest son, tells me the batsmen
+are stronger than last year. He seemed anxious to bet; so we have a
+fiver about it. They're taking the field."
+
+The Eton Eleven walked towards the wicket, loudly cheered. C�sar came up
+in his pads, carrying his bat and gloves. He shook hands with the
+Caterpillar, and said, with a groan, that he had to take the first ball.
+
+"Keep cool," said the Caterpillar. "The bowling's weak; I have it from
+Cosmo Kinloch. They're in a precious funk."
+
+"So am I," said the Duffer.
+
+"But you're a bowler," said Desmond. "If I get out first ball, I shall
+cut my throat."
+
+But C�sar looked alert, cool, and neither under- nor over-confident.
+
+"You'll cut the ball, not your throat," said the Duffer. Cutting was
+C�sar's strong point.
+
+The Caterpillar nodded, and spoke oracularly--
+
+"My governor says he never shoots at a snipe without muttering to
+himself, 'Snipe on toast.' It steadies his nerves. When you see the
+ball leave the bowler's hand, you say to yourself, 'Eton on toast.'"
+
+"Your own, Caterpillar?"
+
+"My own," said the Caterpillar, modestly. "I don't often make a joke,
+but that's mine. Pass it on."
+
+The other Harrovian about to go in beckoned to Desmond.
+
+"C�sar won't be bowled first ball," said the Caterpillar. "He's the sort
+that rises to an emergency. Can't we find a seat?"
+
+They sat down and watched the Eton captain placing his field. Desmond
+and his companion were walking slowly towards the wickets amid Harrow
+cheers. The cheering was lukewarm as yet. It would have fire enough in
+it presently. The Caterpillar pointed out some of the swells.
+
+"That's old Lyburn. Hasn't missed a match since '64. Was brought here
+once with a broken leg! Carried in a litter, by Jove! That fellow with
+the long, white beard is Lord Fawley. He made 78 _not out_ in the days
+of Charlemagne."
+
+"It was in '53," said the Duffer, who never joked on really serious
+subjects; "and he made 68, not 78. He's pulling his beard. I believe
+he's as nervous as I am."
+
+Presently the innumerable voices about them were hushed; all eyes turned
+in one direction. Desmond was about to take the first ball. It was
+delivered moderately fast, with a slight break. Desmond played forward.
+
+"Well played, sir! Well pla-a-ayed!"
+
+The shout rumbled round the huge circle. The beginning and the end of a
+great match are always thrilling. The second and third balls were played
+like the first. John could hear Mr. Desmond saying to Warde, "He has
+Hugo's style and way of standing--eh?" And Warde replied, "Yes; but he's
+a finer batsman. Ah-h-h!"
+
+The first real cheer burst like a bomb. Desmond had cut the sixth ball
+to the boundary.
+
+Over! The new bowler was a tall, thin boy with flaxen hair.
+
+"That's Cosmo Kinloch, Fluff's brother," said John. "I wonder they can't
+do better than that. Even I knocked him all over the shop at White
+Ladies last summer."
+
+"He's come on, they tell me," said the Caterpillar. "Good Lord, he
+nearly had him first ball."
+
+Fluff's brother bowled slows of a good length, with an awkward break
+from the off to the leg.
+
+"Teasers," said the Caterpillar, critically. "Hullo! No, my young
+friend, that may do well enough in Shropshire, not here."
+
+A ball breaking sharply from the off had struck the batsman's pad; he
+had stepped in front of his wicket to cut it. Country umpires are often
+beguiled by bowlers into giving wrong decisions in such cases; not so
+your London expert. Cosmo Kinloch appealed--in vain.
+
+"He'll send a short one down now," said John. "You see."
+
+And, sure enough, a long hop came to the off, curling inwards after it
+pitched. The Eton captain had nearly all his men on the off side. The
+Harrovian pulled the ball right round to the boundary.
+
+"Well hit!"
+
+"Well pulled!"
+
+"Two 4's; that's a good beginning," said the Duffer.
+
+A couple of singles followed, and then the first "10" went up amid
+cheers.
+
+"Here's my governor," said the Duffer. "He was three years in the Eleven
+and Captain his last term."
+
+"You've told us that a thousand times," said the Caterpillar.
+
+The Rev. Septimus Duff greeted the boys warmly. His eyes sparkled out of
+a cheery, bearded face. Look at him well. An Harrovian of the Harrovians
+this. His grandfathers on the maternal and paternal side had been
+friends at Harrow in Byron's time. The Rev. Septimus wore rather a
+shabby coat and a terrible hat, but the consummate Caterpillar, who
+respected pedigrees, regarded him with pride and veneration. He came up
+from his obscure West Country vicarage to town just once a year--to see
+the match. If you asked him, he would tell you quite simply that he
+would sooner see the match and his old friends than go to Palestine; and
+the Rev. Septimus had yearned to visit Palestine ever since he left
+Cambridge; and it is not likely that this great wish will ever be
+gratified. He is the father of three sons, but the Duffer is the first
+to get into the Eleven. Charles Desmond joins them. At the moment,
+Charles Desmond is supposed to be one of the most harried men in the
+Empire. Times are troublous. A war-cloud, as large as Kruger's hand, has
+just risen in the South, and is spreading itself over the whole world.
+But to-day the great Minister has left the cares of office in Downing
+Street. He hails the Rev. Septimus with a genial laugh and a hearty
+grasp of the hand.
+
+"Ah, Sep, upon your word of honour, now--would you sooner be here to see
+the Duffer take half a dozen wickets, or be down in Somerset, Bishop of
+Bath and Wells?"
+
+"When _you_ offer me the bishopric," replied the Rev. Septimus, with a
+twinkle, "I'll answer that question, my dear Charles, and not before."
+
+"You old humbug! You're so puffed up with sinful pride that you've stuck
+your topper on to your head the wrong way about."
+
+"Bless my soul," said the Duffer's father, "so I have."
+
+"That topper of the governor's," the Duffer remarked solemnly, "has seen
+twenty-five matches at least."
+
+John looked at no hats; his eyes were on the pitch. Another round of
+cheers proclaimed that "20" had gone up. Both boys are batting steadily;
+no more boundary hits; a snick here, a snack there--and then--merciful
+Heavens!--C�sar has cut a curling ball "bang" into short slip's hands.
+
+Short slip--wretched youth--muffs it! Derisive remarks from Rev.
+Septimus.
+
+"Well caught! Well held! Tha-a-nks!"
+
+The Caterpillar would pronounce this sort of chaff bad form in a
+contemporary. He removes his hat.
+
+"By Jove!" says he. "It's very warm."
+
+C�sar times the next ball beautifully. It glides past point and under
+the ropes.
+
+Early as it is, the ground seems to be packed with people. Glorious
+weather has allured everybody. Stand after stand is filled up. The
+colour becomes kaleidoscopic. The Rev. Septimus, during the brief
+interval of an over, allows his eyes to stray round the huge circle.
+Upon the ground are the youth, the beauty, the rank and fashion of the
+kingdom, and, best of all, his old friends. The Rev. Septimus has a
+weakness, being, of course, human to the finger-tips. He calls himself a
+_laudator temporis acti_. In his day, the match was less of a function.
+The boys sat round upon the grass; behind them were the carriages and
+coaches--you could drive on to the ground then!--and here and there,
+only here and there, a tent or a small stand. _Consule Planco_--the
+parson loves a Latin tag--the match was an immense picnic for Harrovians
+and Etonians. And, my word, you ought to have heard the chaff when an
+unlucky fielder put the ball on the floor. Or, when a batsman interposed
+a pad where a bat ought to have been. Or, if a player was bowled first
+ball. Or, if he swaggered as he walked, the cynosure of all eyes, from
+the pavilion to the pitch. Upon this subject the Rev. Septimus will
+preach a longer (and a more interesting) sermon than any you will hear
+from his pulpit in Blackford-Orcas Church.
+
+Loud cheers put an end to the parson's reminiscences. Desmond's
+companion has been clean bowled for a useful fifteen runs. He walks
+towards the pavilion slowly. Then, as he hears the Harrow cheers, he
+blushes like a nymph of sixteen, for he counts himself a failure. Last
+year he made a "duck" in his first innings, and five in the second. No
+cheers then. This is his first taste of the honey mortals call success.
+He has faced the great world, and captured its applause.
+
+"When does Scaife go in?" the Rev. Septimus asks.
+
+"Second wicket down."
+
+More cheers as the second man in strolls down the steps. A careful cove,
+so the Duffer tells his father--one who will try to break the back of
+the bowling.
+
+"They're taking off Fluff's brother," the Caterpillar observes.
+
+A thick-set young man holds the ball. He makes some slight alteration in
+the field. The wicket-keeper stands back; the slips and point retreat a
+few yards. The ball that took the first wicket was the last of an over.
+Desmond has to receive the attack of the new bowler.
+
+The thick-set Etonian, having arranged the off side to his satisfaction,
+prepares to take a long run. He holds the ball in the left hand, runs
+sideways at great speed, changes the ball from the left hand to the
+right at the last moment, and seems to hurl both it and himself at the
+batsman.
+
+"Greased lightning!" says John.
+
+A dry summer had made the pitch rather fiery. The ball, short-pitched,
+whizzes just over C�sar's head. A second and a third seem to graze his
+cap. Murmurs are heard. Is the Eton bowler trying to kill or maim his
+antagonist? Is he deliberately endeavouring to establish a paralysing
+"funk"?
+
+But the fourth ball is a "fizzer"--the right length, a bailer,
+terrifically fast, but just off the wicket. Desmond snicks it between
+short slip and third man; it goes to the boundary.
+
+"That's what C�sar likes," says the Duffer. "He can cut behind the
+wicket till the cows come home."
+
+"Cut--and come again," says the Caterpillar.
+
+The fifth ball is played forward for a risky single. The Rev. Septimus
+forgets that times have changed. And if they have, what of it? He
+hasn't. His deep, vibrant voice rolls across the lawn right up to the
+batsman--
+
+"Steady there! Steady!"
+
+And now the new-comer has to take the last ball of the over--his first.
+Alas and alack! The sixth ball is dead on to the middle stump. The
+Harrovian plays forward. Man alive, you ought to have played back to
+that! The ball grazes the top edge of the bat's blade and flies straight
+into the welcoming hands of the wicket-keeper.
+
+Two wickets for 33.
+
+Breathless suspense, broken by tumultuous cheers as Scaife strides on to
+the ground. His bat is under his arm; he is drawing on his gloves.
+Thousands of men and as many women are staring at his splendid face and
+figure.
+
+"What a mover!" murmurs the Rev. Septimus.
+
+Scaife strides on. Upon his face is the expression John knows so well
+and fears so much--the consciousness of power, the stern determination
+to be first, to shatter previous records. John can predict--and does so
+with absolute certainty--what will happen. For six overs the Demon will
+treat every ball--good, bad, and indifferent--with the most
+distinguished consideration. And then, when his "eye" is in, he will
+give the Etonians such leather-hunting as they never had before.
+
+After a long stand made by Scaife and Desmond, C�sar is caught at
+cover-point, but Scaife remains. It is a Colossus batting, not a Harrow
+boy. The balls come down the pitch; the Demon's shoulders and chest
+widen; the great knotted arms go up--crash! First singles; then twos;
+then threes; and then boundary after boundary. To John--and to how many
+others?--Scaife has been transformed into a tremendous human machine,
+inexorably cutting and slicing, pulling and driving--the embodied symbol
+of force, ruthlessly applied, indefatigable, omnipotent.
+
+The Eton captain, hopeful against odds, puts on a cunning and cool
+dealer in "lobs." Fluff is in, playing steadily, holding up his wicket,
+letting the giant make the runs. The Etonian delivers his first ball.
+Scaife leaves the crease. Fluff sees the ball slowly spinning--harmless
+enough till it pitches, and then deadly as a writhing serpent. Scaife
+will not let it pitch. The ball curves slightly from the leg to the off.
+Scaife is facing the pavilion----
+
+A stupendous roar bursts from the crowd. The ball, hit with terrific
+force, sails away over the green sward, over the ropes, over the heads
+of the spectators, and slap on to the top of the pavilion.
+
+Only four; but one of the finest swipes ever seen at Lord's. Shade of
+Mynn, come forth from the tomb to applaud that mighty stroke!
+
+But the dealer in lobs knows that the man who leaves his citadel, leaves
+it, sooner or later, not to return. In the hope that Scaife, intoxicated
+with triumph, will run out again, he pitches the next lob too much up--a
+half-volley. Scaife smiles.
+
+John's prediction has been fulfilled. A record has been established.
+Never before in an Eton and Harrow match have two balls been hit over
+the ropes in succession. The crowds have lost their self-possession.
+Men, women, and children are becoming delirious. The Rev. Septimus
+throws his ancient topper into the air; the Caterpillar splits a
+brand-new pair of delicate grey gloves. Upon the tops of the coaches,
+mothers, sisters, aunts, and cousins are cheering like Fourth-Form boys.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Harrow first innings closed with 289 runs, Scaife carrying out his
+bat for an almost flawless 126. Desmond made 72; Fluff was in for
+twenty-seven minutes--a great performance for him--and was caught in the
+slips after compiling a useful 17.
+
+But the remarkable feature of the innings was the short time in which so
+many runs were made--exactly three hours. The elevens went in to lunch,
+as the crowd poured over the ground, laughing and chattering. This is a
+delightful hour to the Rev. Septimus. He will walk to the wickets, and
+wait there for his innumerable friends. It will be, "Hullo, Sep!" "By
+Jove, here's dear old Sep!" "Sep, you unfriendly beast, why do you never
+come to see us?" "Sep, when are you going to send that awful tile of
+yours to the British Museum?" And so on.
+
+Twenty men, at least--some of them with names known wherever the Union
+Jack waves--will ask the Rev. Sep to lunch with them; but the Rev. Sep
+will say, as he has said these thirty years, that he doesn't come to
+Lord's to "gorge." A sandwich presently, and a glass of "fizz," if you
+please; but time is precious. A tall bishop strolls up--one of the
+pillars of the Church, an eloquent preacher, and an autocrat in his
+diocese. Most people regard him with awe. The Rev. Sep greets him with a
+scandalous slap on the back, and addresses him, the apostolic one,
+as--Lamper.[37] And the Lord Bishop of Dudley says, like the others--
+
+"Hullo, Sep! We used to think you a slogger, but you never came anywhere
+near that smite of Scaife's."
+
+"I thought his smite was coming too near me," says the Rev. Sep, with a
+shrewd glance at the pavilion. "Lamper, old chap, I _am_ glad to see
+your 'phiz' again."
+
+And so they stroll off together, mighty prelate and humble country
+parson, once again happy Harrow boys.
+
+And now, before Eton goes in, we must climb on to the Trent coach. Fluff
+and his brother Cosmo, the Eton bowler, are lunching in other company,
+but we shall find Colonel Egerton and the Caterpillar and Warde; so the
+Hill slightly outnumbers the Plain, as the duke puts it. Next to the
+duchess sits Mrs. Verney. The duke is torn nearly in two between his
+desire that Fluff should make runs and that Cosmo, the Etonian, should
+take wickets. His Eton sons regard him as a traitor, a "rat," and
+Colonel Egerton gravely offers him the corn-flowers out of his coat.
+
+"You can laugh," the duke says seriously, "but when I see what Harrow
+has done for Esm�, I'm almost sorry"--he looks at his youngest son
+(nearly, but not quite, as delicate-looking as Fluff used to be)--"I'm
+almost sorry that I didn't send Alastair there also."
+
+Alastair smiles contemptuously. "If you had," he says, "I should have
+never spoken to you again. Esm� is a forgiving chap, but you've wrecked
+his life. At least, that's my opinion."
+
+After luncheon, the crowd on the lawn thickens. The ladies want to see
+the pitch, and, shall we add, to display their wonderful frocks. The
+enclosure at Ascot on Cup Day is not so gay and pretty a scene as this.
+The Caterpillar, sly dog, has secured Iris Warde, and looks uncommonly
+pleased with himself and his companion; a smart pair, but smart pairs
+are common as gooseberries. It is the year of picture hats and
+Gainsborough dresses.
+
+"England at its best," says Miss Iris.
+
+"And in its best," the Caterpillar replies solemnly.
+
+Iris Warde is as keen as her father's daughter ought to be. She tells
+the Caterpillar that when she was a small girl with only threepence a
+week pocket-money, she used to save a penny a week for twelve weeks
+preceding the match, so as to be able to put a shilling into the plate
+on Sunday _if Harrow won_.
+
+"And I dare say you'll marry an Etonian and wear light blue after all,"
+growls the Caterpillar.
+
+"Never!" says Miss Iris.
+
+Now, amongst the black coats in the pavilion you see a white figure or
+two. The Elevens have finished lunch, and are mixing with the crowd.
+Scaife is talking with a famous Old Carthusian, one of the finest living
+exponents of cricket, sometime an "International" at football, and a
+D.S.O. The great man is very cordial, for he sees in Scaife an
+All-England player. Scaife listens, smiling. Obviously, he is impatient
+to begin again. As soon as possible he collects his men, and leads them
+into the field. One can hear the policemen saying in loud, firm voices,
+"Pass along, please; pass along!" As if by magic the crowds on the lawn
+melt away. In a few minutes the Etonians come out of the pavilion. The
+sun shines upon their pale-blue caps and sashes, and upon faces slightly
+pale also, but not yet blue. For Eton has a strong batting team, and
+Scaife and Desmond have proved that it is a batsman's wicket.
+
+And now the connoisseurs, the really great players, settle themselves
+down comfortably to watch Scaife field. That, to them, is the great
+attraction, apart from the contest between the rival schools. Some of
+these Olympians have been heard to say that Scaife's innings against
+weak bowling was no very meritorious performance, although the two
+"swipes," they admit, were parlous knocks. Still, Public School cricket
+is kindergarten cricket, and if you've not been at Eton or Harrow, and
+if you loathe a fashionable crowd, and if you think first-class fielding
+is worth coming to Lord's to see, why, then, my dear fellow, look at
+Scaife!
+
+Scaife stands at cover-point. If you put up your binoculars, you will
+see that he is almost on his toes. His heels are not touching the
+ground. And he bends slightly, not quite as low as a sprinter, but so
+low that he can start with amazing speed. For two overs not a ball worth
+fielding rolls his way. Ah! that will be punished. A long hop comes down
+the pitch. The Etonian squares his shoulders. His eye, to be sure, is on
+the ball, but in his mind's eye is the boundary; in his ear the first
+burst of applause. Bat meets ball with a smack which echoes from the
+Tennis Court to the stands across the ground. Now watch Scaife! He
+dashes at top speed for the only point where his hands may intercept
+that hard-hit ball. And, by Heaven! he stops it, and flicks it up to the
+wicket-keeper, who whips off the bails.
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Not out!"
+
+"Well fielded; well fielded, sir!"
+
+"A very close squeak," says the Caterpillar. "They won't steal many runs
+from the Demon."
+
+"Sometimes," says Iris Warde, "I really think that he _is_ a demon."
+
+The Caterpillar nods. "You're more than half right, Miss Warde."
+
+Presently, the first wicket falls; then the second soon after. And the
+score is under twenty. The Rev. Septimus is beaming; the Bishop seated
+beside him looks as if he were about to pronounce a benediction; Charles
+Desmond is scintillating with wit and good humour. Visions of a single
+innings victory engross the minds of these three. They are in the front
+row of the pavilion, and they mean to see every ball of the game.
+
+But soon it becomes evident that a determined stand is being made. Runs
+come slowly, but they come; the score creeps up--thirty, forty, fifty.
+Fluff goes on to bowl. On his day Fluff is tricky, but this, apparently,
+is not his day. The runs come more quickly. The Rev. Septimus removes
+his hat, wipes his forehead, and replaces his hat. It is on the back of
+his head, but he is unaware of that. The Bishop appears now as if he
+were reading a new commination--to wit, "Cursed is he that smiteth his
+neighbour; cursed is he that bowleth half volleys." The Minister is
+frowning; things may look black in South Africa, but they're looking
+blacker in St. John's Wood.
+
+One hundred runs for two wickets.
+
+The Eton cheers are becoming exasperating. A few seats away Warde is
+twiddling his thumbs and biting his lips. Old Lord Fawley has slipped
+into the pavilion for a brandy and soda.
+
+At last!
+
+Scaife takes off Fluff and puts on a fast bowler, changing his own place
+in the field to short slip. The ball, a first ball and very fast,
+puzzles the batsman, accustomed to slows. He mistimes it; it grazes the
+edge of his bat, and whizzes off far to the right of Scaife, but the
+Demon has it. Somehow or other, ask of the spirits of the air--not of
+the writer--somehow his wonderful right hand has met and held the ball.
+
+"Well caught, sir; well caught!"
+
+"That boy ought to be knighted on the spot," says Charles Desmond. Then
+the three generously applaud the retiring batsman. He has played a
+brilliant innings, and restored the confidence of all Etonians.
+
+The Eton captain descends the steps; a veteran this, not a dashing
+player, but sure, patient, and full of grit. He asks the umpire to give
+him middle and leg; then he notes the positions of the field.
+
+"Whew-w-w-w!"
+
+"D----n it!" ejaculates Charles Desmond. Bishop and parson regard him
+with gratitude. There are times when an honest oath becomes expedient.
+The Eton captain has cut the first ball into Fluff's hands, and Fluff
+has dropped it! Alastair Kinloch, from the top of the Trent coach,
+screams out, "Jolly well muffed!" The great Minister silently thanks
+Heaven that point is the Duke's son and not his.
+
+And, of course, the Eton captain never gives another chance till he is
+dismissed with half a century to his credit. Meantime five more wickets
+have fallen. Seven down for 191! Eton leaves the field with a score of
+226 against Harrow's 289. Harrow goes in without delay, and one wicket
+is taken for 13 runs before the stumps are drawn. Charles Desmond looks
+at the sky.
+
+"Looks like rain to-night," he says anxiously.
+
+And so ends Friday's play.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The morrow dawned grey, obscured by mist rising from ground soaked by
+two hours' heavy rain. You may be sure that all our friends were early
+at Lord's, and that the pitch was examined by thousands of anxious eyes.
+The Eton fast bowler was seen to smile. Upon a similar wicket had he not
+done the famous hat-trick only three weeks before? The rain, however,
+was over, and soon the sun would drive away the filmy mists. No man
+alive could foretell what condition the pitch would be in after a few
+hours of blazing sunshine. The Rev. Septimus told Charles Desmond that
+he considered the situation to be critical, and, although he had read
+the morning paper, he was not alluding even indirectly to South African
+affairs. Charles Desmond said that, other things being equal, the Hill
+would triumph; but he admitted that other things were very far from
+equal. It looked as if Harrow would have to bat upon a treacherous
+wicket, and Eton on a sound one.
+
+At half-past ten punctually the men were in the field. Scaife issued
+last instructions. "Block the bowling; don't try to score till you see
+what tricks the ground will play. A minute saved now may mean a quarter
+of an hour to us later." C�sar nodded cheerfully. The fact that the luck
+had changed stimulated every fibre of his being. And he said that he
+felt in his bones that this was going to be a famous match, like that of
+'85--something never to be forgotten.
+
+Charles Desmond spoke few words while his son was batting. It was a
+tradition among the Desmonds that they rose superior to emergency. The
+Minister wondered whether his Harry would rise or fall. The fast bowler
+delivered the first ball. It bumped horribly. The Rev. Septimus
+shuddered and closed his eyes. C�sar got well over it. The third ball
+was cut for three. The fourth whizzed down--a wide. The fast bowler
+dipped the ball into the sawdust.
+
+"It isn't all jam for him," whispered the Rev. Septimus.
+
+"Well bowled--well bowled!"
+
+Alas! the middle stump was knocked clean out of the ground. C�sar's
+partner, a steady, careful player, had been bowled by his first ball.
+
+Two wickets for 17.
+
+The crowd were expecting the hero, but Fluff was walking towards the
+wickets, wondering whether he should reach them alive. Never had his
+heart beat as at this moment. Scaife had come up to him as soon as he
+had examined the pitch.
+
+"Fluff, I am putting you in early because you are a fellow I can trust.
+My first and last word is, hit at nothing that isn't wide of the wicket.
+The ground will probably improve fast."
+
+Fluff nodded. A hive of bees seemed to have lodged in his head, and an
+active automatic hammer in his heart; but he didn't dare tell the Demon
+that funk, abject funk, possessed him, body and soul.
+
+The second bowler began his first over. He bowled slows. Desmond played
+the six balls back along the ground. A maiden over.
+
+And then that thick-set, muscular beast, for so Fluff regarded him,
+stared fixedly at Fluff's middle stump. Fluff glanced round. The
+wicket-keeper had a grim smile on his lips, for his billet was no easy
+one. Cosmo Kinloch at short slip looked as if it were a foregone
+conclusion that Fluff would put the ball into his hands. Then Fluff
+faced the bowler. Now for it!
+
+The first ball was half a foot off the wicket, but Fluff let it go by.
+The second came true enough. Fluff blocked it. The third flew past
+Fluff's leg, but he just snicked it. Desmond started to run, and then
+stopped, holding up his hand. Cheers rippled round the ring for the
+first hit to the boundary. That was a bit of sheer luck, Fluff
+reflected.
+
+After this both boys played steadily for some ten minutes. Then, very
+slowly, C�sar began to score. He had made about fifteen when he drove a
+ball hard to the on, Fluff backing up. Desmond, watching the travelling
+ball, called to him to run. It seemed to Desmond almost certain that the
+ball would go to the boundary. Too late he realized that it had been
+magnificently fielded. Desmond strained every nerve, but his bat had not
+reached the crease when the bails flew to right and left.
+
+Out! And run out!
+
+Three wickets for 41!
+
+A quarter of an hour later Fluff was bowled with a yorker. He had made
+eleven runs, and kept up his wicket during a crisis. Harrow cheered him
+loudly.
+
+And then came the terrible moment of the morning. Scaife went in when
+Fluff's wicket fell. The ground had improved, but it was still
+treacherous. The fast bowler sent down a straight one. It shot under
+Scaife's bat and spread-eagled his stumps.
+
+The wicket-keeper knows what the Harrow captain said, but it does not
+bear repeating. Every eye was on his scowling, furious face as he
+returned to the pavilion; and the Rev. Septimus scowled also, because he
+had always maintained that any Harrovian could accept defeat like a
+gentleman. Upon the other side of the ground the Caterpillar was saying
+to his father. "I always said he was hairy at the heel."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was admitted afterwards that the Duffer's performance was the one
+really bright spot in Harrow's second innings. Being a bowler, he went
+in last but one. It happened that Fluff's brother was in possession of
+the ball. It will never be known why the Duffer chose to treat Cosmo
+Kinloch's balk with utter scorn and contempt. The Duffer was tall,
+strong, and a terrific slogger. Nobody expected him to make a run, but
+he made twenty in one over--all boundary hits. When he left the wicket
+he had added thirty-eight to the score, and wouldn't have changed places
+with an emperor. The Rev. Septimus followed him into the room where the
+players change.
+
+"My dear boy," he said, "I've never been able to give you a gold watch,
+but you must take mine; here it is, and--and God bless you!"
+
+But the Duffer swore stoutly that he preferred his own Waterbury.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Eton went in to make 211 runs in four hours, upon a wicket almost as
+sound as it had been upon the Friday. Scaife put the Duffer on to bowl.
+The Demon had belief in luck.
+
+"It's your day, Duffer," he said. "Pitch 'em up."
+
+The Duffer, to his sire's exuberant satisfaction, "pitched 'em up" so
+successfully that he took four wickets for 33. Four out of five! The
+other bowlers, however, being not so successful, Eton accumulated a
+hundred runs. The captains had agreed to draw stumps at 7.30. To win,
+therefore, the Plain must make another hundred in two hours; and three
+of their crack batsmen were out.
+
+After tea an amazing change took place in the temper of the spectators.
+Conviction seized them that the finish was likely to be close and
+thrilling; that the one thing worth undivided attention was taking place
+in the middle of the ground. As the minutes passed, a curious silence
+fell upon the crowd, broken only by the cheers of the rival schools. The
+boys, old and young alike, were watching every ball, every stroke. The
+Eton captain was still in, playing steadily, not brilliantly; the Harrow
+bowling was getting slack.
+
+In the pavilion, the Rev. Septimus, Warde, and Charles Desmond were
+sitting together. Not far from them was Scaife's father, a big, burly
+man with a square head and heavy, strongly-marked features. He had never
+been a cricketer, but this game gripped him. He sat next to a
+world-famous financier of the great house of Neuchatel, whose sons had
+been sent to the Hill. Run after run, run after run was added to the
+score. Scaife's father turned to Neuchatel.
+
+"I'd write a cheque for ten thousand pounds," he said, "if we could
+win."
+
+Lionel Neuchatel nodded. "Yes," he muttered; "I have not felt so excited
+since Sir Bevis won the Derby."
+
+In the deep field Desmond was standing, miserable because he had nothing
+to do. No balls came his way; for the Eton captain had made up his mind
+to win this match with singles and twos. Very carefully he placed his
+balls between the fielders; very carefully his partner followed his
+chief's example. No stealing of runs, no scoring off straight balls, no
+gallery play--till victory was assured.
+
+Poor Lord Fawley retired at this point into an inner room, pulling
+savagely at his white beard. Old Lyburn, who had been sitting beside
+him, gurgling and gasping, staggered after him. The Rev. Septimus kept
+wiping his forehead.
+
+"I can't stand this much longer," said Warde, in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"Well hit, sir! Well hit!"
+
+The Eton cheering became frantic. After nearly an hour's pawky,
+uninteresting play, the Eton captain suddenly changed his tactics. His
+"eye" was in; now or never let him score. A half-volley came down from
+the pavilion end--a half-volley and off the wicket. The Etonian put all
+the strength and power he had suppressed so manfully into a tremendous
+swipe, and hit the ball clean over the ropes.
+
+"Do you want to double that bet?" said Strathpeffer to the Caterpillar.
+They were standing on the top of the Trent coach.
+
+"No, thanks."
+
+"Give you two to one, Egerton?"
+
+"Done--in fivers."
+
+The unhappy bowler sent down another half-volley. Once more the Etonian
+smote, and smote hard; but this ball was not quite the same as the
+first, although it appeared identical. The ball soared up and up. Would
+it fall over the ropes? Thousands of eyes watched its flight. Desmond
+started to run. Golconda to a sixpence on the fall! It is falling,
+falling, falling.
+
+"He'll never get there in time," says Charles Desmond.
+
+"Yes he will," Warde answers savagely.
+
+"He has!" screamed the Rev. Septimus. "He--_has_!"
+
+Pandemonium broke loose. Grey-headed men threw their hats into the air;
+M.P.'s danced; lovely women shrieked; every Harrovian on the ground
+howled. For C�sar held the ball fast in his lean, brown hands.
+
+The Eton captain walks slowly towards the pavilion. He had to pass C�sar
+on his way, and passing him he pauses.
+
+"That was a glorious catch," he says, with the smile of a gallant
+gentleman.
+
+And as Harrow, as cordially as Eton, cheers the retiring chieftain, the
+Caterpillar whispers to Mrs. Verney--
+
+"Did you see that? Did you see him stop to congratulate C�sar?"
+
+"Yes," says Mrs. Verney.
+
+"I hope Scaife saw it too," the Caterpillar replies coolly. "That Eton
+captain is cut out of whole cloth; no shoddy there, by Jove!"
+
+And Desmond. How does Desmond feel? It is futile to ask him, because he
+could not tell you, if he tried. But we can answer the question. If the
+country that he wishes to serve crowns him with all the honours bestowed
+upon a favoured son, never, _never_ will C�sar Desmond know again a
+moment of such exquisite, unadulterated joy as this.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Six wickets down and 39 runs to get in less than half an hour!
+
+Every ball now, every stroke, is a matter for cheers, derisive or
+otherwise. The Rev. Septimus need not prate of golden days gone by. Boys
+at heart never change. And the atmosphere is so charged with electricity
+that a spark sets the firmament ablaze.
+
+_Seven wickets for 192._
+
+_Eight wickets for 197._
+
+Signs of demoralization show themselves on both sides. The bowling has
+become deplorably feeble, the batting even more so. Four more singles
+are recorded. Only ten runs remain to be made, with two wickets to fall.
+
+And twelve minutes to play!
+
+Scaife puts on the Duffer again. The lips of the Rev. Sep are seen to
+move inaudibly. Is he praying, or cursing, because three singles are
+scored off his son's first three balls?
+
+"Well bowled--well bowled!"
+
+A ball of fair length, easy enough to play under all ordinary
+circumstances, but a "teaser" when tremendous issues are at stake, has
+defeated one of the Etonians. The last man runs towards the pitch
+through a perfect hurricane of howls. Warde rises.
+
+"I can't stand it," he says, and his voice shakes oddly. "You fellows
+will find me behind the Pavvy after the match."
+
+"I'd go with you," says the Rev. Septimus, in a choked tone, "but if I
+tried to walk I should tumble down."
+
+Charles Desmond says nothing. But, pray note the expression so
+faithfully recorded in _Punch_--the compressed lips, the stern, frowning
+brows, the protruded jaw. The famous debater sees all fights to a
+finish, and fights himself till he drops.
+
+_Seven runs to make, one wicket to fall, and five minutes to play!!!_
+
+Evidently the last man in has received strenuous instructions from his
+chief. The bowling has degenerated into that of an�mic girls--and two
+whacks to the boundary mean--Victory. The new-comer is the square,
+thick-set fast bowler, the worst bat in the Eleven, but a fellow of
+determination, a slogger and a run-getter against village teams.
+
+He obeys instructions to the letter. The Duffer's fifth ball goes to the
+boundary.
+
+Three runs to make and two and a half minutes to play!
+
+The Duffer sends down the last ball. The Rev. Septimus covers his eyes.
+O wretched Duffer! O thou whose knees are as wax, and whose arms are as
+chop-sticks in the hands of a Griffin! O egregious Duff! O degenerate
+son of a noble sire, dost thou dare at such a moment as this to attack
+thine enemy with a--long hop?
+
+The square, thick-set bowler shows his teeth as the ball pitches short.
+Then he smites and runs. Runs, because he has smitten so hard that no
+hand, surely, can stop the whirling sphere. Runs--ay--and so does the
+Demon at cover point. This is the Demon's amazing conjuring-trick--what
+else can you call it? And he has practised it so often, that he reckons
+failure to be almost impossible. To those watching he seems to spring
+like a tiger at the ball. By Heaven! he has stopped it--he's snapped it
+up! But if he despatches it to the wicket-keeper, it will arrive too
+late. The other Etonian is already within a couple of yards of the
+crease. Scaife does not hesitate. He aims at the bowler's wicket towards
+which the burly one is running as fast as legs a thought too short can
+carry him.
+
+He aims and shies--instantaneously. He shatters the wicket.
+
+"How's that?"
+
+The appeal comes from every part of the ground.
+
+And then, clearly and unmistakably, the umpire's fiat is spoken--
+
+"Out!"
+
+The Rev. Sep rises and rushes off, upsetting chairs, treading on toes,
+bent only upon being the first to tell Warde that Harrow has won.
+
+"_Io! Io! Io!_"
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[36] The blue of the Harrow colours.
+
+[37] Lamper, _i.e._ Lamp-post.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+_"If I perish, I perish"_
+
+    "Since we deserved the name of friends,
+      And thine effect so lives in me,
+      A part of mine may live in thee
+    And move thee on to noble ends."
+
+
+The cheering at Bill upon the following Tuesday must be recorded,
+inasmuch as it has, indirectly, bearing upon our story. It will be
+guessed that the enthusiasm, the uproar, the tumultuous excitement were
+even greater than on a similar occasion some fifteen years before. But,
+to his amazement, Desmond, not Scaife, was made the particular hero of
+the hour. Scaife's display of temper festered in the hearts of boys who
+can forgive anything sooner than low breeding. The Hill had seen the
+Etonian stop to speak his cheery word of congratulation to C�sar, and
+not the Caterpillar alone, but urchins of thirteen had made comparisons.
+
+Scaife, however, could not complain of his reception upon that memorable
+Tuesday afternoon; the cheering must have been heard a mile away. But
+Desmond was acclaimed differently. The cheers were no louder--that was
+impossible--but afterwards, when the excitement had simmered down, C�sar
+became the object of a special demonstration by the Monitors and Sixth
+Form. Nearly every boy of note in the Upper School insisted upon shaking
+his hand or patting him on the back. Scaife came up with the others, but
+he left the Yard almost immediately and retired to his room. He had won
+the great match; Desmond had saved it; and the School apprehended the
+subtle difference. More, Scaife knew that John had gone up to Desmond
+with outstretched hands after the match at Lord's. He could hear John's
+eager voice, see the flame of admiration in his eyes, as he said, "Oh,
+C�sar, I am glad it was you who made that catch!" And with those
+generous words, with that warm clasp of the hand, Scaife had seen the
+barrier which he had built between the friends dissolve like ice in the
+dog-days.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The attention of the Manor was now fixed upon the house matches. It
+seemed probable that with four members of the School Eleven in the team,
+the ancient house must prove invincible. But to John's surprise, as this
+delightful probability ripened into conviction, Warde betrayed unwonted
+anxiety and even irritability. Miss Iris confided to Desmond, who paid
+her much court, that she couldn't imagine what was the matter with papa.
+And mamma, it transpired (from the same source), really feared that the
+strain at Lord's had been too much, that her indefatigable husband was
+about to break down. Finally, John made up his mind to ask a question.
+He was second in command; he had a right to ask the chief if anything
+were seriously amiss. Accordingly, he waited upon Warde after prayers.
+
+But when he put his question, and expressed, modestly enough, his
+anxiety and desire to help if he could, Warde bit his lips. Then he
+burst out violently--
+
+"I am miserable, Verney."
+
+John said nothing. His tutor rose and began to pace up and down the
+study; then, halting, facing John, he spoke quickly, with restless
+gestures indicating volcanic disturbance.
+
+"I'm between the devil and the deep sea," he said, "as many a better man
+has been before me. I thought I'd wiped out the grosser evils in the
+Manor, but I haven't--I haven't. Do you know that a fellow in this
+house, perhaps two of 'em, but one at any rate, is getting out at night
+and going up to town? You needn't answer, Verney. If you do know it, you
+are powerless to prevent it, or it wouldn't occur."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+"I can only guess who it is. I am not certain. And to make certain, I
+must play the spy, creep and crawl, do what I loathe to do--suspect the
+innocent together with the guilty. It's almost breaking my heart."
+
+"I can understand that, sir, after what you have done for us."
+
+Warde smiled grimly. "I don't think you do quite understand," he said
+slowly. "At this moment I am tempted, tempted as I never have been
+tempted, to let things slide, to shut both eyes and ears, till this term
+is over. Next term"--he laughed harshly--"I shan't stand in such an
+awkward place. The deep sea will always be near me, but the devil--the
+devil will be elsewhere."
+
+John nodded. His serious face expressed neither approval nor disapproval
+to the man keenly watching it. Afterwards Warde remembered this
+impassivity.
+
+"If I do not act"--Warde's voice trembled--"I am damned as a traitor in
+my own eyes."
+
+John had never doubted that his house-master would act. As for creeping
+and crawling, can peaks be scaled without creeping and crawling?
+Never----
+
+"You are not to speak a word of warning," Warde continued vehemently.
+"If you know what I don't know yet, still you cannot speak to me,
+because the sinner in this case is a Sixth-Form boy. You cannot speak to
+me; and you will not speak to him, on your honour?"
+
+There was interrogation in the last sentence. John replied almost
+inaudibly--
+
+"I shall not speak--on my honour!"
+
+"It is hard, hard indeed, that I should have to foul my own nest, but it
+must be so. Good night."
+
+John went back to his room, calm without, terribly agitated within. What
+ruthless spirit had driven him to Warde's study? Yes; at last,
+inexorably, discovery, disgrace, the ineffaceable brand of expulsion,
+impended over the head of his enemy, to whom he was pledged to utter no
+word of warning. Like Warde, he did not know absolutely, but he guessed
+that Scaife had spent another riotous night in town since the match. He
+had read it in the eyes glittering with excitement, in the derisive
+smile of conscious power, in the magnetic audacity of Scaife's glance.
+And then he remembered Lawrence's parting words--
+
+"It will be a fight to a finish, and, mark me, Warde will win!"
+
+Two wretched days and nights passed. More than once John spurred himself
+to the point of going to Warde and saying, "Think what you like of me, I
+am going to warn the boy I loathe that you are at his heels." Still,
+always at the last moment he did not go. Some power seemed to restrain
+him. But when he tried to analyse his feelings, he confessed himself
+muddled. He had obtained, nay, invited, Warde's confidence; and he dared
+not abuse it. It was a time of anguish. He was unable to concentrate his
+mind upon work or play, deprived of sleep, haunted by the conviction
+that if Desmond knew all, he would turn from him for ever. Then, at the
+most difficult moment of his life, the way of escape was opened.
+
+Since the match, John and C�sar had resumed the former unrestrained and
+continual intimacy and intercourse. John was in and out of Desmond's
+room, Desmond was in and out of John's room, at all hours. They "found"
+together, of course, but it is not, fortunately, at meals that boys or
+men discuss the things nearest to their hearts. But at night, just
+before lights were turned out, or just after, when an Olympian is
+privileged to work a little longer by the light of the useful "tolly,"
+C�sar and Jonathan would talk freely of past, present, and future. It
+was during these much-valued minutes, or on Sunday afternoons, that John
+would read to his friend the essays or verses which always fired
+Desmond's admiration and enthusiasm. To John's intellectual activities
+C�sar played, so to speak, gallery; even as John upon many an afternoon
+had sat stewing in the covered racquet-court, applauding Desmond's
+service into the corner, or his hot returns just above the line. At
+home, in the holidays, the boys had always met upon the same plane. Of
+the two, John was the better rider and shot. Both were members of the
+Philathletic Club[38] of Harrow, and the fact that Desmond was
+incomparably his superior as an athlete was counterbalanced by John's
+fine intellectual attainments. If John, at times, wished that he could
+cut behind the wicket in C�sar's faultless style, Desmond, on the other
+hand, spoke enviously of the Medal, or the Essay, or some other of
+John's successes. John spoke often and well in the Debating Society,
+getting up his subjects with intelligence and care. So it was
+give-and-take between them, and this adjusted the balance of their
+friendship, and without this no friendship can be pronounced perfect.
+
+None the less, free and delightful as this resumption of the old
+intimacy had been, John knew C�sar too well not to perceive that between
+them lay an unmentionable five weeks, during which something had
+occurred. From signs only too well interpreted before, John guessed that
+C�sar was once more in debt to the Demon. And finally, C�sar confessed
+that he had been betting, that he had won, following Scaife's advice,
+and then had lost. The loss was greater than the gain, and the
+difference, some five and twenty pounds, had been sent to Scaife's
+bookmaker by Scaife. As before, Scaife ridiculed the possibility of such
+a debt causing his pal any uneasiness, but it chafed Desmond consumedly.
+
+Upon the Saturday of the semi-final house match, in which the Manor had
+won a great victory by an innings and twenty-three runs, John went to
+Desmond's room after prayers. He noticed at once that his friend was
+unusually excited. John, however, attributed this to C�sar's big score.
+Success always inflamed C�sar, just as it seemed to tranquillize John.
+John began to talk, but he noticed that C�sar was abstracted, answered
+in monosyllables, and twice looked at his watch.
+
+"Have you an appointment, C�sar?"
+
+"No. What were you saying, Jonathan?"
+
+"You look rather queer to-night."
+
+"Do I?" He laughed nervously.
+
+"You're not bothering over that debt?"
+
+This time C�sar laughed naturally.
+
+"Rather not. Why, that debt----" He stopped.
+
+"Is it paid?" said John.
+
+"It will be. Don't worry!"
+
+But John looked worried. He perceived that C�sar's finely-formed hands
+were trembling, whenever they were still.
+
+"Harry," said he--he never called Desmond Harry except when they were at
+home--"Harry, what's wrong?"
+
+"Why, nothing--nothing, that is, which amounts to anything."
+
+"Harry, you are the worst liar in England. Something is wrong. Can't you
+tell me? You must. I'm hanged if I leave you till you do tell me."
+
+He looked steadily at Desmond. In his clear grey eyes were tiny, dancing
+flecks of golden brown, which Desmond had seen once or twice
+before,--which came whenever John was profoundly moved. The dancing
+flecks transformed themselves in Desmond's fancy into sprites, the airy
+creatures of John's will, imposing John's wishes and commands.
+
+"Scaife said I might tell you, if I liked."
+
+"Scaife?" John drew in his breath. "Then Scaife wanted you to tell me; I
+am sure of that." He felt his way by the dim light of smouldering
+suspicion. If Scaife wanted John to know anything, it was because such
+knowledge must prove pain, not pleasure. John did not say this. Then,
+very abruptly, Desmond continued. "You swear that what I'm about to tell
+you will be regarded as sacred?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is a matter which concerns Scaife and me, not you. You won't
+interfere?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I'm going to London."
+
+"_What?_"
+
+"Don't look at me like that, you silly old ass! It's not--not what you
+think," he laughed nervously. "I have bet Scaife twenty-five pounds, the
+amount of my debt in fact, that the bill-of-fare of to-night's supper at
+the Carlton Hotel will be handed to him after Chapel to-morrow morning.
+I bike up to town, and bike back. If I don't go this Saturday, I have
+one more chance before the term is over. That's all."
+
+"That's all," repeated John, stupefied.
+
+"If you can show me an easier way to make a 'pony,' I'll be obliged to
+you."
+
+"Scaife egged you on to this piece of folly?"
+
+"No, he didn't."
+
+"You may as well make a clean breast of it."
+
+Bit by bit John extracted the facts. Behind them, of course, stood
+Scaife, loving evil for evil's sake, planting evil, gleaning evil,
+deliberately setting about the devil's work. Desmond, it appeared, had
+persuaded Scaife not to go to town till the Lord's match was over. Since
+the match Scaife had spent two nights in London, whetting an inordinate
+appetite for forbidden fruit; exciting in Desmond also, not an appetite
+for the fruit itself, but for the mad excitement of a perilous
+adventure. Then, when the thoughtless "I'd like a lark of that sort" had
+been spoken, came the derisive answer, "You haven't the nerve for it."
+And then again the subtle leading of an ardent and self-willed nature
+into the morass, Scaife pretending to dissuade a friend, entreating him
+to consider the risk, urging him to go to bed, as if he were a
+headstrong child. And finally Desmond's challenge, "Bet you I have the
+nerve," and its acceptance, protestingly, by the other, and permission
+given that John should be told.
+
+"And it's to-night?"
+
+"I mean to have that bill-of-fare. Do you think I'd back out now?"
+
+In his mind's eye, our poor John was gazing down a long lane with no
+turning at the end of it. Could he make his friend believe that Scaife
+had brought this thing to pass from no other motive than wishing to hurt
+mortally an enemy by the hand of a friend? No, never would such an
+ingenuous youth as C�sar accept, or even listen to, such an abominable
+explanation.
+
+"Good night," said John.
+
+"I see you're rather sick with me, Jonathan. Remember, you made me
+speak. To-morrow morning we'll have a good laugh over it. We'll walk to
+the Haunted House, and I'll tell my tale. I shall be on my way in less
+than an hour."
+
+John went back to his room. The necessity for silence and thought had
+become imperative. What could he do? It was certain that Warde was
+waiting and watching. He had inexhaustible patience. Desmond, not the
+Demon, would be caught and expelled. John returned to Desmond's room.
+
+"You've told me so much," he said; "tell me a little more. How are you
+going to do it?"
+
+"To do what?"
+
+"Get out of the house? Get a bike--and all that?"
+
+"Easy. Lovell went out that way, and others. You jump from the sill of
+the first landing window into the horse-chestnut. One must be able to
+jump, of course; but I can jump. Then you shin down the tree, nip
+through the shrubbery, and over the locked wicket-gate."
+
+"Yes," John said slowly, "over the gate."
+
+"I borrowed a bike from one of the Cycle Corps, and have ridden it in
+the garden, in a bush to the right of the gate."
+
+John nodded.
+
+"It's moonlight after ten; I shall enjoy the ride immensely."
+
+"You will try to get back into the house at night?"
+
+"Too dangerous. Lovell did it; but the Demon marches in boldly just
+before Chapel. He may have slipped out on half a dozen errands as soon
+as the door is opened in the morning. I shall sleep under a stack. It's
+a lovely night. Now, old Jonathan, I hope you're satisfied that I'm not
+either the fool or the sinner you took me to be."
+
+"Look here, Harry. If I appeal to you in the name of our friendship; if
+I ask you for my sake and for my mother's sake not to do this thing----"
+
+"Jonathan, I must go. Don't make it harder than it is."
+
+"Then it _is_ hard?"
+
+"I won't whine about that. I courted this adventure, and, by Jove! I'm
+going to see it through. The odds are a hundred to one against my being
+nailed."
+
+"All right; I'll say no more. Good night."
+
+"Good night, old Jonathan."
+
+John went back to his room, waited three minutes, and then, in despair,
+made up his mind to seek Scaife. He felt certain that the Demon's
+extraordinary luck was about to stand between him and expulsion. Desmond
+would be caught red-handed, but not he. John ground his teeth with rage
+at the thought. He found Scaife alone--at work on cricketing accounts.
+
+"Hullo, Verney!"
+
+"C�sar tells me that he is going up to London to-night."
+
+"Oh, he told you that, did he?"
+
+"Yes; you wished him to tell me?"
+
+"Perhaps." Scaife laughed louder.
+
+"You want to prove to me," said John slowly, "that you are the
+stronger?"
+
+"Perhaps." Scaife laughed.
+
+"Well, if I surrender, if I admit that you are the stronger, that you
+have defeated me, won't that be enough?"
+
+"Eh? I don't quite take you."
+
+"You are the stronger." John's voice was very miserable. "I have tried
+to dissuade him, as you knew I should try, and I have failed. Isn't that
+enough? You have your triumph. But now be generous. Turn round and use
+your strength the other way. Make him give up this folly. You don't want
+to see your own pal--sacked?"
+
+"Precious little chance of that!"
+
+"There is the chance."
+
+Scaife hesitated. Did some worthier impulse stir within him? Who can
+tell? His keen eye softened, and then hardened again.
+
+"No," he said quickly. "If I agree to what you propose, it is, after
+all, you who triumph, not I. And I doubt if I could stop him now, even
+if I tried." He laughed again, for the third time, savagely. "You are
+hoist with your own petard, Verney. You wanted to see me sacked; and now
+that there is a chance in a thousand that C�sar will be sacked, you
+squirm. I swore to get my knife into you, and, by God, I've done it."
+
+John went out, very pale. He passed through into the private side, and
+tapped at Warde's study door. Mrs. Warde's voice bade him enter. She
+looked at John's face. Afterwards she testified that he looked
+singularly cool and self-possessed.
+
+"I wish to see Mr. Warde," he said.
+
+"He's dining at the Head Master's."
+
+"Will he be in soon?"
+
+"I--er--don't know. Perhaps not. I wouldn't wait for him, Verney, if I
+were you."
+
+"Thank you," said John. "Good night."
+
+He went back to his room. In Mrs. Warde's eyes he had read--what?
+Excitement? Apprehension? Suddenly, conviction came to him that this
+dinner at the Head Master's was a blind. Why, during that very
+afternoon, Warde had mentioned casually to Scaife that he was dining
+out. He had deliberately informed the Demon that the coast was clear.
+And at this moment, probably, Warde lay concealed near the chestnut
+tree, waiting, watching, about to pounce upon the--wrong man!
+
+The temptation to cry "_Cave!_" tore at his vitals. Till this moment the
+tyranny of honour had never oppressed John. Having resolved to tell
+Warde that he meant to break his word, it may seem inexplicable that he
+shouldn't go a step further and break his word without warning the
+house-master. Upon such nice points of conscience hang issues of
+world-wide importance. To John, at any rate, the difference between the
+two paths out of a tangled wood was greater than it might appear to some
+of us. Warde had trusted him implicitly: could he bring himself to
+violate Warde's confidence without giving the man notice?
+
+However, what he might have done under pressure must remain a matter of
+surmise. At this moment a third path became visible. And down it John
+rushed, without consideration as to where it might lead. The one thing
+plain at this crisis was the certainty that he had discovered a plan of
+action which would save two things he valued supremely--his friendship
+for C�sar and his word of honour.
+
+Here we are to liberty to speculate what John would have done had he
+considered dispassionately the consequences of an action to be
+accomplished at once or not at all. But he had not time to consider
+anything except the fact that action would put to rout some very
+tormenting thoughts.
+
+He crumpled his bed, disarranged his room, and put on a cap and a thin
+overcoat, as all lights in the boys' side of the Manor were
+extinguished. Then he stole out of his room, and crept to the window at
+the end of the passage. A moment later, he had squeezed through it, and
+was standing upon the sill outside, gazing fearfully at the void
+beneath, and the distance between the sill and the branch in front of
+him. Afterwards, he confessed that this moment was the most difficult.
+He was an active boy, but he had never jumped such a chasm. If he
+missed the bough----
+
+To hesitate meant shameful retreat. John felt the sweat break upon him;
+craven fear clutched his heart-strings, and set them a-jangling.
+
+He jumped.
+
+The ease with which he caught the branch was such a physical relief that
+he almost forgot his errand. He slid quietly down the tree, pausing as
+he reached the bottom of it. The moon was just rising above the horizon,
+but under the trees the darkness was Stygian. John pushed quietly
+through the shrubberies, treading as lightly as possible. Every moment
+he expected to see the flash of a lantern, to hear Warde's voice, to
+feel an arresting hand upon the shoulder. It was quite impossible to
+guess with any reasonable accuracy what part of the garden Warde had
+selected for a hiding-place. Very soon he reached the edge of the
+shrubbery, and gazed keenly into the moonlit, park-like meadow below
+him. Peer as he might, he could see no trace of Warde. A dozen trees
+might conceal him. Perhaps with the omniscience of the house-master, he
+had divined that the wicket-gate was the ultimate place of egress.
+Perhaps the wicket had been used for a similar purpose when Warde
+himself was a boy at the Manor. It was vital to John's plan that Warde
+should see him without recognizing him, and give chase. The chase would
+end in capture at some point as reasonably far from the Manor as
+possible. Warde might ask for explanations, but none would be
+forthcoming till the morrow. Meantime, the coast would be clear for
+Desmond. John, in fine, was playing the part of a pilot-engine.
+
+But where was Warde?
+
+The question answered itself within a minute, and after a fashion
+absolutely unforeseen. As John was crossing from the shrubbery to the
+wicket he looked back. To his horror, he saw lights in the boys' side,
+light in the window of Scaife's room. Instantly John divined what had
+come to pass, and cursed himself for a fool. Warde, from some coign of
+vantage, had seen a boy leave his house. Why should he try to arrest the
+boy? why should he risk the humiliation of running after him, and,
+perhaps, failing to capture him? No, no; men forty were not likely to
+work in that boyish fashion. Warde had adopted an infinitely better
+plan. Assured that a boy had left the house, he had nothing to do but
+walk round the rooms and find out which one was absent. He had begun
+with Scaife. Next to Scaife was the room belonging to the Head of the
+House; then came John's room, and then C�sar's. Long before Warde
+reached C�sar's room, C�sar would have heard him. C�sar, at any rate,
+was saved. John crept back under cover of the shrubberies. He saw the
+light flicker out of Scaife's window, and shine more steadily in the
+next room. The window of this room was open, and John could hear the
+voice of Warde and the Head of the House. John waited. And then the
+light shone in Desmond's room. John crouched against the wall,
+trembling. If C�sar had not heard the voices, if he were fully dressed,
+if---- Suddenly he caught Warde's reassuring words: "Ah, Desmond, sorry
+to disturb you. Good night."
+
+John waited. Very soon Scaife would come to Desmond's room. Ah! Just so.
+The night was so still that he could hear quite plainly the boys'
+muffled voices.
+
+"What's up?"
+
+"Warde is going his rounds. Perhaps he smells a rat."
+
+And then whispers! John strained his ears. Only a word or two more
+reached him. "Verney---- D----d interfering sneak! Let's see!" It was
+Scaife who was speaking.
+
+John heard his own door opened and shut. Scaife, then, had discovered
+his absence, and naturally leaped to the conclusion that he had warned
+Warde. Let him think so! The boys were still whispering together. "Not
+to-night," Scaife said decisively. "No, no," Desmond replied.
+
+John wondered what remained to be done. Warde, of course, would satisfy
+himself that no boy in his house was missing except John, before he
+pronounced him the absentee. Poor Warde! This would be a hard knock for
+him. John's thoughts were jostling each other freely, when he recalled
+Desmond's words: "I have one more chance before the term is over." He
+had wished to clear the way for his friend, not to block it. Then he
+remembered the terms of the bet, and laughed.
+
+He ran back to the wicket, found the bicycle, lit the lamp, and hoisted
+the machine over the gate. Then he laughed again. After all, this
+escaping from bondage, this midnight adventure beneath the impending
+sword of expulsion, thrilled him to the marrow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When John returned on Sunday to the Manor, shortly after the doors were
+unlocked in the morning, he found Dumbleton awaiting him. Dumber's face
+expressed such amazement and consternation that John nearly laughed in
+spite of himself.
+
+"It's all hup, sir," said the butler. Only in moments of intense
+excitement did Dumber misplace or leave out the aspirate. "You're to
+come with me at once to Mr. Warde's study."
+
+John followed the butler into the familiar room. Warde was not down yet,
+but evidently Dumber had instructions not to leave the prisoner. John
+stared at the writing-desk. Then he turned to Dumbleton, and said
+carelessly--
+
+"This means the sack, eh, Dumber?"
+
+"Yes, sir. 'Ow could you do it, sir? Such a well-be'aved gentleman,
+too!"
+
+"Thank you, Dumber." John took an envelope from the desk, and wrote
+Scaife's name upon it.
+
+"Dumber, please give Mr. Scaife this--with my compliments. It is, as you
+see, a bill of fare."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+John placed the card into the envelope and handed both to Dumbleton.
+
+"With my compliments!"
+
+"Certainly, sir."
+
+"And _after_ Chapel."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+A moment later Warde came in. Dumbleton went out immediately with a
+sorrowful, backward glance at John. The good fellow looked terribly
+bewildered. For John's face, John's deportment, had amazed him. John was
+quite unaware of it, but he looked astonishingly well. Excitement had
+flushed his cheek and lent a sparkle to his grey eyes. He had enjoyed
+his ride to town and back; he had slept soundly under the lee of a
+haystack; and he had washed his face and hands in the horse-trough at
+the foot of Sudbury Hill. And the certainty that Desmond was safe, that
+in the end he, John, had triumphed over Scaife, filled his soul with
+joy. Warde, on the other hand, looked wretched; he had passed a
+sleepless night; he was pale, haggard, gaunt.
+
+"What have you to say, Verney?"
+
+"Nothing, sir."
+
+"Nothing." Warde clenched his hands, and burst into speech, letting all
+that he had suffered and suppressed escape in tumultuous words and
+gestures. "Nothing. You dare to stand there and say--nothing. That you
+should have done this thing! Why, it's incredible! And I who trusted
+you. And you listened to me with a face like brass, laughing in your
+sleeve, no doubt, at the fool who betrayed himself. And you came here,
+so my wife tells me, to see if I was out of the way, if the coast was
+clear. And you were cool as a cucumber. Oh, you hypocrite, you damnable
+hypocrite! I have to see you now, but never again will I look willingly
+upon your face, never! Well, this wretched business must be ended. You
+got out of my house last night. You heard I was dining with the Head
+Master. I returned early, and I saw you jump from the passage window.
+You don't deny that you went up to London, I suppose?"
+
+"No, sir; I don't deny it."
+
+At the moment John, quite unconsciously, looked as if he were glorying
+in what he had done. Warde could have struck his clean, clear face,
+unblushingly meeting his furious glance. In disgust, he turned his back
+and walked to the window. John felt rather than saw that his tutor was
+profoundly moved. When he turned, two tears were trickling down his
+cheeks. The sight of them nearly undid John. When Warde spoke again, his
+voice was choked by his emotion.
+
+"Verney," he said, "I spoke just now in an unrestrained manner, because
+you--you"--his voice trembled--"have shaken my faith in all I hold most
+dear. I say to you--I say to you that I believed in you as I believe in
+my wife. Even now I feel that somehow there is a mistake--that you are
+not what you confess yourself to be--a brazen-faced humbug. You have
+worked as I have worked for this House, and in one moment you undo that
+work. Have you paused to think, what effect this will have upon the
+others?"
+
+"Not yet, sir."
+
+John looked respectfully sympathetic. Poor Warde! This was rough indeed
+upon him.
+
+Suddenly the door was flung open, and Desmond burst into the room, with
+a complete disregard of the customary proprieties, and rushed up to
+Warde.
+
+"Sir," he said vehemently, "Verney did this to save--_me_!"
+
+Warde saw the slow smile break upon John's face. And, seeing it, he came
+as near hysterical laughter as a man of his character and temperament
+can come. He perceived that John, for some amazing reason, had played
+the scape-goat; that, in fact, he was innocent--not a humbug, not a
+hypocrite, not a brazen-faced sinner. And the relief was so stupendous
+that the tutor flung himself back into a chair, gasping. Desmond spoke
+quietly.
+
+"I was going to town, sir. For the first time, I swear. And only to win
+a bet, and for the excitement of jumping out of a window. John tried to
+dissuade me. When he exhausted every argument, he went himself."
+
+"The Lord be praised!" said Warde. He had divined everything; but he let
+Desmond tell the story in detail. Scaife's name was left out of the
+narrative.
+
+Then Warde said slowly, "I shall not refer this business to the Head
+Master; I shall deal with it myself. For your own sake, Desmond, for the
+sake of your father, and, above all else, for the sake of this House, I
+shall do no more than ask you to promise that, for the rest of your time
+at Harrow, you will endeavour to atone for what has been."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All boys worth their salt are creatures of reserves; let us respect
+them. It is easy to surmise what passed between the friends--the
+gratitude, the self-reproach, the humiliation on one side; the sympathy,
+the encouragement and shy, restrained affection on the other. A
+bitter-sweet moment for John this, revealing, without disguise, the
+weakness of Desmond's character, but illuminating the triumph over
+Scaife, the all-powerful. John had been inhuman if this knowledge had
+not been as spikenard to him.
+
+Chapel over, the boys came pouring back into the house. In a minute the
+fags would be hurrying up with the tea and the jam-pots, asking for
+orders; in a minute Scaife would rush in with questions hot upon his
+lips. John chuckled to himself as he heard Scaife's step.
+
+"Hullo, C�sar! Why did you cut Chapel? And----"
+
+John saw that the Carlton supper-card was in his hand. He chuckled
+again.
+
+"Dumber has just given me--_this_. Did you go, after all?" he asked
+C�sar. They had not met since Warde's visit of the night before.
+
+"I didn't go," said C�sar.
+
+"Dumber gave it to me, with Verney's compliments."
+
+"You've lost your bet," said John.
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Jonathan went to town instead of me," said Desmond. "We thought he was
+with Warde--he wasn't. This morning, early, I found out that he hadn't
+slept in his bed. I saw him come back, and I saw Dumber waiting for him.
+When Dumber came out of Warde's room, he told me that Jonathan had been
+up to town, and was going to be--sacked."
+
+He blurted out the rest of the story, to which Scaife listened
+attentively. When Desmond finished, there was a pause.
+
+"You're devilish clever," said Scaife to John.
+
+"I shall pay up the pony," said Desmond.
+
+"No, you won't," said Scaife. "As for the money, I never cared a hang
+about that. I'm glad--and you ought to know it--that you've won the bet.
+All the same, Verney isn't entitled to all the glory that you give him."
+
+"He is, he is--and more, too."
+
+Scaife laughed. John felt rather uncomfortable. Always Scaife exhibited
+his amazing resource at unexpected moments.
+
+"Never mind," Scaife continued, "I won't burst the pretty bubble. And I
+admit, remember, Verney's cleverness."
+
+He was turning to go, but Desmond clutched his sleeve. When he spoke his
+fair face was scarlet.
+
+"You sneer at the wrong man and at the wrong time," he said angrily,
+"and you talk as though I was a fool. Well, I am a fool, perhaps, and I
+blow bubbles. Prick this one, if you can. I challenge you to do it."
+
+Scaife shrugged his shoulders. "It's so obvious," he said coolly, "that
+your kind friend ran no risks other than a sprained ankle or a cold."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"He was certain that you would come forward. He forced your hand. There
+was never the smallest chance of his being sacked, and he knew it."
+
+"Yes," said John, calmly, "I knew it."
+
+"Just so," said Scaife. He went out whistling.
+
+Desmond had time to whisper to John before the fags called them to
+breakfast in John's room--
+
+"I say, Jonathan, I'm glad you knew that I wouldn't fail you. As the
+Demon says, you are clever; you are a sight cleverer than he is."
+
+John shook his head. "I'm slow," he said. "As a matter of fact, the
+thought that you would come to the rescue never occurred to me till I
+was biking back from town."
+
+"Anyway, you saved me from being sacked, and as long as I live I----"
+
+"Come on to breakfast," said John.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[38] The Philathletic Club deals primarily with all matters which
+concern Harrow games; it is also a social club. Distinguished athletes,
+monitors, and so forth, are eligible for membership. The Head of the
+School is _ex-Officio_ President.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+_Good Night_
+
+    "Good night! Sleep, and so may ever
+      Lights half seen across a murky lea,
+    Child of hope, and courage, and endeavour,
+      Gleam a voiceless benison on thee!
+        Youth be bearer
+          Soon of hardihood;
+        Life be fairer,
+          Loyaller to good;
+    Till the far lamps vanish into light,
+    Rest in the dreamtime. Good night! Good night!"
+
+
+The last Saturday of the summer term saw the Manor cock-house at
+cricket: almost a foregone conclusion, and therefore not particularly
+interesting to outsiders. During the morning Scaife gave his farewell
+"brekker"[39] at the Creameries; a banquet of the Olympians to which
+John received an invitation. He accepted because Desmond made a point of
+his so doing; but he was quite aware that beneath the veneer of the
+Demon's genial smile lay implacable hatred and resentment. The breakfast
+in itself struck John as ostentatious. Scaife's father sent quails, _�
+la Lucullus_, and other delicacies. Throughout the meal the talk was of
+the coming war. At that time most of the Conservative papers pooh-poohed
+the possibility of an appeal to arms, but Scaife's father, admittedly a
+great authority on South African affairs, had told his son a fight was
+inevitable. More, he and his friends were already preparing to raise a
+regiment of mounted infantry. At breakfast Scaife announced this piece
+of news, and added that in the event of hostilities he would join this
+regiment, and not try to pass into Sandhurst. And he added that any of
+his friends who were present, and over eighteen years of age, were
+cordially invited to send in their names, and that he personally would
+do all that was possible to secure them billets. The words were hardly
+out of his mouth, when C�sar Desmond was on his feet, with an eager--
+
+"Put me down, Demon; put me down first!"
+
+And then Scaife glanced at John, as he answered--
+
+"Right you are, C�sar, and if things go well with us, I fancy that we
+shall get our commissions in regular regiments soon enough. The governor
+had had a hint to that effect. Let's drink success to 'Scaife's Horse.'"
+
+The toast was drunk with enthusiasm.
+
+During the holidays, John saw nothing of Desmond, although they wrote to
+each other once a week. John was reading hard with an eye to a possible
+scholarship at Oxford; Desmond was playing cricket with Scaife. Later,
+Desmond went to the Scaife moor in Scotland. John noted that his
+friend's letters were full of two things only: sport, and the
+ever-increasing probability of war. At the end of August John Verney,
+the explorer, returning to Verney Boscobel after an absence of nearly
+four years, began to write his now famous book on the Far East. Then
+John learned from his mother that his uncle had borne all the charges of
+his education. When he thanked him, the uncle said warmly--
+
+"You have more than repaid me, my dear boy; not another word, please,
+about that. Warde tells me they expect great things of you at Oxford."
+
+Uncle and nephew were alone, after dinner. John had noticed that the
+hardships endured in Manchuria and Thibet had left scars upon the
+traveller. His hair was white, he looked an old man; one whose
+wanderings in wild places must perforce come soon to an end.
+
+"Uncle," said John, "I want to chuck Oxford."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"I should like to go into the Army."
+
+"Bless my soul!"
+
+The explorer eyed his nephew with wrinkled brow. John gave reasons; we
+can guess what they were. The prospect of war had set all ardent souls
+afire.
+
+"I must think this over, my boy," the uncle replied presently. "I must
+sleep on it. Have you told your mother?"
+
+"No; I counted upon you to persuade her."
+
+"Um. Now tell me about Lord's! Ah! I'm sorry I missed that match."
+
+Next day, his uncle said nothing of what lay next to John's heart, but
+the pair rode together over the estate. During that ride it became plain
+to the young man that his uncle had no intention of settling down. Once
+or twice, in the driest, most matter-of-fact tone, the elder spoke as if
+his heir were likely to inherit soon. Finally, John blurted out a
+protest--
+
+"But, uncle, you are a strong man. Why do you talk as if--as if----" the
+boy couldn't finish the phrase.
+
+"Tut, tut," said the uncle. "I know what I know"; and he fell into
+silence.
+
+Not till the evening, after Mrs. Verney had gone to bed, did the man of
+many wanderings speak freely.
+
+"John," said he, quietly, "I have a story to tell you. Years ago, your
+father and I fell in love with the same girl. She married the better
+man." He paused to fill a pipe: John saw that his uncle's fingers
+trembled slightly; but his voice was cool, measured, almost monotonous.
+"I made my first expedition to Patagonia. When I came back you were just
+born; and I asked that I might be your godfather. I went to Africa after
+the christening. And six years later your father died. I think he had
+the purest and most unselfish love of the poor and helpless that I have
+ever known. He wore away his life in the service of the outcast and
+forlorn. And before he died, he expressed a wish that you should work as
+he did, for others, but not in precisely the same way. He knew, none
+better, the limitations imposed upon a parson. He prayed that you might
+labour in a field larger than one parish. And I promised him that I
+would do what I could when the time came. It has come--to-night. In my
+opinion, in Warde's opinion, in your dear mother's opinion, Parliament
+is the place for you. You will be sufficiently well off. Take all Oxford
+can give you, and then try for the House of Commons. Charles Desmond
+will make you one of his Private Secretaries. I have spoken to him. You
+have a great career before you."
+
+"But if war breaks out, uncle----"
+
+"War _will_ break out. Don't misunderstand me! If you are wanted out
+there, and the thing is going to be very serious, if you are wanted, you
+must go; but decidedly you are not wanted yet. And you are an only son;
+all your mother has. John, you must think of her, and you will think of
+her, I know."
+
+The conviction in his quiet voice communicated itself to his nephew.
+There was a pause of nearly a minute; and then John answered, in a voice
+curiously like his uncle's--
+
+"All right."
+
+Verney senior held out his hand. "I knew you would say that," he
+murmured.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the 18th of September, when John returned to the Hill, the country
+had just learned that the proposals of the Imperial Government to accept
+the note of August 19th (provided it were not encumbered by conditions
+which would nullify the intention to give substantial representation to
+the Uitlanders) had not been accepted. That this meant war, none, least
+of all a schoolboy, doubted. Desmond could talk of nothing else. He told
+John that his father had promised to let him leave Harrow before the end
+of the term, if war were declared. The Demon, so John was informed, had
+made already preparations. He was taking out his three polo ponies, and
+had hopes of being appointed Galloper to a certain General. Scaife's
+Horse was being organized, but in any case would not take the field
+before several months had elapsed; the Demon intended to be on the spot
+when the first shot was fired.
+
+To all this gunpowder-talk John listened with envious ears and a curious
+sinking of the heart. He had looked forward to having Desmond to
+himself; and lo! his friend was seven thousand miles away--on the veldt,
+not on the Hill.
+
+"You are not keen," said Desmond.
+
+On the day of the Goose Match, Saturday, September 30th, Scaife came
+down to Harrow to take leave of his friends. Already, John noted an
+extraordinary difference in his manner and appearance. He treated John
+to a slightly patronizing smile, called him Jonathan, asked if he could
+be of service to him, and posed most successfully as a sort of sucking
+Alexander.
+
+That he absorbed Desmond's eyes and mind was indisputable. Everything
+outside South Africa, and in particular the Hill and all things thereon,
+dwindled into insignificance. Scaife made Desmond a present of the very
+best maps obtainable, and nailed them on the wall above the mantelpiece,
+pulling down a fine engraving which John had given to Desmond about a
+year before. Desmond uttered no protest. The engraving was bundled out
+of sight behind a sofa.
+
+And after Scaife's departure, Desmond talked of him continually, and
+always with enthusiasm. Warde added a note or two to the chorus.
+
+"This is an opportunity for Scaife," he told John. "He may distinguish
+himself very greatly, and the discipline of the camp will transmute the
+bad metal into gold. War is an alchemist."
+
+Upon the 11th of October war was declared.
+
+After that, Desmond became as one possessed. He went about saying that
+he pitied his father profoundly because he was a civilian and a
+non-combatant. Warde wrote to Charles Desmond: "If you mean to send
+Harry out, send him at once. He's fretting himself to fiddle-strings,
+doing no work, and causing others to do no work also."
+
+Sir William Symons' victory and death followed, and then the mortifying
+retreat of General Yule. Upon the 30th day of the month eight hundred
+and fifty officers and men were isolated and captured. Who does not
+remember the wave of passionate incredulity that swept across the
+kingdom when the evil tidings flashed over-seas? But Buller and his
+staff were on the _Dunottar Castle_, and all Harrovians believed
+devoutly that within a month of landing the Commander-in-Chief would
+drive the invaders back and conquer the Transvaal.
+
+Day after day, Desmond importuned his father. The "fun" would be over,
+he pointed out, before he got there--and so on. At last word came. A
+billet had been obtained. Desmond received a long envelope from the War
+Office. He showed it to all his friends, old and young. Duff
+junior--C�sar's fag--became so excited that he asked Warde for
+permission to enlist as a drummer-boy. The School cheered C�sar at four
+Bill.
+
+And then came the parting.
+
+C�sar was to join the Headquarters' Staff as soon as possible. He spent
+the last hours with John, but his mind, naturally enough, was
+concentrated upon his kit. He chattered endlessly of saddlery,
+revolvers, sleeping bags, and Zeiss glasses. John packed his
+portmanteau. And on the morrow the friends parted at the station without
+a word beyond--
+
+"Good-bye, old Jonathan. Wish you were coming."
+
+"Good-bye, C�sar. Good luck!"
+
+And then the shrill whistle, the inexorable rolling of the wheels, the
+bright, eager face leaning far out of the window, the waved
+handkerchief, the last words: "So long!" and John's reply, "So long!"
+
+John saw the face fade; the wheels of the vanishing train seemed to have
+rolled over his heart; the scream of the engine was the scream of
+anguish from himself. He left the station and ran to the Tower. There,
+after the first indescribable moments, some kindly spirit touched him.
+He became whole. But he had ceased to be a boy. Alone upon the tower he
+prayed for his friend, prayed fervently that it might be well with him,
+now and for ever--Amen.
+
+When he returned to the Manor, however, peace seemed to forsake him. The
+horrible gap, ever-widening, between himself and Desmond might, indeed,
+be bridged by prayer, but not by the shouts of boys and the turmoil of a
+Public School.
+
+During the rest of the term he worked furiously. Desmond was now on the
+high seas, whither John followed him at night and on Sundays. Warde,
+guessing, perhaps, what was passing in John's heart, talked much of
+Desmond, always hopefully. From Warde, John learned that Charles Desmond
+had tried to dissuade his favourite son from becoming a soldier.
+
+"He wanted him to go into Parliament," said Warde.
+
+John nodded.
+
+"It was a disappointment. Yes; a great disappointment. Harry would have
+made a debater. Yes; yes; a nimble wit, an engaging manner, and the gift
+of the gab. And the father would have had him under his own eye."
+
+"But he wanted to go to South Africa from the beginning."
+
+"You wanted to go," said Warde; "your uncle told me so. It was a greater
+thing for you, John, to stand aside."
+
+And then John put a question. "Do you think that Harry ought to have
+stood aside too?"
+
+Warde, however, unwilling to commit himself, spoke of Harry's ardour and
+patriotism. But at the end he let fall a straw which indicated the true
+current of his thoughts--
+
+"Mr. Desmond is very lonely."
+
+John swooped on this.
+
+"Then you think, you _do_ think, that Harry should have stayed behind?"
+
+"Perhaps. One hesitates to accuse the boy of anything more than
+thoughtlessness."
+
+"If he wished to serve his country," began John, warmly.
+
+Warde smiled. "Yes, yes," he assented. "Let us believe that, John; but
+there has been too much cheap excitement."
+
+Dark days followed. Who will ever forget Stormberg and Magersfontein? A
+pall seemed to hang over the kingdom. Ladysmith remained in the grip of
+the invader; the Boers were not yet driven out of Natal. Meantime C�sar
+had reached Sir Redvers Buller. A letter to his father, describing the
+few incidents of the voyage out, and his arrival in South Africa, was
+sent on to John and received by him on the 1st of February. "John will
+understand," said C�sar, in a postscript, "that I have little time for
+writing." But John did not understand. He wrote regularly to Desmond; no
+answer came in return.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the end of the Christmas holidays John returned to Harrow. He was now
+Head of his House, and very nearly Head of the School. The weeks went by
+slowly. Soon, he and a few others would travel to Oxford for their
+examination; there would be the strenuous excitement of competition, and
+the final announcement of success or failure. To all this John told
+himself that he was lukewarm. Nothing seemed to matter since he had lost
+sight of C�sar's face, since the train whirled his friend out of his
+life. But he worked hard, so hard that the Head Master bade him beware
+of a breakdown.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hour of triumph came. John had gratified his own and Warde's
+ambition; he was a Scholar of Christ Church. And this well-earned
+success seemed to draw something in his heart. The congratulations, the
+warm hand-clasps, the generous joy of schoolfellows not as fortunate,
+restored his moral circulation. A whole holiday was granted in honour of
+his success at Oxford. He told himself that now he would take things
+easy and enjoy himself. The clouds in South Africa were lifting,
+everybody said the glorious end was in sight. And so far Desmond had
+escaped wounds and sickness. He had received a commission in
+Beauregard's Irregular Horse; in the five days' action about Spion Kop
+he behaved with conspicuous gallantry. Scaife, having obtained his
+billet of Galloper, was with a General under Lord Methuen.
+
+On the last Monday but one in the term, John was entering the Manor just
+before lock-up, when a Sixth Form boy from another house passed him,
+running.
+
+"Have you heard about poor Scaife?" he called out.
+
+"No--what?"
+
+"Warde will tell you; he knows." The boy ran on, not wishing to be late.
+
+John ran, too, with his heart thumping against his side. He felt
+certain, from the expression upon the boy's face, that Scaife was dead.
+And John recalled with intense bitterness and humiliation moments in
+past years when he had wished that Scaife would die. Charles Desmond had
+told him only three weeks before that his Harry hoped to join the smart
+cavalry regiment in which a commission had been promised to Scaife. At
+that moment John was sensible of an inordinate desire for anything that
+might come between this wish and its fulfilment. And now, Scaife might
+be lying dead.
+
+He found Warde in his study staring at a telegram. He looked up as John
+entered, and in silence handed him the message.
+
+    "_Demon dead. Died gloriously._"
+
+The telegram came from an Harrovian, an old Manorite at the War Office.
+
+John sat down, stunned by the news; Warde regarded him gravely. John met
+his glance and could not interpret it. Presently, Warde said nervously--
+
+"Why did the fellow write 'Demon' instead of 'Scaife'? I don't like
+that." He looked sharply at John, who did not understand. Then he added,
+"I've wired for confirmation. There may be a--mistake."
+
+"What mistake?" said John. Warde's manner confused him, frightened him.
+"What mistake, sir?"
+
+Warde, twisting the paper, answered miserably--
+
+"There has been an action, but not in Scaife's part of Africa.
+Beauregard's Horse were engaged and suffered severely. And would any one
+say 'Demon' in such a serious context?"
+
+"Oh, my God!" said John, pale and trembling. At last he understood. Add
+two letters to "Demon" and you have "Desmond." How easily such a mistake
+could be made!--"Desmond," ill-written, handed to an old Manorite to
+copy and despatch.
+
+"It's Scaife--it's Scaife," John cried.
+
+Warde said nothing, staring at the thin slip of paper as if he were
+trying to wrest from it its secret.
+
+"Everybody called him 'Demon,'" said John.
+
+"Still, one ought to be prepared."
+
+For many hideous minutes they sat there, silent, waiting for the second
+telegram. Dumbleton brought it in, and lingered, anxiously expectant;
+but Warde dismissed him with a gesture. As the door closed, Warde stood
+up.
+
+"If our fears are well founded," he said solemnly, "may God give you
+strength, John Verney, to bear the blow."
+
+Then he tore open the envelope and read the truth--
+
+    "_Henry Desmond killed in action._"
+
+"No," said John, fiercely. "It is Scaife, Scaife!"
+
+Warde shook his head, holding John's hand tight between his sinewy
+fingers. John's face appalled him. He had known, he had guessed, the
+strength of John's feeling for Desmond, but, he had not known the
+strength of John's hatred of Scaife. And Desmond had been taken--and
+Scaife left. The irony of it tore the soul.
+
+"Don't speak," commanded Warde.
+
+John closed his lips with instinctive obedience. When he opened them
+again his face had softened; the words fell upon the silence with a
+heartrending inflection of misery.
+
+"And now I shall never know--I shall never know."
+
+He broke down piteously. Warde let the first passion of grief spend
+itself; then he asked John to explain. The good fellow saw that if John
+could give his trouble words it would be lightened enormously. He
+divined what had been suppressed.
+
+"What is it that you will never know, John?"
+
+At that John spoke, laying bare his heart. He gave details of the
+never-ending struggle between Scaife and himself for the soul of his
+friend; gave them with a clearness of expression which proved beyond all
+else how his thoughts had crystallized in his mind. Warde listened,
+holding John's hand, gripping it with sympathy and affection. The
+romance of this friendship stirred him profoundly; the romance of the
+struggle for good and evil; a struggle of which the issues remained
+still in doubt; a romance which Death had cruelly left unfinished--this
+had poignant significance for the house-master.
+
+"I shall never know now," John repeated, in conclusion.
+
+"But you have faith in your friend."
+
+"He never wrote to me," said John.
+
+At last it was out, the thorn in his side which had tormented him.
+
+"If he had written," John continued, "if only he had written once. When
+we parted it was good-bye--just that, nothing more; but I thought he
+would write, and that everything would be cleared up. And now, silence."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The week wore itself away. A few details were forthcoming: enough to
+prove that a glorious deed had been done at the cost of a gallant life.
+England was thrilled because the hero happened to be the son of a
+popular Minister. The name of Desmond rang through the Empire. John
+bought every paper and devoured the meagre lines which left so much
+between them. It seemed that a certain position had to be taken--a small
+hill. For the hundredth time in this campaign too few men were detailed
+for the task. The reek of that awful slaughter on Spion Kop was still
+strong in men's nostrils. Beauregard and his soldiers halted at the foot
+of the hill, halted in the teeth of a storm of bullets. Then the word
+was given to attack. But the fire from invisible foes simply
+exterminated the leading files. The moment came when those behind
+wavered and recoiled. And then Desmond darted forward--alone, cheering
+on his fellows. They were all afoot. The men rallied and followed. But
+they could not overtake the gallant figure pressing on in front. He
+ran--so the Special Correspondent reported--as if he were racing for a
+goal. The men staggered after him, aflame with his ardour. They reached
+the top, captured the guns, drove down the enemy, and returned to the
+highest point to find their leader--shot through the heart, and dead,
+and smiling at death. Of all the men who passed through that blizzard of
+bullets he was the youngest by two years.
+
+Warde told John that the Head Master would preach upon the last Sunday
+evening of the term, with special reference to Harry Desmond. Could John
+bear it? John nodded. Since the first breakdown in Warde's study, his
+heart seemed to have turned to ice. His religious sense, hitherto strong
+and vital, failed him entirely. He abandoned prayer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Evensong was over in Harrow Chapel. The Head Master, stately in surplice
+and scarlet hood, entered the pulpit, and, in his clear, calm tones,
+announced his text, taken from the 17th verse of the First Chapter of
+the Book of Ruth--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and
+me."
+
+The subject of the sermon was "Friendship:" the heart's blood of a
+Public School: Friendship with its delights, its perils, its peculiar
+graces and benedictions.
+
+"To-night," concluded the preacher, amid the breathless silence of the
+congregation, "this thought of Friendship has for us a special
+solemnity. It is consecrated by the memory of one whom we have just
+lost. You, who are leaving the school, have been the friends and
+contemporaries of Henry Julius Desmond; his features are fresh in your
+memories, and will remain fresh as long as you live.
+
+    "Tall, eager, a face to remember,
+      A flush that could change as the day;
+    A spirit that knew not December,
+      That brightened the sunshine of May."
+
+"Those lines, as you know, were written of another Harrovian, who died
+here on this Hill. Henry Desmond died on another hill, and died so
+gloriously that the shadow of our loss, dark as it seemed to us at
+first, is already melting in the radiance of his gain. To die young,
+clean, ardent; to die swiftly, in perfect health; to die saving others
+from death, or worse--disgrace--to die scaling heights; to die and to
+carry with you into the fuller, ampler life beyond, untainted hopes and
+aspirations, unembittered memories, all the freshness and gladness of
+May--is not that cause for joy rather than sorrow? I say--yes. Henry
+Desmond is one stage ahead of us upon a journey which we all must take,
+and I entreat you to consider that, if we have faith in a future life,
+we must believe also that we carry hence not only the record of our
+acts, whether good or evil, but the memory of them; and that memory,
+undimmed by falsehood or self-deception, will create for us Heaven or
+Hell. I do not say--God forbid!--that you should desire death because
+you are still young, and, comparatively speaking, unspotted from the
+world; but I say I would sooner see any of you struck down in the flower
+of his youth than living on to lose, long before death comes, all that
+makes life worth the living. Better death, a thousand times, than
+gradual decay of mind and spirit; better death than faithlessness,
+indifference, and uncleanness. To you who are leaving Harrow, poised for
+flight into the great world of which this school is the microcosm, I
+commend the memory of Henry Desmond. It stands in our records for all we
+venerate and strive for: loyalty, honour, purity, strenuousness,
+faithfulness in friendship. When temptation assails you, think of that
+gallant boy running swiftly uphill, leaving craven fear behind, and
+drawing with him the others who, led by him to the heights, made victory
+possible. You cannot all be leaders, but you can follow leaders; only
+see to it that they lead you, as Henry Desmond led the men of
+Beauregard's Horse, onward and upward."
+
+The preacher ended, and then followed the familiar hymn, always sung
+upon the last Sunday evening of the term:--
+
+    "Let Thy father-hand be shielding
+      All who here shall meet no more;
+    May their seed-time past be yielding
+      Year by year a richer store;
+            Those returning,
+      Make more faithful than before."
+
+The last blessing was pronounced, and with glistening eyes the boys
+streamed out of Chapel; some of them for the last time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon the next Tuesday, John travelled down into the New Forest. April
+was abroad in Hampshire; the larches already were bright green against
+the Scotch firs; the beech buds were bursting; only the oaks retained
+their drab winter's-livery.
+
+During the few days preceding Easter Sunday, John rode or walked to
+every part of the forest which he had visited in company with his dead
+friend. At Beaulieu, standing in the ruins of the Abbey, he could hear
+Desmond's delightful laugh as he recited the misadventures of Hordle
+John; at Stoneycross he sat upon the bank overlooking the moor, whence
+they had seen the fox steal into the woods about Rufus's Stone; at the
+Bell tavern at Brook they had lunched; at Hinton Admiral they had
+played cricket.
+
+To his mother's and his uncle's silent sympathy John responded but
+churlishly. His friend had departed without a word, without a sign; that
+ate into John's heart and consumed it. For the first time since he had
+been confirmed, he refused to receive the Sacrament. He went to church
+as a matter of form; but he dared not approach the altar in his present
+rebellious mood.
+
+Again and again he accused himself of having yielded to a craven fear of
+offending Desmond by speech too plain. Always he had been so terribly
+afraid of losing his friend; and now he had lost him indeed. This
+poignancy of grief may be accounted for in part by the previous
+long-continued strain of overwork. And it is ever the habit of those who
+do much to think that they might have done more.
+
+At the beginning of May, John came back to the Hill, for his last term.
+Out of the future rose the "dreaming spires" of Oxford; beyond them,
+vague and shadowy, the great Clock-tower of Westminster, keeping watch
+and ward over the destinies of our Empire.
+
+In a long letter from Charles Desmond, the Minister had spoken of the
+secretaryship to be kept warm for him, of the pleasure and solace the
+writer would take in seeing his son's best friend in the place where
+that son might have stood.
+
+His best friend? Was that true?
+
+The question tormented John. Because C�sar had been so much to him, he
+desired, more passionately than he had desired anything in his life, the
+assurance that he had been something--not everything, only something--to
+C�sar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day, about the middle of the month, John had been playing cricket,
+the game of all games which brought C�sar most vividly to his mind.
+Then, just before six Bill, he strolled up the Hill and into the Vaughan
+Library, where so many relics dear to Harrovians are enshrined. Sitting
+in the splendid window which faces distant Hampstead, John told himself
+that he must put aside the miseries and perplexities of the past month.
+Had he been loyal to his friend's memory? Would not a more ardent faith
+have burned away doubt?
+
+John gazed across the familiar fields to the huge city on the horizon.
+Soon night would fall, darkness would encompass all things. And then,
+out of the mirk, would shine the lamps of London.
+
+Warde's voice put his thoughts to instant flight. Some intuition told
+John that something had happened. Warde said quietly--
+
+"A letter has come for you in Harry Desmond's handwriting."
+
+John, unable to speak, stretched out his hand.
+
+"Take it," said Warde, "to some quiet spot where you cannot be
+disturbed."
+
+John nodded.
+
+"I have seen how it was with you," Warde continued, with deep emotion,
+"and you have had my acute sympathy, the more acute, perhaps, because
+long ago a friend went out of my life without a sign." Warde paused.
+"Now, unless my whole experience is at fault, you hold in your hand what
+you want--and what you deserve."
+
+Warde left the library; John put the letter into his pocket. Where
+should he go? One place beckoned him. Upon the tower, looking towards
+the Hill, he would read the last letter of his friend.
+
+Within half an hour he was passing through the iron gates. He had not
+visited the garden since that forlorn winter's afternoon, when he came
+here, alone, after bidding Desmond good-bye. He could recall the
+desolation of the scene: bleak Winter dripping tears upon the tomb of
+Summer. With what disgust he had perceived the decaying masses of
+vegetation, the sodden turf, the soot upon the bare trunks of the trees.
+He had rushed away, fancying that he heard Desmond's voice, "There is a
+curse on the place."
+
+Now, May had touched what had seemed dead and hideous, and, lo! a
+miracle. The hawthorns shone white against the brilliant green of the
+laurels; the horse-chestnuts had--to use a fanciful expression of
+C�sar's--"lit their lamps." Out of the waving grass glimmered and
+sparkled a thousand wild flowers. John heard the glad _Fr�hlingslied_ of
+bees and birds. Then, opening his lungs, he inhaled the life-renewing
+odours of earth renascent; opening his heart he felt a spiritual essence
+pervading every fibre of his being. Once more the chilled sap in his
+veins flowed generously. It was well with him and well with his friend.
+This conviction possessed him, remember, before he opened the letter.
+
+He ascended the tower, and broke the seal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I have been meaning to write to you, dear old chap, ever since we
+parted; but, somehow, I couldn't bring myself to tackle it in earnest
+till to-night. To-morrow, we have a thundering big job ahead of us; the
+last job, perhaps, for me. Old Jonathan, you have been the best friend a
+man ever had, the only one I love as much as my own brothers--_and even
+more_. It was from knowing you that I came to see what good-for-nothing
+fools some fellows are. You were always so unselfish and _straight!_ and
+you made me feel that I was the contrary, and that you knew it, and that
+I should lose your friendship if I didn't improve a bit. So, if we don't
+meet again in this jolly old world, it may be a little comfort to you to
+remember that what you have done for a very worthless pal was not thrown
+away.
+
+"Good night, Jonathan. I'm going to turn in; we shall be astir before
+daybreak. Over the veldt the stars are shining. It's so light, that I
+can just make out the hill upon which, I hope, our flag will be waving
+within a few hours. The sight of this hill brings back our Hill. If I
+shut my eyes, I can see it plainly, as we used to see it from the
+tower, with the Spire rising out of the heart of the old school. I have
+the absurd conviction strong in me that, to-morrow, I shall get up the
+hill here faster and easier than the other fellows because you and I
+have so often run up our Hill together--God bless it--and you! Good
+night."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[39] Brekker, _i.e._ breakfast.
+
+
+
+
+ PRINTED AND BOUND IN ENGLAND BY
+ WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES
+
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Hill, by Horace Annesley Vachell
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hill, by Horace Annesley Vachell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Hill
+       A Romance of Friendship
+
+Author: Horace Annesley Vachell
+
+Release Date: October 23, 2007 [EBook #23154]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HILL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Stephen Blundell and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p class="u"><i>ALSO BY HORACE A. VACHELL</i></p>
+
+<p>QUINNEYS'</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h1><big>THE HILL</big></h1>
+
+<p class="hd1">A ROMANCE OF FRIENDSHIP</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL</h2>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p class="hd2">LONDON<br />
+JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">First Edition</span></td><td class="td2"><i>April, 1905</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><i>Fortieth Impression</i></td><td class="td2"><i>Jan., 1950</i></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="trans1"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b><br />
+
+Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
+Greek text appears as originally printed, but with a mouse-hover transliteration, <span title="kraipal&ecirc;">&#954;&#961;&#945;&#953;&#960;&#8049;&#955;&#951;</span>.</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><big>To<br />
+GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL</big></p>
+
+<p>I dedicate this Romance of Friendship to you with the
+sincerest pleasure and affection. You were the first to
+suggest that I should write a book about contemporary
+life at Harrow; you gave me the principal idea; you have
+furnished me with notes innumerable; you have revised
+every page of the manuscript; and you are a peculiarly
+keen Harrovian.</p>
+
+<p>In making this public declaration of my obligations to
+you, I take the opportunity of stating that the characters
+in "The Hill," whether masters or boys, are not portraits,
+although they may be called, truthfully enough, composite
+photographs; and that the episodes of Drinking and
+Gambling are founded on isolated incidents, not on habitual
+practices. Moreover, in attempting to reproduce the
+curious admixture of "strenuousness and sentiment"&mdash;your
+own phrase&mdash;which animates so vitally Harrow life,
+I have been obliged to select the less common types of
+Harrovian. Only the elect are capable of such friendship
+as John Verney entertained for Henry Desmond; and few
+boys, happily, are possessed of such powers as Scaife is
+shown to exercise. But that there are such boys as Verney
+and Scaife, nobody knows better than yourself.</p>
+
+<p class="author"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Believe me,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yours most gratefully,</span><br />
+HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Beechwood</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>February 22, 1905</i></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+
+<tr><td class="td3"><small>CHAP.</small></td><td class="td4">&nbsp;</td><td class="td3"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3">I.</td><td class="td4">The Manor</td><td class="td3"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3">II.</td><td class="td4">C&aelig;sar</td><td class="td3"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3">III.</td><td class="td4">Kraipale</td><td class="td3"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3">IV.</td><td class="td4">Torpids</td><td class="td3"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3">V.</td><td class="td4">Fellowship</td><td class="td3"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3">VI.</td><td class="td4">A Revelation</td><td class="td3"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3">VII.</td><td class="td4">Reform</td><td class="td3"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3">VIII.</td><td class="td4">Verney Boscobel</td><td class="td3"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3">IX.</td><td class="td4">Black Spots</td><td class="td3"><a href="#Page_140">140</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3">X.</td><td class="td4">Decapitation</td><td class="td3"><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3">XI.</td><td class="td4">Self-questioning</td><td class="td3"><a href="#Page_173">173</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3">XII.</td><td class="td4">"Lord's"</td><td class="td3"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3">XIII.</td><td class="td4">"If I Perish, I Perish"</td><td class="td3"><a href="#Page_211">211</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="td3">XIV.</td><td class="td4">Good Night</td><td class="td3"><a href="#Page_230">230</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3><i>The Manor</i></h3>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 25em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Five hundred faces, and all so strange!<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Life in front of me&mdash;home behind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">I felt like a waif before the wind<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Tossed on an ocean of shock and change.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>Chorus.</i> Yet the time may come, as the years go by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">When your heart will thrill<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">At the thought of the Hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And the day that you came so strange and shy."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The train</span> slid slowly out of Harrow station.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes before, a man and a boy had been walking
+up and down the long platform. The boy wondered why
+the man, his uncle, was so strangely silent. Then, suddenly,
+the elder John Verney had placed his hands upon the
+shoulders of the younger John, looking down into eyes as
+grey and as steady as his own.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll find plenty of fellows abusing Harrow," he
+said quietly; "but take it from me, that the fault lies not
+in Harrow, but in them. Such boys, as a rule, do not come
+out of the top drawer. Don't look so solemn. You're
+about to take a header into a big river. In it are rocks and
+rapids; but you know how to swim, and after the first
+plunge you'll enjoy it, as I did, amazingly."</p>
+
+<p>"Ra&mdash;ther," said John.</p>
+
+<p>In the New Forest, where John had spent most of his
+life at his uncle's place of Verney Boscobel, this uncle, his
+dead father's only brother, was worshipped as a hero.
+Indeed he filled so large a space in the boy's imagination,
+that others were cramped for room. John Verney in India,
+in Burmah, in Africa (he took continents in his stride),
+moved colossal. And when uncle and nephew met, behold,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+the great traveller stood not much taller than John himself!
+That first moment, the instant shattering of a precious
+delusion, held anguish. But now, as the train whirled
+away the silent, thin, little man, he began to expand again.
+John saw him scaling heights, cutting a path through impenetrable
+forests, wading across dismal swamps, an ever-moving
+figure, seeking the hitherto unknowable and irreclaimable,
+introducing order where chaos reigned supreme,
+a world-famous pioneer.</p>
+
+<p>How good to think that John Verney was <i>his</i> uncle,
+blood of his blood, his, his, his&mdash;for all time!</p>
+
+<p>And, long ago, John, senior, had come to Harrow; had
+felt what John, junior, felt to the core&mdash;the dull, grinding
+wrench of separation, the sense, not yet to be analysed by
+a boy, of standing alone upon the edge of a river, indeed,
+into which he must plunge headlong in a few minutes.
+Well, Uncle John had taken his "header" with a stout
+heart&mdash;who dared to doubt that? Surely he had not
+waited, shivering and hesitating, at the jumping-off place.</p>
+
+<p>The train was now out of sight. John slipped the uncle's
+tip into his purse, and walked out of the station and on
+to the road beyond, the road which led to the top of the
+Hill.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Hill.</i></p>
+
+<p>Presently, the boy reached some iron palings and a
+wicket-gate. His uncle had pointed out this gate and the
+steep path beyond which led to the top of the Hill, to
+the churchyard, to the Peachey tomb on which Byron
+dreamed,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> to the High Street&mdash;and to the Manor. It was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
+pleasant to remember that he was going to board at the
+Manor, with its traditions, its triumphs, its record. In his
+uncle's day the Manor ranked first among the boarding-houses.
+Not a doubt disturbed John's conviction that it
+ranked first still.</p>
+
+<p>The boy stared upwards with a keen gaze. Had the
+mother seen her son at that moment, she might have discerned
+a subtle likeness between uncle and nephew, not the
+likeness of the flesh, but of the spirit.</p>
+
+<p>September rains, followed by a day of warm sunshine,
+had lured from the earth a soft haze which obscured the
+big fields at the foot of the Hill. John could make out
+fences, poplars, elms, Scotch firs, and spectral houses.
+But, above, everything was clear. The school-buildings,
+such as he could see, stood out boldly against a cloudless
+sky, and above these soared the spire of Harrow Church,
+pointing an inexorable finger upwards.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards this spot became dear to John Verney,
+because here, where mists were chill and blinding, he had
+been impelled to leave the broad high-road and take a path
+which led into a shadowy future. In obedience to an
+impulse stronger than himself he had taken the short cut
+to what awaited him.</p>
+
+<p>For a few minutes he stood outside the palings, trying
+to choke down an abominable lump in his throat. This
+was not his first visit to Harrow. At the end of the
+previous term, he had ascended the Hill to pass the entrance
+examination. A master from his preparatory school accompanied
+him, an Etonian, who had stared rather superciliously&mdash;so
+John thought&mdash;at buildings less venerable
+than those which Henry VI raised near Windsor. John,
+who had perceptions, was elusively conscious that his
+companion, too much of a gentleman to give his thoughts
+words, might be contrasting a yeoman's work with a king's;
+and when the Etonian, gazing across the plains below to
+where Windsor lay, a soft shadow upon the horizon, said
+abruptly, "I wish Eton had been built upon a hill," John<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+replied effusively: "Oh, sir, it <i>is</i> decent of you to say that."
+The examination, however, distracted his attention from
+all things save the papers. To his delight he found these
+easy, and, as soon as he left the examination-room, he was
+popped into a cab and taken back to town. Coming down
+the flight of steps, he had seen a few boys hurrying up or
+down the road. At these the Etonian cocked a twinkling
+eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Queer kit you Harrow boys wear," he said.</p>
+
+<p>John, inordinately grateful at this recognition of himself
+as an Harrovian, forgave the gibe. It had struck him,
+also, that the shallow straw hat, the swallow-tail coat, did
+look queer, but he regarded them reverently as the uniform
+of a crack corps.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, standing by the iron palings, John reviewed
+the events of the last hour. The view was blurred by
+unshed tears. His uncle and he had driven together to
+the Manor. Here, the explorer had exercised his peculiar
+personal magnetism upon the house-master, a tall, burly
+man of truculent aspect and speech. John realized proudly
+that his uncle was the bigger of the two, and the giant
+acknowledged, perhaps grudgingly, the dwarf's superiority.
+The talk, short enough, had wandered into Darkest Africa.
+His uncle, as usual, said little, replying almost in monosyllables
+to the questions of his host; but John junior told
+himself exultantly that it was not necessary for Uncle John
+to talk; the wide world knew what he had done.</p>
+
+<p>Then his house-master, Rutford, had told John where
+to buy his first straw hat.</p>
+
+<p>"You can get one without an order at the beginning of
+each term," said he, in a thick, rasping voice. "But you
+must ask me for an order if you want a second."</p>
+
+<p>Then he had shown John his room, to be shared with
+two other boys, and had told him the hour of lock-up.
+And then, after tea, came the walk down the hill, the tip,
+the firm grasp of the sinewy hand, and a final&mdash;"God
+bless you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Coming to the end of these reflections, confronted by
+the inexorable future, and the necessity, no less inexorable,
+of stepping into it, John passed through the gate. His
+heart fluttered furiously, and the lump in the throat swelled
+inconveniently. John, however, had provided himself
+with a "cure-all." Plunging his hand into his pocket,
+he pulled out a cartridge, an unused twenty-bore gun cartridge.
+Looking at this, John smiled. When he smiled he
+became good-looking. The face, too long, plain, but full
+of sense and humour, rounded itself into the gracious
+curves of youth; the serious grey eyes sparkled; the lips,
+too firmly compressed, parted, revealing admirable teeth,
+small and squarely set; into the cheeks, brown rather than
+pink, flowed a warm stream of colour.</p>
+
+<p>The cartridge stood for so much. Only a week before,
+Uncle John, on his arrival from Manchuria, had handed his
+nephew a small leather case and a key. The case held a
+double-barrelled, hammerless, ejector, twenty-bore gun,
+with a great name upon its polished blue barrels.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of the cartridge justified John's expectations.
+He put it back into his pocket, and strode forward and
+upward.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Close to the School Chapel, John remarked a curly-headed
+young gentleman of wonderfully prepossessing
+appearance, from whom emanated an air, an atmosphere,
+of genial enjoyment which diffused itself. The bricks of
+the school-buildings seemed redder and warmer, as if they
+were basking in this sunny smile. The youth was smiling
+now, smiling&mdash;at John. For several hours John had been
+miserably aware that surprises awaited him, but not smiles.
+He knew no Harrovians; at his school, a small one, his
+fellows were labelled Winchester, Eton, Wellington; none,
+curiously enough, Harrow. And already he had passed
+half a dozen boys, the first-comers, some strangers, like
+himself, and in each face he had read indifference. Not
+one had taken the trouble to say, "Hullo! Who are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+you?" after the rough and ready fashion of the private
+school.</p>
+
+<p>And now this smiling, fascinating person was actually
+about to address him, and in the old familiar style&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!"</p>
+
+<p>"I met your governor the other day."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you?" John replied. His father had died when
+John was seven. Obviously, a blunder in identity had
+created this genial smile. John wished that his father had
+not died.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," pursued the smiling one, "I met him&mdash;partridge-shooting
+at home&mdash;and he asked me to be on the look-out
+for you. It's queer you should turn up at once, isn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Your governor looked awfully fit."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he?" Then John added solemnly, "My governor
+died when I was a kid."</p>
+
+<p>The other gasped; then he threw back his curly head and
+laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to laugh.
+If you're not Hardacre, who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Verney. I've just come."</p>
+
+<p>"Verney? That's a great Harrow name. Are you any
+relation to the explorer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nephew," said John, blushing.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;you ought to have been here last Speecher.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>
+We cheered him, I can tell you. And the song was sung:
+the one with his name in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said John. Then he added nervously, "All
+the same, I don't know a soul at Harrow."</p>
+
+<p>Desmond smiled. The smile assured John that his
+name would secure him a cordial welcome. Desmond<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+added abruptly, "My name, Desmond, is a Harrow name.
+My father, my grandfather, my uncles, and three brothers
+were here. It does make a difference. What's your
+house?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Manor," said John, proudly.</p>
+
+<p>"Dirty Dick's!" Then, seeing consternation writ large
+upon John's face, he added quickly, "We call <i>him</i> Dirty
+Dick, you know; but the house is&mdash;er&mdash;one of the oldest
+and biggest&mdash;er&mdash;houses." He continued hurriedly: "I'm
+going into Damer's next term. Damer's is always chock-a-block,
+you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Why is Rutford called 'Dirty Dick'?" John asked
+nervously. "He doesn't <i>look</i> dirty."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we've licked him into a sort of shape," said
+Desmond. "I <i>believe</i> he toshes now&mdash;once a month or so."</p>
+
+<p>"Toshes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tubs, you know. We call a tub a 'tosh.' When
+Dirty Dick came here he was unclean. He told his form&mdash;oh!
+the cheek of it!&mdash;that in his filthy mind one bath
+a week was plenty," unconsciously the boy mimicked the
+thick, rasping tones&mdash;"two, luxury, and three&mdash;superfluity!
+After that he was called Dirty Dick. There's
+another story. They say that years ago he went to a
+Turkish bath, and after a rare good scraping the man who
+was scraping him&mdash;nasty job that!&mdash;found something which
+Dirty Dick recognized as a beastly flannel shirt he had lost
+when he was at the 'Varsity. But only the Fourth Form
+boys swallow <i>that</i>. Hullo! There's a pal of mine. See
+you again."</p>
+
+<p>He ran off gaily. John walked to the shop where
+straw hats were sold. Here he met other new boys, who
+regarded him curiously, but said nothing. John put on
+his hat, and gave Rutford's name to the young man who
+waited on him. He had an absurd feeling that the young
+man would say, "Oh yes&mdash;Dirty Dick's!" One very
+nice-looking pink-cheeked boy said to another boy that he
+was at Damer's. John could have sworn that the hatter's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+assistant regarded the pink youth with increased deference.
+Why had Uncle John sent him to Dirty Dick's? He
+hurried out of the shop, fuming. Then he remembered
+the hammerless gun. After all, the Manor had been <i>the</i>
+house once, and it might be <i>the</i> house again.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the boys were arriving. Groups were
+forming. Snatches of chatter reached John's ears. "Yes,
+I shot a stag, a nine-pointer. My governor is going to have
+it set up for me&mdash;&mdash; What? Walked up your grouse
+with dogs! We drive ours&mdash;&mdash; I had some ripping cricket,
+made a century in one match&mdash;&mdash; By Jove! Did you
+really?&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>John passed on. These were "bloods," tremendous
+swells, grown men with a titillating flavour of the world
+about their distinguished persons.</p>
+
+<p>A minute later he was staring disconsolately at a group
+of his fellows just in front of Dir&mdash;&mdash;of Rutford's side door.
+An impulse seized him to turn and flee. What would
+Uncle John say to that? So he advanced. The boys
+made way politely, asking no questions. As he passed
+through he caught a few eager words. "I was hoping that
+the brute had gone. It <i>is</i> a sickener, and no mistake!"</p>
+
+<p>John ascended the battered, worn-out staircase, wondering
+who the "brute" was. Perhaps a sort of Flashman.
+John knew his <i>Tom Brown</i>; but some one had told him
+that bullying had ceased to be. Great emphasis had been
+laid on the "brute," whoever he might be.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the second-floor passage, he found his room and
+one of its tenants, who nodded carelessly as John crossed
+the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm Scaife," he said. "Are you the Lord, or the
+Commoner?" He laughed, indicating a large portmanteau,
+labelled, "Lord Esm&eacute; Kinloch."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm Verney," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"I've bagged the best bed," said Scaife, after a pause,
+"and I advise you to bag the next best one, over there.
+It was mine last term."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't see the beds," said John, staring about him.</p>
+
+<p>Scaife pointed out what appeared to be three tall,
+narrow wardrobes. The rest of the furniture included
+three much-battered washstands and chests of drawers,
+four Windsor chairs, and a square table, covered with
+innumerable inkstains and roughly-carved names.</p>
+
+<p>"The beds let down," Scaife said, "and during the first
+school the maids make them, and shut them up again. It
+is considered a joke to crawl into another fellow's room at
+night, and shut him up. You find yourself standing upon
+your head in the dark, choking. It is a joke&mdash;for the other
+fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Did some one do that to you?" asked John.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; a big lout in the Third Fifth," Scaife smiled
+grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"And what did you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I waited for him next day with a cricket stump.
+There was an awful row, because I let him have it a bit
+too hard; but I've not been shut up since. That bed is
+a beast. It collapses." He chuckled. "Young Kinloch
+won't find it quite as soft as the ones at White Ladies.
+Well, like the rest of us, he'll have to take Dirty Dick's as
+he finds it."</p>
+
+<p>The bolt had fallen.</p>
+
+<p>John asked in a quavering voice, "Then it <i>is</i> called
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Called what?"</p>
+
+<p>"This house. Dirty Dick's!"</p>
+
+<p>Scaife smiled cynically. He looked about a year older
+than John, but he had the air and manners of a man of the
+world&mdash;so John thought. Also, he was very good-looking,
+handsomer than Desmond, and in striking contrast to that
+smiling, genial youth, being dark, almost swarthy of complexion,
+with strongly-marked features and rather coarse
+hands and feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody here calls it Dirty Dick's," he replied
+curtly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>John stared helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>"But," he muttered, "I heard, I was told, that the
+Manor was the best house in the school."</p>
+
+<p>"It used to be," Scaife answered. "To-day, it comes
+jolly near being the worst. The fellows in other houses are
+decent; they don't rub it in; but, between ourselves, the
+Manor has gone to pot ever since Dirty Dick took hold of
+it. Damer's is the swell house now."</p>
+
+<p>John began to unstrap his portmanteau. Scaife puzzled
+him. For instance, he displayed no curiosity. He did not
+put the questions always asked at a Preparatory School.
+Without turning his thought into words, John divined that
+at Harrow it was bad form to ask questions. As he wanted
+to ask a question, a very important question, this enforced
+silence became exasperating.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Scaife said, "I suppose you are one of the
+Claydon lot."</p>
+
+<p>"No; my home is in the New Forest. My uncle is
+Verney of Verney Boscobel."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! his name is on the panels at the head of the
+staircase; and it's carved on a bed in the next room."</p>
+
+<p>"Crikey! I must go and look at it."</p>
+
+<p>"You can look at the panels, of course; but don't say
+'Crikey!' and don't go into the next room. Two Fifth
+Form fellows have it. It would be infernal cheek."</p>
+
+<p>John hoped that Scaife would offer to accompany him
+to the panels. Then he went alone. It being now within
+half an hour of lock-up, the passages were swarming with
+boys. Soon John would see them assembled in Hall, where
+their names would be called over by Rutford. Everybody&mdash;John
+had been told&mdash;was expected to be present at this
+first call-over, except a few boys who might be coming from
+a distance. John worked his way along the upper passage,
+and down the second flight of stairs till he came to the first
+landing. Here, close to the house notice-board, were some
+oak panels covered with names and dates, all carved&mdash;so
+John learned later&mdash;by a famous Harrow character, Sam<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+Hoare, once "Custos" of the School. The boy glanced
+eagerly, ardently, up and down the panels. Ah, yes, here
+was his father's name, and here&mdash;his uncle's. And then
+out of the dull, finely-grained oak, shone other names
+familiar to all who love the Hill and its traditions. John's
+heart grew warm again with pride in the house that had
+held such men. The name of the great statesman and below
+it a mighty warrior's made him thrill and tremble. They
+were <i>Old Harrovians</i>, these fellows, men whom his uncle had
+known, men of whom his dear mother, wise soul! had
+spoken a thousand times. The landing and the passages
+were roaring with the life of the present moment. Boys,
+big and small, were chaffing each other loudly. Under
+some circumstances, this new-comer, a stranger, ignored
+entirely, might have felt desolate and forlorn in the heart
+of such a crowd; but John was tingling with delight and
+pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, the noise moderated. John, looking up, saw
+a big fellow slowly approaching, exchanging greetings with
+everybody. John turned to a boy close to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it?" he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>The other boy answered curtly, "Lawrence, the Head
+of the House."</p>
+
+<p>The big fellow suddenly caught John's eyes. What he
+read there&mdash;admiration, respect, envy&mdash;brought a slight
+smile to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Your name?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Verney."</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence held out his hand, simply and yet with a
+certain dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard you were coming," he said, keenly examining
+John's face. "We can't have too many Verneys. If I
+can do anything for you, let me know."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded, and strode on. John saw that several boys
+were staring with a new interest. None, however, spoke to
+him; and he returned to his room with a blushing face.
+Scaife had unpacked his clothes and put them away; he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+was now surveying the bare walls with undisguised contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't this a beastly hole?" he remarked.</p>
+
+<p>John, always interested in people rather than things,
+examined the room carefully. Passing down the passage
+he had caught glimpses of other rooms: some charmingly
+furnished, gay with chintz, embellished with pictures,
+Japanese fans, silver cups, and other trophies. Comparing
+these with his own apartment, John said shyly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It's not very beefy."</p>
+
+<p>"Beefy? You smell of a private school, Verney. Now,
+is it worth doing up? You see, I shall be in a two-room
+next term. If we all chip in&mdash;&mdash;" he paused.</p>
+
+<p>"I've brought back two quid," said John.</p>
+
+<p>Scaife's smile indicated neither approval nor the reverse.
+John's ingenuous confidence provoked none in
+return.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll talk about it when Kinloch arrives. I wonder
+why his people sent him here."</p>
+
+<p>John had studied some books, but not the Peerage.
+The great name of Kinloch was new to him, not new to
+Scaife, who, for a boy, knew his "Burke" too odiously well.</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't his people send him here?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," Scaife's tone was contemptuous, "because
+the Kinlochs&mdash;they're a great cricketing family&mdash;go to
+Eton. The duke must have some reason."</p>
+
+<p>"The duke?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hang it, surely you have heard of the Duke of Trent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said John, humbly. "And this is his son?"
+He glanced at the label on the new portmanteau.</p>
+
+<p>"Whose son should he be?" said Scaife. "Well, it's
+queer. Dukes<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> and dukes' sons come to Harrow&mdash;all the
+Hamiltons were here, and the FitzRoys, and the St. Maurs&mdash;but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+the Kinlochs, as I say, have gone to Eton. It's a
+rum thing&mdash;very. And why the deuce hasn't he turned
+up?"</p>
+
+<p>The clanging of a bell brought both boys to their feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Lock-up, and call-over," said Scaife. "Come on!"</p>
+
+<p>They pushed their way down the passage. Several
+boys addressed Scaife.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Demon!&mdash;Here's the old Demon!&mdash;Demon, I
+thought you were going to be sacked!"</p>
+
+<p>To these and other sallies Scaife replied with his slightly
+ironical smile. John perceived that his companion was
+popular and at the same time peculiar; quite different
+from any boy he had yet met.</p>
+
+<p>They filed into a big room&mdash;the dining-room of the
+house&mdash;a square, lofty hall, with three long tables in it.
+On the walls hung some portraits of famous Old Harrovians.
+As a room it was disappointing at first sight,
+almost commonplace. But in it, John soon found out,
+everything for weal or woe which concerned the Manor
+had taken place or had been discussed. There were two
+fireplaces and two large doors. The boys passed through
+one door; upon the threshold of the other stood the butler,
+holding a silver salver, with a sheet of paper on it.</p>
+
+<p>"What cheek!" murmured Scaife.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Dirty Dick isn't here. Just like him, the slacker!
+And when he does come over on our side of the House,
+he slimes about in carpet slippers&mdash;the beast!"</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence entered as Scaife spoke. John saw that his
+strongly-marked eyebrows went up, when he perceived the
+butler. He approached, and took the sheet of paper.
+The butler said impressively&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rutford is busy. Will you call over, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>At any rate, the butler, Dumbleton, was worthy of the
+best traditions of the Manor. He had a shrewd, clean-shaven
+face, and the deportment of an archbishop. The
+Head of the House took the paper, and began to call over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+the names. Each boy, as his name was called, said, "Here,"
+or, if he wished to be funny, "Here, <i>sir</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Verney?"</p>
+
+<p>The name rang out crisply.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, <i>sir</i>," said John.</p>
+
+<p>The Head of the House eyed him sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Kinloch?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Kinloch?"</p>
+
+<p>Scaife answered dryly: "Kinloch's portmanteau has
+come." Then Dumbleton said in his smooth, bland voice,
+"His lordship is in the drawing-room with Mr. Rutford."</p>
+
+<p>The boys exchanged knowing glances. Scaife looked
+contemptuous. The next moment the last name had been
+called, and the boys scurried into the passages. Lawrence
+was the first to leave the hall. Impulsively, John rushed
+up to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean to be funny, I didn't really," he panted.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right. It doesn't pay," Lawrence smiled grimly,
+"for new boys to be funny. I saw you didn't mean it."</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence spoke in a loud voice. John realized that
+he had so spoken purposely, trying to wipe out a new boy's
+first blunder.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks awfully," said John.</p>
+
+<p>He reached his room to find three other boys busily
+engaged in abusing their house-master. They took no
+notice of John, who leaned against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"His lordship is in the drawing-room with Mr. Rutford."</p>
+
+<p>A freckle-faced, red-headed youth, with a big elastic
+mouth had imitated Dumbleton admirably.</p>
+
+<p>"What a snob Dick is!" drawled a very tall, very thin,
+aristocratic-looking boy.</p>
+
+<p>"And a fool," added Scaife. "This sort of thing makes
+him loathed."</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> a sell his being here."</p>
+
+<p>All three fell to talking. The question still festering in
+John's mind was answered within a minute. The "brute"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+was Rutford. Towards the end of the previous term
+gossip had it that the master of the Manor had been offered
+an appointment elsewhere. Whereat the worthier spirits
+in the ancient house rejoiced. Now the joy was turned into
+wailing and gnashing of teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he a beast to <i>us</i>?" said John.</p>
+
+<p>The freckle-faced boy answered affably, "That depends.
+His Imperial Highness"&mdash;he kicked the new portmanteau
+hard&mdash;"will not find Mr. Richard Rutford a beast. Far
+from it. And he's civil to the Demon, because his papa is
+a man of many shekels. But to mere outsiders, like myself, a
+beast of beasts; ay, the very king of beasts, is&mdash;Dirty Dick."</p>
+
+<p>And then&mdash;oh, horrors!&mdash;the door of No. 15 opened,
+and Rutford appeared, followed by a seemingly young and
+very fashionably dressed lady. The boys jumped to their
+feet. All, except Scaife, looked preternaturally solemn.
+The house-master nodded carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Scaife, Duchess," he said in his thick, rasping
+tones. "Scaife and Verney, let me present you to the
+Duchess of Trent."</p>
+
+<p>He mouthed the illustrious name, as if it were a large
+and ripe greengage.</p>
+
+<p>The duchess advanced, smiling graciously. "These"&mdash;Rutford
+named the other boys&mdash;"are Egerton, Lovell,
+and&mdash;er&mdash;Duff."</p>
+
+<p>Scaife, alone of those present, appreciated the order in
+which his schoolfellows had been named. Egerton&mdash;known
+as the Caterpillar&mdash;was the son of a Guardsman; Lovell's
+father was a judge; Duff's father an obscure parson.</p>
+
+<p>The duchess shook hands with each boy. "Your father
+and I are old friends," she said to Egerton; "and I have
+had the pleasure of meeting your uncle," she smiled at John.</p>
+
+<p>Duff looked unhappy and ill at ease, because it was
+almost certain that his last sentence had been overheard by
+the house-master. The duchess asked a few questions and
+then took her leave. She and her son were dining with the
+Head Master. Rutford accompanied her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Did the blighter hear?" said Duff.</p>
+
+<p>"How could he help it with his enormous asses' ears?"
+said the tall, thin Egerton.</p>
+
+<p>Duff, an optimist, like all red-headed, freckled boys,
+appealed to the others, each in turn. The verdict was
+unanimous.</p>
+
+<p>"He hates me like poison," said Duff. "I shall catch
+it hot. What an unlucky beggar I am!"</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" said Scaife. "He knows jolly well that the
+whole school calls him Dirty Dick."</p>
+
+<p>But whatever hopes Duff may have entertained of his
+house-master's deafness were speedily laid in the dust.
+Within five minutes Rutford reappeared. He stood in the
+doorway, glaring.</p>
+
+<p>"Just now, Duff," said he, "I happened to overhear
+your voice, which is singularly, I may say vulgarly, penetrating.
+You were speaking of me, your house-master, as
+'Dick.' But you used an adjective before it. What was it?"</p>
+
+<p>Duff writhed. "I don't&mdash;remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, you do. Why lie, Duff?"</p>
+
+<p>John's brown face grew pale.</p>
+
+<p>"The adjective you used," continued Rutford, "was
+'dirty.' You spoke of <i>me</i> as 'Dirty Dick,' and I fancy I
+caught the word 'beast.' You will write out, if you please,
+one hundred Greek lines, accents and stops, and bring them
+to me, or leave them with Dumbleton, <i>twenty-five</i> lines at a
+time, <i>every</i> alternate half hour during the afternoon of the
+next half holiday. Good night to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, sir," said all the boys, save John and
+Scaife.</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, Verney."</p>
+
+<p>Master and pupil confronted each other. John's face
+looked impassive; and Rutford turned from the new boy
+to Scaife.</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, Scaife."</p>
+
+<p>Scaife drew himself up, and, in a quiet, cool voice,
+replied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Duff waited till Rutford's heavy step was no longer
+heard; then he rushed at John.</p>
+
+<p>"I say," he spluttered, "you're a good sort&mdash;ain't he,
+Demon? Refusing to say 'Good night' to the beast
+because he was ragging me. But he'll never forgive you&mdash;never!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, he will," said Scaife. "It won't be difficult
+for Dirty Dick to forgive the future Verney of Verney
+Boscobel."</p>
+
+<p>John stared. "Verney Boscobel?" he repeated.
+"Why, that belongs to my uncle. Mother and I hope
+he'll marry and have a lot of jolly kids of his own."</p>
+
+<p>"You hope he'll marry? Well, I'm&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>John's jaw stuck out. The emphasis on the "hope"
+and the upraised eyebrow smote hard.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say," he began hotly, "you don't
+<i>think</i> that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I can think what I please," said Scaife, curtly; "and
+so can you." He laughed derisively. "<i>Thinking</i> what they
+please is about the only liberty allowed to new boys. Even
+the Duffer learned to hold his tongue during his first
+term."</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar&mdash;the tall, thin, aristocratic boy&mdash;spoke
+solemnly. He was a dandy, the understudy&mdash;as John soon
+discovered&mdash;of one of the "Bloods"; a "Junior Blood,"
+or "Would-be," a tremendous authority on "swagger," a
+stickler for tradition, who had been nearly three years in
+the school.</p>
+
+<p>"The Demon is right," said he. "A new boy can't be
+too careful, Verney. Your being funny in hall just now
+made a dev'lish bad impression."</p>
+
+<p>"But I didn't mean to be funny. I told Lawrence so
+directly after call-over."</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar pulled down his cuffs.</p>
+
+<p>"If you didn't mean to be funny," he concluded, "you
+must be an ass."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Duff, however, remembered that John was nephew to
+an explorer.</p>
+
+<p>"I say," he jogged John's elbow, "do you think you
+could get me your uncle's autograph?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks. I've not a bad collection," the Duffer
+murmured modestly.</p>
+
+<p>"And the gem of it," said Scaife, "is Billington's, the
+hangman! The Duffer shivers whenever he looks at it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do," said Duff, grinning horribly.</p>
+
+<p>After supper and Prayers, John went to bed, but not to
+sleep for at least an hour. He lay awake, thinking over
+the events of this memorable day. Whenever he closed
+his eyes he beheld two objects: the spire of Harrow Church
+and the vivid, laughing face of Desmond. He told himself
+that he liked Desmond most awfully. And Scaife too, the
+Demon, had been kind. But somehow John did not like
+Scaife. Then, in a curious half-dreamy condition, not yet
+asleep and assuredly not quite awake, he seemed to see the
+figure of Scaife expanding, assuming terrific proportions,
+impending over Desmond, standing between him and the
+spire, obscuring part of the spire at first, and then, bit by
+bit, overshadowing the whole.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Byron, writing to John Murray, May 26, 1822, and giving directions
+for the burial of poor little Allegra's body, says&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I wish it to be buried in Harrow Church. There is a spot in the
+churchyard, near the footpath, on the brow of the hill looking towards
+Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie,
+or Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours as a boy: this was
+my favourite spot; but, as I wish to erect a tablet to her memory,
+the body had better be deposited in the church."
+</p><p>
+See also "Lines written beneath an elm in the churchyard of Harrow,"
+in "Hours of Idleness."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> "Speecher"&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> Speech-Day. At Harrow "er" is a favourite
+termination of many substantives. "Harder," for hard-ball racquets,
+"Footer," "Ducker," etc.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The Duke of Dorset was Byron's fag. <i>Cf.</i>&mdash;
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Though the harsh custom of our youthful band<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bade thee obey, and gave me to command."<br /></span>
+<span class="i12"><i>Hours of Idleness.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3><i>C&aelig;sar</i></h3>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 20em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"You come here where your brothers came,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To the old school years ago,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A young new face, and a Harrow name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Mid a crowd of strangers? No!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You may not fancy yourself alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">You who are memory's heir,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When even the names in the graven stone<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Will greet you with 'Who goes there&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">You?&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Pass, Friend&mdash;All's well.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">John never</span> forgot that memorable morning when he
+learned for the first time what place he had taken in the
+school. He sat with the other new-comers, staring, open-eyed,
+at nearly six hundred boys, big and small, assembled
+together in the Speech-room. So engrossed was he that
+he scarcely heard the Head Master's opening prayers.
+John was obsessed, inebriated, with the number of Harrovians,
+each of whom had once felt strange and shy like
+himself. From his place close to the great organ, he could
+look up and up, seeing row after row of faces, knowing that
+amongst them sat his future friends and foes.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, a neighbour nudged him. The Head Master
+was reading from a list in his hand the school-removes, and
+the names and places taken by new boys. He began at
+the lowest form with the name of a small urchin sitting
+near John. The urchin blinked and blushed as he realized
+that he was "lag of the school." John knew that he had
+answered fairly well the questions set by the examiners;
+he had no fear of finding himself pilloried in the Third
+Fourth; still, as form after form did not include his name,
+he grew restless and excited. Had he taken a higher place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+than the Middle Shell? Yes; no Verney in the Middle
+Shell. The Head Master began the removes of the top
+Shell. Now, now it must be coming. No; the clear,
+penetrating tones slowly articulated name after name, but
+not his.</p>
+
+<p>"Verney."</p>
+
+<p>At last. Many eyes were staring at him, some enviously,
+a few superciliously. John had taken the Lower Remove,
+the highest form but one open to new boys. He was
+sipping the wine called Success.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, Desmond of the frank, laughing face and
+sparkling blue eyes, and Scaife and Egerton were also in
+the Lower Remove.</p>
+
+<p>After this, John sat in a blissful dream, hardly conscious
+of his surroundings, seeing his mother's face, hearing her
+sigh of pleasure when she learned that already her son was
+halfway up the school.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>You may be sure those first forty-eight hours were
+brim-full of excitements. First, John bought his books,
+stout leather-tipped, leather-backed volumes, on which his
+name will be duly stamped on fly-leaf and across the edges
+of the pages. And he bought also, from "Judy" Stephens,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>
+a "squash" racquet, "squash" balls, and a yard ball.
+From the school Custos&mdash;"Titchy"&mdash;a noble supply of
+stationery was procured. Moreover, young Kinloch announced
+that his mother had given him three pounds to
+spend upon the decoration of No. 15, so Scaife declared his
+intention of spending a similar sum, and in consequence
+No. 15 became a gorgeous apartment, the cynosure of every
+eye that passed. The characters of the three boys were
+revealed plainly enough by their simple furnishings. Scaife
+bought sporting prints, a couple of D&eacute;taille's lithographs,
+and an easy-chair, known to dwellers upon the Hill as a
+"frowst"; Kinloch hung upon his side of the wall four
+pretty reproductions of French engravings, and with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+help of three yards of velveteen and some cheap lace he
+made a very passable imitation of the mantel-cover in his
+mother's London boudoir; John scorned velveteen, lace,
+"frowsts," and French engravings. He put his money
+into a pair of red curtains, and one excellent photogravure
+of Landseer's "Children of the Mist." Having a few
+shillings to spare, he bought half a dozen ferns, which were
+placed in a box by the window, and watered so diligently
+that they died prematurely.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, John played in a house-game at football, and
+learned the difference between a scrimmage at a small
+preparatory school and the genuine thing at Harrow.
+Lawrence insisted that all new boys should play, and the
+Caterpillar informed him that he would have to learn the
+rules of Harrow "footer" by heart, and pass a stiff examination
+in them before the House Eleven, with the penalty
+of being forced to sing them in Hall if he failed to satisfy
+his examiners. The Duffer lent him a House-shirt of green
+and white stripes, and a pair of white duck shorts, and
+with what pride John put them on, thinking of the far
+distant day when he would wear a "fez"<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> instead of
+the commonplace house-cap! Lawrence said a few
+words.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to play the compulsory games, Verney,
+which begin after the Goose Match,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> but I want to see you
+playing as hard as ever you can in the house-games. You'll
+be knocked about a bit; but a Verney won't mind that&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather not," said John, feeling very valiant.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, there was the first Sunday, and the first sermon
+of the Head Master, with its plain teaching about the
+opportunities and perils of Public School life. John found
+himself mightily affected by the singing, and the absence of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+shrill treble voices. The booming basses and baritones of
+the big fellows made him shiver with a curious bitter-sweet
+sensation never experienced before.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, the pleasant discovery that his Form treated
+him with courtesy and kindness. Desmond, in particular,
+welcomed him quite warmly. And then and there John's
+heart was filled with a wild and unreasonable yearning for
+this boy's friendship. But Desmond&mdash;he was called
+"C&aelig;sar," because his Christian names were Henry Julius&mdash;seemed
+to be very popular, a bright particular star, far
+beyond John's reach although for ever in his sight. C&aelig;sar
+never offered to walk with him: and he refused John's
+timid invitation to have food at the "Tudor Creameries."<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>
+Was it possible that a boy about to enter Damer's would
+not be seen walking and talking with a fellow out of Dirty
+Dick's? This possibility festered, till one morning John
+saw his idol walking up and down the School Yard with
+Scaife. That evening he said to Scaife&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like Desmond?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Scaife replied decisively. "I like him better
+than any fellow at Harrow. You know that his father is
+Charles Desmond&mdash;the Cabinet Minister and a Governor of
+the school?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know it. I suppose C&aelig;sar Desmond likes
+you&mdash;<i>awfully</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you? I doubt it."</p>
+
+<p>No more was said. John told himself that C&aelig;sar&mdash;he
+liked to think of Desmond as C&aelig;sar&mdash;could pick and choose
+a pal out of at least three hundred boys, half the school.
+How extremely unlikely that he, John, would be chosen!
+But every night he lay awake for half an hour longer than
+he ought to have done, wondering how, by hook or crook,
+he could do a service to C&aelig;sar which must challenge interest
+and provoke, ultimately, friendship.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, he was slowly initiated by the Caterpillar
+into Harrow ways and customs. Fagging, which began<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+after the first fortnight, he found a not unpleasant duty.
+After first and fourth schools the other fags and he would
+stand not far from the pantry, and yell out "Breakfast,"
+or "Tea," as it might be, "for Number So-and-So."
+Perhaps one had to nip up to the Creameries to get a slice
+of salmon, or cutlets, or sausages. Fagging at Harrow&mdash;which
+varies slightly in different houses&mdash;is hard or easy
+according to the taste and fancy of the fag's master. Some
+of the Sixth Form at the Manor made their fags unlace
+their dirty football boots. Kinloch, who since he left the
+nursery had been waited upon by powdered footmen six
+feet high, now found, to his disgust, that he had to varnish
+Trieve's patent-leathers for Sunday. Trieve was second in
+command, and had been known as "Miss" Trieve. John
+would have gladly done this and more for Lawrence, his
+fag-master; but Lawrence, a manly youth, scorned sybaritic
+services. The Caterpillar taught John to carry his umbrella
+unfolded, to wear his "straw" straight (a slight list to port
+was allowed to "Bloods" only), not to walk in the middle
+of the road, and so forth. How he used to envy the members
+of the Elevens as they rolled arm-in-arm down the High
+Street! How often he wondered if the day would ever
+dawn when C&aelig;sar and he, outwardly and inwardly linked
+together, would stroll up and down the middle-walk below
+the Chapel Terrace: that sunny walk, whence, on a fair
+day, you can see the insatiable monster, London, filling the
+horizon and stretching red, reeking hands into the sweet
+country&mdash;the middle-walk, from which all but Bloods were
+rigidly excluded.</p>
+
+<p>Much to his annoyance&mdash;an annoyance, be it said, which
+he managed to hide&mdash;John seemed to attract young Kinloch
+almost as magnetically as he himself was attracted to C&aelig;sar.
+John had not the heart to shake off the frail, delicate child,
+who was christened "Fluff" after his first appearance in
+public. Fluff had taken the First Fourth and ingenuously
+confessed to any one who cared to listen that he ought to
+have gone to Eton. A beast of a doctor prescribed the Hill.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+And even the almighty duke failed to get him into Damer's,
+another grievance. He had been entered since birth
+at the crack house at Eton; and now to be pitchforked
+into Dirty Dick's at Harrow&mdash;&mdash;! The Duffer kicked him,
+feeling an unspeakable cad when poor Fluff burst into
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry," said the Duffer. "Only you mustn't slang
+Harrow. And you'd better get it into your silly head that
+it's the best school in this or any other world&mdash;isn't it,
+Demon?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure the Verneys, and the Egertons, and the Duffs
+have always thought so."</p>
+
+<p>"But it isn't really," whimpered poor Fluff. "You
+fellows know that everybody talks of Eton and Harrow.
+Who ever heard of Harrow and Eton? People say&mdash;I've
+heard my eldest brother, Strathpeffer, say it again and again&mdash;'Eton
+and Harrow,' just as they say 'Gentlemen and
+Players.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said the Caterpillar. "The Etonians are the
+gentlemen&mdash;eh? Well, Fluff, after their performance at
+Lord's last year, you couldn't expect us to admit that they're&mdash;players."</p>
+
+<p>The Duffer chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Caterpillar, that was a good 'un."</p>
+
+<p>"Not mine," said the Caterpillar, solemnly; "my
+governor's, you know."</p>
+
+<p>The Duffer continued: "Now, Fluff, I won't touch your
+body, because you might tumble to pieces, but if I hear you
+slanging the school or our house, I'll pull out handfuls of
+fluff. D'ye hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Fluff, meekly.</p>
+
+<p>"Say '<i>Floreat Herga</i>' on your bended knees!"</p>
+
+<p>Fluff obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>"And remember," said the Duffer, impressively, "that
+we've had a king here, haven't we, Caterpillar?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the Caterpillar.</p>
+
+<p>"I never believed it," said Scaife.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He was a Spaniard,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> or an Italian, you know," the
+Duffer explained. "The duke of something or t'other;
+and an ambassador came down and offered the beggar the
+Spanish crown, when he was in the First Fourth, and of
+course he gobbled it&mdash;who wouldn't? And then Victor
+Emmanuel interfered. That's all true, you can take your
+Bible oath, because my governor told me so, and he&mdash;well,
+he's a parson."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it <i>must</i> be true," said Scaife. "Now, young
+Fluff, don't forget that Harrow is a school fit for a king
+and nearer to Heaven than Eton by at least six hundred
+feet."</p>
+
+<p>So saying, the Demon marched out of the room, followed
+by Fluff, slightly limping.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry I turfed<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> that little ass so hard," said the Duffer
+to John. "I say, Verney, the Demon is rather a rum 'un,
+ain't he? Sometimes I can't quite make him out. He's
+frightfully clever and all that, but I had a sort of beastly
+feeling just now that he didn't&mdash;eh?&mdash;quite mean what he
+said. Was he laughin' at <i>us</i>, pullin' our legs&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>John's brain worked slowly, as he had found out to his
+cost under a form-master who maintained that it was no
+use having a fact stored in the head unless it slipped readily
+out of the mouth. The Duffer, who never thought, because
+speaking was so much easier, grew impatient at John's
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you needn't look like an owl, Verney. You
+know that Scaife's grandfather was a navvy."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," John replied.</p>
+
+<p>"And I don't care," said the Duffer. "Let's go and
+have some food at the Creameries."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Looking back afterwards, John often wondered whether,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+unconsciously, the Duffer had sown a grain of mustard-seed
+destined to grow into a large tree. Or, had the intuition
+that Scaife was other than what he seemed furnished
+the fertile soil into which the seed fell? In any case, from
+the end of this first week began to increase the suspicion,
+which eventually became conviction, that the Demon,
+keen at games, popular in his house, clever at work&mdash;clever,
+indeed! inasmuch as he never achieved more or less than
+was necessary&mdash;generous with his money, handsome and
+well-mannered, blessed, in fine, with so many gifts of the
+gods, yet lacked a soul.</p>
+
+<p>This, of course, is putting into words the vague speculations
+and reasonings of a boy not yet fourteen. If an
+Olympian&mdash;one of the masters, for instance, or the Head
+of the House&mdash;had said, "Verney, has the Demon a soul?"
+John would have answered promptly, "Ra&mdash;ther! He's
+been awfully decent to Fluff and me. We'd have had a hot
+time if it hadn't been for him," and so forth.... And,
+indeed, to doubt Scaife's sincerity and goodness seemed at
+times gross disloyalty, because he stood, firm as a rock,
+between the two urchins in his room and the turbulent
+crowd outside. This defence of the weak, this guarding of
+green fruit from the maw of Lower School boys, afforded
+Scaife an opportunity of exercising power. He had the
+instincts of the potter, inherited, no doubt; and he moulded
+the clay ready to his hand with the delight of a master-workman.
+Nobody else knew what the man of millions
+had said to his boy when he despatched him to Harrow;
+but the Demon remembered every word. He had reason
+to respect and fear his sire.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sending you to Harrow to study, not books nor
+games, but boys, who will be men when you are a man.
+And, above all, study their weaknesses. Look for the
+flaws. Teach yourself to recognize at a glance the liar,
+the humbug, the fool, the egotist, and the mule. Make
+friends with as many as are likely to help you in after life,
+and don't forget that one enemy may inflict a greater<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+injury than twenty friends can repair. Spend money
+freely; dress well; swim with the tide, not against it."</p>
+
+<p>A year at Harrow confirmed Scaife's confidence in his
+father's worldly wisdom. Big for his age, strong, with his
+grandsire's muscles, tough as hickory, he had become the
+leader of the Lower School boys at the Manor. The Fifth
+were civil to him, recognizing, perhaps, the expediency of
+leaving him alone ever since the incident of the cricket
+stump. The Sixth found him the quickest of the fags and
+uncommonly obliging. His house-master signed reports
+which neither praised nor blamed. To Dirty Dick the boy
+was the son of a man who could write a cheque for a
+million.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Two things worthy of record happened within a month;
+the one of lesser importance can be set down first. Charles
+Desmond, C&aelig;sar's father, came down to Harrow and gave
+a luncheon at the King's Head. From time immemorial
+the Desmonds had been educated on the Hill. The family
+had produced some famous soldiers, a Lord Chancellor, and
+a Prime Minister. In the Fourth Form Room the stranger
+may read their names carved in oak, and they are carved
+also in the hearts of all ardent Harrovians. Mr. Desmond,
+though a Cabinet Minister, found time to visit Harrow once
+at least in each term. He always chose a whole holiday,
+and after attending eleven-o'clock Bill<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> in the Yard, would
+carry off his son and his son's friends. The School knew
+him and loved him. To the thoughtful he stood for the
+illustrious past, the epitome of what John Lyon's<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> boys
+had fought for and accomplished. Four sons had he&mdash;Harrovians
+all. Of these C&aelig;sar was youngest and last.
+Each had distinguished himself on the Hill either in work
+or play, or in both.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Desmond stood upon the step just above the
+master who was calling Bill.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's C&aelig;sar's father," said Scaife. "I'm going to
+lunch with him. Isn't he a topper?"</p>
+
+<p>John's eyes were popping out of his face. He had never
+seen any man like this resplendent, stately personage,
+smiling and nodding to the biggest fellows in the school.</p>
+
+<p>"And my governor says," Scaife added, "that he's not
+a rich man, nothing much to speak of in the way of income
+over and above his screw as a Cabinet Minister."</p>
+
+<p>Scaife moved away, and John could hear him say to
+another boy, in an easy, friendly tone, "Mr. Desmond told
+C&aelig;sar that he wanted to meet <i>me</i>&mdash;very civil of him&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Presently John was in line waiting to pass by the steps.</p>
+
+<p>"Verney?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here, sir."</p>
+
+<p>He was hurrying by, with a backward glance at the
+great man. Suddenly C&aelig;sar's father beckoned, nodding
+cheerily. John ascended the steps, to feel the grasp of a
+strong hand, to hear a ringing voice.</p>
+
+<p>"You're John Verney's nephew. Just so. I think I
+should have spotted you, even if Harry had not told me
+you were in his form. You must lunch with us. Cut
+along, now."</p>
+
+<p>So John was dismissed, brim-full of happiness, which
+almost overflowed when C&aelig;sar met him with an eager&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so glad, Verney. I say, the governor's a nailer
+at picking out the old names, isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>So John ate his luncheon in distinguished company,
+and felt himself for the first time to be somebody. As the
+youngest guest present, to him was accorded the place of
+honour, next the most charming host in Christendom, who
+put him at ease in a jiffy. How good the cutlets and the
+pheasant tasted! And how the talk warmed the cockles
+of his heart! The brand of the Crossed Arrows shone
+upon all topics. Who could expect, or desire, aught else!
+C&aelig;sar's governor seemed to know what every Harrovian
+had done worth the doing. Easily, fluently, he discoursed
+of triumphs won at home, abroad, in the camp, on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+hustings, at the bar, in the pulpit. And his anecdotes,
+which illustrated every phase of life, how pat to the moment
+they were! One boy complained ruefully of having spent
+three terms under a form-master who had "ragged" him.
+Charles Desmond sympathized&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Bless my soul," said he, "don't I remember being
+three terms in the Third Fifth when that tartar old Heriot
+had it? I dare swear I got no more than my deserts. I
+was an idle vagabond, but Heriot made my life such a
+burden to me that I entreated my people to take me away
+from Harrow. And then my governor urged me to put
+my back into the work and get a remove. And I did.
+And would you believe it, upon the first day of the next
+term I wired to my people, 'You must take me away.
+I've got my remove all right&mdash;and so has Heriot.'"</p>
+
+<p>How gaily the speaker led the laugh which followed
+this recital! And the chaff! Was it possible that C&aelig;sar
+dared to chaff a man who was supposed to have the peace
+of Europe in his keeping? And, by Jove! C&aelig;sar could
+hold his own.</p>
+
+<p>So the minutes flew. But John noticed, with surprise,
+that the Demon didn't score. In fact, John and he were
+the only guests that contributed nothing to the feast save
+hearty appetites. It was strange that the Demon, the wit
+of his house and form, never opened his mouth except to
+fill it with food. He answered, it is true, and very modestly,
+the questions addressed to him by his host; but then, as
+John reflected, any silly fool in the Fourth Form could
+do that.</p>
+
+<p>After luncheon, the boys were dismissed, each with a
+hearty word of encouragement and half a sovereign. John
+was passing the plate-glass splendours of the Creameries,
+when the Demon overtook him, and they walked down the
+winding High Street together. Scaife had never walked
+with John before.</p>
+
+<p>"That was worth while," Scaife said quietly. John
+could not interpret this speech, save in its obvious meaning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Rather," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" said Scaife, very sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why was it worth while?"</p>
+
+<p>John stammered out something about good food and
+jolly talk.</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" said Scaife, contemptuously. "I thought
+you had brains, Verney." He glanced at him keenly.
+"Now, speak out. What's in that head of yours? You
+can be cheeky, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>John wondered how Scaife had divined that he wished
+to be cheeky. His mentor had said so much to Fluff and
+him about the propriety of not putting on "lift" or "side"
+in the presence of an older boy, that he had choked back a
+retort which occurred to him.</p>
+
+<p>"You're thinking," continued the Demon, in his clear
+voice, "that I didn't use my brains just now, but, my
+blooming innocent, I can assure you I did. Very much so. I
+played 'possum. Put that into your little pipe and smoke it."</p>
+
+<p>At four-o'clock Bill, John noticed C&aelig;sar's absence: a
+fact accounted for by the presence of a mail-phaeton,
+which, he knew, belonged to Mr. Desmond, drawn up&mdash;oddly
+enough&mdash;opposite the Manor. What a joke to think
+that C&aelig;sar was drinking tea with Dirty Dick!</p>
+
+<p>After Bill, having nothing better to do, John and Fluff
+went for a walk on the Sudbury road. They had played
+football before Bill, and each had realized his own awkwardness
+and insignificance. Poor Fluff, almost reduced to
+tears, with a big black bruise upon his white forehead,
+confessed that he preferred peaceful games&mdash;like croquet,
+and intended to apply for a doctor's certificate of exemption.
+Demanding sympathy, he received a slating.</p>
+
+<p>"I play nearly as rotten a game as you do, Fluff,"
+John said; "but Scaife expects us to be Torpids,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> so we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+jolly well have to buck up. That bruise over your eye
+has taken off your painted-doll look. Now, if you're going
+to blub, you'd better get behind that hedge."</p>
+
+<p>Fluff exploded.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a beastly hole," he cried. "And I loathe it.
+I'm going to write to my father and beg him to take me
+away."</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to be at a girls' school."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate everything and everybody. I thought you were
+my friend, the only friend I had."</p>
+
+<p>John was somewhat mollified.</p>
+
+<p>"I am your friend, but not when you talk rot."</p>
+
+<p>"Verney, look here, if you'll be decent to me, I <i>will</i> try
+to stick it out. I wish I was like you; I do indeed. I
+wish I was like Scaife. Why, I'd sooner be the Duffer,
+freckles and all, than myself."</p>
+
+<p>John looked down upon the delicately-tinted face, the
+small, regular, girlish features, the red, quivering mouth.
+Suddenly he grasped that this was an appeal from weakness
+to strength, and that he, no older and but a little bigger
+than Fluff, had strength to spare, strength to shoulder
+burdens other than his own.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," he said stiffly; "don't make such a fuss!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have me for a friend, Verney?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but I ain't going to kiss your forehead to make
+it well, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"May I call you John, when we're alone? And I wish
+you'd call me Esm&eacute;, instead of that horrid 'Fluff.'"</p>
+
+<p>John pondered deeply.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," he said. "You can call me John, and
+I'll call you Esm&eacute;, when we're Torpids. And now, you'd
+better cut back to the house. I must think this all out,
+and I can't think straight when I look at you."</p>
+
+<p>"May I call you John once?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are the silliest idiot I ever met, bar none. Call
+me 'John,' or 'Tom Fool,' or anything; but hook it
+afterwards!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, John, I will. You're the only boy I ever met
+whom I really wanted for a friend." He displayed a radiant
+face, turned suddenly, and ran off. John watched him,
+frowning, because Fluff was a good little chap, and yet, at
+times, such a bore!</p>
+
+<p>He walked on alone, chewing the cud of a delightful
+experience; trying, not unsuccessfully, to recall some of
+Mr. Desmond's anecdotes. How proud C&aelig;sar was of his
+father! And the father, obviously, was just as proud of
+his son. What a pair! And if only C&aelig;sar were his friend!
+By Jove! It was rather a rum go, but John was as mad
+keen to call C&aelig;sar friend as poor Fluff to call John friend.
+Serious food for thought, this. "But I would never
+bother him," said John to himself, "as Fluff has bothered
+me, never!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Verney!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!" said John.</p>
+
+<p>Coincidence had thrust C&aelig;sar out of his thought and
+on to the narrow path in front of him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a ghost," said C&aelig;sar.</p>
+
+<p>John hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking of you," he confessed; "and then I
+heard your voice and saw you. It gave me a start. I say,
+it <i>was</i> good of your governor to ask me."</p>
+
+<p>"Hang my governor! He's the&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar closed his lips firmly, as if he feared that terrible
+adjectives might burst from them. John missed the sparkling
+smile, the gay glance of the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"What's up?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar hesitated; looked at John, read, perhaps, the
+sympathy, the honest interest, possibly the affection, in
+the grey orbs which met his own so steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"What's up?" he repeated. "Why, I'm not going
+into Damer's, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said John.</p>
+
+<p>"My governor has just told me. I came down here to
+curse and swear."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not going into Damer's? What rot&mdash;for you!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is sickening. Look here, Verney; I feel like telling
+you about it. I know you won't go bleating all over the
+shop. No. I said to myself, 'Mum's the word,' but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>John's heart beat, his body glowed, his grey eyes
+sparkled.</p>
+
+<p>"It's like this," continued C&aelig;sar, after a slight pause.
+"Damer told the governor that two fellows he had expected
+to leave at the end of this term were staying on. The
+governor hinted that Damer added something about straining
+a point, and letting me in ahead of three other fellows;
+but the governor wouldn't listen to that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Jolly decent of him," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it? In my opinion he ought to have thought of
+me first. All my brothers have been at Damer's. And he
+knew I'd set my heart on going there. Look how civil the
+fellows are to me. I've been in and out of the house like
+a tame cat. Confound it! if Damer did want to strain a
+point, why shouldn't he? The governor played his own
+game, not mine. What right has he to be so precious unselfish
+at my expense? I argued with him; but he can
+put his foot down. Let's cut all that. Of course, I don't
+want to stop in a beastly Small House for ever, and, if
+Damer's is closed to me, I should like Brown's, but Brown's
+is full too. And there are other good houses. But where&mdash;where
+do you think I <i>am</i> going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Reeds?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't call Reed's so bad. No; I'm going to Dirty
+Dick's. I'm coming to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I say."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, dash it all, you're grinning. I don't want to be
+a cad&mdash;Dirty Dick's is <i>your</i> house&mdash;but&mdash;after Damer's!
+O Lord!"</p>
+
+<p>The grin faded out of John's face. C&aelig;sar's loss outweighed
+his own gain.</p>
+
+<p>"Your governor was a Manorite," he said slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, in its best days; and he's always had a sneaking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+liking for it; but he knows, he knows, I say, that now it's
+rotten, and yet he sends me there. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ask another," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"I asked him another, and what do you think he said,
+in that peculiar voice of his which always dries me up?
+'Harry,' said he, 'when you're a little older and a good deal
+wiser, you'll be able to answer that question yourself.'"</p>
+
+<p>John's face brightened. A glimmering of the truth
+shone out of the darkness. He tried to advance nearer to
+it, gropingly.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"Your governor may feel that we want a fellow like
+you."</p>
+
+<p>John was blushing because he remembered what the
+Head of the House had said about the Verneys. Desmond
+glanced at him keenly. He detested flattery laid on too
+thick. But this was a genuine tribute. For the first time
+he smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Verney," he said, more genially. "What
+you say is utter rot; but it was decent of you to say it, and
+I'm glad that you and I are going to be in the same house."</p>
+
+<p>For his life John could not help adding, "And Scaife,
+you forget Scaife?" Jealousy pierced him as Scaife's name
+slipped out.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there's the Demon. I always liked him."</p>
+
+<p>"And he likes you."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he? Good old Demon! I like to be liked.
+That's the Irish in me. I'm half Irish, you know. I want
+fellows to be friendly to me. I'd forgotten Scaife. That's
+rum too, because he's not the sort one forgets, is he? No,
+I wonder if I could get into the Demon's room next term?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm in his room. It's a three-room."</p>
+
+<p>"A two-room is much jollier."</p>
+
+<p>"Our room is not bad."</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar was hardly listening. John caught a murmur:
+"The old Demon and I would get along capitally."</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The racquet Professional.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The cap of honour worn by the House Football Eleven.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> The Goose Match, the last cricket-match of the year, played
+between the Eleven and Old Boys, on the nearest half-holiday to
+Michaelmas Day.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> A fashionable "tuck"-shop.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> H.R.H. Prince Thomas of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, was elected
+King by the Cortes of Spain, October 3, 1869, while he was a boy at
+Harrow. The crown was finally declined January 1, 1870. The
+Prince was nick-named "King Tom."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> To "turf," <i>i.e.</i> to kick.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Calling over.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> John Lyon founded Harrow School, 1571.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Boys who have not been more than two years in the school are
+eligible as "Torpids;" out of each house a Torpid football Eleven is
+chosen.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Kraipale</i><a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></h3>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 16em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Life is mostly froth and bubble;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Two things stand like stone&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kindness in another's trouble,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Courage in your own."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Some five</span> years afterwards John Verney learned what had
+passed between Cabinet Minister and Head Master upon
+that eventful day which sent C&aelig;sar to curse and swear upon
+the Sudbury road. The Head Master was not an Harrovian,
+and on that account was the better able to perceive
+time-honoured abuses. At Harrow the dominant chord
+among masters and boys is a harmony of strenuousness and
+sentiment. Inevitably, the sentiment becomes, at times,
+sentimental; and then strenuousness pushes it into a corner.
+When honoured veterans are wearing out, loyalty, gratitude
+for past service, reluctance to inflict pain, keep them in
+positions of responsibility which mentally and physically
+they are unfit to administer. It is almost as difficult to
+turn an Eton or Harrow master out of his house, as to turn
+a parson of the Church of England out of his pulpit. More,
+in selecting a house-master as in selecting a parson, a man's
+claims to preferment are too often determined by scholarship,
+by length of former service, by interest with authority,
+rather than by ability to govern a body of boys made up of
+widely different parts. A capable form-master may prove
+an incapable house-master. Richard Rutford, to give a
+concrete example, came to Harrow knowing nothing about
+Public Schools, and caring as little for the traditions of the
+Hill, but with the prestige of being a Senior Classic. Nobody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+questioned his ability to teach Greek. In his own line, and
+not an inch beyond, the Governors were assured that
+Rutford was a success. In due time he accepted a Small
+House, so small that its autocrat's incapacity as an administrator
+escaped notice. Rutford waited patiently for a big
+morsel. He wrote a couple of text-books; he married a
+wife with money and influence; he entertained handsomely.
+It is true he became popular neither with masters nor boys,
+but his wine was as sound as his scholarship, and his wife
+had a peer for a second cousin. Eventually he accepted the
+Manor. Within a month, those in authority suspected that
+a blunder had been made; within a year they knew it.
+The house began to go down. Leaven lay in the lump, but
+not enough to make it rise, because the baker refused to
+stir the dough. First and last, Rutford disliked boys,
+misunderstood them, insulted them, ignored those who
+lacked influential connections, toadied and pampered the
+"swells."</p>
+
+<p>Just before John Verney came to Harrow, the Manor
+was showing unmistakable signs of decay. A new Head
+Master, recognizing "dry-rot," realizing the necessity of
+cutting it out, was confronted with that bristling obstacle&mdash;Tradition.
+He possessed enough moral courage to have
+told Rutford to resign, because in a thousand indescribable
+ways the man had neglected his duty; but, so said the
+Tories, such a step might provoke a public scandal, and if
+Rutford refused to go&mdash;what then? Nothing definite
+could be proved against the man. His sins had been of
+omission. Dismayed, not defeated, the Head Master considered
+other methods of regenerating the Manor. Very
+quietly he made his appeal to the Old Harrovians, many of
+whom were sending their sons and nephews to other houses.
+He invited co-operation. John Verney, the Rev. Septimus
+Duff, Colonel Egerton&mdash;half a dozen enthusiastic Manorites&mdash;stepped
+forward. Lastly, for Charles Desmond the Head
+Master baited his hook.</p>
+
+<p>"The reform which we have at heart," said he, "must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+come from within and from below. The house wants a
+Desmond in it. I was not allowed to wield the axe; but,
+after all, there are more modern methods of decapitation.
+And, believe me, I am not asking any man more than I am
+prepared to do myself. My own nephew goes to the Manor
+after next holidays."</p>
+
+<p>"Um!" said Mr. Desmond, stroking his chin.</p>
+
+<p>"Lawrence, the Head of the House, is a tower of strength,
+like all the Lawrences."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you beguile the Duke of Trent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fortune gave me that weapon. The duke"&mdash;he
+laughed genially&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will turn scales which my heaviest arguments won't
+budge. A bit of luck! The duke wanted to send his son,
+a delicate lad, to Harrow, and I did mention to him that
+Rutford had a vacancy."</p>
+
+<p>"O Ulysses! And Scaife? How did you handle that
+large bale of bank-notes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rutford captured Scaife."</p>
+
+<p>"Handsome boy&mdash;his son. Lunched with us this
+morning. Well, well, you have persuaded me. But what
+an unpleasant quarter of an hour I shall have with Harry!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>As a new boy, John slaved at "footer," and displayed
+a curious inaptitude for squash racquets. At all games
+C&aelig;sar and Scaife were precociously proficient. John's
+clumsiness annoyed them. Often the Caterpillar joined
+him and Fluff, giving them to understand that this must be
+regarded as an act of grace and condescension which might
+be suitably acknowledged at the Tudor Creameries.</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar mightily impressed the two small boys.
+He had acquired his nick-name from the very leisurely pace
+at which he advanced up the school. He wore "Charity
+tails," as they were called, the swallow-tail coat of the
+Upper School mercifully given to boys of the Lower School
+who are too tall to wear with decency the short Eton jacket;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+he possessed a trouser-press; and his "bags" were perfectly
+creased and quite spotless. From tip to toe, at all seasons
+and in all weathers, he looked conspicuously spick and
+span. Chaff provoked the solemn retort: "One should
+be well groomed." He spoke impersonally, considering
+it bad form to use for first person singular. Amongst the
+small boys he ranked as the Petronius of the Lower School.</p>
+
+<p>One day the Caterpillar said grandiloquently, "You
+kids will oblige me by not shouting and yelling when you
+speak to me. I've a bit of a head."</p>
+
+<p>"What's wrong with it?" said Fluff.</p>
+
+<p>"It looks splendid <i>outside</i>," said John, in his serious
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar, detecting no cheek, answered gravely&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Some of us had a wet night of it, last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Wet?" exclaimed the innocent Fluff. "Why, all
+the stars were shining."</p>
+
+<p>"Your brothers at Eton know what a 'wet night'
+means," said the Caterpillar. "I was talking with one of
+the Fifth, when a fellow came in with a flask. A gentleman
+ought to be able to carry a few glasses of wine, but one is
+not accustomed to spirits."</p>
+
+<p>"Spirits?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whisky, not prussic acid, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"But where do they get the whisky?" demanded John.</p>
+
+<p>"Comparing it with my father's old Scotch, I should
+say at the grocer's," replied the Caterpillar. "There's
+some drinking going on in our house, and&mdash;and other
+things. One mentions it to you kids as a warning."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all; you're rather decent little beggars. They"
+(the Fifth Form was indicated), "they've let you alone
+so far, but you may have trouble next term, so look out!
+And if you want advice, come to me."</p>
+
+<p>Beneath his absurd pompous manner beat a kindly
+heart, and the small boys divined this and were grateful.
+None the less the word "spirits" frightened them. Next<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+day John happened to find himself alone with C&aelig;sar. Very
+nervously he asked the question&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I say, do any of the big fellows at Damer's drink?"</p>
+
+<p>"Drink? Drink&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, spirits."</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar snorted an indignant denial. The fellows at
+Damer's were above that sort of thing. The house prided
+itself upon its tone. Tone constituted Damer's glory, and
+was the secret of its success. John nodded, but two days
+afterwards the Demon took him by the arm, twisted it
+sharply, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What the deuce did you mean by telling C&aelig;sar that
+the Manorites drink?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Scaife&mdash;I didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"You gave us away."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Us?</i>" John's eyes opened. "<i>You</i> don't drink with
+'em?" he faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't bother your head about what I do, or don't do."
+Scaife answered roughly; "and because you took the
+Lower Remove don't think for an instant that you are on
+a par with C&aelig;sar and me, or even the old Caterpillar&mdash;for
+you ain't."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that," said John, humbly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't forget it, or there may be ructions."</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right. And, by the way, you're getting into
+the habit of hanging about C&aelig;sar, which bores him to
+death. Stop it."</p>
+
+<p>But to this John made no reply. He read dislike in
+Scaife's bold eyes, detected it in his clear, peremptory voice,
+felt it in the cruel twist of the arm. And he had brains
+enough to know that Scaife was not the boy to dislike any
+one without reason. John crawled to the conclusion that
+Scaife had become jealous of his increasing intimacy with
+Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>However, when the three boys were preparing their
+Greek for First School, Scaife seemed his old self, friendly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+amusing, and cool as a cucumber. Long ago he had
+initiated John into Manorite methods of work.</p>
+
+<p>"Our object is," he explained to the new boy, "to get
+through the 'swat' with as little squandering of valuable
+time as possible. It doesn't pay to be skewed. We must
+mug up our 'cons' well enough to scrape along without
+'puns' and extra school."</p>
+
+<p>The three co-operated. Out of forty lines of Vergil,
+Scaife would be fifteen, John fifteen, and the Caterpillar
+ten; <i>ten</i>, because, as he pointed out, he had been nearly
+three years in the school. Then each fellow in turn construed
+his lines for the benefit of the others. A difficult
+passage was taken by Scaife to a clever friend in the Fifth.
+Sometimes Scaife would be absent twenty minutes, returning
+flushed of face, and slightly excited. John wondered
+if he had been drinking, and wondered also what C&aelig;sar
+would say if he knew. About this time fear possessed his
+soul that C&aelig;sar would come into the Manor and be taught
+by Scaife to drink. An occasional nightmare took the form
+of a desperate struggle between himself and Scaife, in which
+Scaife, by virtue of superior strength and skill, had the
+mastery, dragging off the beloved C&aelig;sar, to plunge with
+him into fathomless pools of Scotch whisky. Somehow
+in these horrid dreams, C&aelig;sar played an impressive part.
+Scaife and John fought for his body, while he looked on,
+an absurd state of affairs, never&mdash;as John reflected in his
+waking hours&mdash;likely to happen in real life. Of all boys
+C&aelig;sar seemed to be the best equipped to fight his own
+battles, and to take, as he would have put it, "jolly good
+care of himself."</p>
+
+<p>After the first of the football house-matches, Scaife got
+his "fez" from Lawrence, the captain of the House Eleven,
+and the only member of the School Eleven in Dirty Dick's.
+Some of the big fellows in the Fifth seized this opportunity
+to "celebrate," as they called it. Scaife was popular with
+the Fifth because&mdash;as John discovered later&mdash;he cheerfully
+lent money to some of them and never pressed for repayment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+And Scaife's getting his "fez" before he was fifteen
+might be reckoned an achievement. C&aelig;sar, in particular,
+could talk of nothing else. He predicted that the Demon
+would be Captain of both Elevens, school racquet-player,
+and bloom into a second C. B. Fry.</p>
+
+<p>John, upon this eventful evening, soon became aware
+of a shindy. It happened that Rutford was giving a
+dinner-party, and extremely unlikely to leave the private
+side of the house. John heard snatches of song, howls, and
+cheers. Ordinarily Lawrence (in whose passage the shindy
+was taking place) would have stopped this hullabaloo; but
+Lawrence was dining with his house-master, and Trieve,
+an undersized, weakly stripling, lacked the moral courage
+to interfere. John was getting a "con" from Trieve when
+an unusually piercing howl penetrated the august seclusion.</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>are</i> they doing?" asked Trieve, irritably.</p>
+
+<p>John hesitated. "It's the Fifth," he blurted out.
+"They've got Scaife in there, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, indeed! Scaife is an excuse, is he, for this
+fiendish row? Go and tell Scaife I want to see him."</p>
+
+<p>John looked rather frightened. He felt like a spaniel
+about to retrieve a lion. And scurrying along the passage
+he ran headlong into the Duffer, to whom he explained his
+errand.</p>
+
+<p>"Phew-w-w!" said that young gentleman. "I'd sooner
+it was you than me, Verney. They're pretty well ginned-up,
+I can tell you."</p>
+
+<p>John tapped timidly at the door of the room whence
+the songs and laughter proceeded. Then he tapped again,
+and again. Finally, summoning his courage, he rapped
+hard. Instantly there was silence, and then a furtive
+rustling of papers, followed by a constrained "Come in!"</p>
+
+<p>John entered.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the boys&mdash;there were about six of them&mdash;gazed
+at him in stupefaction. Scaife, very red in the face, burst
+into shrill shouts of laughter. Somehow the laughter disconcerted
+John. He forgot to deliver his message, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+stood staring at Scaife, quaking with a young boy's terror
+of the unknown. Upon the table were some siphons,
+syrups, and the remains of a "spread."</p>
+
+<p>"What the blazes do you want?" said Lovell, the
+owner of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"I want Scaife," said John. "I mean that Trieve
+wants Scaife."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Miss Trieve wants Master Scaife, does she?
+Well, young 'un, you tell Trieve, with my compliments,
+that Scaife can't come. See? Now&mdash;hook it!"</p>
+
+<p>But John still stared at Scaife. The boy's dishevelled
+appearance, his wild eyes, his shrill laughter, revealed
+another Scaife.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better come, Scaife," he faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Not I," said Scaife. He spoke in a curiously high-pitched
+voice, quite unlike his usual cool, quiet tone.
+"Wait a mo'&mdash;I'm not Trieve's fag. I'm nobody's fag
+now, am I?"</p>
+
+<p>He appealed to the crowd. It was an unwritten rule
+at the Manor that members of the House cricket or football
+Elevens were exempt from fagging. But the common
+law of fagging at Harrow holds that any lower boy is
+bound to obey the Monitors, provided such obedience is
+not contrary to the rules of the school. In practice,
+however, no boy is fagged outside his own house, except
+for cricket-fagging in the summer term.</p>
+
+<p>"Fag? Not you? Tell Miss Trieve to mind her own
+business."</p>
+
+<p>John departed, feeling that an older and wiser boy might
+have tact to cope with this situation. For him, no course
+of action presented itself except delivering what amounted
+to a declaration of war.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't come? Is he mad?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Can't come,' they said."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, can't come? Has he hurt himself&mdash;sprained
+anything?"</p>
+
+<p>John was truthful (more of a habit than some people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+believe). He told the truth, just as some boys quibble and
+prevaricate, simply and naturally. But now, he hesitated.
+If he hinted&mdash;a hint would suffice&mdash;that Scaife had hurt
+himself&mdash;and what more likely after the furious bit of
+playing which had secured his "fez"?&mdash;Trieve, probably,
+would do nothing. John felt in his bones that Trieve
+would be glad of an excuse to do&mdash;nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"No; he hasn't sprained himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why don't he come?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;&mdash;" Then he burst into excited speech. "He
+looks as if he <i>was</i> a little mad. Oh, Trieve, won't you leave
+him alone? Please do! They must stop before prayers,
+and then Lawrence will be here."</p>
+
+<p>O unhappy John&mdash;thou art not a diplomatist! Why
+lug in Lawrence, who has inspired mordant jealousy and
+envy in the heart of his second in command?</p>
+
+<p>"Tell Scaife to come here at once," said Trieve, eyeing
+a couple of canes in the corner. "And if he should happen
+to ask what I want him for, say that I mean to whop him."</p>
+
+<p>John fled.</p>
+
+<p>"Whop him?"</p>
+
+<p>The Fifth howled rage and remonstrance. Scaife
+fiercely announced his intention of not taking a whopping
+from Trieve. None the less, the announcement had a
+sobering effect upon the elder boys. The consequence of a
+refusal must prove serious. Sooner or later Scaife would be
+whopped, probably by Lawrence, no ha'penny matter
+that!</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better go, Demon," said Lovell. "Trieve
+can't hurt you. I'd speak to the idiot, only he hates me so
+poisonously, just as I hate him."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go," said the Caterpillar.</p>
+
+<p>John had not noticed the Caterpillar before. He stood
+up, spick and span, carefully adjusting his coat, pulling
+down his immaculate cuffs.</p>
+
+<p>"Good old Caterpillar," said somebody. "By Jove,
+he really thinks that Trieve will listen to&mdash;him!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Any one who has been nearly three years in this
+house," said the Caterpillar, "has the right to tell Miss
+Trieve that she is&mdash;er&mdash;not behaving like a lady."</p>
+
+<p>"And he'll tell you you're screwed, you old fool."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not screwed," replied the Caterpillar, solemnly.
+"Whisky and potass does not agree with everybody; but
+I am not screwed, not at all." So speaking he sat down
+rather suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Lovell shrugged his shoulders, glanced at the Caterpillar
+and Scaife, and left the room. Within two minutes he
+returned, chapfallen and frowning.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it would be useless. Look here, Demon, you
+must grin and bear it."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Scaife, "not from Miss Trieve."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed as before. The Fifth exchanged glances.
+Then Scaife said thickly, "Give me another drink, I want
+a drink; so does young Verney. Look at him!"</p>
+
+<p>John was white about the gills and trembling, but not
+for himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Do go, Scaife!" he entreated.</p>
+
+<p>The Fifth formed a group; holding a council of war,
+engrossed in trying to find a way out of a wood which
+of a sudden had turned into a tangled thicket. And so
+what each would have strenuously prevented came to pass.
+Scaife pulled a bottle from under a sofa-cushion, and put
+it to his lips&mdash;John, standing at the door, could not see
+what was taking place.</p>
+
+<p>When the bottle was torn from Scaife's hands, the
+mischief had been done. The boy had swallowed a quantity
+of raw spirit. Till now the whisky had been much
+diluted with mineral water.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to him," yelled Scaife, struggling with his
+friends. "And I'm going to take a cricket stump with me.
+Le'me go&mdash;le'me go!"</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar surveyed him with disgust. After a
+brief struggle Scaife succumbed, helpless and senseless.</p>
+
+<p>"One is reminded sometimes," said the Caterpillar,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+solemnly, "that the poor Demon is the son of a Liverpool
+merchant, bred in or about the Docks."</p>
+
+<p>Nobody, however, paid any attention to Egerton, who,
+to do him justice, was the only boy present absolutely unmindful
+of his own peril. Expulsion loomed imminent.
+The window was flung wide open, eau de Cologne liberally
+applied. Scaife lay like a log.</p>
+
+<p>And then, in the middle of the confusion, Trieve walked
+in.</p>
+
+<p>"Scaife has had a sort of fit," explained an accomplished
+liar. "You know what his temper is, Trieve? And when
+he heard that you meant to 'whop' him, he went stark,
+staring mad."</p>
+
+<p>This explanation was so near the truth that Trieve
+accepted it, probably with mental reservations.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better send for Mrs. Puttick," he replied
+coldly.</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar was despatched for the matron; but
+before that worthy woman panted upstairs, Scaife had
+been carried to his own room, hastily undressed and put
+into bed, where he lay breathing stertorously. The matron,
+good, easy soul, accepted the boys' story unhesitatingly.
+A fit, of course, poor dear child! Mr. Rutford must be
+summoned.</p>
+
+<p>With the optimism of youth, those present began to
+hope that dust might be thrown into the eyes of Dirty Dick.
+And, with a little discreet delay, the Demon might recover,
+when he could be relied upon to play his part with adroitness
+and ability. Accordingly, the matron was urged to
+try her ministering hand first, amid the chaff, which, even
+in emergencies, slips so easily out of boys' mouths.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Puttick, you're better than any doctor&mdash;Scaife
+is all right, <i>really</i>. We knew that he was subject to fits&mdash;Rather!
+Some one was telling me that one of his aunts
+died in a fit"&mdash;"Shut up, you silly fool," this in a whisper,
+emphasized by a kick; "do you want to send her out of
+this with a hornets' nest tied to her back hair?&mdash;That's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+a lie, Mrs. Puttick. He's humbugging you. Scaife told
+me that his fits were nothing. Yes; he had a slight sun-stroke
+when he was a kid, you know, and the least bit of
+excitement affects him."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I'd better fetch a drop of brandy," said Mrs.
+Puttick, staring anxiously at Scaife. "He looks very bad."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, please do, Mrs. Puttick."</p>
+
+<p>She bustled away.</p>
+
+<p>"Now we <i>must</i> bring him to," said the Fifth Form.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was tried, even to the expedient of flicking
+Scaife's body with a wet towel; but the body lay motionless,
+his face horribly red against the white pillow, his heavy
+breathing growing more laboured and louder. And despite
+the perfume of the eau de Cologne which had drenched
+pillow and pyjamas, the smell of whisky spread terror to
+the crowd. If Rutford came in, he would swoop on the
+truth.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll souse the brandy all over him," said the Caterpillar;
+"and then no one can guess."</p>
+
+<p>"How about burnt feathers?" suggested Lovell. He
+had seen a fainting housemaid treated with this family
+restorative.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Puttick appeared with the brandy, which Lovell
+administered externally. Still, Scaife remained unconscious.
+Then a pillow was ripped open, and enough
+feathers burned to restore&mdash;as the Caterpillar put it afterwards&mdash;a
+ruined cathedral. The stench filled the passage
+and brought to No. 15 a chattering crowd of Lower Boys.
+And then the conviction seized everybody that Scaife was
+going to die.</p>
+
+<p>"Make way, make way, please!"</p>
+
+<p>It was Rutford, who, followed by Lawrence, strode
+down the passage into No. 15, and up to the bed.</p>
+
+<p>"If you please, sir," said Lovell, "Scaife has had a fit."</p>
+
+<p>"It looks like a fit," said Rutford, gravely. "I have
+telephoned for the doctor. You've tried," he sniffed the
+air, "all the wrong remedies, of course. Feathers&mdash;phaugh!&mdash;perfume&mdash;brandy!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+The boy must be propped
+up and the blood drawn from his head by applying hot
+water to his feet."</p>
+
+<p>The Fifth exchanged glances. Why had this not
+occurred to them? What a fool Mrs. Puttick was!</p>
+
+<p>"A rush of blood to the head!" Rutford liked to hold
+forth, and he had been told that he was a capital after-dinner
+speaker. He had just risen from an excellent
+dinner; he was not much alarmed; and his audience
+listened with flattering attention. Scaife was lifted into
+a chair; ice was applied to his head; his feet were thrust
+into a "tosh" filled with steaming water.</p>
+
+<p>"Note the effect," said Rutford. Already a slight
+change might be perceived; the breathing became easier,
+the face less red. Rutford continued in his best manner:
+"Mark the <i>vis medicatrix natur&aelig;</i>. Nature, assisted by hot
+water, gently accomplishes her task. Very simple, and
+not one of you had the wit to think of a remedy close at
+hand, and so easy to administer. The breathing is becoming
+normal. In a few minutes I predict that we shall
+have the satisfaction of seeing the poor dear fellow open
+his eyes, and he will tell us that he is but little the worse.
+Yes, yes, a rush of blood to the head producing cerebral disturbance."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled blandly, receiving the homage of the Fifth.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, Lovell, what do you know about this?
+Did this fit take place here?"</p>
+
+<p>"In my room, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"In your room&mdash;eh? What was Scaife, a Lower Boy,
+doing in your room?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lawrence gave him his 'fez' to-day, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! And Scaife was excited, perhaps unduly excited&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>The Fifth joined in a chorus of, "Yes, sir&mdash;Oh, yes,
+sir&mdash;awfully excited, sir&mdash;never saw a boy so excited,
+sir."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That will do. Now, Lovell, go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"We had some siphons in our room, sir." A stroke
+of genius this&mdash;for the siphons were still on the table and
+the syrups, and the <i>d&eacute;bris</i> of cakes and meringues. Rutford
+would be sure to examine the scene of the catastrophe; and
+the whisky bottle was carefully hidden. "We were having
+a spread, sir, and we asked Scaife to join us. His play
+to-day made him one of us."</p>
+
+<p>The other boys gazed admiringly at Lovell. What a
+cool, knowing hand!</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I see nothing objectionable about that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir&mdash;we were rather noisy&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on."</p>
+
+<p>"To speak the exact truth, sir, I fear we were <i>very</i>
+noisy; and Trieve, it seems, heard us. Instead of sending
+for me, sir, he sent Verney for Scaife&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>Lovell's hesitation at this point was really worthy of
+Coquelin <i>cadet</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you know, sir, that Scaife's getting his 'fez'
+releases him from house-fagging. We thought Trieve had
+forgotten that, sir; and that it would be rather fun&mdash;I'm
+not excusing myself, sir&mdash;we thought it would be a harmless
+joke if we persuaded Scaife not to go."</p>
+
+<p>"Um!"</p>
+
+<p>"We were very foolish, sir. And then Trieve sent
+another message saying that Scaife was to go to his room
+at once to be&mdash;whopped."</p>
+
+<p>"To be whopped. Um! Rather drastic that, very
+drastic under the circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"So we thought, sir; and I went to represent the facts
+to Trieve&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not much of a peacemaker, I fear, sir. Trieve
+refused to listen to me. He insisted upon whopping Scaife
+for what he called disobedience and impudence. Upon
+my honour, sir, I tried, we all tried, to persuade Scaife to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+take his whopping quietly, but he seemed to go quite mad.
+He has a violent temper, sir&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"A very violent temper. He&mdash;he&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Frothed at the mouth," put in a bystander. "I
+particularly noticed that."</p>
+
+<p>"Really, really&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Lovell, nodding his head reflectively. "He
+frothed at the mouth, and then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Grew quite black in the face," interpolated a third
+boy, who was determined that Lovell should not carry
+off all the honours.</p>
+
+<p>"I should say&mdash;purple," amended Lovell. "And then
+he gave&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A beastly gurgle&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A sort of snort, and fell flat on his face. I'm not sure
+that he didn't strike the edge of the table as he fell."</p>
+
+<p>"He did," said one of the boys. "I saw that."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Scaife moved in his chair, drawing all
+eyes to his face. John, peering from behind the circle of
+big boys, could see the first signs of returning consciousness,
+a flicker of the eyelids, a convulsive tremor of the limbs.
+Rutford bent down.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear Scaife, how are you? We've been a
+little anxious, all of us, but, I ventured to predict, without
+cause. Tell us, my poor boy, how do you feel?"</p>
+
+<p>Scaife opened his eyes. Then he groaned dismally.
+Rutford was standing to the right of the chair and foot-bath.
+The Fifth were facing Scaife. He met their
+anxious, admonishing glances, unable to interpret
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Lovell senior repeated the house-master's question&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How are you, old chap?"</p>
+
+<p>But, in his anxiety to convey a warning, he came too
+near, obscuring Rutford's massive figure. Scaife groaned
+again, putting his hand to his head.</p>
+
+<p>"How am I?" he repeated thickly. "Why, why, I'm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+jolly well screwed, Lovell; that's how I am! Jolly well
+screwed&mdash;hay? Ugh! how screwed I am. Ugh!"</p>
+
+<p>The groans fell on a terrifying silence. Rutford glanced
+keenly from face to face. Then he said slowly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The wretched boy is&mdash;<i>drunk</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of his house-master's voice, Scaife relapsed
+into an insensibility which no one at the moment cared to
+pronounce counterfeit or genuine. Rutford glared at
+Lovell.</p>
+
+<p>"Who was in your room, Lovell?"</p>
+
+<p>Without waiting for Lovell to answer, the other boys,
+each in turn, said, "I, sir," or "Me, sir." John came last.</p>
+
+<p>"Anybody else, Lovell?"</p>
+
+<p>A discreet master would not have asked this question,
+but Dirty Dick was the last man to waive an advantage.
+Now, the Caterpillar had quietly left No. 15, as soon as
+Rutford entered it. Not from any cowardly motive, but&mdash;as
+he put it afterwards&mdash;"because one makes a point of
+retiring whenever a rank outsider appears. One ought to
+be particular about the company one keeps." It says
+something for the boy's character, that this statement was
+accepted by the house as unvarnished truth. Lovell
+glanced at the other Fifth Form boys, as Rutford repeated
+the question.</p>
+
+<p>"Anybody else, Lovell? Be careful how you answer
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody else," said Lovell.</p>
+
+<p>"On your honour, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"On my honour, sir."</p>
+
+<p>And, later, all Manorites declared that Lovell had lied
+like a gentleman. Rutford and he stared at each other, the
+boy pale, but self-possessed, the big, burly man flushed
+and ill at ease.</p>
+
+<p>"You will all go to my study. A word with you,
+Lawrence."</p>
+
+<p>The boys filed quietly out. Rutford looked at John and
+Fluff. Large, fat tears were trickling down Fluff's cheeks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+Somehow he felt convinced that John was involved in a
+frightful row.</p>
+
+<p>"Run away, Kinloch," said his house-master. "I wish
+to speak with Lawrence and Verney."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Lawrence as he spoke. John glanced at
+Scaife. His eyes were open. Silently, Scaife placed a
+trembling finger upon his lips. The action, the expression
+in the eyes, were unmistakable. John understood, as
+plainly as if Scaife had spoken, that silence, where expulsion
+impended, was not only expedient but imperative. Kinloch
+crept out of the room. Rutford examined Scaife,
+who feigned insensibility. Then he addressed Lawrence.</p>
+
+<p>"Go to Lovell's room, Lawrence, and institute a
+thorough search. If you find wine or spirits, let me know
+at once."</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence left the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Verney, I am going to ask you a few questions."
+He assumed his rasping, truculent tone. "And don't you
+dare to tell me lies, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>John was about to repudiate warmly his house-master's
+brutal injunction, when the habit of thinking before he
+spoke closed his half-opened lips. Immediately, his face
+assumed the obstinate, expressionless look which made
+those who searched no deeper than the surface pronounce
+him a dull boy. Rutford, for instance, interpreted this
+stolidity as unintelligence and lack of perception. John,
+meantime, was struggling with a thought which shaped
+itself slowly into a plan of action. He had just heard
+Lovell lie to save the Caterpillar. John knew well enough
+that he might be called upon to lie also, to save not
+himself, but Scaife. If he held his tongue and refused to
+answer questions, Rutford would assume, and with reason,
+that Scaife had been made drunk by the Fifth Form
+fellows.</p>
+
+<p>Then John said quietly, "I am not a liar, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, I have never detected you in a lie," said
+Rutford.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"All the same," continued John, in a hesitating manner,
+"I <i>would</i> lie, if I thought a lie might save a friend's life."</p>
+
+<p>Rutford was so unprepared for this deliberate statement,
+that he could only reply&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you would, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said John; then he added, "Any decent boy
+or man would."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh, indeed! This is very interesting. Go on,
+Verney."</p>
+
+<p>"Scaife said he <i>felt</i> as if he was jolly well screwed, sir;
+but he isn't. I'm quite sure he isn't. He may feel like
+it; but he isn't."</p>
+
+<p>John could see Scaife's eyes, slightly blood-shot, but
+sparkling with a sort of diabolical sobriety. At that
+moment, one thing alone seemed certain, Scaife had regained
+full possession of his faculties. Rutford stared at
+John, frowning.</p>
+
+<p>"You dare to look me in the face and tell me that
+Scaife is not drunk?"</p>
+
+<p>Very seriously, John answered, "I'm sure he's not
+drunk, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Rutford eyed the boy keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever seen anybody drunk?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I live in the New Forest," said John, as gravely as
+before, "and on Whit-Monday&mdash;&mdash;" He was aware that
+he had made an impression upon this big, truculent man.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't try to be funny with me, Verney."</p>
+
+<p>"On no, sir, as if I should dare!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, we are wasting time. Trieve sent you to
+Lovell's room to fetch Scaife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"And what was Scaife doing when you went into the
+room? Be very careful!"</p>
+
+<p>John considered. "He was laughing, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Laughing, was he?"</p>
+
+<p>"But he stopped laughing when I gave him Trieve's
+message, and then he said what Lovell told you, sir."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Never mind what Lovell told me. Give me your
+version of the story."</p>
+
+<p>"Scaife asked the other fellows if Trieve had any right
+to fag him, now that he had got his 'fez.' If he had
+been drunk, sir, he wouldn't have thought of that, would
+he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Um," said Rutford, slightly shaken. John described
+his return to Trieve's room, and Trieve's threat.</p>
+
+<p>"Lovell and you tell the same story."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, sir." John made no deliberate attempt to
+look simple; but his face, to the master studying it, seemed
+quite guileless.</p>
+
+<p>Just then, Dumbleton ushered in the doctor. To him
+Rutford recited what he knew and what he suspected. He
+had hardly finished speaking, when Scaife opened his eyes
+for the second time. By a curious coincidence, the doctor
+used the words of the house-master.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, how do you feel?"</p>
+
+<p>And then Scaife answered, in the same dazed fashion
+as before&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I feel as if I was jolly well screwed, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Rutford nodded portentously.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel," continued Scaife, "as I did once long ago,
+when I was a kid and got hold of some cura&ccedil;oa at one of
+my father's parties."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Same buzzing in the head, same beastly feeling, same&mdash;same
+old&mdash;same old&mdash;giddiness." He closed his eyes, and
+his head fell heavily upon his chest.</p>
+
+<p>"It looks like concussion," said the doctor, doubtfully.
+"You say he fell?" He turned to John.</p>
+
+<p>"I was just outside the door," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll put him into the sick-room, Mr. Rutford. And
+in a day or two he'll be himself again."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure that what I&mdash;er&mdash;feared&mdash;er&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor frowned. "The boy has had brandy, of
+course."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Puttick and Lovell gave him plenty of that,"
+John interpolated.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you can exonerate the boy entirely," said
+the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>John saw that Rutford seemed relieved.</p>
+
+<p>"I have ordered Lovell's room to be searched. If no
+wine or spirits are found, I shall be glad to believe that I
+have made a very pardonable mistake."</p>
+
+<p>While Scaife was being removed, Lawrence came in
+with his report. Nothing alcoholic had been discovered in
+Lovell's room. After prayers, which were late that night,
+Dirty Dick made a short speech.</p>
+
+<p>"I had reason to suspect," said he, "that a gross breach
+of the rules of the school had been made to-night by
+certain boys in this house. It appears I was mistaken.
+No more will be said on the subject by me; and I think that
+the less said by you, big and small, the better. Good
+night."</p>
+
+<p>He strode away into the private side.</p>
+
+<p>Two days later, Scaife came back to No. 15. John
+wondered why he stared at him so hard upon the first
+occasion when they happened to be alone. Then Scaife
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, young Verney, I shan't forget that, if it hadn't
+been for you, I should have been sacked. And I shan't
+forget either that you're not half such a fool as you look."</p>
+
+<p>John exhibited surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"The way you handled the beast," continued Scaife,
+"was masterly. I heard every word, though my head was
+bursting. I shall tell Lovell that you saved us. Oh,
+Lord&mdash;didn't I give the show away?"</p>
+
+<p>He never tried to read the perplexity upon the other's
+face, but went away laughing. He came back with the
+Caterpillar half an hour later, and the three boys sat
+down as usual to prepare some Livy. John was sensible
+that his companions treated him not only as an equal&mdash;a
+new and agreeable experience&mdash;but as a friend. In the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+course of the first ten minutes Scaife said to the Caterpillar&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He told Dick to his face that he would lie to save a
+pal."</p>
+
+<p>And the Caterpillar replied seriously, "Good kid, very
+good kid. Lovell says he's going to give a tea in his
+honour."</p>
+
+<p>"No, he isn't. It's my turn."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, upon the next half-holiday, Scaife gave a
+tea at the Creameries. Of all the strange things that had
+happened during the past fortnight, this to our simple
+John seemed the strangest. He was not conscious of having
+done or said anything to justify the esteem and consideration
+in which Scaife, the Caterpillar, and Lovell seemed to
+hold him.</p>
+
+<p>"You've forgotten Desmond," he said to Scaife, when
+the latter mentioned the names of his guests.</p>
+
+<p>"C&aelig;sar isn't coming. By the way, Verney, you've
+not been talking to C&aelig;sar about the row in our house?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said John. "Lawrence came round and said
+that I must keep my mouth shut."</p>
+
+<p>"And naturally you did what you were told to do?"</p>
+
+<p>The half-mocking tone disappeared in a burst of laughter
+as John answered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose it never entered your head that Lawrence
+would not have been so particular about shutting your
+mouth without good reason."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," said John, after a pause, "Lawrence was
+in a funk lest, lest&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lest the thing should be exaggerated."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. Lots of fellows would go about saying that
+I was dead drunk&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"They might."</p>
+
+<p>"And that would be coming dangerously near the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Scaife! Then you really <i>were</i>&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Scaife laughed again. "Yes, I really was, my Moses
+in the bulrushes! Don't look so miserable. I guessed all
+along that you weren't <i>quite</i> in the know. Well, I'm every
+bit as grateful. You stood up to Dick like a hero. And
+my tea is in your honour."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Scaife&mdash;you&mdash;you won't do it again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get screwed?" said Scaife, gravely. "I shall not.
+It isn't good enough. We've chucked the stuff away."</p>
+
+<p>"If they'd found it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;if! The old Caterpillar attended to that. He's
+a downy bird, I can tell you. When Dick came into our
+room, he slipped back to Lovell's room, carried off the
+whisky, hid it, washed the glasses, and then dirtied them
+with siphon and syrup. The Caterpillar and you showed
+great head. We shall drink your healths to-morrow&mdash;in
+tea and chocolate."</p>
+
+<p>John wondered what Scaife had said to the Fifth. At
+any rate, they asked John no questions, and treated him
+with distinguished courtesy and favour; but that evening,
+when John was fagging in Lawrence's room, the great
+man said abruptly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I saw you walking with Lovell senior this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>John explained. Lawrence frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you've been celebrating, have you? Thanksgiving
+service at the Creameries. Now, look here, Verney,
+I've met your uncle, and he asked me to keep an eye on
+you. Because of that I made you my fag&mdash;you, a green
+hand, when I had the pick of the House."</p>
+
+<p>"It was awfully good of you," said John, warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll sink that. I'm five years older than you, and
+I know every blessed&mdash;and <i>cursed</i>"&mdash;he spoke with great
+emphasis&mdash;"thing that goes on in this house. I know, for
+instance, that dust was thrown, and very cleverly thrown,
+into Rutford's eyes, and you helped to throw it. Don't
+speak! You didn't quite know what you were up to.
+Well, it's lucky for Lovell and Co. that one innocent kid
+was mixed up in that affair. But it's been rather unlucky<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+for you. I'd sooner see you kicked about a bit by those
+fellows than petted. I'm sorry&mdash;sorry, do you hear?&mdash;the
+whole lot were not sacked. And now you can hook it.
+I've said enough, perhaps too much, but I believe I can
+trust you."</p>
+
+<p>After this John showed his gratitude by painstaking
+attention to fagging. Lawrence became aware of faithful
+service: that his toast was always done to a turn, that his
+daily paper was warmed, as John had seen the butler at
+home warm the <i>Times</i>, that his pens were changed, his
+blotting-paper renewed, and so forth. In John's eyes,
+Lawrence occupied a position near the apex of the world's
+pyramid of great men.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <span title="kraipal&ecirc;">&#954;&#961;&#945;&#953;&#960;&#8049;&#955;&#951;</span> is translated by Liddell and Scott as "the result of a
+debauch."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Torpids</i></h3>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 16em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Again we rush across the slush,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A pack of breathless faces,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And charge and fall, and see the ball<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fly whizzing through the bases."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The remainder</span> of the term slipped away without farther
+accident or incident. Apart from the preparation of work,
+John saw little of Scaife or Egerton. The Fifth nodded to
+him in a friendly fashion when he passed them in the
+street, and, greater kindness on their part, left him alone.
+Possibly, Lawrence had said a word to Lovell. Such leisure
+as John enjoyed (a new boy at Harrow has not much) he
+spent with the devoted Fluff. Desmond and Scaife walked
+together on Sunday afternoons. But the fact that Desmond
+seemed to be vanishing out of his horizon made no
+difference to John's ever-increasing affection for him. Very
+humbly, he worshipped at a distance. On clear, dry days
+Fluff and he would climb to the top of the wall of the
+squash racquet-courts to see Scaife and Desmond play a
+single. They were extraordinarily well-matched in strength,
+activity, and skill. John noticed, however, that the Demon
+lost his temper when he lost a game, whereas C&aelig;sar only
+laughed. Somehow John divined that the Demon was
+making the effort of his life to secure Desmond's friendship.
+And C&aelig;sar had ideals, standards to which the Demon
+pretended to attain. Good, simple John made sure that
+C&aelig;sar would elevate the Demon to his plane, that evil would
+be exorcised by good. Only in his dreams did the Demon
+have the advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Just before the end of the term, C&aelig;sar said to him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"After all, I'm jolly glad I'm coming into your House,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
+because the old Demon is such a ripper; and he and I
+have been talking things over. He's as mad keen as I am
+about games, and although the Manorites have not played
+in a cock-house match at cricket or footer for years, still
+there is a chance for us at Torpids next term. You'll
+play, Verney. You've improved a lot, so the Demon says,
+and he'll be captain. Then there are the sports. If only
+Dirty Dick could be knocked on the head, the Manor
+might jump to the front again."</p>
+
+<p>"It will," said John.</p>
+
+<p>When the School reassembled after Christmas, Desmond
+entered the Manor, and found himself with Scaife in a two-room.
+A civil note from the man of millions had arranged
+this. To John was given a two-room, also, with the Duffer
+as stable companion. Fluff remained in No. 15. The
+Duffer had got his remove from the Top Shell into John's
+form. Scaife and Desmond were elevated into the Upper
+Remove. It followed, therefore, that Scaife and Desmond
+prepared work in their own room, the Caterpillar joining
+the Duffer and John. Thus it will be seen that, although
+Desmond had become a Manorite, he was, practically
+speaking, out of John's orbit.</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar had now been three years in the school,
+and he governed himself accordingly. He put on a "barmaid"<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>
+collar and spent much time on the top step of
+the boys' entrance to the Manor. No mere two-year-old
+presumed to occupy this sacred spot. Had he dared to
+do so, the Caterpillar would have made things very sultry
+for him. Also, he informed the Duffer and John that, by
+virtue of his position, he proposed to prepare no work at
+all. Each "con" was divided into two equal parts: the
+Duffer "mugged" up one; John the other. Then the
+Caterpillar would be summoned, and glean the harvest.
+The Duffer had a crib or two, but the Caterpillar forbade
+their use.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+<p>"You kids," said he, "ought not to use 'Bohns.' Besides,
+it's dangerous."</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar's deportment and coolness filled John
+and the Duffer with respect and admiration. The master
+in charge of the Lower Remove happened to be short-sighted.
+The Caterpillar took shameful advantage of this.
+At repetitions, for instance, he would read Horace's odes
+off a torn-out page concealed in the palm of his hand, or&mdash;if
+practicable&mdash;pin the page on to the master's desk.</p>
+
+<p>He had genius for extricating himself (and others) out
+of what boys call tight places. One anecdote, well known
+to the Lower School and repeated as proof of the Caterpillar's
+masterly methods, may serve to illustrate the sort
+of influence Egerton wielded. When he was in the Fourth,
+his form met in the Old Schools in a room not far from that
+august chamber used by the Head Master and Upper Sixth.
+One day, the master in charge of the form happened to be
+late. The small boys in the passage celebrated his absence
+with dance and song. When the belated man arrived, a
+monitor awaited him. The Head Master presented his
+compliments to Mr. A&mdash;&mdash; and wished to learn the names
+of the boys who had created such a scandalous disturbance.
+Mr. A&mdash;&mdash; invited the roysterers to give up their names
+under penalties of extra school. Hateful necessity! Silence
+succeeded. A&mdash;&mdash; grew irate. The monitor tried to
+conceal a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Any boy who was making any noise at all&mdash;stand up."</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar rose slowly, long and thin, spick and span.</p>
+
+<p>"If you please, sir," said he, "I was <i>whispering</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>A&mdash;&mdash;'s sense of humour was tickled.</p>
+
+<p>"My compliments to the Head Master," said he, "and
+please tell him that I find, on careful inquiry, that Egerton
+was&mdash;whispering."</p>
+
+<p>A shout of laughter from Olympus proclaimed that the
+message had been delivered. The Caterpillar had saved
+the situation.</p>
+
+<p>John became a disciple of this accomplished young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+gentleman and tried to imitate him. For Egerton represented,
+faithfully enough, traditions to which John bowed
+the knee. Upon any point of schoolboy honour his
+authority ruled supreme. He told the truth among his
+peers; he loathed obscenity; he disliked and condemned
+bad language.</p>
+
+<p>"The best men don't swear much," he would say. "It's
+doosid bad form. I allow myself a 'damn' or two, nothing
+more. My great-grandfather, who was one of the Regency
+lot, was known as Cursing Egerton, but nowadays we leave
+that sort of thing to bargees."</p>
+
+<p>Quite unconsciously, John assimilated the Caterpillar's
+axioms.</p>
+
+<p>"We're not sent here at enormous expense to learn only
+Latin and Greek. At Harrow and Eton one is licked into
+shape for the big things: diplomacy, politics, the Services.
+One is taught manners, what? I'm not a marrying sort
+of man, but if I do have sons I shall send 'em here, even
+if I have to pinch a bit."</p>
+
+<p>This was the side of Egerton which appealed so strongly
+to John. The Caterpillar was an Harrovian to the core,
+like the Duffer and C&aelig;sar Desmond. He deplored the
+increasing predominance of sons of very rich men. And he
+anathematized Harrovian fathers who were persuaded by
+Etonian wives to send their sons to the Plain instead of
+to the Hill. That some of the famous Harrow families,
+who owed so much to the School, should forsake it, seemed
+to Egerton the unpardonable sin.</p>
+
+<p>During this term, regretfully must it be recorded that
+John scamped his "prep" and "ragged" in form whenever
+a suitable chance presented itself. The Duffer and he
+bribed a "Chaw"<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> to throw gravel against the windows
+of the room where the boys were supposed to be mastering
+the problems of Euclid and algebra. The "tique"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a>
+master had been Third Wrangler, but he couldn't tackle
+his Division properly. Upon this occasion the "chaw"
+created such a disturbance that (on audacious demand)
+leave was granted to the Duffer and John to capture the
+offender. The young rascals pursued the "chaw" as far
+as the Metropolitan Station, and presented that conscientious
+youth with another sixpence. Then it occurred
+to John that it might be expedient to capture some bogus
+prisoner; so by means of talk, sugared with chocolates,
+they persuaded a little girl to impersonate the thrower of
+gravel. The little girl, carefully coached in her part, was
+led to the Wrangler, but stage-fright made her burst into
+tears at the critical moment. Somehow or other the truth
+leaked out; the Duffer and John were sent up to the Head
+Master and "swished." Each collected a few twigs of the
+birch, carefully preserved to this day.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, the Torpid house-matches were coming on,
+and the School agreed, wonderingly, that Dirty Dick's had
+a chance of being cock-house. The fact that the Manor
+has lost caste brought about this possibility. Boys just
+under fifteen found room at the Manor when other houses
+were full. All the Manorites in the Shell and Removes
+were fellows who had come to Harrow rather over than
+under fourteen years of age.</p>
+
+<p>And when the list of the Torpid Eleven was posted,
+didn't John's heart boil with pride when he read his own
+name at the bottom of it?</p>
+
+<p>The Manor won the first and the second of the matches.
+Then came the semi-final, with Damer's. When the teams
+met in the playing-fields the difference in the size of the
+players was remarked. Damer's Torpids were small boys,
+not much bigger than John or the Duffer. But they had
+behind them that stupendous force which is fashioned out
+of pride, <i>esprit de corps</i>, self-confidence begotten of long-continued
+success, and, strongest of all, the conviction that
+every man-Jack would fight till he dropped for the honour
+and glory of the crack house at Harrow. Not a boy in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+Damer's team was Scaife's equal as a player, but in Scaife's
+strength lay the weakness of the Manorites. They relied
+upon one player; Damer's pinned faith to eleven.</p>
+
+<p>As it happened to be a fine day, the School turned out
+in force to witness the match. Most of the masters were
+present, and some ladies. Rutford, however, had business
+elsewhere. The School commented upon his absence with
+sly smiles and shrugs of the shoulder. Some of the
+Manorites were indifferent; the better sort raged. The
+Caterpillar appeared upon the ground in a faultless overcoat,
+carrying a large bag of lemons. His straw hat was
+cocked at a slight angle.</p>
+
+<p>"One is really uncommonly obliged to Dirty Dick for
+staying away," he told everybody. "Speaking personally,
+the mere sight of him is very upsetting to me. Keen as
+one feels about this match, one can't deny that there is not
+room in a footer field for Dirty Dick and a self-respecting
+person."</p>
+
+<p>None the less, the absence of their house-master had a
+bad effect upon the Torpids. Damer, you may be sure,
+had come down, prepared to cheer louder than any boy
+in his house; Damer, it was whispered, had been known
+to shed tears when his house suffered defeat; Damer, in
+fine, inspired ardours&mdash;a passion of endeavour.</p>
+
+<p>Scaife won the toss and kicked off.</p>
+
+<p>For the first five minutes nothing of interest happened.
+Damer's played collectively; the Manorites rather waited
+upon the individual. When Scaife's chance came, so it
+was predicted, he would go through the Damer's centre
+as irresistibly as a Russian battleship cuts through a fleet
+of fishing-smacks.</p>
+
+<p>Rutford being absent, Dumbleton, the butler, stood well
+to the fore. He never missed a house-match, and no one
+could guess, looking at his wooden countenance, how the
+game was going; for he accepted either defeat or victory
+with a dignified self-restraint. A smart bit of work provoked
+a bland, "Well played, sir, <i>very well</i> played, sir!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+uttered in the same respectful tone in which he requested
+Lovell, let us say, to go to Mr. Rutford's study after prayers.
+The fags believed that "Dumber," who had begun his
+career as boot-boy at the Manor in the glorious days of
+old, had given notice to leave when he learned that Dirty
+Dick was about to assume command; but had been prevailed
+upon to stay by the promise of an enormous salary.
+Nothing disturbed his equanimity. On the previous Saturday
+evening, John had heated the wrong end of the poker
+in No. 15, knowing that Dumber's duty constrained him to
+march round the House after "lights out," to rake out any
+fires that might be still burning. Snug under his counterpane,
+the practical joker awaited, chuckling, a choleric
+word from the impassive and impeccable butler. How
+did Dumber divine that the poker was unduly hot and black
+with soot underneath? Who can answer that question?
+The fact remains that he seized John's best Sunday trousers
+which were laid out on a chair, and holding the poker with
+these, accomplished his task without remark or smile.
+The trousers had to be sent to the tailor's to be cleaned.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from Dumber stood a group of small boys,
+including the unhappy Fluff&mdash;unhappy because he was not
+playing, despite arduous training (entirely to please John)
+and systematic coaching. His failure meant further separation
+from John, whom, it will be remembered, he would
+have been allowed to call by his Christian name, had he
+been included amongst the Torpids. Of late, Fluff had not
+seen much of John, and in his dark hours he allowed his
+thoughts to linger, not unpleasantly sometimes, upon
+premature death and John's subsequent remorse.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, Scaife and Desmond were playing a furious
+game which must have proved successful had it not been
+for the admirable steadiness of the enemy. Lawrence
+watched their efforts with compressed lips and frowning
+brows. He knew&mdash;who better?&mdash;that his cracks were
+tearing themselves to tatters; but his protests were drowned
+by the shrill cheers of the fags.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Rutfords&mdash;Rutfor-r-r-r-r-ds! Go it, old Demon!&mdash;Jolly
+well played, C&aelig;sar!&mdash;Sky him!<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>&mdash;Well skied, sir!&mdash;Ah-h-h-h!
+Well given&mdash;well taken!"</p>
+
+<p>The last, long-drawn-out exclamation proclaimed that
+"Yards"<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> had been given to Scaife right in front of
+Damer's base. Damer's retreated; Scaife, with heaving
+chest, balanced the big ball between the tips of his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh-h-h-h-h!"</p>
+
+<p>Scaife had missed an easy shot. Lawrence could see
+that the boy was trembling with disappointment and
+mortification. Barbed arrows from Damer's small boys
+pierced Manorite hearts.</p>
+
+<p>"Jolly well boshed, Scaife!&mdash;Good, kind, old Demon!&mdash;Thank
+you, Scaife!&mdash;" and like derisive approbation rolled
+from lip to lip. The Caterpillar turned to Lovell.</p>
+
+<p>"Showing temper, ain't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Lovell.</p>
+
+<p>"Clever chap," said the Caterpillar, reflectively; "but
+one is reminded that a stream can't rise higher than its
+source. Not mine that&mdash;the governor's! C&aelig;sar is facing
+the chaff with a grin."</p>
+
+<p>The game began again. But soon it became evident
+that Scaife had lost, not only his temper, but his head.
+He rushed here and there with so little judgment that the
+odds amongst the sporting fellows went to six to four
+against the Manor. At the beginning of the game they
+were six to four the other way. And, inevitably, Scaife's
+wild and furious efforts unbalanced Desmond's play.
+Both boys were out of their proper places to the confusion
+of the rest of the team. Within half an hour Damer's
+had scored two bases to nothing.</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar distributed halves of lemons. Lawrence
+went up to Scaife. The captain of the Torpids was standing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+apart, not far from Desmond, who was sucking a lemon with
+a puzzled expression. Gallant, sweet-tempered, and
+always hopeful, C&aelig;sar could not understand his friend's
+passion of rage and resentment. With the tact of his race,
+however, he held aloof, smiling feebly, because he had sworn
+to himself not to frown. Had he looked to his right, he
+would have seen John, also sucking a lemon, but understudying
+his idol's nonchalant attitude and smile. John
+was sensible of an overpowering desire to fling himself
+upon the ground and howl. Instead he sucked his lemon,
+stared at Desmond, and smiled&mdash;valiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Scaife," said Lawrence, gravely, "you're not playing
+the game."</p>
+
+<p>Scaife scowled. "I only know I've half killed myself,"
+he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence continued in the same steady voice, "Yes;
+because you missed an easy base which has happened to
+me and every other player scores of times. Come here,
+Desmond."</p>
+
+<p>Desmond joined them. Lawrence's face brightened
+when he saw hopeful eyes and a gallant smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't despair?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll knock 'em into smithereens yet."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the Harrow spirit, but temper your determination
+to win with a little common sense. You've overdone
+it, both of you. Take my tip: they'll play up like blazes.
+Defend your own base; and then, when they're spent,
+trample on 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>Scaife nodded sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>None the less he had too great respect for Lawrence's
+ability and experience as a captain to disregard his advice.
+After the kick-off, Damer's <i>did</i> play up, and the Manor had
+to defend its base against sustained and fierce attack.
+Again and again a third base was almost kicked, again and
+again superior weight prevailed in the scrimmages. Within
+ten minutes Damer's were gasping and weary. And then,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+the ball was forced out of the scrimmage and kicked to the
+top side, Desmond's place in the field. Comparatively
+fresh, seeing the glorious opportunity, grasping it, hugging
+it, C&aelig;sar swooped on the ball. He had the heels of any
+boy on the opposite side. Down the field he sped, faster
+and faster, amid the roars of the School, roars which came
+to his ears like the deep booming of breakers upon a lee
+shore. To many of those watching him, the sight of that
+graceful figure, that shining, ardent face, revealing the
+promise which youth and beauty always offer to a delighted
+world, became an ineffaceable memory. Damer turned
+to the Head of his house.</p>
+
+<p>"And Desmond ought to be one of <i>us</i>," he groaned.</p>
+
+<p>And now C&aelig;sar had passed all forwards. If he keeps his
+wits a base is certain. The full back alone lies between
+him and triumph. But this is the moment, the psychological
+moment, when one tiny mistake will prove irrevocable.
+The Head of Damer's whispers as much to
+Damer, who smiles sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"His father's son will not blunder now," he replies.</p>
+
+<p>Nor does he. The mistake&mdash;for mistake there must
+be on one side or t'other&mdash;is made by Damer's back. As
+the ball rolls halfway between them, the back hesitates
+and falters.</p>
+
+<p>One base to two&mdash;and eighteen minutes to play!</p>
+
+<p>The second base was kicked by Scaife five minutes later.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the School knew that they were looking
+on at a cock-house match, not a semi-final. It was the
+wealth of Dives against the widow's mite that the winner
+of this match would defeat easily either of the two remaining
+houses. And not a man or boy on the ground could
+name with any conviction the better eleven. The betting
+languished at evens.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, both sides were playing "canny," risking
+nothing, nursing their energies for the last furious five
+minutes. Damer began to fidget; than he dropped out
+of the front rank of spectators. He couldn't stand still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+to see his boys win&mdash;or lose. He paced up and down
+behind the fags, who winked at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Damer's got the needle," they whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Dumbleton, however, stood still; a graven image of
+High Life below Stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think, Dumber?" asked Fluff.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, my lord," replied Dumber, solemnly, "that
+every minute improves our chance, but if it goes on <i>much</i>
+longer," he added phlegmatically, "I shall fall down dead.
+My 'eart's weak, my lord."</p>
+
+<p>This was an ancient joke delivered by Dumber as if it
+were brand-new, and received by the fags in a like spirit.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless you, you've got no heart, Dumber. It's turned
+into tummy long ago," or, in scathing accents, "It's not
+your heart that's out of whack, Dumber, but your blithering
+old headpiece. What a pity you can't buy a new one!"
+and so on and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon, however, this chaff ceased. Excitement
+began to shake the spectators. They felt it up and down
+their spinal columns; it formed itself into lumps in their
+throats; it gave one or two cramp in the calves of their
+legs; it reddened many cheeks and whitened as many
+more. The Caterpillar pulled out his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"Three and a half minutes," he announced in a voice
+which fell like the crack of doom upon the silent crowd.
+If they could have cheered or chaffed! But the absolute
+equality of the last desperate struggle prevented any
+demonstration. The ball was worried through a scrimmage,
+escaped to the right, slid out to the left, only to be
+returned whence it came. It seemed as if both sides were
+unable to kick it, and when kicked it seemed to refuse to
+move as if weighted by the ever-increasing burden of
+suspense....</p>
+
+<p>"Now&mdash;now's your chance!" yelled the Manorites.
+To their flaming senses the ball appeared to be lying, a
+huge blurred sphere, upon the muddy grass; and the
+Elevens were stupidly staring at it. The Saints be praised!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+Some fellow can move. Who is it? The players, big and
+little, are so daubed with mud from head to foot as to be
+unrecognizable. Ah-h-h! It's young Verney.</p>
+
+<p>"Good kid! Well played&mdash;I say, well played, well
+pla-a-a-a-yed!"</p>
+
+<p>Our John has, it seems, distinguished himself. He
+has charged valiantly into the captain of Damer's at the
+moment when that illustrious chief is about to kick the ball
+to a trusted lieutenant on the left. He succeeds in kicking
+the ball into John's face. John goes over backwards;
+but the ball falls just in front of the Duffer.</p>
+
+<p>"Kick it, Duffer&mdash;kick it, you old ass!"</p>
+
+<p>The Duffer kicks it most accurately, kicks it well out
+to the top side. Now, can Desmond repeat his amazing
+performance? Yes&mdash;No&mdash;he can't. The conditions are
+no longer the same. Half a dozen fellows are between him
+and the Damer base.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! The Manor is about to receive a second object-lesson
+upon the fatuity of trusting to individuals. Confident
+in C&aelig;sar's ability to take the ball at least within
+kicking distance of the base, they have rushed forward,
+leaving unguarded their own citadel. C&aelig;sar, going too
+fast, misjudges the distance between himself and the back.
+A second later the ball is well on its way to the Manor's
+base. The back awaits it, coolly enough; knowing that
+Damer's forwards are offside. Then he kicks the sodden,
+slippery ball&mdash;hard. An exclamation of horror bursts
+from the Manorites. Their back has kicked the ball
+straight into the hands of the Damerite captain, the
+steadiest player on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yards!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The chief collects himself for a decisive effort, and then
+despatches the ball straight and true for the target.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It passed between the posts within forty-five seconds of
+time.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The "barmaid" collar is the double collar, at that time just
+coming into fashion.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> "Chaw," short for Chawbacon.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> "Tique," ab. for arithmetic. "Tique-beaks" are mathematical
+masters.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> To "sky," <i>i.e.</i> to charge and overthrow.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> In the Harrow game a boy may turn and kick the ball into the hands
+of one of his own side. The boy who catches it calls "Yards!" and,
+the opposite side withdrawing three yards, the catcher is allowed a free
+kick.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Fellowship</i></h3>
+
+<p class="block1">"Fellowship is Heaven, and the lack of it is Hell."</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">John was</span> squelching through the mud, wondering whether
+his nose was broken or not, when Lawrence touched his
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, Verney," he said cheerily; "the Manor
+will be cock-house at Torpids next year, and I venture to
+prophesy that you'll be Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thanks, Lawrence," said John.</p>
+
+<p>But, much as he appreciated this tribute from the great
+man, and much as it served to mitigate the pangs of defeat,
+a yet happier stroke of fortune was about to befall him.
+Desmond, who always walked up from the football field
+with Scaife, conferred upon John the honour of his
+company.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Scaife?" said John.</p>
+
+<p>"The Demon is demoniac," said Desmond. "He's
+lost his hair, and he blames me. Well, I did my best, and
+so did he, and there's no more to be said. It's a bore that
+we shall be too old to play next year. I told the Demon
+that if we had to be beaten, I would sooner take a licking
+from Damer's than any other house; and he told me that
+he believed I wanted 'em to win. When a fellow's in that
+sort of blind rage, I call him dotty, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"You played jolly well, Verney; I expect Lawrence
+told you so."</p>
+
+<p>"He did say something decent," John replied.</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar joined them as they were passing
+through the stile. "We should have won," he said deliberately,
+"if the Demon hadn't behaved like a rank outsider."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Scaife is my pal," said Desmond, hotly.</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar shrugged his shoulders, and held high
+his well-cut, aquiline nose, as he murmured&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"One doesn't pretend to be a Christian, but as a gentleman
+one accepts a bit of bad luck without gnashing one's
+teeth. What? That Spartan boy with the fox was a
+well bred 'un, you can take my word for it. Scaife
+isn't."</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar joined another pair of boys before
+Desmond could reply. John looked uncomfortable. Then
+Desmond burst out with Irish vehemence&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Egerton is always jawing about breeding. It's rather
+snobbish. I don't think the worse of Scaife because his
+grandfather carried a hod. The Egertons have been living
+at Mount Egerton ever since they left Mount Ararat, but
+what have they done? And he ought to make allowances
+for the old Demon. He was simply mad keen to win this
+match, and he has a temper. You like him, Verney,
+don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>John hesitated, realizing that to speak the truth would
+offend the one fellow in the school whom he wished to
+please and conciliate. Then he blurted out&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I don't."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't?" Desmond's frank, blue eyes, Irish eyes,
+deeply blue, with black lashes encircling them, betrayed
+amazement and curiosity&mdash;so John thought&mdash;rather than
+anger. "You don't?" he continued. "Why not? The
+old Demon likes you; he says you got him out of a tight
+place. Why don't you like him, Verney?"</p>
+
+<p>John's mind had to speculate vaguely whether or not
+Desmond knew the nature of the tight place&mdash;<i>tight</i> was
+such a very descriptive adjective&mdash;out of which he had
+pulled Scaife. Then he said nervously&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like him because&mdash;because he likes&mdash;you."</p>
+
+<p>"Likes me? What a rum 'un you are, Verney! Why
+shouldn't he like me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," said John, boldly meeting the emergency<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+with the conviction that he had burnt his ships, and must
+advance without fear, "because he's not half good enough
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>Desmond burst out laughing; the clear, ringing laugh
+of his father, which had often allayed an incipient mutiny
+below the gangway, and charmed aside the impending
+disaster of a snatch-division. And it is on <i>one's own side</i>
+in the House of Commons that good temper tells pre-eminently.</p>
+
+<p>"Not good enough for me!" he repeated. "Thanks
+awfully. Evidently you have a high opinion of&mdash;<i>me</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said John.</p>
+
+<p>The quiet monosyllable, so soberly, so seriously uttered,
+challenged Desmond's attention. He stared for a moment
+at John's face&mdash;not an attractive object. Blood and mud
+disfigured it. But the grey eyes met the blue unwaveringly.
+Desmond flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"You've stuck me on a sort of pedestal." His tone
+was as serious as John's.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said John.</p>
+
+<p>They were opposite the Music Schools. The other
+Manorites had run on. For the moment they stood alone,
+ten thousand leagues from Harrow, alone in those sublimated
+spaces where soul meets soul unfettered by flesh.
+Afterwards, not then, John knew that this was so. He met
+the real Desmond for the first time, and Desmond met the
+real John in a thoroughfare other than that which leads
+to the Manor, other than that which leads to any house
+built by human hands, upon the shining highway of
+Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Shall we try to set down Desmond's feelings at this
+crisis? Till now, his life had run gaily through fragrant
+gardens, so to speak: pleasaunces full of flowers, of
+sweet-smelling herbs, of stately trees, a paradise indeed
+from which the ugly, the crude, the harmful had been
+rigorously excluded. Happy the boy who has such a home
+as was allotted to Harry Desmond! And from it, ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+since he could remember, he had received tender love,
+absolute trust, the traditions of a great family whose name
+was part of English history, an exquisite refinement, and
+with these, the gratification of all reasonable desires. And
+this magnificent upbringing shone out of his radiant face,
+the inexpressible charm of youth unspotted&mdash;white.
+Scaife's upbringing, of which you shall know more presently,
+had been far different, and yet he, the cynic and the unclean,
+recognized the God in Harry Desmond. He had
+not, for instance, told Desmond of the nature of that
+"tight" place; he had kept a guard over his tongue; he
+had interposed his own strong will between his friend and
+such attention as a boy of Desmond's attractiveness might
+provoke from Lovell senior and the like. It is true that
+Scaife was well aware that without these precautions he
+would have lost his friend; none the less, above and beyond
+this consciousness hovered the higher, more subtle intuition
+that the good in Desmond was something not lightly to be
+tampered with, something awe-inspiring; the more so
+because, poor fellow! he had never encountered it before.</p>
+
+<p>Desmond stood still, with his eyes upon John's discoloured
+face. Not the least of C&aelig;sar's charms was his
+lack of self-consciousness. Now, for the first time, he tried
+to see himself as John saw him&mdash;on a pedestal. And so
+strong was John's ideal that in a sense Desmond did catch
+a glimpse of himself as John saw him. And then followed
+a rapid comparison, first between the real and the ideal,
+and secondly between himself and Scaife. His face broke
+into a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Verney," he exclaimed, "you mustn't turn me
+into a sort of Golden Calf. And as for Scaife not being
+good enough for me, why, he's miles ahead of me in everything.
+He's cleverer, better at games, ten thousand times
+better looking, and one day he'll be a big power, and I
+shall always be a poor man. Why, I&mdash;I don't mind telling
+you that I used to keep out of Scaife's way, although he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+was always awfully civil to me, because he has so much
+and I so little."</p>
+
+<p>"He's not half good enough for you," repeated John,
+with the Verney obstinacy. Unwittingly he slightly
+emphasized the "good."</p>
+
+<p>"Good? Do you mean 'pi'? He's not <i>that</i>, thank
+the Lord!"</p>
+
+<p>This made John laugh, and Desmond joined in. Now
+they were Harrow boys again, within measurable distance
+of the Yard, although still in the shadow of the Spire. The
+Demon described as "pi" tickled their ribs.</p>
+
+<p>"You must learn to like the Demon," Desmond continued,
+as they moved on. Then, as John said nothing,
+he added quickly, "He and I have made up our minds not
+to try for remove this term. You see, next term is the
+jolliest term of the year&mdash;cricket and 'Ducker'<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> and
+Lord's. And we shall know the form's swat thoroughly,
+and have time to enjoy ourselves. You'll be with us.
+Your remove is a 'cert'&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>John beamed. He had made certain that C&aelig;sar would
+be in the Third Fifth next term and hopelessly out of reach.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, I shall get my remove. So will the Caterpillar."</p>
+
+<p>"Hang the Caterpillar," said Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"He'd ask for a silken rope, as Lord Ferrers did," said
+John, with one of his unexpected touches of humour.
+Again Desmond bent his head in the gesture John knew
+so well, and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Verney, you <i>are</i> a joker. Well, the old Caterpillar's
+a good sort, but he's not fair to Scaife. Here we
+are!"</p>
+
+<p>They ran upstairs to "tosh" and change. John found
+the Duffer just slipping out of his ducks. He looked at
+John with a rueful grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to chuck me?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Chuck you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Fluff says you've chucked him. He was in here a
+moment ago to ask if your nose was squashed. I believe
+the silly little ass thinks you the greatest thing on earth."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't chuck anybody," said John, indignantly.
+And he made a point of asking Fluff to walk with him on
+Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>After the Torpid matches the school settled down to
+train (more or less) for the athletic sports. John came to
+grief several times at Kenton brook, essaying to jump it at
+places obviously&mdash;as the Duffer pointed out&mdash;beyond his
+stride. The Duffer and he put their names down for the
+house-handicaps, and curtailed their visits to the Creameries.
+After this self-denial it is humiliating to record that
+neither boy succeeded in winning anything. C&aelig;sar won
+the house mile handicap; Scaife won the under sixteen
+high jump&mdash;a triumph for the Manor; and Fluff, the
+despised Fluff, actually secured an immense tankard, which
+one of the Sixth offered as a prize because he was quite
+convinced that his own particular pal would win it. The
+distance happened to be half a mile. Fluff was allowed
+an enormous start and won in a canter.</p>
+
+<p>The term came to an end soon after these achievements,
+and John spent a week of the holidays at White
+Ladies, the Duke of Trent's Shropshire place. Here, for
+the first time, he saw that august and solemn personage,
+a Groom of the Chambers, with carefully-trimmed whiskers,
+a white tie, a silky voice, and the appearance of an archdeacon.
+This visit is recorded because it made a profound
+impression upon a plastic mind. John had never sat in the
+seats of the mighty. Verney Boscobel was a delightful
+old house, but it might have been put, stables and all,
+into White Ladies, and never found again. Fluff showed
+John the famous Reynolds and Gainsborough portraits,
+the Van Dycks and Lelys, the Romneys and Richmonds.
+Fair women and brave men smiled or frowned at our hero
+wherever he turned his wondering eyes. After the first
+tour of the great galleries, he turned to his companion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I say," he whispered solemnly, "some of 'em look
+as if they didn't like my calling you&mdash;Fluff."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you'd call me Esm&eacute;."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said John, "I will; and&mdash;er&mdash;although
+you didn't get into the Torpids, you can call me&mdash;John."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, John, thanks awfully."</p>
+
+<p>Ponies were provided for the boys to ride, and they
+shot rabbits in the Chase. Also, they appeared at dinner,
+a tremendous function, and were encouraged by some of
+the younger guests to spar (verbally, of course) with the
+duke's Etonian sons. Fluff looked so much stronger and
+happier that his parents, delighted with their experiment,
+were inclined to cry up the Hill, much to the exasperation
+of the dwellers in the Plain.</p>
+
+<p>When he left White Ladies John had learned one valuable
+lesson. His sense of that hackneyed phrase, <i>noblesse
+oblige</i>, the sense which remains nonsense with so many
+boys (old and young), had been quickened. Little more
+than a child in many ways, he realized, as a man does, the
+true significance of rank and wealth. The Duke of Trent
+had married a pleasure-loving dame; White Ladies was
+essentially a pleasure-house, to which came gladly enough
+the wit and beauty of the kingdom. And yet the duke,
+not clever as compared to his guests, not even good-looking
+as compared to the splendid gentlemen whom Van Dyck
+and Lely had painted, <i>undistinguished</i>, in fine, in everything
+save rank and wealth, worked, early and late, harder than
+any labourer upon his vast domain. And when John said
+to Fluff, "I say, Esm&eacute;, why does the duke work so beastly
+hard?" Fluff replied with emphasis, "Why, because
+he has to, you know. It's no joke to be born a duke,
+and I'm jolly glad that I'm a younger son. Father says
+that he has no amusements, but plenty of occupation.
+Mother says he's the unpaid land-agent of the Trent
+property."</p>
+
+<p>John went back to Verney Boscobel, and repeated what
+Fluff had said, as his own.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It was simply splendid, mum, like a sort of castle in
+fairyland and all that, but I <i>am</i> glad I'm not a duke. And
+I expect that even an earl has a lot of beastly jobs to do
+which never bother <i>us</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you've found that out, have you, John? Well,
+I hesitated when the invitation came; but I'm glad now
+that you went."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and it's ripping to be home again."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The summer term began in glorious sunshine; and
+John forgot that he owned an umbrella. The Caterpillar
+and he had achieved their remove, but the unhappy Duffer
+was left behind alone with the hideous necessity of doing
+his form's work by himself. The boys occupied the same
+rooms, but John prepared his Greek and Latin with Scaife,
+C&aelig;sar, and the Caterpillar; whom he was now privileged
+to call by their nick-names. They began to call him John,
+hearing young Kinloch do so; and then one day, Scaife,
+looking up with his derisive smile, said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to call you Jonathan."</p>
+
+<p>"Good," said Desmond. "All the same, we can't
+call either the Duffer or Fluff&mdash;David, can we?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was not thinking of Kinloch or Duff," said Scaife,
+staring hard at John. And John alone knew that Scaife
+read him like a book, in which he was contemptuously
+amused&mdash;nothing more. After that, as if Scaife's will
+were law, the others called John&mdash;Jonathan.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon, the sun was obscured by ever-thickening
+clouds. John happened to provoke the antipathy of a
+lout in his form known as Lubber Sprott. Sprott began to
+persecute him with a series of petty insults and injuries.
+He accused him of "sucking up" to a lord, of putting
+on "lift" because he was the youngest boy in the Upper
+Remove, of kow-towing to the masters&mdash;and so forth.
+Then, finding these repeated gibes growing stale, he resorted
+to meaner methods. He upset ink on John's books, or
+kicked them from under his arm as he was going up to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+New Schools. He put a "dringer"<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> into the pocket of
+John's "bluer."<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> He pinched him unmercifully if he
+found himself next to John in form, knowing that John
+would not betray him. When occasion offered he kicked
+John. In short, he was successful in taking all the fun and
+sparkle out of the merrie month of May.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, C&aelig;sar got an inkling of what was going on.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Sprott ragging you?" he asked point-blank.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye-es," said John, blushing. "It's n-nothing," he
+added nervously. "He'll get tired of it, I expect."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw him kick you," said Desmond, frowning. "Now,
+look here, Jonathan, you kick him; kick him as hard
+as ever you can where, where he kicks you&mdash;eh? And
+do it to-morrow in the Yard, at nine Bill, when everybody
+is looking on. You can dodge into the crowd; but if
+I were you I'd kick him at the very moment he gets into
+line, and then he can't pursue. And if he does pursue&mdash;which
+I'll bet you a bob he don't, he'll have to tackle you
+and me."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do it," said John.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, a whole holiday, at nine Bill, both C&aelig;sar and
+John were standing close to the window of Custos' den,
+waiting for Lubber Sprott to appear. While waiting, an
+incident occurred which must be duly chronicled inasmuch
+as it has direct bearing upon this story. Only the week
+before Rutford had come up to the Yard late for Bill, he
+being the master whose turn it was to call over. Such
+tardiness, which happens seldom, is reckoned as an unpardonable
+sin by Harrow boys. Briefly it means that six
+hundred suffer from the unpunctuality of one. Therefore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+when Rutford appeared, slightly flushed of countenance
+and visibly annoyed, the School emphasized their displeasure
+by derisive cheers. Rutford, ever tactless where
+boys were concerned, was unwise enough to make a speech
+from the steps condemning, in his usual bombastic style,
+a demonstration which he ought to have known he was
+quite powerless to punish or to prevent. When he had
+finished, the School cheered more derisively than before.
+After Bill, he left the Yard, purple with rage and humiliation.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this particular morning, one of the younger
+masters, Basil Warde, was calling Bill. The School knew
+little of Warde, save that he was an Old Harrovian in charge
+of a Small House, and that his form reported him&mdash;<i>queer</i>.
+He had instituted a queer system of punishments, he made
+queer remarks, he looked queer: in fine, he was generally
+regarded as a radical, and therefore a person to be watched
+with suspicion by boys who, as a body, are intensely
+conservative. He was of a clear red complexion with
+lapis-lazuli blue eyes, that peculiar blue which is the colour
+of the sea on a bright, stormy day. The Upper School
+knew that, as a member of the Alpine Club, Warde had
+conquered half a dozen hitherto unconquerable peaks.</p>
+
+<p>Into the Yard and into this book Warde comes late.
+As he hurried to his place, the School greeted him as they
+had greeted Rutford only the week before. If anything,
+the demonstration was slightly more hostile. That Bill
+should be delayed twice within ten days was unheard-of
+and outrageous. When the hoots and cheers subsided,
+Warde held up his hand. He smiled, and his chin stuck
+out, and his nose stuck up at an angle familiar to those who
+had scaled peaks in his company. In silence, the School
+awaited what he had to say, hoping that he might slate
+them, which would afford an excuse for more ragging.
+Warde, guessing, perhaps, the wish of the crowd, smiled
+more genially than before. Then, in a loud, clear voice,
+he said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I beg pardon for being late. And I thank you for
+cheering me. I haven't been cheered in the Yard since the
+afternoon when I got my Flannels."</p>
+
+<p>A deafening roar of applause broke from the boys.
+Warde might be queer, but he was a good sort, a gentleman,
+and, henceforward, popular with Harrovians.</p>
+
+<p>He began to call over as Lubber Sprott neared the place
+where Desmond and John awaited him. The Lubber took
+up his position near the boys, turning a broad back to them.
+He stood with his hands in his pockets, talking to another
+boy as big and stupid as himself. The Lubber, it may be
+added, ought to have worn "Charity" tails, but he had not
+applied for permission to do so. He was fat and gross
+rather than tall, and certainly too large for his clothes.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said C&aelig;sar.</p>
+
+<p>John measured the distance with his eye, as C&aelig;sar
+thoughtfully nudged other members of the Upper Remove.
+John had room for a very short run. The Lubber was
+swaying backwards and forwards. John timed his kick,
+which for a small boy he delivered with surprising force,
+so accurately that the Lubber fell on his face. The boys
+looking on screamed with laughter. The Lubber, picking
+himself up (John dodged into the crowd, who received him
+joyfully) and glaring round, encountered the contemptuous
+face of Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me have a shot," said C&aelig;sar.</p>
+
+<p>The Lubber advanced, spluttering with rage.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is he&mdash;where is he, that infernal young Verney?"</p>
+
+<p>By this time fifty boys at least were interested spectators
+of the scene. Desmond stood square in the Lubber's path.</p>
+
+<p>"You like to kick small boys," said C&aelig;sar, in a very
+loud voice. "I'm small, half your size, why don't you
+kick me?"</p>
+
+<p>The Lubber could have crushed the speaker by mere
+weight; but he hesitated, and the harder he stared at
+Desmond the less he fancied the job of kicking him.
+Quality confronted quantity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Kick me," said Desmond, "if&mdash;if you dare, you big,
+hulking coward and cad!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Lubber, get into line!" shouted some boy.</p>
+
+<p>Sprott turned slowly, glancing over his vast, fat shoulder
+to guard against further assault. Then he took his place
+in the line, and passed slowly out of the Yard and out of
+these pages. He never persecuted John again.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p>
+
+<p>Not yet, however, was the sun to shine in John's firmament.
+As the days lengthened, as June touched all hearts
+with her magic fingers, insensibly relaxing the tissues and
+warming the senses, John became more and more miserably
+aware that, in the fight between Scaife and himself for the
+possession of Desmond, the odds were stupendously against
+him. Truly the Demon had the subtlety of the serpent,
+for he used the failings which he was unable to hide as
+cords wherewith to bind his friend more closely to him.
+When the facts, for instance, of what had taken place in
+Lovell's room came to Desmond's ears, he denied fiercely
+the possibility of Scaife, his pal, making a "beast" of
+himself. The laughter which greeted his passionate protest
+sent him hot-foot to Scaife himself.</p>
+
+<p>"They say," panted C&aelig;sar, "that last winter you were
+dead drunk in Lovell's room. I told the beasts they
+lied."</p>
+
+<p>Scaife's handsome face softened. Was he touched by
+C&aelig;sar's loyalty? Who can tell? Always he subordinated
+emotion to intelligence: head commanded heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps they did," he answered steadily; "and
+perhaps they didn't. I deny nothing; I admit nothing.
+But"&mdash;his fine eyes, so dark and piercing, flamed&mdash;"C&aelig;sar,
+if I was dead drunk at your feet now, would you turn away
+from me, would you chuck me?"</p>
+
+<p>Desmond winced. Scaife pursued his advantage.</p>
+
+<p>"If you <i>are</i> that sort of a fellow&mdash;the Pharisee"&mdash;Desmond
+winced again&mdash;"the saint who is too pure, too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+holy, to associate with a sinner, say so, and let us part
+here&mdash;and now. For I <i>am</i> a&mdash;sinner. You are not a
+sinner. Hold hard! let me have my say. I've always
+known that this moment was coming. Yes, I am a sinner.
+And my governor is a sinner, a hardened sinner. His
+father made our pile by what you would call robbery.
+The whole world knows it, and condones it, because we are
+so rich. Even my mother&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He paused, trembling, white to the lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't," said Desmond. "Please don't."</p>
+
+<p>"You're right. I won't. But I'm handicapped on
+both sides. It's only fair that you should know what sort
+of a fellow you've chosen for a pal. And it's not too late
+to chuck me. Rutford will put Verney in here, if I ask him.
+And, by God! I'm in the mood to ask him <i>now</i>. Shall I
+go to him, Desmond, or shall I stay?"</p>
+
+<p>He had never raised his voice, but it fell upon the
+sensitive soul of the boy facing him as if it were a clarion-call
+to battle.</p>
+
+<p>Desmond sprang forward, ardent, eager, afire with
+generous self-surrender.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me," he cried. "Oh, forgive me, because I
+can't forgive myself!"</p>
+
+<p>After this breaking of barriers, Scaife took less pains to
+disguise a nature which turned as instinctively to darkness
+as Desmond's to light. A score of times protest died when
+Scaife murmured, "There I go again, forgetting the gulf
+between us"; and always Desmond swore stoutly that the
+gulf, if a gulf did yawn between them, should be bridged
+by friendship and hope. But, insensibly, C&aelig;sar's ideals
+became tainted by Scaife's materialism. Scaife, for instance,
+spent money lavishly upon "food" and clothes.
+So far as a Public Schoolboy is able, he never denied his
+splendid young body anything it coveted. Desmond, too
+proud to receive favours without returning them, tried to
+vie with this reckless spendthrift, and found himself in
+debt. In other ways a keen eye and ear would have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+marked deterioration. John noticed that C&aelig;sar laughed,
+although he never sneered, at things he used to hold sacred;
+that he condemned, as Scaife did, whatever that clever
+young reprobate was pleased to stigmatize as narrow-minded
+or intolerant.</p>
+
+<p>Cricket, however, kept them fairly straight. Each
+was certain to get his "cap,"<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> if, as Lawrence told them,
+they stuck to the rigour of the game. This was Lawrence's
+last term. He had stayed on to play at Lord's, and when
+he left Trieve would become the Head of the House&mdash;a
+prospect very pleasing to the turbulent Fifth.</p>
+
+<p>About the middle of June John suffered a parlous
+blow. He was never so happy as when he was sitting in
+Scaife's room, cheek by jowl with Desmond, sharing,
+perhaps, a "dringer," poring over the same dictionary.
+This delightful intimacy came to a sudden end in this wise.
+The form-master of the Upper Remove happened to be a
+precisian in English. A sure road to his favour was the
+right use of a word. The Demon, appreciating this, bought
+a dictionary of synonyms, and made a point of discarding
+the commonplace and obvious, substituting a phrase likely
+to elicit praise and marks. Desmond and John joined
+in this hunt of the right word with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>One evening the four boys encountered the simple
+sentence&mdash;"<i>majoris pretii quam quod &aelig;stimari possit</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"'Priceless''ll cover that," said C&aelig;sar.</p>
+
+<p>"Or 'inest<i>ee</i>mable,'" said the Demon.</p>
+
+<p>The three other boys stared at the Demon, and then
+at each other. The Caterpillar, something of a purist in
+his way, drawled out&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"One pronounces that 'inestimable.'"</p>
+
+<p>"My father doesn't," said Scaife, hotly. "I've heard
+him say 'inesteemable.'"</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," said Egerton, coldly. "How does <i>your</i>
+father pronounce it, C&aelig;sar?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Desmond said hurriedly, "Oh, 'inestimable'; but what
+does it matter?"</p>
+
+<p>The Demon sprang up, furious. "It matters this,"
+he cried. "I'm d&mdash;&mdash;d if I'll have Egerton sitting in my
+room sneering at my governor. After this he'll do his
+work in his own room, or I'll do mine in the passage."</p>
+
+<p>Before Desmond could speak, Scaife had whirled out of
+the room, slamming the door. John looked stupefied with
+dismay.</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar shrugged his shoulders. Then he said
+slowly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Scaife's father pronounces 'connoisseur' 'connoysure,'
+and so does Scaife."</p>
+
+<p>Desmond stood up, flushed and distressed, but emphatic.</p>
+
+<p>"Scaife is right about one thing," he said. "He
+won't sit here like a cad and listen to Egerton sneering at
+his father. I'm very sorry, but after this we'd better
+split up. Verney and you, Egerton; and Scaife and I."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said the Caterpillar, rising in his turn.</p>
+
+<p>Poor John cast a distracted and imploring glance at
+Desmond, which flashed by unheeded. Then he got up,
+and followed the Caterpillar out of the room. The passage
+was empty.</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar sniffed as if the atmosphere in Scaife's
+room had been polluted.</p>
+
+<p>"One has nothing to regret," he remarked. "Scaife
+has good points, and&mdash;er&mdash;bad. You've noticed his hands&mdash;eh!
+<i>Very</i> unfinished! And his foot&mdash;short, but broad."
+The Caterpillar surveyed his long, slender feet with infinite
+satisfaction; then he added, with an accent of finality,
+"Scaife talks about going into the Grenadiers; but they'll
+give him a hot time there, a very hot time. One is really
+sorry for the poor fellow, because, of course, he can't help
+being a bounder. What does puzzle me is, why did C&aelig;sar
+want such a fellow for his pal?"</p>
+
+<p>"But he didn't," said John.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Eh?&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Scaife wanted C&aelig;sar," John explained. "And I've
+noticed, Caterpillar, that whatever Scaife wants he gets."</p>
+
+<p>"He wants breeding, Jonathan, but he'll never get that&mdash;never."</p>
+
+<p>After this, John saw but little of Desmond; and Scaife
+hardly spoke to him. Accordingly, much of our hero's
+time was spent in the company of the Duffer and Fluff.
+The three passed many delightful hours together at
+"Ducker." Armed with buns and chocolate, they would
+rush down the hill, bathe, lie about on the grass, eat the
+buns, and chaff the kids who were learning to swim.</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 15em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Long, long, in the misty hereafter<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall echo, in ears far away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lilt of that innocent laughter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The splash of the spray."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>During the School matches they spent the afternoons
+on the Sixth Form ground, carefully criticizing every
+stroke. The theory of the game lay pat to the tongue, but
+in practice John was a shocking bungler. At his small
+preparatory school in the New Forest, he had not been
+taught the elementary principles of either racquets or
+cricket; but he had a good eye, played a capital game of
+golf, rode and shot well for a small boy. Fluff, although
+still delicate, gave promise of being a cricketer as good,
+possibly, as his brothers, when he became stronger.</p>
+
+<p>Upon Speech Day John's mother and uncle came down
+to Harrow, and you may be sure that John escorted them
+in triumph to the Manor. Mrs. Verney has since confessed
+that John's expression as she greeted him surprised and
+distressed her. He looked quite unhappy. And the dear
+woman, thinking that he must be in debt, seriously considered
+the propriety of tipping him handsomely <i>in advance</i>.
+A moment later, as she slipped out of an old and shabby
+dust-cloak, revealing the splendours of a dress fresh from
+Paris, she divined from John's now radiant face what had
+troubled him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"John," she said, "you didn't really think that I was going
+to shame you by wearing this dreadful cloak&mdash;did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't quite sure," John answered; then he burst
+out, "Mum, you look simply lovely. All the fellows will
+take you for my sister."</p>
+
+<p>And after the great function in Speech-room came the
+cheering. How John's heart throbbed when the Head of
+the School, standing just outside the door, proclaimed the
+illustrious name&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Three cheers for Mr. John Verney."</p>
+
+<p>And how the boys in the road below cheered, as the
+little man descended the steps, hat in hand, bowing and
+blushing! Everybody knew that he was on the eve of
+departure for further explorations in Manchuria. He
+would be absent, so the papers said, three years at least.
+The School cheered the louder, because each boy knew that
+they might never see that gallant face again.</p>
+
+<p>Later in the afternoon a selection of Harrow songs was
+given in the Speech-room. "Five Hundred Faces," as
+usual, was sung by a new boy, who is answered, in chorus,
+by the whole School. How John recalled his own feelings,
+less than a year ago, as he stood shivering upon the bank
+of the river, funking the first plunge! And his uncle, now
+sitting beside him, had said that he would soon enjoy
+himself amazingly&mdash;and so he had! The new boy began
+the second verse. His voice, not a strong one, quavered
+shrilly&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 20em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A quarter to seven! There goes the bell!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sleet is driving against the pane;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But woe to the sluggard who turns again<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sleeps, not wisely, but all too well!"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>In reply to the weak, timid notes came the glad roar
+of the School&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 20em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Yet the time may come, as the years go by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When your heart will thrill<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At the thought of the Hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the pitiless bell, with its piercing cry!"<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></div></div></div>
+
+<p>Ah, that pitiless bell! And yet because of it one
+wallowed in Sunday and whole-holiday "frowsts."<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>
+John, you see, had the makings of a philosopher. And
+now the Eleven were grunting "Willow the King." And
+when the last echo of the chorus died away in the great
+room, Uncle John whispered to his nephew that he had
+heard Harrow songs in every corner of the earth, and that
+convincing proof of merit shone out of the fact that their
+charm waxed rather than waned with the years; they
+improved, like wine, with age.</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar's father came down with the Duke of Trent.
+The duke tipped John magnificently and asked him to
+spend his exeat at Trent House, and to witness the Eton
+and Harrow match at Lord's from the Trent coach. John
+accepted gratefully enough; but his heart was sore because,
+just before the row over that infernal word "inestimable,"
+C&aelig;sar had asked John if he would like to occupy an attic
+in Eaton Square. After the row nothing more was said
+about the attic; but John would have preferred bare boards
+in Eaton Square to a tapestried chamber in Park
+Lane.</p>
+
+<p>Now, during the whole of this summer term there was
+much animated discussion in regard to the rival claims of
+lines or spots upon the white waistcoat worn by all self-respecting
+Harrovians at Lord's. Upon this important
+subject John had betrayed scandalous indifference. Accordingly,
+just before the match, the Caterpillar took him
+aside and spoke a solemn word.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," he said; "one doesn't as a rule make
+personal remarks, but it's rather too obvious that you buy
+your clothes in Lyndhurst. I was sorry to see that the
+Duke of Trent was the worst-dressed man at Speecher;
+but a duke can look like a tinker, and nobody cares."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd be awfully obliged if you'd tell me what's wrong,"
+said John, humbly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Everything's wrong," said the Caterpillar, decisively.
+He looked critically at John's boots. "Your boots, for
+instance&mdash;most excellent boots for wading through the
+swamps in the New Forest, but quite impossible in town.
+And the 'topper' you wear on Sunday! Southampton,
+you say? Ah, I thought it was a Verney heirloom.
+Now, it wouldn't surprise me to hear that your mother,
+who dresses herself quite charmingly, bought your kit."</p>
+
+<p>"She did," John confessed.</p>
+
+<p>"Just so. One need say no more. Now, you come
+along with me."</p>
+
+<p>They marched down the High Street to the most
+fashionable of the School tailors, where John was measured
+for an Eton jacket of the best, white waistcoat with blue
+spots, light bags; while the Caterpillar selected a new
+"topper," an umbrella, a pair of gloves, and a tie.</p>
+
+<p>"Be <i>very</i> careful about the bags," said the Caterpillar.
+"They are cutting 'em in town a trifle tighter about the
+lower leg, but loose above. You understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly, Mr. Egerton," replied the obsequious snip.
+"What we call the 'tighto-looso' style, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think they call it that in Savile Row," said the
+Caterpillar; "but be careful."</p>
+
+<p>The tailor was assured that he would receive an order
+properly signed by Mr. Rutford. And then John was led
+to the bootmaker's, and there measured for his first pair
+of patent-leathers. The Caterpillar was so exhausted by
+these labours that a protracted visit to the Creameries
+became imperative.</p>
+
+<p>"You've always looked like a gentleman," said the
+Caterpillar, after his "dringer," "and it's a comfort to me
+to think that now you'll be dressed like one."</p>
+
+<p>So John went up to town looking very smart indeed;
+and Fluff (who had ordered a similar kit) whispered to John
+at luncheon that his brothers, the Etonians, had expressed
+surprise at the change for the better in their general
+appearance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This luncheon was eaten on the top of the duke's coach,
+and it happened that the next coach but one belonged to
+Scaife's father. John could just see Scaife's handsome head,
+and C&aelig;sar sitting beside him. The boys nodded to each
+other, and the Etonians asked questions. At the name of
+Scaife, however, the young Kinlochs curled contemptuous
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Unspeakable bounder, old Scaife, isn't he?" they
+asked; and the duchess replied&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My dears, his cheques are honoured to any amount,
+even if <i>he</i> isn't."</p>
+
+<p>Her laughter tinkled delightfully; but John reflected
+that Desmond was eating the Scaife food and drinking the
+Scaife wine&mdash;all bought with ill-gotten gold.</p>
+
+<p>Later in the afternoon it became evident that the
+Scaife champagne was flowing freely. To John's dismay,
+the Harrovians (including C&aelig;sar) on the top of the Scaife
+coach became noisy. The Caterpillar and his father,
+Colonel Egerton, sauntered up, and were invited by the
+duke to rest and refresh themselves. John was amused
+to note that the colonel was even a greater buck than
+his son. He quite cut out the poor old Caterpillar,
+challenging and monopolizing the attention of all who
+beheld him.</p>
+
+<p>"Those boys are makin' the devil of a row," said the
+colonel, fixing his eyeglass. "Ah, the Scaifes! A man
+I know dined with them last week. He reported everything
+<i>over</i>done, except the food. Their <i>chef</i> is Marcobruno,
+you know."</p>
+
+<p>Presently, to John's relief, Desmond left the Scaifes
+and joined the Trent party, upon whom his gay,
+radiant face and charming manners made a most
+favourable impression. He laughed at the duchess's
+stories, and made love to her quite unaffectedly. The
+Etonians looked rather glum, because their wickets were
+falling faster than had been expected. Desmond told
+the duke, in answer to a question, that his father was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+in his seat in the pavilion, with his eyes glued to the
+pitch.</p>
+
+<p>"He's awfully keen," said C&aelig;sar.</p>
+
+<p>"You boys are not so keen as we were," said the duke,
+nodding reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but we are, sir&mdash;indeed we are," said C&aelig;sar.
+"Aren't we, Caterpillar?"</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar replied, thoughtfully, "One bottles up
+that sort of thing, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said the duke, kindly, "if it's the right sort of
+thing, it's none the worse for being bottled up."</p>
+
+<p>The boys went to the play that night and enjoyed themselves
+hugely. Next day, however, the match ended in a
+draw. John was standing on the top of the coach, very
+disconsolate, when he saw Desmond beckoning to him
+from below. The expression on C&aelig;sar's face puzzled
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you pal up with those Etonians?" whispered
+C&aelig;sar, after John had descended. "Every Eton face I see
+now I want to hit." Then he added, with a smile and a
+chuckle, "I say, there's going to be a ruction in front of
+the Pavvy. Come on."</p>
+
+<p>A minute later John was in the thick of a very pretty
+scrimmage between the Hill and the Plain. Hats were
+bashed in; cornflowers torn from buttonholes; pale-blue
+tassels were captured; umbrellas broken. Finally, the
+police interfered.</p>
+
+<p>"Short, but very, very sweet," said C&aelig;sar, panting.</p>
+
+<p>John and he were lamentable objects for fond parents
+to behold, but the sense of depression had vanished. And
+then C&aelig;sar said suddenly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove! I <i>have</i> got a bit of news. It quite takes
+the sting out of this draw."</p>
+
+<p>"What's happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"My governor has been talking with Warde. Rutford
+is leaving Harrow."</p>
+
+<p>John gasped. "That is ripping."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it? But who do you think is coming to us?
+Why, Warde himself. He was at the Manor when it was
+<i>the</i> house, and the governor says that Warde will make it
+<i>the</i> house, again. He's got his work cut out for him&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"You bet your life," said John.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> "Duck-Puddle," the school bathing-place.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> A "Dringer" is composed of the following ingredients: a layer
+of strawberries is secreted in sugar and cream at the bottom of a clean
+jam-pot; and this receives a decent covering of strawberry ice, which
+brings the surface of the dringer and the top edge of the jam-pot into
+the same plane. The whole may be bought for sixpence. (P. C. T., 1905.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> A "Bluer" is the blue-flannel jacket worn in the playing fields.
+It must be worn <i>buttoned</i> by boys who have been less than three years in
+the school.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Small boys are not advised to copy John's tactics. The victory
+is not always to the weak.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> The house-cap, only worn by members of the House Cricket
+Eleven.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Lying in bed in the morning when there is no First School is a
+"frowst." By a subtle law of association, an armchair is also a "frowst."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3><i>A Revelation</i></h3>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 23em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Forty years on, when afar and asunder<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Parted are those who are singing to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When you look back, and forgetfully wonder<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What you were like in your work and your play;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, it may be, there will often come o'er you<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Glimpses of notes like the catch of a song,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Visions of boyhood shall float them before you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Echoes of dreamland shall bear them along."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Before the</span> end of the summer term, both Desmond and
+Scaife received their "caps" and a word of advice from
+Lawrence.</p>
+
+<p>"There are going to be changes here," said he; "and
+I wish I could see 'em, and help to bring 'em about. Now,
+I'm not given to buttering fellows up, but I see plainly that
+the rebuilding of this house depends a lot upon you two.
+It's not likely that you're able to measure your influence;
+if you could, there wouldn't be much to measure. But take
+it from me, not a word, not an action of yours is without
+weight with the lower boys. Everything helps or hinders.
+Next term there will be war&mdash;to the knife&mdash;between Warde
+and some fellows I needn't name, and Warde will win.
+Remember I said so. I hope you," he looked hard at
+Desmond, "will fight on the right side."</p>
+
+<p>The boys returned to their room, jubilant because the
+house-cap was theirs, but uneasy because of the words
+given with it. As soon as they were alone, Scaife said
+sullenly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Does Lawrence expect us to stand in with Warde
+against Lovell and his pals? If he does, he's jolly well
+mistaken, as far as I'm concerned."</p>
+
+<p>Desmond flushed. He had spent nearly five terms at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+Harrow, but only two at the Manor. Of what had been
+done or left undone by certain fellows in the Fifth he was
+still in twilight ignorance. He discerned shadows, nothing
+more, and, boylike, he ran from shadows into the sunlight.
+Desmond knew that there were beasts at the Manor. Had
+you forced from him an expression approaching, let
+us say, definiteness, he would have admitted that beasts
+lurked in every house, in every school in the kingdom.
+You must keep out of their way (and ways)&mdash;that was all.
+And he knew also that too many beasts wreck a house, as
+they wreck a regiment or a nation.</p>
+
+<p>But once or twice within the past few months he had
+suspected that his cut-and-dried views on good and evil
+were not shared by Scaife. Scaife confessed to Desmond
+that the Old Adam was strong in him. He liked, craved for,
+the excitement of breaking the law. Hitherto, this breaking
+of the law had been confined to such offences as smoking
+or drinking a glass of beer at a "pub,"<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> or using cribs, or,
+generally speaking, setting at naught authority. That
+Scaife had escaped severe punishment was due to his keen
+wits.</p>
+
+<p>Now, when Scaife gave Desmond the unexpurgated
+history of the row which so nearly resulted in the expulsion
+of six boys, Desmond had asked a question&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do you <i>like</i> whisky? I loathe it."</p>
+
+<p>Scaife laughed before he answered. Doubtless one
+reason why he exacted interest and admiration from Desmond
+lay in a rare (rare at fifteen) ability to analyse his
+own and others' actions.</p>
+
+<p>"I loathe it, too," he admitted. "Really, you know,
+we drank precious little, because it <i>is</i> such beastly stuff.
+But I liked, we all liked, to believe that we were doing the
+correct thing&mdash;eh? And it warmed us up. Just a taste
+made the Caterpillar awfully funny."</p>
+
+<p>"I see."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see? I doubt it, C&aelig;sar. Perhaps I shall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+horrify you when I tell you that vice interests me. I used
+to buy the <i>Police News</i> when I was a kid, and simply
+wallow in it. I told a woman that last Easter, and she
+laughed&mdash;she was as clever as they make 'em&mdash;and said
+that I suffered from what the French call <i>la nostalgie de la
+boue</i>; that means, you know, the homesickness for the
+gutter. Rather personal, but dev'lish sharp, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think she was a beast."</p>
+
+<p>"Not she, she's a sort of cousin; she came from the
+same old place herself; that's why she understood. You
+don't want to know what goes on in the slums, but I do.
+Why? Because my grand-dad was born in 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"He pulled himself out by brains and muscles."</p>
+
+<p>"But he went back&mdash;sometimes. Oh yes, he did.
+And the governor&mdash;I'm up to some of <i>his</i> little games. I
+could tell you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;shut up!" said C&aelig;sar, the colour flooding his cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the last Saturday of the term the School Concert
+took place. Few of the boys in the Manor, and none out
+of it, knew that John Verney had been chosen to sing the
+treble solo; always an attractive number of the programme.
+John, indeed, was painfully shy in regard to his
+singing, so shy that he never told Desmond that he had a
+voice. And the music-master, enchanted by its quality,
+impressed upon his pupil the expediency of silence. He
+wished to surprise the School.</p>
+
+<p>The concerts at Harrow take place in the great Speech-room.
+Their characteristic note is the singing of Harrow
+songs. To any boy with an ear for music and a heart
+susceptible of emotion these songs must appeal profoundly,
+because both words and music seem to enshrine all that
+is noble and uplifting in life. And, sung by the whole
+School (as are most of the choruses), their message becomes
+curiously emphatic. The spirit of the Hill is acclaimed,
+gladly, triumphantly, unmistakably, by Harrovians repeating
+the creed of their fathers, knowing that creed will be
+so repeated by their sons and sons' sons. Was it happy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+chance or a happier sagacity which decreed that certain
+verses should be sung by the School "Twelve," who have
+struggled through form after form and know (and have not
+yet had time to forget) the difficulties and temptations
+which beset all boys? They, to whom their fellows unanimously
+accord respect at least, and often&mdash;as in the case
+of a Captain of the Cricket Eleven&mdash;enthusiastic admiration
+and fealty; these, the gods, in a word, deliver their injunction,
+transmit, in turn, what has been transmitted to
+them, and invite their successors to receive it. To many
+how poignant must be the reflection that the trust they are
+about to resign might have been better administered! But
+to many there must come upon the wings of those mighty,
+rushing choruses the assurance that the Power which has
+upheld them in the past will continue to uphold them in
+the future. In many&mdash;would one could say in all&mdash;is
+quickened, for the first time, perhaps, a sense of what they
+owe to the Hill, the overwhelming debt which never can
+be discharged.</p>
+
+<p>Desmond sat beside Scaife. Scaife boasted that he
+could not tell "God save the Queen" from "The Dead
+March in Saul." He confessed that the concert bored him.
+Desmond, on the other hand, was always touched by music,
+or, indeed, by anything appealing to an imagination which
+gilded all things and persons. He was Scaife's friend, not
+only (as John discovered) because Scaife had a will strong
+enough to desire and secure that friendship, but because&mdash;a
+subtler reason&mdash;he had never yet seen Scaife as he was,
+but always as he might have been.</p>
+
+<p>Desmond told Scaife that he could not understand why
+John had bottled up the fact that he was chosen to sing
+upon such an occasion. Scaife smiled contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>"You never bottle up anything, C&aelig;sar," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I? And why should he?"</p>
+
+<p>"I expect he'll make an awful ass of himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, he won't," Desmond replied. "He's a clever
+fellow is Jonathan."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As he gave John his nickname, Desmond's charming
+voice softened. A boy of less quick perceptions than Scaife
+would have divined that the speaker liked John, liked him,
+perhaps, better than he knew. Scaife frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"There are several Old Harrovians," he said, indicating
+the seats reserved for them. "It's queer to me that they
+come down for this caterwauling."</p>
+
+<p>Desmond glanced at him sharply, with a wrinkle between
+his eyebrows. For the moment he looked as if he were
+short-sighted, as if he were trying to define an image somewhat
+blurred, conscious that the image itself was clear
+enough, that the fault lay in the obscurity of his own vision.</p>
+
+<p>"They come down because they're keen," he replied.
+"My governor can't leave his office, or he'd be here. I like
+to see 'em, don't you, Demon?"</p>
+
+<p>"I could worry along without 'em," the Demon replied,
+half-smiling. "You see," he added, with the blend of
+irony and pathos which always captivated his friend, "you
+see, my dear old chap, I'm the first of my family at Harrow,
+and the sight of all your brothers and uncles and fathers
+makes me feel like Mark Twain's good man, rather
+<i>lonesome</i>."</p>
+
+<p>At once Desmond responded, clutching Scaife's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"You're going to be Captain of the cricket and footer
+Elevens, and School racquet-player, and a monitor; and
+after you leave you'll come down here, and you'll see that
+Harrow hasn't forgotten you, and then you'll know why
+these fellows cut engagements. My governor says that an
+hour at a School Concert is the finest tonic in the world for
+an Old Harrovian."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shut up!" said Scaife; "you make me feel more
+of an outsider than good old Snowball." He glanced at
+a youth sitting close to them. Snowball was as black as
+a coal: the son of the Sultan of the Sahara. "Yes,
+C&aelig;sar, you can't get away from it, I <i>am</i> an 'alien.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You're a silly old ass! I say, who's the guest of
+honour?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Next to the Head Master was sitting a thin man upon
+whose face were fixed hundreds of eyes. The School had
+not been told that a famous Field Marshal, the hero of a
+hundred fights, was coming to the concert. And, indeed,
+he had accepted an invitation given at the last moment&mdash;accepted
+it, moreover, on the understanding that his visit
+was to be informal. None the less, his face was familiar
+to all readers of illustrated papers. And, suddenly, conviction
+seized the boys that a conqueror was among them,
+an Old Etonian, making, possibly, his first visit to the Hill.
+Scaife whispered his name to Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course," Desmond replied eagerly. "How
+splendid!"</p>
+
+<p>He leaned forward, devouring the hero with his eyes,
+trying to pierce the bronzed skin, to read the record. From
+his seat upon the stage John, also, stared at the illustrious
+guest. John was frightfully nervous, but looking at the
+veteran he forgot the fear of the recruit. Both Desmond
+and he were wondering what "it felt like" to have done so
+much. And&mdash;they compared notes afterwards&mdash;each boy
+deplored the fact that the great man was not an Old
+Harrovian. There he sat, cool, calm, slightly impassive.
+John thought he must be rather tired, as a man ought to be
+tired after a life of strenuous endeavour and achievement.
+He had done&mdash;so John reflected&mdash;an awful lot. Even now,
+he remained the active, untiring servant of Queen and
+country. And he had taken time to come down to Harrow
+to hear the boys sing. And, dash it all! he, John, was
+going to sing to him.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Desmond was whispering to Scaife&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Demon; I'm jolly glad that I've not got to
+sing before <i>him</i>. I bet Jonathan is in a funk."</p>
+
+<p>"A big bit of luck," replied Scaife, reflectively. Then,
+seeing the surprise on Desmond's face, he added, "If
+Jonathan can sing&mdash;and I suppose he can, or he wouldn't
+be chosen&mdash;this is a chance&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of what?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"C&aelig;sar, sometimes I think you've no brains. Why, a
+chance of attracting the notice of a tremendous swell&mdash;a
+man, they say, who never forgets&mdash;never! Jonathan may
+want a commission in the Guards, as I do; and if he pleases
+the great man, he may get it."</p>
+
+<p>"Jonathan's not thinking of that," said Desmond.
+"Shush-h-h!"</p>
+
+<p>The singers stood up. They faced the Field Marshal,
+and he faced them. He looked hardest at Lawrence,
+pointed out to him by the Head Master. Perhaps he was
+thinking of India; and the name of Lawrence indelibly
+cut upon the memories of all who fought in the Mutiny.
+And Lawrence, you may be sure, met his glance steadily,
+being fortified by it. The good fellow felt terribly distressed,
+because he was leaving the Hill; and, being a
+humble gentleman, the old songs served to remind him,
+not of what he had done, but of what he had left undone&mdash;the
+words unspoken, the actions never now to be performed.
+The chief caught his eye, smiled, and nodded, as if to say,
+"I claim your father's son as a friend."</p>
+
+<p>When the song came to an end, John was seized with
+an almost irresistible impulse to bolt. His turn had come.
+He must stand up to sing before nearly six hundred boys,
+who would stare down with gravely critical and courteously
+amused eyes. And already his legs trembled as if he were
+seized of a palsy. John knew that he could sing. His
+mother, who sang gloriously, had trained him. From her
+he had inherited his vocal chords, and from her he drew
+the knowledge how to use them.</p>
+
+<p>When he stood up, pale and trembling, the silence fell
+upon his sensibilities as if it were a dense, yellow fog. This
+silence, as John knew, was an unwritten law. The small
+boy selected to sing to the School, as the representative of
+the School, must have every chance. Let his voice be
+heard! The master playing the accompaniment paused
+and glanced at his pupil. John, however, was not looking
+at him; he was looking within at a John he despised&mdash;a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+poltroon, a deserter about to run from his first engagement.
+He knew that the introduction to the song was being played
+a second time, and he saw the Head Master whispering to
+his guest. Paralysed with terror, John's intuition told
+him that the Head Master was murmuring, "That's the
+nephew of John Verney. Of course you know him?"
+And the Field Marshal nodded. And then he looked at
+John, as John had seen him look at Lawrence, with the
+same flare of recognition in the steel-grey eyes. Out of the
+confused welter of faces shone that pair of eyes&mdash;twin
+beacons flashing their message of encouragement and
+salvation to a fellow-creature in peril&mdash;at least, so John
+interpreted that piercing glance. It seemed to say, far
+plainer than words, "I have stood alone as you stand;
+I have felt my knees as wax; I have wished to run away.
+But&mdash;<i>I didn't</i>. Nor must you. Open your mouth and
+sing!"</p>
+
+<p>So John opened his mouth and sang. The first verse
+of the lyric went haltingly.</p>
+
+<p>Scaife growled to Desmond, "He <i>is</i> going to make an
+ass of himself."</p>
+
+<p>And Desmond, meeting Scaife's eyes, half thought that
+the speaker wished that John would fail&mdash;that he grudged
+him a triumph. None the less, the first verse, sung feebly,
+with wrong phrasing and imperfect articulation, revealed
+the quality of the boy's voice; and this quality Desmond
+recognized, as he would have recognized a fine painting or
+a bit of perfect porcelain. All his short life his father had
+trained him to look for and acclaim quality, whether in
+things animate or inanimate. He caught hold of Scaife's
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Make an ass of himself!" he whispered back. "Not
+he. But he may make an ass of me."</p>
+
+<p>Even as he spoke he was aware that tears were horribly
+near his eyes. Some catch in John's voice, some subtle
+inflection, had smitten his heart, even as the prophet smote
+the rock.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Rot!" said Scaife, angrily.</p>
+
+<p>He was angry, furiously angry, because he saw that
+C&aelig;sar was beyond his reach, whirled innumerable leagues
+away by the sound of another's voice. John had begun
+the second verse. He stared, as if hypnotized, straight into
+the face of the great soldier, who in turn stared as steadily
+at John; and John was singing like a lark, with a lark's
+spontaneous delight in singing, with an ease and self-abandonment
+which charmed eye almost as much as ear.
+Higher and higher rose the clear, sexless notes, till two of
+them met and mingled in a triumphant trill. To Desmond,
+that trill was the answer to the quavering, troubled
+cadences of the first verse; the vindication of the spirit
+soaring upwards unfettered by the flesh&mdash;the pure spirit,
+not released from the pitiful human clay without a fierce
+struggle. At that moment Desmond loved the singer&mdash;the
+singer who called to him out of heaven, who summoned
+his friend to join him, to see what he saw&mdash;"the vision
+splendid."</p>
+
+<p>John began the third and last verse. The famous soldier
+covered his face with his hand, releasing John's eyes, which
+ascended, like his voice, till they met joyfully the eyes of
+Desmond. At last he was singing to his friend&mdash;<i>and his
+friend knew it</i>. John saw Desmond's radiant smile, and
+across that ocean of faces he smiled back. Then, knowing
+that he was nearer to his friend than he had ever been
+before, he gathered together his energies for the last line of
+the song&mdash;a line to be repeated three times, loudly at first,
+then more softly, diminishing to the merest whisper of
+sound, the voice celestial melting away in the ear of earth-bound
+mortals. The master knew well the supreme difficulty
+of producing properly this last attenuated note; but
+he knew also that John's lungs were strong, that the vocal
+chords had never been strained. Still, if the boy's breath
+failed; if anything&mdash;a smile, a frown, a cough&mdash;distracted
+his attention, the end would be&mdash;weakness, failure. He
+wondered why John was staring so fixedly in one direction.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Now&mdash;now!</p>
+
+<p>The piano crashed out the last line; but far above it,
+dominating it, floated John's flute-like notes. The master
+played the same bars for the second time. He was still
+able to sustain, if it were necessary, a quavering, imperfect
+phrase. But John delivered the second repetition without
+a mistake, singing easily from the chest. The master put
+his foot upon the soft pedal. Nobody was watching him.
+Had any one done so, he would have seen the perspiration
+break upon the musician's forehead. The piano purred its
+accompaniment. Then, in the middle of the phrase, the
+master lifted his hands and held them poised above the
+instrument. John had to sing three notes unsupported.
+He was smiling and staring at Desmond. The first note
+came like a question from the heart of a child; the second,
+higher up, might have been interpreted as an echo to the
+innocent interrogation of the first, the head no wiser than
+the heart; but the third and last note had nothing in it
+of interrogation: it was an answer, all-satisfying&mdash;sublime.
+Nor did it seem to come from John at all, but from above,
+falling like a snowflake out of the sky.</p>
+
+<p>And then, for one immeasurable moment&mdash;<i>silence</i>.</p>
+
+<p>John slipped back to his seat, crimson with bashfulness,
+while the School thundered applause. The Field Marshal
+shouted "Encore," as loudly as any fag; but the Head
+Master whispered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We don't encourage <i>encores</i>. A small boy's head is
+easily turned."</p>
+
+<p>"Not his," the hero replied.</p>
+
+<p>Two numbers followed, and then the School stood up,
+and with them all Old Harrovians, to sing the famous
+National Anthem of Harrow, "Forty Years on." Only
+the guests and the masters remained seated.</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 23em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Forty years on, growing older and older,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shorter in wind, as in memory long,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Feeble of foot and rheumatic of shoulder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What will it help you that once you were strong?<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">God give us bases to guard or beleaguer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Games to play out, whether earnest or fun;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fights for the fearless, and goals for the eager,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Twenty, and thirty, and forty years on!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! Follow up!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the field ring again and again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With the tramp of the twenty-two men.<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Follow&mdash;up!"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>As the hundreds of voices, past and present indissolubly
+linked together, imposed the mandate, "<i>Follow up!</i>" the
+Head Master glanced at his guest, but left unsaid the words
+about to be uttered. Tears were trickling down the cheeks
+of the man who, forty years before, had won his Sovereign's
+Cross&mdash;For Valour.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>After the concert, but before he left the Speech-room,
+the Field Marshal asked the Head Master to introduce
+Lawrence and John, and, of course, the Head of the School.
+When John came up, there was a twinkle in the veteran's
+eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha&mdash;ha!" said he; "you were in a precious funk,
+John Verney."</p>
+
+<p>"I was, sir," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Gad! Don't I know the feeling? Well, well," he
+chuckled, smiling at John, "you climbed up higher than
+I've ever been in my life. What was it&mdash;hey? 'F' in 'alt'?"</p>
+
+<p>"'G,' sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You sang delightfully. Tell your uncle to bring you
+to see me next time you are in town. You must consider
+me a friend," he chuckled again&mdash;"an old friend. And
+look ye here," his pleasant voice sank to a whisper, "I
+daren't tip these tremendous swells, but I feel that I can
+take such a liberty with you. Shush-h-h! Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>John scurried away, bursting with pride, feeling to the
+core the strong grip of the strong man, hearing the thrill of
+his voice, the thrill which had vibrated in thousands of
+soldier-hearts. Outside, Fluff was awaiting him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jonathan, you can sing, and no mistake."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Five&mdash;six&mdash;seven mistakes," John answered.</p>
+
+<p>The boys laughed.</p>
+
+<p>John told Fluff what the hero had said to him, and
+showed the piece of gold.</p>
+
+<p>"What ho! The Creameries! Come on, Esm&eacute;."</p>
+
+<p>At the Creameries several boys congratulated John, and
+the Caterpillar said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You astonished us, Jonathan; 'pon my soul you did.
+Have a 'dringer' with me? And Fluff, too? By the
+way, be sure to keep your hair clipped close. These singing
+fellows with manes may be lions in their own estimation,
+but the world looks upon 'em as asses."</p>
+
+<p>"That's not bad for you, Caterpillar," said a boy in
+the Fifth.</p>
+
+<p>"Not my own," said the Caterpillar, solemnly&mdash;"my
+father's. I take from him all the good things I can get
+hold of."</p>
+
+<p>John polished off his "dringer," listening to the chaff,
+but his thoughts were with Desmond. He had an intuition
+that Desmond would have something to say to him. As
+soon as possible he returned to the Manor.</p>
+
+<p>There he found his room empty. John shut the door
+and sat down, looking about him half-absently. The
+Duffer had not contributed much to the mural decoration,
+saying, loftily, that he preferred bare walls to rubbishy
+engravings and Japanese fans. But, with curious inconsistency
+(for he was the least vain of mortals), he had bought
+at a "leaving auction" a three-sided mirror&mdash;once the
+property of a great buck in the Sixth. The Duffer had got
+it cheap, but he never used it. The lower boys remarked
+to each other that Duff didn't dare to look in it, because
+what he would see must not only break his heart but
+shatter the glass. Generally, it hung, folded up, close to
+the window, and the Duffer said that it would come in
+handy when he took to shaving.</p>
+
+<p>John's eye rested on this mirror, vacantly at first, then
+with gathering intensity. Presently he got up, crossed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+room, opened the two folding panels, and examined himself
+attentively, pursing up his lips and frowning. He
+could see John Verney full face, three-quarter face, and half-face.
+And he could see the back of his head, where an
+obstinate lock of hair stuck out like a drake's tail. John
+was so occupied in taking stock of his personal disadvantages
+that a ringing laugh quite startled him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Jonathan! Giving yourself a treat&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>John turned a solemn face to Desmond. "I think my
+head is hideous," he said ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's too long," John explained. "I like a nice round
+head like yours, C&aelig;sar. I wish I wasn't so ugly."</p>
+
+<p>Desmond laughed. John always amused him. C&aelig;sar
+was easily amused, saw the funny side of things, and contrasts
+tickled his fancy agreeably. But he stopped laughing
+when he realized that John was hurt. Then, quickly,
+impulsively, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Your head is all right, old Jonathan. And your voice
+is simply beautiful." He spoke seriously, staring at John
+as he had stared in the Speech-room when John began to
+sing. "I came here to tell you that. I felt odd when you
+were singing&mdash;quite weepsy, you know. You like me, old
+Jonathan, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Awfully," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you look at me when you sang that last
+verse? Did you know that you were looking at me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You looked at me because&mdash;well, because&mdash;bar chaff&mdash;you&mdash;liked&mdash;me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;you like me better than any other fellow in the
+school?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; better than any other fellow in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have always felt that way since&mdash;yes&mdash;since the very
+first minute I saw you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How rum! I've forgotten just where we did meet&mdash;for
+the first time."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never forget," said John, in the same slow,
+deliberate fashion, never taking his eyes from Desmond's
+face. Ever since he had sung, he had known that this
+moment was coming. "I shall never forget it," he repeated&mdash;"never.
+You were standing near the Chapel.
+I was poking about alone, trying to find the shop where we
+buy our straws. And I was feeling as all new boys feel,
+only more so, because I didn't know a soul."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Desmond, gravely; "you told me that.
+I remember now; I mistook you for young Hardacre."</p>
+
+<p>"You smiled at me, C&aelig;sar. It warmed me through and
+through. I suppose that when a fellow is starving he never
+forgets the first meal after it."</p>
+
+<p>"I say. Go on; this is awfully interesting."</p>
+
+<p>"I can remember what you wore. One of your bootlaces
+had burst&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well; I'm&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I had a wild sort of wish to run off and buy you a
+new lace&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of all the rum starts I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Afterwards," John continued, "I tried to suck-up.
+I asked you to come and have some 'food.' Do you
+remember?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet I came, Jonathan."</p>
+
+<p>"No; you didn't. You said 'No.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Dash it all! I certainly said, 'No thanks.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say; but the 'No' hurt awfully because I did
+feel that it was cheek asking you."</p>
+
+<p>"Jonathan, you funny old buster, I'll never say 'No'
+again. 'Pon my word, I won't. So I said 'No.' That's
+odd, because it's not easy for me to say 'No.' The governor
+pointed that out last hols. Somehow, I can't say 'No,'
+particularly if there's any excitement in saying 'Yes.'
+And my beastly 'No' hurt, did it? Well, I'm very, <i>very</i>
+sorry."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He held out his hand, which John took. Then, for a
+moment, there was a pause before Desmond continued
+awkwardly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You know, Jonathan, that the Demon is my pal.
+You like him better than you did, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>John had the tact not to speak; but he shook his head
+dolefully.</p>
+
+<p>"And I couldn't chuck him, even if I wanted to, which
+I don't&mdash;which I don't," he repeated, with an air of satisfying
+himself rather than John. And John divined that
+Scaife's hold upon Desmond's affections was not so strong
+as he had deemed it to be. Desmond continued, "But
+I want you, too, old Jonathan, and if&mdash;if&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said John, nobly. He perceived that
+Desmond's loyalty to Scaife made him hesitate and flush.
+"I understand, C&aelig;sar, and if I can't be first, let me be
+second; only, remember, with me you're first, rain or
+shine."</p>
+
+<p>Desmond looked uneasy. "Isn't that a case of 'heads
+I win, tails you lose'?"</p>
+
+<p>John considered; then he smiled cheerfully, "You
+know you are a winner, C&aelig;sar. You're cut out for a
+winner; you can win whatever you want to win."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's all rot," said Desmond. He looked very
+grave, and in his eyes lay shadows which John had never
+seen before.</p>
+
+<p>And so ended John's first year at Harrow.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> All Public Houses are out of bounds.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Reform</i></h3>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 22em;"><p>"'It must be a gran' thing to be a colledge profissor.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Not much to do,' said Mr. Hennessy.</p>
+
+<p>"'But a gr&mdash;reat deal to say,' said Mr. Dooley."</p></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When John</span> returned to the Hill at the beginning of the
+winter term the great change had taken place. Rutford
+had assumed the duties of Professor of Greek at a Scotch
+University; Warde was in possession of the Manor; Scaife
+and Desmond and John&mdash;but not the Caterpillar&mdash;had got
+their remove. They were Fifth Form boys&mdash;and in tails!
+John, it is true, although tougher and broader, was still
+short for his years and juvenile of appearance, but Scaife
+and Desmond were quite big fellows, and their new coats
+became them mightily. Trieve was Head of the House;
+Lovell, Captain of the House football Eleven and in the
+Lower Sixth.</p>
+
+<p>"Lovell will have to behave himself now," the Duffer
+remarked to Scaife, who laughed derisively, as he
+answered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He couldn't, even if he tried."</p>
+
+<p>Warde welcomed the House at lock-up, and introduced
+the boys to his wife and daughter. Mrs. Warde had a
+plain, pleasant face. Miss Warde, however, was a beauty,
+and she knew it, the coquette, and had known it from the
+hour she could peep into a mirror. The Caterpillar pronounced
+her "fetching." Being only fifteen, she wore her
+hair in a plait tied by a huge bow, and the hem of her skirt
+barely touched the neatest ankle on Harrow Hill. Give
+her a saucy, pink-and-white face, pop a pert, tip-tilted nose
+into the middle of it just above a pouting red mouth, and
+just below her father's lapis-lazuli eyes, and you will see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+Iris Warde. Her hair was reddish, not red&mdash;call it warm
+chestnut; and she had a dimple.</p>
+
+<p>After the introductions, mother and daughter left the
+hall. Warde stood up, inviting the House to sit down.
+Warde was about half the width of the late Rutford, but
+somehow he seemed to take up more room. He had spent
+the summer holidays in Switzerland, climbing terrific peaks.
+Snow and sun had coloured his clear complexion. John,
+who saw beneath tanned skins, reflected that Warde seemed
+to be saturated with fresh air and all the sweet, clean things
+which one associates with mountains. "He loves hills,"
+thought John, "and he loves our Hill." Warde began to
+speak in his jerky, confidential tones. Dirty Dick had
+always been insufferably dull, pompous, and didactic.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like speechmaking," said Warde, "but I
+want to put one thing to you as strongly as a man may.
+I have always wished to be master of the Manor. Some
+men may think mine a small ambition. Master of a house
+at Harrow? Nothing big about that. Perhaps not. But
+I think it big. And it is big&mdash;for me. Understand that
+I'm in love with my job&mdash;head over heels. I'd sooner be
+master of the Manor than Prime Minister. I couldn't
+tackle his work. Enough of that. Now, forget for a
+moment that I'm a master. Let me talk as an Old Harrovian,
+an old Manorite who remembers everything, ay&mdash;everything,
+good and bad. Some lucky fellows remember
+the good only; we call them optimists. Others remember
+the bad. Pessimists those. Put me between the two. The
+other day I had an eye, <i>one</i> eye, fixed on the top of a certain
+peak&mdash;by Jove! how I longed to reach that peak!&mdash;but
+the other eye was on a <i>crevasse</i> at my feet. Had I kept
+both eyes on the peak, I should be lying now at the bottom
+of that <i>crevasse</i>. You take me? Well, twenty years ago
+I sat here, in hall, my last night in the old house, and I
+hoped that one day I might come back. Why? This is
+between ourselves, a confidence. I came to the Manor
+from a beastly school, such schools are hardly to be found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+nowadays&mdash;a hardened young sinner at thirteen. The
+Manor licked me into shape. Speaking generally, I suppose
+the tone of the house insensibly communicated itself
+to me. The Manor was cock-house at games and work.
+I began by shirking both. But the spirit of the Hill was
+too much for me. I couldn't shirk that. Some jolly old
+boys, we all know them and like them, are always saying
+that their early school-days were the happiest of their lives.
+They're fond of telling this big lie just as they're settling
+down to their claret. I really believe that they believe
+what they say, but it <i>is</i> a lie. The smallest boy here knows
+it's a lie. Let's hark back a bit. I said I was licked into
+shape&mdash;and I mean <i>licked</i>. I had a lot of really hard
+fagging&mdash;much harder than any of you boys know&mdash;I was
+sent up and swished, I had whoppings innumerable, and
+it wasn't pleasant. My mother had pinched herself to
+send me here, because my father had been here before me;
+and I wondered why she did it. At that time I couldn't
+see why cheaper schools shouldn't be not only as good as
+Harrow, but perhaps better. Not till I was in the Fifth
+did I get a glimmering of what my mother and the Manor
+were doing for me. When I got into the Sixth and into
+the Eleven, I knew. And my last year here made up, and
+more, too, for the previous four. I enjoyed that year
+thoroughly; I had ceased to be a slacker. I tell you, all
+of you, that happiness, like liberty, must be earned before
+we can enjoy it. And you are sent here to earn it. I'm
+not going to keep you much longer. I have come to the
+marrow of the matter. I owe the Manor a debt which I
+hope to pay to&mdash;you. Just as you, in turn, will pay back
+to boys not yet born the money your people have gladly
+spent on you, and other greater things besides. I want to
+see this house at the top of the tree again: cock-house at
+cricket, cock-house at footer, with a Balliol Scholar in it,
+and a school racquet-player. And now Dumbleton is
+going to bring in a little champagne. We'll drink high
+health and fellowship to the Manor and the Hill!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His face broke into the smile his form knew so well; he
+sat down, as the house roared its welcome to a friend.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the champagne was drunk ("Dumber" was
+careful to put more froth than wine into the glasses of the
+kids), the boys filed out of the Hall. The Duffer, Desmond,
+John, and the Caterpillar assembled in John's room.
+Desmond, you may be sure, was afire with resolution.
+Warde was the right sort, a clinker, a first flighter. And
+he meant to stick by him through thick and thin. John
+said nothing. The Caterpillar drawled out&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Warde didn't surprise me&mdash;much. I've found out
+that he's one of the Wardes of Warde-Pomeroy, the real
+old stuff. Our families intermarried in Elizabeth's reign."</p>
+
+<p>"Chance to do it again, Caterpillar," said the Duffer.
+"Warde's daughter is an uncommonly pretty girl."</p>
+
+<p>Then the Caterpillar used the epithet "fetching."</p>
+
+<p>"She's fetching, very fetching," he said. "It's a
+pleasure to remember that we're of kin. One must be
+civil to Warde. He's a well bred 'un."</p>
+
+<p>"You think too much of family," said Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>One can't</i>," replied the Caterpillar, solemnly. "One
+knows that family is not everything, but, other things
+being equal, it means refinement. The first of the Howards
+was a swineherd, I dare say, but generations of education,
+of association with the best, have turned them from swine-herds
+into gentlemen, and it takes generations to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Good old Caterpillar!" said the Duffer.</p>
+
+<p>"Not my own," said the Caterpillar; adding, as usual,
+"My governor's, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Warde hasn't a soft job ahead of him," said Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"Soft or hard, he'll handle it his own way."</p>
+
+<p>Desmond went out, wondering what had become of
+Scaife. Scaife was in his room, talking to Lovell senior,
+who spent a fortnight with Scaife's people in Scotland,
+fishing and grousing. Desmond had been asked also, but
+his father, rather to C&aelig;sar's disgust (for the Scaife moor
+was famous), had refused to let him go. Lovell and Scaife<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+were arguing about something which Desmond could not
+understand.</p>
+
+<p>"I left it to my partner," said Scaife, "and the fool
+went no trumps holding two missing suits. The enemy
+doubled, my partner redoubled, and the others redoubled
+again: that made it ninety-six a trick. The fellow on the
+left held my partner's missing suits; he made the Little
+Slam, and scored nearly six hundred below the line. It
+gave 'em the rubber, too, and I had to fork out a couple of
+quid."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you jawing about, Demon?" said Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"Bridge. It's the new game. It's going to be the
+rage. Do you play bridge, C&aelig;sar?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I want to learn it."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, I must teach you."</p>
+
+<p>"We could get up a four in this house," said Lovell.
+"We three and the Caterpillar. He plays, I know. The
+Colonel is one of the cracks at the Turf. It would be an
+awful lark. A mild gamble: small points&mdash;eh? A bob
+a hundred. What do you say, C&aelig;sar?"</p>
+
+<p>Desmond hesitated. Bridge had not yet reached its
+delirious stage. But Desmond had seen it played, had
+heard his father praise it as the most fascinating of card-games,
+and had determined to learn it at the first convenient
+opportunity. None the less Warde's words still
+echoed in his ear.</p>
+
+<p>"I think we ought to give Warde a chance," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say you were taken in by him?"
+said Lovell, contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>Desmond burst into enthusiastic praise of Warde and
+his methods. Lovell shrugged his shoulders and walked
+out of the room, nodding to Scaife, but ignoring Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"You must go canny with Lovell," said Scaife. "He's
+the fellow who ought to give you your 'fez' after the first
+house-game."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind that. You won't play bridge, Demon,
+will you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" said Scaife. "Where's the harm? Your
+governor plays&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're afraid of getting sacked?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not."</p>
+
+<p>"All right; I'll take that back. You're not a funk,
+C&aelig;sar, but you're so easily humbugged. Warde caught
+you with his 'pi jaw' and a glass of gooseberry."</p>
+
+<p>"The champagne was all right, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ho! So you do mean to stand in with Warde
+against Lovell and me? Thanks for being so candid.
+Now I'll be candid with you. I like Lovell. There's no
+nonsense about him. He don't put on frills because he's
+in the Sixth, and he don't mean to take to their sneaking,
+spying ways. He's just as anxious as Warde to see the
+Manor cock-house at footer and cricket, and I'm as keen
+as he is; but we stop there. The Balliol Scholarship may
+go hang. And as for sympathy and fellowship and pulling
+together between masters and boys, I never did believe in
+it, and never shall. My hand is against the masters, so
+long as they interfere with anything I want to do. I like
+bridge, and I mean to play it. And I'll take jolly good care
+that I'm not nailed. That's part of the fun, as the drinking
+used to be. I chucked that because it wasn't good
+enough; but bridge is ripping, and, take my word for it,
+you'll be keener than I when you begin."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps. But I'm not going to begin here."</p>
+
+<p>"Right&mdash;oh!"</p>
+
+<p>Scaife turned aside, whistling, but out of the corner of
+his shrewd eye he marked the expression of Desmond's
+face, the colour ebbing and flowing in the round, boyish
+cheeks, the perplexity on the brow. Then he spoke in
+a different voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry, old chap. You've stuck to me through
+thick and thin, and I'm grateful, really and truly. You're
+right, and I'm wrong; I always am wrong. I was
+looking forward to larks. If you count 'em purple<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+sins, I don't blame you for letting me go to the devil by
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>"I never said bridge was a purple sin."</p>
+
+<p>"Warde thinks it is. If you're going to look at life
+here with his eyes, you'll have to rename things. Babies
+play Beggar my Neighbour for chocolates; why shouldn't
+we play bridge for a bob a hundred? The game is splendid
+for the brain; ten thousand times better than translating
+Greek choruses."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is&mdash;gambling, Demon; you can't get away
+from that."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! It's gambling if I bet you a 'dringer' that
+you won't make ten runs in a house-match; it's gambling
+if I raffle a picture and you take a sixpenny ticket. Are
+you going to give up that sort of gambling?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What would Warde say to our co-operative system
+of work&mdash;eh? You're not prepared to go the whole hog?
+You want to pick and choose. Good! But give me the
+same right, that's all. Play bridge with your old pals, or
+don't play, just as you please."</p>
+
+<p>No more was said. Scaife's manner rather than his
+matter confounded the younger and less experienced boy.
+Scaife, too, tackled problems which many men prefer to
+leave alone. Here heredity cropped up. Scaife's sire and
+grandsire were earning their bread before they were sixteen.
+Of necessity they faced and overcame obstacles which the
+ordinary Public School-boy never meets till he leaves the
+University.</p>
+
+<p>For some time after this bridge was not mentioned.
+Lovell, acting, possibly, under advice from Scaife, treated
+Desmond courteously, and gave him his "fez" after the
+first house-game. Both boys now were members of the
+Manor cricket and football Elevens, and, as such, persons
+of distinction in their small world. Scaife, moreover, began
+to play football with such extraordinary dash and brilliancy,
+that it seemed to be quite on the cards that he might get<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+his School Flannels. This possibility, and the Greek in
+the Fifth, absorbed his energies for the first six weeks of
+the winter quarter. John had come back to Scaife's room
+to prepare work. Desmond felt that Scaife had been
+generous in proposing that John should join them, because
+in many small ways it had become evident that the Demon
+disliked John, although he still spoke of the tight place out
+of which John had hauled him. Through Scaife John
+received his "fez"; and when John wore it for the first
+time, Scaife came up and said, smiling&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I'm nearly even with you, Verney."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" said John.</p>
+
+<p>"You know well enough what I mean," said Scaife,
+winking his eye maliciously.</p>
+
+<p>John flushed, because in his heart he did know. But
+when he told Egerton what Scaife had said, that experienced
+man of the world turned up his nose.</p>
+
+<p>"Just like him," he said. "He wants you to feel that
+he has wiped out his debt."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think my 'fez' ought to have been given to
+young Lovell?"</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar, who played back for the Manor, considered
+the question.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said. "You are pretty nearly
+equal; but it's a fact that the Demon turned the scale.
+He pointed out to Lovell that if he gave a 'fez' to his
+young brother, the house might accuse him of favouritism.
+That did the trick."</p>
+
+<p>This made John uneasy and unhappy for a week or
+two; but the consciousness that another might be better
+entitled to the coveted "fez" made him play up with such
+energy that he succeeded in proving to all critics that he
+had honestly earned what luck had bestowed on him.</p>
+
+<p>During the last week of October, John began those long
+walks with Desmond which, afterwards, he came to regard
+as perhaps the most delightful hours spent at Harrow.
+Scaife detested walking. He had his father's power of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
+focusing attention and energy upon a single object. For
+the moment he was mad about football. Talk about
+books, scenery, people, bored him, and he said so with his
+usual frankness and impatience of restraint. Desmond, on
+the other hand, was also like his father, inasmuch as his
+tastes were catholic. He was a bit of a naturalist, learned
+in the lore of woods and fields, and he liked to talk about
+books, and he liked to talk about his home. Simple John
+would sooner hear C&aelig;sar talk than listen to the heavenly
+choir. So it came to pass that once a week at least the boys
+would stroll down the avenue at Orley Farm (where
+Anthony Trollope's sad boyhood was passed), or take the
+Northwick Walk, which winds through meadows to the
+Bridge, or visit John Lyon's farm at Preston, or, getting
+signed for Bill, attempt a longer ramble to Ruislip Reservoir,
+or Oxhey Wood, or Headstone with its moated grange,
+or Horsington Hill with its long-stretching view across the
+Uxbridge plain.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon it became the natural thing for C&aelig;sar to give
+John a glimpse, at least, of whatever floated in and out of
+his mind. John, being himself a creature of reserves, could
+not quite understand this unlocking of doors, but he
+appreciated his privileges. C&aelig;sar's ingenuousness, sympathy,
+and impulsiveness, seemed the more enchanting
+because John himself was of the look-before-you-leap,
+think-before-you-speak, sort. One Sunday evening they
+were hurrying back to Chapel, when they passed a woman
+carrying a heavy child. The poor creature appeared to be
+almost fainting with fatigue and possibly hunger. Her
+pinched face, her bent figure, her thin garments, bespoke
+a passionate protest against conditions which obviously
+she was powerless to avert or control. The boys glanced
+at her with pitying eyes as they passed. Then Desmond
+said quickly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Jonathan, she looks as if she was going to fall
+down."</p>
+
+<p>John, seeing what was in his friend's mind, said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We must hurry up, or we shall miss Chapel."</p>
+
+<p>They offered the woman sixpences, and blushes, because
+through the tattered shawl might be seen a shrunken
+bosom.</p>
+
+<p>The woman stared, stammered, and burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall miss Chapel," John repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Hang Chapel," said Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>He was looking at the child. When the woman took
+the silver, she let the child slip to the ground, where it
+lay inert.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with it?" said Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>Half sobbing, the woman explained that the child had
+sprained its ankle.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm just about done," she gasped; "an' the sight
+o' you two young gen'lemen runnin' up the 'ill finished me.
+I ain't the leaky sort," she added fiercely, still gasping and
+trembling.</p>
+
+<p>Then she bent down and tried to lift the heavy child,
+which moaned feebly.</p>
+
+<p>"You run on, Jonathan," said Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to carry this kid up the hill."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll help."</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;hook it, you ass."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't hook it."</p>
+
+<p>Between them they carried the child as far as the
+Speech-room, where a policeman accepted a shilling, and
+gave in return a positive assurance that he would see woman
+and child to their destination. When the boys were alone,
+John said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"C&aelig;sar&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"What a fellow you are! I wouldn't have thought of
+that. It was splendid."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shut up." There was a slight pause; then C&aelig;sar
+said defiantly, "I thought of carrying that kid; but I
+wouldn't have done it, unless I'd known that every boy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+was safe in Chapel. I couldn't have faced the chaff.
+And&mdash;you could."</p>
+
+<p>They were punished for cutting Chapel, because C&aelig;sar
+refused to give the reason which would have saved them.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd have told the truth," he admitted to John, "if
+I could have shouldered that kid with the Manorites
+looking on."</p>
+
+<p>John agreed that this was an excellent and a C&aelig;sarean
+(he coined the adjective on this occasion) reason.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Among the Fifth Form boys of the Manor was a big,
+coarse-looking youth of the name of Beaumont-Greene.
+Everybody called him Beaumont-Greene in full, because
+upon his first appearance at Bill he had stopped the line of
+boys by refusing to answer to the name of Greene.</p>
+
+<p>"My name," said he, in a shrill pipe, "is Beaumont-Greene,
+and we spell the Greene with a final 'e'."</p>
+
+<p>Beaumont-Greene was a type of boy, unhappily, too
+common at all Public Schools. He had no feeling whatever
+for Harrow, save that it was a place where it behoved a
+boy to escape punishment if he could, and to run, hot foot,
+towards anything which would yield pleasure to his body.
+He was known to the Manorites as a funk at footer, and a
+prodigious consumer of "food" at the Creameries. His
+father, having accumulated a large fortune in manufacturing
+what was advertised in most of the public prints as
+the "Imperishable, Seamless, Whale-skin Boot," gave his
+son plenty of money. As a Lower Boy, Beaumont-Greene
+had but a sorry time of it. Somebody discovered that he
+was what Gilbert once described as an "imperfect ablutioner."
+The Caterpillar made a point of telling new boys
+the nature of the punishment meted out to the unclean.
+He had assisted at the "toshing" of Beaumont-Greene.</p>
+
+<p>"A nasty job," the Caterpillar would remark, looking
+at his own speckless finger-nails: "but it had to be done.
+We took the Greene person" (the Caterpillar alone refused
+to defame the fine name of Beaumont by linking it to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+Greene) "and placed him naked in a large tosh. Into that
+tosh the house was invited to pour any fluid that could be
+spared. One forgets things; but, unless I'm mistaken, the
+particular sheep-wash used was made up of lemonade,
+syrups, ink&mdash;plenty of that&mdash;milk (I bought a quart myself),
+tooth-powder, paraffin, and a cake of Sapolio&mdash;Monkey
+Brand! We scrubbed the Yahoo thoroughly,
+washed its teeth, ears, hair, and then we dried it. I don't
+know who smeared marmalade on to the towel, but the
+drying part was not very successful. Rather tough&mdash;eh?
+Yes, very tough&mdash;on <i>us</i>, but effective. The Greene person
+has toshed regularly ever since. At least, so I'm told;
+I never go near him myself, and he's considerate enough
+to keep out of my way."</p>
+
+<p>Beaumont-Greene had not, it is true, the appetite for
+reckless breaking of the law which distinguished Lovell and
+his particular pals; but Lovell's good qualities cancelled
+to a certain extent what was vicious. A fine cricketer,
+a plucky football-player, he might have proved a credit
+to his house had a master other than Dirty Dick been
+originally in command of it. Before he was out of the
+Shell, he had declared war against Authority. Beaumont-Greene,
+on the other hand, detested games, and sneered at
+those who played them. Pulpy, pimply, gross in mind and
+body, he stood for that heavy, amorphous resistance to
+good, which is so difficult to overcome.</p>
+
+<p>During the first half of the winter quarter, John saw
+but little of Esm&eacute; Kinloch. It is one of the characteristics
+of a Public School that the boys&mdash;as in the greater world
+for which it is a preparation&mdash;are in layers. Some layers
+overlap; others never touch. Fluff was a fag; his friend
+John was in the Fifth Form, and a "fez." In a word, an
+Atlantic rolled between them. John, however, would
+often give Fluff a "con," and occasionally they would walk
+together. Fluff was no longer the delicate, girlish child of
+a year ago. He had bloomed into a very handsome boy,
+attractive, like all the members of his mother's family,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+with engaging manners, and he had also shown signs of
+developing into a cricketer. Fluff could paddle his own
+canoe, provided, of course, that he kept out of the rapids.</p>
+
+<p>But about the middle of the term John noticed that
+Fluff was losing colour and spirits, the latter never very
+exuberant. It was not in John's nature to ask questions
+which he might answer for himself by taking pains to
+do so. He watched Fluff closely. Then he demanded
+bluntly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What's up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a cram," said John, severely. "I didn't
+believe you'd tell me a cram, Esm&eacute;."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't care tuppence whether I tell crams or not&mdash;<i>now</i>."</p>
+
+<p>John weighed the "now" deliberately.</p>
+
+<p>"That's another cram," he said slowly. "Has anybody
+been rotting you?"</p>
+
+<p>Silence. John repeated the question. Still silence.
+Then John added&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You know, Esm&eacute;, that I shall stick to you till I find
+out what's up; so you may as well save time by telling me
+at once."</p>
+
+<p>"It's Beaumont-Greene," faltered Fluff.</p>
+
+<p>"That fat beast! What's he done?"</p>
+
+<p>"He hasn't done much&mdash;yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell everything!"</p>
+
+<p>"He came into my room one night and turned me up
+in my bed. I woke, on my head, in the dark, half-smothered,
+and couldn't think what had happened; it was
+simply awful. Then I heard his beastly voice saying, 'If I
+let you down, will you do what I ask you?' I'd have
+promised anything to get out of that horrible, choking prison,
+and now he threatens to turn me up every night, and I
+dream of it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," said John, grimly. "No, you needn't go on.
+I can guess what this low cad is up to."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He said he'd be my friend; as if I'd have a beast like
+that for a friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you tell him that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I did."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a good-plucked 'un, Esm&eacute;. And he's made it
+warm for you ever since?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But he hasn't turned you up again?"</p>
+
+<p>"N-no; but he will. I'd almost sooner he'd do it, and
+have done with it. I can't sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, don't be a silly fool," John commanded. "I'm
+going to think this out, and I'll bet I make that fat, pimply
+beast sit up and howl."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks awfully, John."</p>
+
+<p>But the more John thought of what he had undertaken
+to do, the less clearly he saw his way to do it. Evidently
+Beaumont-Greene was too prudent to bully Fluff; he had
+resorted to the crueller alternative of terrorizing him.
+Lawrence would have settled this fellow's hash&mdash;so John
+reflected&mdash;in a jiffy, but Trieve, "Miss Trieve," was hopelessly
+incapable. Presently inspiration came. He seized
+an opportunity when Beaumont-Greene happened to be
+by himself; then he marched boldly into his room, leaving
+the door ajar.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo! what do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>Beaumont-Greene was sitting opposite the fire, reading
+a novel and leisurely consuming macaroons.</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to leave young Kinloch alone&mdash;<i>please</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Beaumont-Greene nearly choked; then he spluttered
+out&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Say that again, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to leave young Kinloch alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Really? Anything else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing more, thank you."</p>
+
+<p>Beaumont-Greene slowly raised himself out of his chair
+and glared at John, whose head came to his chin.</p>
+
+<p>"You've plenty of cheek."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What I have isn't spotty, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>John saw the veins begin to swell in Beaumont-Greene's
+throat. He thought with relief of the door ajar, but it
+was part of his policy&mdash;a carefully devised policy&mdash;to provoke,
+if possible, a scene. Then others would interfere,
+explanations would be in order, and public opinion would
+accomplish the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"You infernal young jackanapes!"</p>
+
+<p>"You pretty pet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Get out of my room! Hook it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to," said John, coolly enough, although his
+heart was throbbing. "It's horribly fuggy in here, and
+I've Jambi<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> to do; but I'm not going till you give me
+your word that you'll leave young Kinloch alone."</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't walk out I'll chuck you out."</p>
+
+<p>"You must catch me first," said John.</p>
+
+<p>And then a very pretty chase took place. Beaumont-Greene,
+fat, scant of breath, full of macaroons, began to
+pursue John round and round the table. John skilfully
+interposed chairs, sofa-cushions, anything he could lay
+hands on. Passing the washstand, he secured an enormous
+sponge, which an instant later flew souse into the face of
+the grampus. An abridged edition of Liddell and Scott's
+Greek Lexicon followed. This nearly brought the big
+fellow to grass. In his rage he, too, began to hurl what
+objects happened to be within reach, but he was a shocking
+bad shot; he missed, or John dodged every time. John
+did not miss. Finally, as John had foreseen, a couple of
+Sixth Form fellows rushed in.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the meaning of this infernal row?" asked one.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask him," said John.</p>
+
+<p>Authority stared at Beaumont-Greene, and then at his
+wrecked room.</p>
+
+<p>"I told him to hook it, and he wouldn't," spluttered
+the gasping Greene.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Half a dozen other fellows had come into the room.
+Amongst them the Duffer and the Caterpillar.</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to hook it," John explained, "because it's
+so beastly fuggy; but Beaumont-Greene wouldn't promise
+me to do something he ought to do."</p>
+
+<p>"This is mysterious."</p>
+
+<p>"The swaggering young blackguard cheeked me,"
+growled Greene.</p>
+
+<p>"I was very polite&mdash;at first," pleaded John.</p>
+
+<p>"Hook it now, anyway," said Authority.</p>
+
+<p>"Not till he promises. If you turn me out, I'll come
+back after you're gone."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it you want him to promise?"</p>
+
+<p>John had achieved his object.</p>
+
+<p>"I want him to leave young Kinloch <i>alone</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The two Sixth Form boys glanced at each other; at
+John; at the gross, spotted face of Beaumont-Greene.
+Then the senior said coldly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you have no objection, Beaumont-Greene,
+to promising Verney or any one else that you will leave young
+Kinloch alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've never laid a finger on the kid," growled the big
+fellow; but he looked pale and frightened.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you promise&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"On your word of honour?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>That night John told Fluff with great glee how Beaumont-Greene
+had been made to "sit up and howl."</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> "Jambi"&mdash;Iambic verses.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Verney Boscobel</i></h3>
+
+<p class="block1">"In honour of all who believe that life was made for friendship."</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The immediate</span> result of the incident described in the last
+chapter was to strengthen the bond between John and
+Desmond. Desmond had the epic from Fluff, from the
+Caterpillar, and finally from John himself.</p>
+
+<p>"You bearded that poisonous beast in his den," exclaimed
+he; "you plotted and planned for the scrimmage;
+you foresaw what would happen. Well, you are a corker,
+Jonathan."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd have thought of something much better."</p>
+
+<p>"Not I," Desmond replied.</p>
+
+<p>Scaife, however, made no remarks. Possibly, because
+Desmond made too many, singing John's praises behind
+his back and to his face, in and out of season. This, of
+course, was indiscreet, and led to hard words and harder
+feelings. Beaumont-Greene realized that John had tarred
+and feathered him. The fags, you may be sure, rubbed
+the tar in. If Beaumont-Greene threatened to kick an
+impudent Fourth Form boy, that youngster would bid him
+be careful.</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't behave yourself," he would say, "I shall
+have to send Verney to your room."</p>
+
+<p>Lovell senior remarked that Beaumont-Greene was a
+"swine," but that Verney had put on "lift" and must be
+snubbed. What? A boy who had not been two years in
+the school <i>dared</i> to take the law into his own hands! The
+matter ought to have been laid before the Head of the
+House.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, John found himself, much to his dismay,
+unpopular with the Olympians. The last month of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+term was, in some ways, the most disagreeable he had yet
+spent at Harrow.</p>
+
+<p>But the gain of Desmond's friendship far outweighed the
+loss of popularity. John tingled with pleasure when he
+reflected that he had achieved his ambition to stand
+between Scaife and Desmond. At the same time, he was
+uncomfortably aware that Scaife seemed to have climbed
+high above Desmond, who had stood still. In moments
+of depression John told himself that he was a makeshift,
+that Desmond would leave him and join the Demon whenever
+that splendid young person chose to whistle him up.
+Scaife had failed to get his Football Flannels, but he came
+so near to beating all previous records that the School
+began to regard him as a "Blood." He was seen arm-in-arm
+with Lovell, strolling up and down the High Street,
+and the fags breathlessly repeated what Desmond had
+predicted a year ago: the Demon was the coming man.
+And always, when John and Desmond passed him, John
+thought he could read a derisive triumph upon the Demon's
+handsome face, an expression which said plainly: "You
+young fool, don't you know that I'm playing cat and
+mouse with <i>you</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>The three still met twice daily to prepare work. But
+the moment that was done, Scaife disappeared, leaving
+John and Desmond together.</p>
+
+<p>"He's playing bridge in Lovell's room," said Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>More facts were gleaned from the Caterpillar, who had
+joined the bridge-players, but played seldom.</p>
+
+<p>"One draws the line," said he, "at playing for stakes
+one can't afford to lose. Lovell and the Demon have
+made it too hot."</p>
+
+<p>"And Warde will make it hotter," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Not he," replied the Caterpillar. "The Demon is a
+wonder. Thanks to his brains, detection is impossible.
+He suggested that Lovell's room should be used. Warde
+wouldn't dare to burst in upon one of the Sixth. And you
+ought to see their dodgy arrangements. Lovell has his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+young brother on guard. I'm hanged if the Demon didn't
+invent a sort of drill, which they go through with a stop-watch.
+It's a star performance, I tell you. Young Lovell
+bolts in. In thirty-five seconds&mdash;they have got it down
+to that&mdash;the cards and markers are hidden; and the four
+of 'em are jawing away about footer."</p>
+
+<p>"All the same," said John, obstinately, "Warde will
+be too much for 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, rot!" said the Caterpillar.</p>
+
+<p>The Manor got into the semi-finals of the football
+matches, and when the School broke up for the Christmas
+holidays it was generally conceded that the fortunes of the
+ancient house were mending. In the Manor itself Warde's
+influence was hardly yet perceptible: only a very few
+knew that it was diffusing itself, percolating into nooks and
+crevices undreamed of: the hearts of the Fourth Form, for
+instance. In Dirty Dick's time there had been almost
+universal slackness. In pupil-room Rutford read a book;
+boys could work or not as they pleased, provided their
+tutor was not disturbed. Warde, on the other hand, made
+it a point of honour to work with his pupils. His indefatigable
+energies, his good humour, his patience, were
+never so conspicuous as when he was coaching duffers. In
+other ways he made the boys realize that he was at the
+Manor for their advantage, not his own. The gardens and
+park were kept strictly private by Dirty Dick. Warde
+threw them open: a favour hardly appreciated in the
+whiter quarter, but the House admitted that it would be
+awfully jolly in the summer to lie under the trees far from
+the "crowd." In a word&mdash;a "privilege."</p>
+
+<p>Upon the last Saturday, to John's delight, Desmond
+asked him to spend a week in Eaton Square. John had
+paid two visits to White Ladies; he was now about to
+experience something entirely new. White Ladies and
+Verney Boscobel were typical of the past; they illustrated
+the history of the families who had inhabited them. The
+great world went to White Ladies to see the pictures and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+the gardens, the Gobelin tapestries, the Duchess and her
+guests; but the same world dined in Eaton Square to see
+Charles Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>During this visit, our John first learned what miracles
+one individual may accomplish. At White Ladies, he had
+dimly perceived, as has been said, the duties and responsibilities
+imposed upon rank and wealth. In Eaton Square
+he saw more plainly the duties and responsibilities imposed
+upon a man of great talents. Both Charles Desmond and
+the Duke of Trent were hard workers, but the labours of
+the duke seemed to John (and to other wise persons)
+drab-coloured. Charles Desmond's work, in contrast,
+presented all the colours of the spectrum. John left White
+Ladies, thanking his stars that he was not a duke; he came
+away from Eaton Square filled with the ambition to be
+Private Secretary to the great Minister. And when Mr.
+Desmond said to him with his genial smile, "Well, young
+John, Harry, I hope, will be my secretary, and the crutch
+of my declining years. But what would you like to be?"
+John replied fervently, "Oh, sir, I should like to be Harry's
+understudy."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you?"</p>
+
+<p>And then John saw the face of his kind host change.
+The smile faded. Mr. Desmond had taken his answer as
+John meant it to be taken&mdash;seriously. He examined John
+as if he were already a candidate for office. The piercing
+eyes probed deep. Then he said slowly, "I should like
+to have you under me, John. We shall talk of this again,
+my boy. My own sons&mdash;&mdash;" He paused, sighed, and
+then laughed, tapping John's cheek with his slender,
+finely-formed fingers. But he passed on without finishing
+his sentence. John knew that, of C&aelig;sar's brothers, Hugo,
+the eldest, was Secretary of Legation at Teheran; Bill
+"devilled" for a famous barrister; Lionel wore her
+Majesty's livery. Strange that none had elected to serve
+his own father! C&aelig;sar explained later.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," he said, "the dear old governor outshines<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+everybody. Hugo and the others felt that under him they
+would be in eclipse, for ever and ever&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said John, gravely. "Yes, there's something
+in that. He wants you, C&aelig;sar."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear old governor!" the other replied. "Yes&mdash;he's
+keen on that. But I hope to make my own little mark.
+I'd like to have my name on a brass tablet in Harrow
+Chapel; that would be something." His eyes began to
+glow and sparkle.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, at dinner, Rodney's name cropped up.</p>
+
+<p>"Rodney paved the way for Nelson," Mr. Desmond
+observed. "I look upon him as one of our greatest
+Harrovians. We ought to have a building to Rodney's
+memory. I put him before Peel or Byron."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I say, father&mdash;&mdash;" Hot protest from C&aelig;sar.</p>
+
+<p>"Act before word, Harry; practice before precept.
+Rodney was a man of action. I should like to have been
+Rodney."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to have been Sheridan," said C&aelig;sar.
+"I often look at his name on the third panel of the Fourth
+Form Room."</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at his father, who smiled, knowing that a
+delicate compliment was intended, for enthusiastic admirers
+had spoken of Charles Desmond as the Richard Brinsley
+Sheridan of the modern House of Commons. The father
+said curtly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A sky-rocket, my dear Harry." Then he turned to
+John. "And of all our famous Harrovians whom would
+you like to take as a pattern, young John?"</p>
+
+<p>John hesitated. Two or three of the guests present
+were celebrities. Amongst them was England's greatest
+critic sitting beside an ambassador. There happened to
+be a lull in the talk. All looked curiously at John.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to be another Lord Shaftesbury," he said
+slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Capital!" Mr. Desmond nodded his head.
+"I knew him well." He poured out anecdote after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+anecdote illustrating the character and temperament of
+the statesman-philanthropist: his self-sacrifice, his devotion
+to an ideal, his curious exclusiveness, his refinement, his
+faith in an aristocracy never diminished by the indefatigable
+zeal wherein he laboured to better the condition
+of the poor. "If every rich man were animated by
+Shaftesbury's spirit," said Mr. Desmond, in conclusion,
+"extreme poverty would be wiped out of England, and yet
+we should retain all that makes life charming and profitable.
+He was no leveller, save of foul rookeries. First and
+last he believed in order, particularly his own&mdash;a true
+nobleman. And the inspiration of his great career came
+to him on the Hill."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed?" said the Critic.</p>
+
+<p>"John Verney will tell you all about it," said Mr.
+Desmond, glancing cheerily at our hero. His was ever the
+habit to draw out the humblest of his guests.</p>
+
+<p>So John recited how young Anthony Ashley, standing
+on the Hill, just below the churchyard, chanced to see a
+pauper's coffin fall to the ground and burst open, revealing
+the pitiful corpse within, and how he had exclaimed in
+horror, "Good heavens! Can this be permitted simply
+because the man was poor and friendless?" And how,
+then and there, the boy had sworn to devote his powers
+to the amelioration of poverty-stricken lives.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Mr. Desmond. "He told me that the
+next fifteen minutes decided his career. Ah, he succeeded
+greatly. Why, when I was at Harrow we used to cross
+from Waterloo to Euston through some of the worst slums
+in the world. You boys can't realize what they looked
+like. And Shaftesbury's work and example wiped them
+out of our civilization."<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
+<p>When John returned to his uncle's house of Verney
+Boscobel (his home since his father's death), C&aelig;sar Desmond
+accompanied him. Then it seemed to John that his cup
+brimmed, that everything he desired had been granted unto
+him. Verney Boscobel stood in the heart of the great
+forest, one of the few large manors within that splendid
+demesne. The boys arrived at Lyndhurst Road Station
+late in the evening, long after dusk, and were driven in
+darkness through Bartley and Minstead up to the high-lying
+moors of Stoneycross. Next morning, early, John
+woke his friend, and opened the shutters.</p>
+
+<p>"Jolly morning," he said. "Have a look at the Forest,
+old chap."</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar jumped out of bed, and drew a long breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" he exclaimed; "it's fairyland."</p>
+
+<p>Frost had silvered all things below. Above, motionless
+upon the blue heavens, as if still frozen by the icy fingers
+of a December night, were some aerial transparencies of
+aqueous vapour, amethystine in colour, with edges of
+white foam. In the east, obscured, but not concealed, by
+grey mist, hung the crimson orb of the sun. From it faint
+rays shot forth, touching the clouds beneath, which, roused,
+so to speak, out of sleep, drifted lethargically in a southerly
+direction.</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 18em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Underneath the young grey dawn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A multitude of dense, white, fleecy clouds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were wandering in thick flocks, ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>Desmond drew in his breath, sighing with purest delight.
+From the lawns encompassing the house his eyes strayed
+into a glade of bracken, gold gleaming through silver&mdash;a
+glade shadowed by noble oaks and beeches, with one
+birch tree in the middle of it surpassingly graceful. Upon
+this each delicate bough and spray were outlined sharply
+against the sky. Beyond the glade stretched the moor,
+rugged, bleak, and treeless, sloping sharply upward.
+Beyond the moor lay the Forest&mdash;belts of firs darkly purple;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+and flanking these the irregular masses of oaks and beeches,
+varying in tint from palest lavender to rose and brown,
+some still in shadow, some in ever-increasing glow of sunlight;
+not one the same and each in itself containing a
+thousand differing forms, yet all harmonious parts of the
+resplendent whole.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so glad you like my home," said John. "Shall we
+have a gallop before breakfast? It's only a white frost."</p>
+
+<p>So they galloped away into fairyland, returning with
+mortal appetites to the oak-panelled dining-hall, whence a
+Verney had ridden forth to join his kinsman, Sir Edmund,
+in arms for the King upon the distant field of Edge Hill.
+After breakfast the boys explored the quaint old house;
+and John showed C&aelig;sar the twenty-bore gun, and promised
+his guest much rabbit-shooting, and two days' hunting, at
+least, with the New Forest Hounds, and some pike-fishing,
+and possibly an encounter with a big grayling&mdash;which,
+later, the boys saw walloping about in the Test above
+Broadlands&mdash;a splendid fish, once hooked by John, and
+lost&mdash;a three-pounder, of course.</p>
+
+<p>O golden age! You will never forget that Christmas&mdash;will
+you, John? If you live to be Prime Minister of
+England, the memory of those first days alone with your
+friend will remain green when the colour has been sucked
+by Time out of everything else. Fifty years hence, maybe,
+you will see C&aelig;sar's curly head and his blue eyes full of fun
+and life, and you will hear his joyous laughter&mdash;peal upon
+peal&mdash;echoing through the corridors of Verney Boscobel.
+Your mother took him to her heart&mdash;didn't she? And all
+the servants, from butler to scullery maid, voted him the
+jolliest, cheeriest boy that ever came to Hampshire. Why,
+Mrs. Osman, the cook, with a temper like tinder from too
+much heat, refused flatly to let C&aelig;sar make toffee in her
+kitchen. But just then a barrel-organ turned up, and before
+she could open her mouth, C&aelig;sar was dancing a polka
+with her; and after that he could make toffee, or hay, or
+anything else, wherever and whenever he pleased.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When they returned to the Manor, John hoped and
+prayed that this blessed intimacy would continue. It did&mdash;for
+a time. The three boys got their remove, and found
+themselves in the Second Fifth, where they proposed to
+linger till after the summer term. Lovell and Scaife seemed
+inseparable, and bridge began again, apparently an inexhaustible
+source of amusement and excitement. Then
+came the Torpid matches; and John, as Lawrence predicted,
+was captain of the cock-house Eleven&mdash;the first
+great victory of the Manorites. During the term, Scaife
+and Desmond won no races, being in age betwixt and
+between winners of Upper and Lower School races. Scaife
+refused to train. Desmond took a few runs, but abandoned
+them for racquets, the chief game in the Easter term, but
+only played regularly by boys whose purses are well lined.
+John confined his attention to "Squash." C&aelig;sar played
+"Harder" with the Demon. The three worked together
+as of yore. John now perceived that Scaife had joined a
+clique pledged to fight Reform. It was in the air that
+something might happen. Warde eyed the big fellows
+shrewdly, as if measuring weapons. He confounded some
+by asking them to dine with him. At dessert he would
+talk of sport, or games, or politics&mdash;everything, in fine,
+except "shop." The more worthy came away from these
+pleasant evenings with rather a hangdog expression, as if
+they had been receiving goods under false pretences. John
+and Desmond were made especially welcome. And, after
+dinner, John, whose voice had not yet cracked, would sing,
+to Mrs. Warde's accompaniment, such songs as "O Bay of
+Dublin, my heart yu're throublin'," or "Think of me
+sometimes," or Handel's "Where'er you walk." The
+Caterpillar made no secret of a passion for Iris Warde, and
+became a dangerous rival of one of the younger masters.
+He talked to Warde about genealogies and hunting, topics
+of conversation in which they had a common interest outside
+Harrow. John guessed that Warde was making an
+effort to secure Egerton, who, for his part, took the world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+as he found it, consorting alike with John and his friends,
+and also with Lovell and Co. From the Caterpillar John
+learned that Beaumont-Greene had begun to play bridge.</p>
+
+<p>"Scaife and Lovell are skinning the beast," he added
+confidentially. "Green he is, and no error."</p>
+
+<p>"Ructions soon," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it," replied the Caterpillar. "Take
+my word, Warde knows what he's about. He's playing up
+to the younger members of the house&mdash;you, C&aelig;sar, and
+you, Jonathan&mdash;and he's letting the others slide."</p>
+
+<p>"Giving 'em rope," said John, "to hang 'emselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, there's something in that. That hadn't
+occurred to me. What? You think that he's eggin' 'em
+on, eh? Eggin' 'em on!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think that, if I were you, Caterpillar, I'd cut loose
+from that gang."</p>
+
+<p>"They've made it rather warm for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care a hang about that."</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, John's life had been made very
+unpleasant by the fast set. Upon the other hand, the
+Duffer, Fluff, and many Lower School boys reckoned him
+their leader and adviser. And&mdash;such is the irony of Fate&mdash;John's
+popularity with friends caused him more anxiety
+than unpopularity with enemies. Towards the end of the
+term, Desmond spoke of applying to Warde for a certain
+room to be shared by himself and John. John had to
+decline an arrangement desired passionately, because he
+had indiscreetly promised not to chuck the Duffer. C&aelig;sar
+dropped the subject. After this, John noticed a slight
+coldness. He wondered whether C&aelig;sar were jealous,
+jealousy being John's own besetting sin. Finally, he came
+to the conclusion that his friend might be not jealous but
+unreasonable. In any case, during the last three weeks of
+the term, John saw less of C&aelig;sar, and more&mdash;more, indeed,
+than he wanted&mdash;of the Duffer and Fluff.</p>
+
+<p>And then came the paralysing news that Desmond had
+promised to spend ten days with Scaife's people, that a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+Professional had been hired, and that both boys were
+going to give their undivided energies to cricket.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards, John often wondered whether Scaife, with
+truly demoniac insight into Desmond's character, had let
+him go, so as to seize him with more tenacious grasp when
+an opportunity presented itself.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>As soon as John saw C&aelig;sar after the Easter holidays,
+he knew that, temporarily, at any rate, he had lost his
+friend. C&aelig;sar, indeed, was demonstratively glad to see
+him, and dragged him off next day to walk to a certain
+bridge where a few short weeks before the boys had carved
+their names upon the wooden railing, surrounding them
+with a circle and the Crossed Arrows. But C&aelig;sar could
+talk of nothing else but Scaife and cricket. They had both
+"come on" tremendously. Scaife's people had a splendid
+cricket-ground.</p>
+
+<p>Poor John! If he could have submerged the Scaife
+cricket-ground and the Scaife family by nodding his head,
+I fear that he would have nodded it, although he told himself
+that he was an ungenerous beast and cad not to
+sympathize with his pal.</p>
+
+<p>And before the boys got back to the Manor, C&aelig;sar said,
+not without a blush, that he had learned to play bridge.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall teach you, Jonathan."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"I say&mdash;yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not going to play with Lovell and that beast
+Beaumont-Greene?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Demon says no cards this term, when lock-up's
+late. And look here, Jonathan, I've made the Demon
+promise to make the peace between Lovell and you.
+You'll play for the House, of course, and we must all pull
+together, as Warde says."</p>
+
+<p>John might have smiled at this opportune mention of
+Warde, but sense of humour was swamped in apprehension.
+Desmond went on to talk about Scaife.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He'll make 'em sit up, you see! The 'pro.' we had
+is the finest cover-point in England. I never saw such a
+chap. He dashes at the ball. Hit it as hard as you please,
+he runs in, picks it up, and snaps it back to the wicket-keeper
+as easy as if he was playing pitch and toss. And, by
+Jove! the Demon can do it. You wait. I never saw any
+fellow like him. He's only just sixteen, and he'll get his
+Flannels. You needn't shake your old head, I know he will.
+And we must work like blazes to get ours next summer."</p>
+
+<p>John discounted much of this talk, but he soon found
+out that C&aelig;sar had not overestimated the Demon's activity.
+The draw at Lord's in the previous summer had been
+attributed, by such experts as Webbe and Hornby, to bad
+fielding. The Demon told John, with his hateful, derisive
+smile, that he had remembered this when he selected a
+"pro." Not for the first time, John realized Scaife's overpowering
+ability to achieve his own ends. Who, but
+Scaife, would have made fielding the principal object of
+his holiday practice?</p>
+
+<p>Within a fortnight, Scaife was put into the Sixth Form
+game. Desmond found himself&mdash;thanks to Scaife&mdash;playing
+in the First Fifth game; but John was placed in Second
+Fifth Beta. Fortunately, he found an ally in Warde, who
+had a private pitch in the small park surrounding the
+Manor, where he coached the weaker players of his House.
+John told himself that he ought to get his "cap"; but, as
+the weeks slipped by, despite several creditable performances,
+he became aware that the "cap" was withheld,
+although it had been given to Fluff. There were five
+vacancies in the House Eleven, but, according to precedent,
+these need not be filled up till after the last House-match,
+and possibly not even then. In a word, John might play
+for the House, and even distinguish himself, without
+receiving the coveted distinction. How sore John felt!</p>
+
+<p>About the end of May he noticed that something was
+amiss with C&aelig;sar. Generally they walked together on
+Sunday, but not always. During these walks, as has been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+said, C&aelig;sar did most of the talking. Now, of a sudden, he
+became a half-hearted listener, and to John's repeated
+question, "What's up?" he would reply irritably, "Oh,
+don't bother&mdash;nothing."</p>
+
+<p>Finally, John heard from the Caterpillar that C&aelig;sar
+was playing bridge, and losing.</p>
+
+<p>"They don't play often," the Caterpillar added; "but
+on wet afternoons they make up for lost time. C&aelig;sar is
+outclassed. I've told him, but he's mad keen about the
+game."</p>
+
+<p>Later, John learned from the same source that Sunday
+afternoon was a bridge-fixture with Lovell and Co. At any
+rate, C&aelig;sar did not play on Sunday. That was something.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the following Saturday, after making an honest
+fifteen runs and taking three wickets in a closely-contested
+game, John was running into the Yard just before six Bill,
+when Lovell stopped him.</p>
+
+<p>"You can get your 'cap,'" he said coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thanks; thanks awfully!"</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar received this agreeable news with indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to have had it before Fluff," he growled.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, we'll walk to John Lyon's farm," said
+John, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Engaged," C&aelig;sar replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, C&aelig;sar, you're&mdash;you're&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're going to play bridge?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. What of it? It's only once in a way. I <i>do</i>
+bar cards on Sunday; but there are reasons."</p>
+
+<p>"What reasons?"</p>
+
+<p>"Reasons which&mdash;er&mdash;I'll keep to myself."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said John, stiffly, but with a breaking
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>Next day he asked Fluff to walk with him, but Fluff
+was walking with some one else. The Duffer had letters
+to write, and stigmatized walking as a beastly grind. John<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+determined to walk by himself; but as he was leaving the
+Manor he met the Caterpillar, a tremendous buck, arrayed
+in his best&mdash;patent-leather boots, white waistcoat, a flower
+in his buttonhole.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you off to, Jonathan?"</p>
+
+<p>"To Preston. You'd better come, Caterpillar."</p>
+
+<p>"I never walk far in these boots. Peal made 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Change 'em, can't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Right."</p>
+
+<p>While he was absent, John seriously considered the
+propriety of taking Egerton into his confidence. Sincerely
+attached to Egerton, and valuing his advice, he knew, none
+the less, that the Caterpillar looked at everybody and everything
+with the eyes of a colonel in the Guards. To tell
+Colonel Egerton's son that one's heart was lacerated because
+C&aelig;sar Desmond was playing bridge on Sunday seemed to
+invite jeers. And, besides, that wasn't the real reason.
+John felt wretched because the Sunday walk had been
+sacrificed to Moloch. Presently Egerton came downstairs,
+spick and span, but not quite so smart. The boys walked
+quickly, talking of cricket.</p>
+
+<p>"The Demon'll get his Flannels," said Egerton. "I'm
+glad Lovell gave you your cap, Jonathan; you deserved it
+a month ago. It wasn't my fault you didn't get it at the
+beginning of the term."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure of that," said John, gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't look particularly bucked-up. A grin improves
+your face, my dear fellow."</p>
+
+<p>At this John burst into explosive speech. Those beasts
+had got hold of C&aelig;sar. The Caterpillar stared; he had
+never heard John let himself go. John's vocabulary
+surprised him.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew-w-w!" he whistled. "Gad! Jonathan, you do
+pile on the agony. C&aelig;sar's all right. Don't worry."</p>
+
+<p>"He's not all right. I thought C&aelig;sar had backbone,
+I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on," said the Caterpillar, gravely.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>John thought he was about to be rebuked for disloyalty
+to a pal, an abominable sin in the Caterpillar's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said John.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to tell you something," said Egerton.
+"But you must swear not to give me away."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll swear."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a good little cove, Jonathan, but sometimes
+you smell just a little bit of&mdash;er&mdash;bread and butter. Keep
+cool. Personally, I would sooner that you, at your age,
+did smell of bread and butter than whisky. Well, you
+think that C&aelig;sar is going straight to the bow-wows because
+he plays bridge. You accuse him in your own little mind
+of feebleness, and so forth. Yes, just so. And it's doosid
+unfair to C&aelig;sar, because he's given up his walk to-day
+entirely on your account. Ah! I thought that would
+make you sit up."</p>
+
+<p>"My account?" John repeated blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; C&aelig;sar would be furious if he knew that I was
+peaching, but he won't know, and instead of this&mdash;er&mdash;trifling
+affair weakening your good opinion of your pal, it
+will strengthen it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do go on, Caterpillar."</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday I was in Lovell's room. We were talking
+of the first House match. Scaife and C&aelig;sar were there. I
+took it upon myself to say you ought to be given your
+'cap'; and then C&aelig;sar burst out, 'Oh yes, Lovell, do give
+him his "cap." If you knew how he'd slaved to earn it.'
+But Lovell only laughed. And then Scaife chipped in,
+'Look here, C&aelig;sar,' he said, 'do I understand that you put
+this thing, which after all is none of your business or mine,
+as a favour which Lovell might do <i>you</i>?' And C&aelig;sar
+answered, 'You can put it that way, if you like, Demon.'
+And then Scaife laughed. I don't like Scaife's laugh,
+Jonathan."</p>
+
+<p>"I loathe it," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when Scaife laughed, Lovell looked first at him
+and then at C&aelig;sar. It came to me that Lovell was primed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+to say something. At any rate, he turned to C&aelig;sar, and
+said slowly, 'Tit for tat. If I do this for you, will you do
+something for me?' And C&aelig;sar spoke up as usual,
+without a second's hesitation, 'Of course I will.' And
+then Scaife laughed again, just as Lovell said, 'All right,
+I'll give Verney his "cap" before tea, and you will make
+a fourth at bridge with us to-morrow afternoon.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, oh!" groaned John.</p>
+
+<p>"Dash it all, don't look so wretched. There's not
+much more. C&aelig;sar hesitated a moment. Then he said
+quietly enough, 'Done!' Personally, I don't think Lovell
+was playing&mdash;well&mdash;cricket, but I do know that he wanted
+a fourth at bridge, because I'd just refused to make that
+fourth myself. They play too high for me."</p>
+
+<p>"It's awfully good of you to have told me this."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray don't mention it! Hullo! What's up now?"</p>
+
+<p>John's face was very red, and his fists were clenched.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," he gasped. "Only this&mdash;I'd like to kill
+Scaife. I'd like to cut off his infernal head."</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar laughed indulgently. "Jonathan,
+you're a rum 'un. You think it wicked to play cards on
+Sunday; but you would like"&mdash;he imitated John's
+trembling, passionate voice&mdash;"you would like to cut off
+Scaife's infernal head."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I would," said John.</p>
+
+<p>That same week he had a memorable talk with Warde;
+recorded because it illustrates Warde's methods, and
+because, ultimately, it came to be regarded by John as the
+turning-point of his intellectual life. Since he had taken
+the Lower Remove, John's energies of mind and body had
+been concentrated upon improving himself at games.
+Vaguely aware that some of the School-prizes were within
+his grasp, he had not deemed them worth the winning. To
+him, therefore, Warde abruptly began&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You pride yourself upon being straight&mdash;eh, Verney?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes," said John, meeting Warde's blue eyes
+not without misgiving.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, to me, you're about as straight as a note of
+interrogation. I never see you without saying to myself,
+'Is Verney going to bury his talents in the cricket-ground?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>"Some parents, too many of them, send their boys
+here to make a few nice friends, to play games, to scrape
+up the School with a remove once a year. That, I take it,
+is not what Mrs. Verney wants?"</p>
+
+<p>"N&mdash;no, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to be in the Sixth&mdash;and you know it.
+Twice, or oftener, you have deliberately taken things easy,
+because you wanted a soft time of it during the summer
+term, and because you wished to remain in the same form
+with Desmond, who, intellectually, is your&mdash;inferior. Is
+that square dealing with your people?"</p>
+
+<p>John was silent, but red of countenance. Warde went
+on, more vehemently&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I know all about your co-operative system of work.
+I have a harder name for it. And I know just what you
+can do, and I want to see you do it, for your own sake, for
+the sake of Mrs. Verney, and for the Hill's sake. I've
+pushed you on at cricket a bit, haven't I? Yes. You
+owe me something. Pay up by entering for a School-prize,
+and winning it!"</p>
+
+<p>"A School-prize?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; Lord Charles Russell's Shakespeare Medal.
+The exam. is next October. I'll coach you. Is it a
+bargain?"</p>
+
+<p>He held out his hand, staring frankly, but piercingly,
+into John's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, sir," said John, after a pause. "I'll try."</p>
+
+<p>"And buck up for your remove."</p>
+
+<p>John smiled feebly, and sighed.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> There is a tablet on the wall of the Old Schools which bears the
+following inscription:&mdash;Near this spot <span class="smcap">Anthony Ashley Cooper</span>
+Afterwards the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G. While yet a boy in
+Harrow School Saw with shame and indignation The pauper's funeral
+Which helped to awaken his lifelong Devotion to the service of the
+poor And the oppressed.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Black Spots</i></h3>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 22em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The Avon bears to endless years<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A magic voice along,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where Shakespeare strayed in Stratford's shade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And waked the world to song.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We heard the music soft and wild,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We thrilled to pulses new;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The winds that reared the Avon's child<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Were Herga's<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> nurses too."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">That evening</span> John told C&aelig;sar what Warde had said to
+him, and then added, "I mean to have a shot at 'the Swan
+of Avon.'" C&aelig;sar looked glum.</p>
+
+<p>"But how about the remove? We'd agreed to stay
+in the Second Fifth till Christmas. It's the jolliest form in
+the school."</p>
+
+<p>"If we put our backs&mdash;and heads&mdash;into Trials,<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> we
+can easily get a remove."</p>
+
+<p>"Blow Trials."</p>
+
+<p>John turned aside.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Jonathan," said C&aelig;sar, eagerly. "To
+please me, give up your swatting scheme. We can't spoil
+the end of this jolly term."</p>
+
+<p>He caught hold of John's arm, squeezing it affectionately.
+Never had our hero been so sorely tempted.</p>
+
+<p>"We must stick together, you and I," entreated Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"As you please," C&aelig;sar replied coldly.</p>
+
+<p>A detestable week followed. John tackled his Shakespeare
+alone, working doggedly. Then, quite suddenly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+the giant gripped him. He had always possessed a remarkable
+memory, and as a child he had learnt by heart
+many passages out of the plays (a fact well known to the
+crafty Warde); but these he had swallowed without
+digesting them. Now he became keen, the keener because
+he met with violent opposition from the Caterpillar and
+the Duffer, who were of opinion that Shakespeare was a
+"back number."</p>
+
+<p>John won the prize, and on the following Speech Day
+saw his mother's face radiant with pride and happiness,
+as he received the Medal from the Head Master's hands.</p>
+
+<p>"You look as pleased as if I'd got my Flannels," said
+John.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely this Medal is a greater thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mum, you don't know much about boys."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not, but," her eyes twinkled, "I know something
+about Shakespeare, and he's a friend that will stand
+by you when cricketing days are over."</p>
+
+<p>"If you're pleased, so am I," said John.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Scaife got his Flannels; and at Lord's his fielding was
+mentioned as the finest ever seen in a Public School match.
+John witnessed the game from the top of the Trent coach,
+and he stopped at Trent House. But he didn't enjoy his
+exeat, because he knew that C&aelig;sar was in trouble. C&aelig;sar
+owed Scaife thirteen pounds, and the fact that this debt
+could not be paid without confession to his father was
+driving him distracted. Scaife, it is true, laughed genially
+at C&aelig;sar's distress. "Settle when you please," he said,
+"but for Heaven's sake, don't peach to your governor!
+Mine would laugh and pay up; yours will pay up and
+make you swear not to touch another card while you're at
+Harrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Just what he <i>will</i> do," C&aelig;sar told John.</p>
+
+<p>"And the best thing that could happen," John said
+bluntly. "If you don't cut loose now, it will be much
+worse next term."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Rot," Desmond had replied. "I'm paying the usual
+bill for learning a difficult game. That's how the Demon
+puts it. But I've a turn for bridge, and now I can hold my
+own. I'm better than Beaumont-Greene, and quite as
+good as Lovell. The Demon, of course, is in another
+class."</p>
+
+<p>"And therefore he oughtn't to play with you. It's
+robbery."</p>
+
+<p>"Now you're talking bosh."</p>
+
+<p>The Eton and Harrow match ended in another draw.
+Time and Scaife's fielding saved Harrow from defeat. The
+fact of a draw had significance. A draw spelled compromise.
+John had indulged in a superstitious fancy
+common enough to persons older than he. "If Harrow
+wins," he put it to himself, "C&aelig;sar will triumph; if Eton
+wins, C&aelig;sar will lose." When the match proved a draw,
+John drew the conclusion that his pal would "funk"
+telling the truth; an apprehension presently confirmed.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't tell the governor," said C&aelig;sar, when John
+and he met. "My eldest brother, Hugo, is coming home,
+and I shall screw it out of him. He's a good sort, and he's
+going to marry a girl who is simply rolling. He'll fork out,
+I know he will. I feel awfully cheery."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't," said John.</p>
+
+<p>He had good reason to fear that C&aelig;sar and he were
+drifting apart. Now he worked by himself. And his
+voice had broken. A small thing this, but John was sensible
+that his singing voice touched corners in C&aelig;sar's soul to
+which his speaking voice never penetrated. More, C&aelig;sar
+and he had agreed to differ upon points of conscience other
+than card-playing. And every point of conscientious
+difference increases the distance between true friends in
+geometrical progression. Poor Jonathan!</p>
+
+<p>But we have his grateful testimony that Warde stood
+by him. And Warde made him see life at Harrow (and
+beyond) in a new light. Warde, indeed, decomposed the
+light into primary colours, a sort of experiment in moral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+chemistry, and not without fascination for an intelligent
+boy. Sometimes, it became difficult to follow Warde&mdash;members
+of the Alpine Club said that often it was impossible&mdash;because
+he jumped where others crawled. And he
+clipped words, phrases, thoughts so uncommonly short.</p>
+
+<p>"You're beginning to see, Verney, eh? Scales crumbling
+away, my boy. And strong sunshine hurts the eyes&mdash;at
+first. Black spots are dancing before you. I know the
+little devils."</p>
+
+<p>Or again&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This remove will wipe a bit more off the debt, won't
+it? Ha, ha! I've made you reckon up what you owe
+Mrs. Verney. But there are others&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm awfully grateful to you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind me."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"New Testament; Matthew; twenty-fifth chapter&mdash;I
+forget verse.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Look it up. Christ answers your question.
+Make life easier and happier for some of the new boys.
+Pass on gratitude. Set it a-rolling. See?"</p>
+
+<p>John had appetite for such talk, but Warde never gave
+much of it&mdash;half a dozen sentences, a smile, a nod of the
+head, a keen look, and a striding off elsewhere. But when
+John repeated what Warde had said to C&aelig;sar, that young
+gentleman looked uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>"Warde means well," he said; "and he's doing wonders
+with the Manor, but I hope he's not going to make a
+sort of tin parson of you?"</p>
+
+<p>"As if he could!" said John.</p>
+
+<p>"You're miles ahead of me, Jonathan."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no."</p>
+
+<p>"I say&mdash;yes."</p>
+
+<p>"C&aelig;sar," said John, in desperation, "perhaps we <i>are</i>
+sliding apart, but it isn't my fault, indeed it isn't. And
+think what it means to&mdash;me. You've heaps of friends, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+I never was first, I know that. You can do without me,
+but I can't do without you."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear old Jonathan." C&aelig;sar held out his hand,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a jealous ass, C&aelig;sar. And, as for calling me a
+parson," he laughed scornfully, "why, I'd sooner walk
+with you, even if you were the worst sinner in the world,
+than with any saint that ever lived."</p>
+
+<p>The feeling in John's voice drove C&aelig;sar's gay smile
+from his face. Did he realize, possibly, for the first time,
+that if John and he remained friends, he might drag John
+down? Suddenly his face brightened.</p>
+
+<p>"Jonathan," he said gravely, "to please you, I'll not
+touch a card again this term, and we'll have such good
+times these last three weeks that you'll forget the rest of it."</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 20em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And what delights can equal those<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That stir the spirit's inner deeps,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When one that loves but knows not reaps<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A truth from one that loves and knows?"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>The Manor played in the cock-house match at cricket,
+being but barely beaten by Damer's. Everybody admitted
+that this glorious state of affairs was due to Warde's
+coaching of the weaker members of the Eleven. Scaife
+fielded brilliantly, and John, watching him, said to himself
+that at such times the Demon was irresistible. Warde
+invited the Eleven to dinner, and spoke of nothing but
+football, much to every one's amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"He's right," said the Caterpillar; "we're not cock-house
+at cricket this year, but we may be at footer."</p>
+
+<p>John spent his holidays abroad with his mother, and
+when the School reassembled, he found himself in the
+First Fifth <i>alone</i>. With satisfaction he reflected that this
+was Lovell's last term, and Beaumont-Greene's, too.
+Warde said a few words at first lock-up.</p>
+
+<p>"We are going to be cock-house at footer, I hope," he
+began, "and next term Scaife will show the School what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+he can do at racquets; but I want more. I'm a glutton.
+How about work, eh? Lot o' slacking last term. Is it
+honest? You fellows cost your people a deal of money.
+And it's well spent, if, <i>if</i> you tackle everything in school
+life as you tackled Mr. Damer's last July. That's all."</p>
+
+<p>"He's giving you what he gave me," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Good fellow, Warde," observed the Caterpillar; "in
+his room every night after prayers to mug up his form
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" Murmurs of incredulity.</p>
+
+<p>"Fact, 'pon my word. And he never refuses a 'con'
+to a fellow who wants it."</p>
+
+<p>"He's paid for it," sneered Scaife.</p>
+
+<p>The other boys nodded; enthusiasm was chilled. Yes,
+of course Warde was paid for it. John caught Scaife's
+eye.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't believe that he's in love with his job, as
+he told us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Skittles&mdash;that!"</p>
+
+<p>John looked solemn. He had a bomb to throw.</p>
+
+<p>"Skittles, is it?" he echoed. The other boys turned
+to listen. "Do you think he'd take a better paid
+billet?"</p>
+
+<p>Scaife laughed derisively. "Of course he would, like
+a shot. But he's not likely to get the chance."</p>
+
+<p>"He has just been offered the Head Mastership of
+Wellborough. It's worth about four thousand a year."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! who told you that?"</p>
+
+<p>"C&aelig;sar's father."</p>
+
+<p>"It's true," said C&aelig;sar.</p>
+
+<p>"And he refused it," said John, triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he's a fool," said Scaife, angrily. He marched
+out of the room, slamming the door. But the Manor, as a
+corporate body, when it heard of Warde's refusal to accept
+promotion, was profoundly impressed. Thus the term
+began with good resolutions upon the part of the better
+sort.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Very soon, however, with the shortening days, bridge
+began again. John made no protest, afraid of losing his
+pal. He called himself coward, and considered the expediency
+of learning bridge, so as to be in the same boat
+with C&aelig;sar. C&aelig;sar told him that he had not asked his
+brother Hugo for the thirteen pounds. Hugo, it seemed,
+had come back from Teheran with a decoration and the
+air of an ambassador. He spoke of his "services."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew that Hugo would make me swear not to play
+again," said C&aelig;sar to John, "and naturally I want to get
+some of the plunder back. I am getting it back. I raked
+thirty bob out of Beaumont-Greene last night."</p>
+
+<p>John said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Presently it came to his ears that C&aelig;sar was getting
+more plunder back. The Caterpillar, an agreeable gossip,
+because he condemned nothing except dirt and low breeding,
+told John that Beaumont-Greene was losing many
+shekels. And about the middle of October C&aelig;sar said to
+John&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think, old Jonathan? I've jolly nearly
+paid off the Demon. And you wanted me to chuck the
+thing. Nice sort of counsellor."</p>
+
+<p>"Beaumont-Greene must have lost a pot?"</p>
+
+<p>"You bet," said C&aelig;sar; "but that doesn't keep me
+awake at night. He has got the <i>Imperishable Seamless
+Whaleskin Boot</i> behind him."</p>
+
+<p>Next time John met Beaumont-Greene he eyed him
+sharply. The big fellow was pulpier than ever; his complexion
+the colour of skilly. Yes; he looked much worried.
+Perhaps the "Imperishable Boot" lasted too long. And,
+nowadays, so many fellows wore shoes. Thus John to
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>Beaumont-Greene, indeed, not only looked worried, he
+was worried, hideously worried, and with excellent reason.
+He had an absurdly, wickedly, large allowance, but not
+more than a sovereign of it was left. More, he owed Scaife
+twenty pounds, and Lovell another ten. Both these young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+gentlemen had hinted plainly that they wanted to see their
+money.</p>
+
+<p>"I must have the stuff now," said Lovell, when Beaumont-Greene
+asked for time. "I'm going to shoot a lot
+this Christmas, and the governor makes me pay for my
+cartridges."</p>
+
+<p>"So does mine," said Scaife, grinning. He was quite
+indifferent to the money, but he liked to see Beaumont-Greene
+squirm. He continued suavely, "You ought to
+settle before you leave. Ain't your people in Rome?
+Yes. And you're going to join 'em. Why, hang it, some
+Dago may stick a knife into you, and where should we be
+then&mdash;hey? Your governor wouldn't settle a gambling
+debt, would he?"</p>
+
+<p>This was too true. Scaife grinned diabolically. He
+knew that Beaumont-Greene's father was endeavouring to
+establish a credit-account with the Recording Angel.
+Originally a Nonconformist, he had joined the Church of
+England after he had made his fortune (cf. <i>Shavings from
+the Workshops of our Merchant Princes</i>, which appeared in
+the pages of "Prattle"). Then, the famous inventor of
+the Imperishable Boot had taken to endowing churches;
+and he published pamphlets denouncing drink and
+gambling, pamphlets sent to his son at Harrow, who (with
+an eye to backsheesh) had praised his sire's prose somewhat
+indiscreetly.</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have your confounded money," said Beaumont-Greene,
+violently.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," said Scaife, sweetly. "When we asked you
+to join us" (slight emphasis on the "us"), "we knew that
+we could rely on you to settle promptly."</p>
+
+<p>The Demon grinned for the third time, knowing that
+he had touched a weak spot; not a difficult thing to do, if
+you touched the big fellow at all. A young man of spirit
+would have told his creditors to go to Jericho. Beaumont-Greene
+might have said, "You have skinned me a bit. I
+don't whine about that; I mean to pay up; but you'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+have to wait till I have the money. I'm stoney now."
+Scaife and Lovell must have accepted this as an ultimatum.
+But Beaumont-Greene's wretched pride interfered. He
+had posed as a sort of Golden Youth. To confess himself
+pinchbeck seemed an unspeakable humiliation.</p>
+
+<p>Men have been known to take to drink under the impending
+sword of dishonour. Beaumont-Greene swallowed
+instead large quantities of food at the Creameries; and
+then wrote to his father, saying that he would like to
+have a cheque for thirty pounds by return of post. He was
+leaving Harrow, he pointed out, and he wished to give his
+friends some handsome presents. Young Desmond, for
+instance, the great Minister's son, had been kind to him
+(Beaumont-Greene prided himself upon this touch), and
+Scaife, too, he was under obligations to Scaife, who would
+be a power by-and-by, and so forth.... To confess
+frankly that he owed thirty pounds gambled away at cards
+required more cheek than our stout youth possessed. His
+father refused to play bridge on principle, because he could
+never remember how many trumps were out.</p>
+
+<p>The father answered by return of post, but enclosed no
+cheque. He pointed out to his dear Thomas that giving
+handsome presents with another's money was an objectionable
+habit. Thomas received a large, possibly too large
+an allowance. He must exercise self-denial, if he wished
+to make presents. His quarterly allowance would be paid
+as usual next Christmas, and not a minute before. There
+would be time then to reconsider the propriety of giving
+young Desmond a suitable gift....</p>
+
+<p>Common sense told Beaumont-Greene to show this
+letter to Scaife and Lovell. But he saw the Demon's
+derisive grin, and recoiled from it.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment temptation seized him relentlessly.
+Beaumont-Greene never resisted temptation. For fun,
+so he put it, he would write the sort of letter which his
+father ought to have written, and which would have put
+him at his ease. It ran thus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="lett1"><p>"<span class="smcap">My Dear Thomas</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt you will want to give some leaving
+presents, and a spread or two. I should like my son to do
+the thing handsomely. You know better than I how much
+this will cost, but I am prepared to send you, say, twenty-five
+or thirty pounds for such a purpose. Or, you can have the
+bills sent to me.</p>
+
+<p class="author">"With love,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Your affectionate father,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"<span class="smcap">George Beaumont-Greene</span>."</span></p>
+</div>
+<p>Beaumont-Greene, like the immortal Mr. Toots, rather
+fancied himself as a letter-writer. The longer he looked
+at his effusion, the more he liked it. His handwriting was
+not unlike his father's&mdash;modelled, indeed, upon it. With a
+little careful manipulation of a few letters&mdash;&mdash;!</p>
+
+<p>The day was cold, but Beaumont-Greene suddenly
+found himself in a perspiration. None the less, it seemed
+easier to forge a letter than to avow himself penniless.
+Detection? Impossible! Two or three tradesmen in
+Harrow would advance the money if he showed them this
+letter. Next Christmas they would be paid. Within a
+quarter of an hour he made up his mind to cross the
+Rubicon, and crossed it with undue haste. He forged the
+letter, placed it in an envelope which had come from Rome,
+and went to his tailor's.</p>
+
+<p>Under pretext of looking at patterns, he led the man
+aside.</p>
+
+<p>"You can do me a favour," he began, in his usual,
+heavy, hesitating manner.</p>
+
+<p>"With pleasure," said the tradesman, smiling. Then,
+seeing an opportunity, he added, "You are leaving Harrow,
+Mr. Beaumont-Greene, but I trust, sir, you will not take
+your custom with you. We have always tried to please
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Beaumont-Greene, in his turn, saw opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes," he answered. Then he produced the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+letter, envelope and all. "I have here a letter from my
+father, who is in Rome. I'll read it to you. No; you
+can read it yourself."</p>
+
+<p>The tailor read the letter.</p>
+
+<p>"Very handsome," he replied; "<i>very</i> handsome indeed,
+sir. Your father is a true gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"It happens," said Beaumont-Greene, more easily, for
+the thing seemed to be simpler than he had anticipated&mdash;"it
+happens that I <i>do</i> want to make some presents, but
+I'm not going to buy them here. I shall send to the Stores,
+you know. I have their catalogue."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so, sir. Excellent place the Stores for nearly
+everything; except, perhaps, my line."</p>
+
+<p>"I should not think of buying clothes there. But at
+the Stores one must pay cash. I've not got the cash, and
+my father is in Rome. I should like to have the money
+to-day, if possible. Will you oblige me?"</p>
+
+<p>The tradesman hesitated. In the past there have been
+grave scandals connected with lending money to boys.
+And Harrow tradesmen are at the mercy of the Head
+Master. If a school-tailor be put out of bounds, he can
+put up his shutters at once. Still&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I'll let you have the money," said the man, eyeing
+Beaumont-Greene keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks."</p>
+
+<p>The tailor observed a slight flush and a sudden intake
+of breath&mdash;signs which stirred suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you take it in notes, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Here Beaumont-Greene made his first blunder. He
+had an ill-defined idea that paper was dangerous stuff.</p>
+
+<p>"In gold, please."</p>
+
+<p>He forgot that gold is not easily sent in a letter. The
+tailor hesitated, but he had gone too far to back out.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir. I have not twenty-five pounds&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty, if you please. I shall want thirty."</p>
+
+<p>"I have not quite that amount here, but I can get
+it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When the man came back with a small canvas bag in
+his hand, Beaumont-Greene had pocketed the letter. He
+received the money, counted it, thanked the tailor, and
+turned to go.</p>
+
+<p>"If you please, sir&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to keep your father's letter, sir. As a
+form of receipt, sir. When you settle I'll return it. If&mdash;if
+anything should happen to&mdash;to you, sir, where would I
+be?"</p>
+
+<p>Beaumont-Greene's temper showed itself.</p>
+
+<p>"You all talk as if I was on my death-bed," he said.</p>
+
+<p>The tailor stared. Others, then, had suggested to this
+large, unwholesome youth the possibility of premature
+decease.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, sir, but we do live in the valley of shadders.
+My wife's step-father, as fine and hearty a specimen as
+you'd wish to see, sir, was taken only last month; at
+breakfast, too, as he was chipping his third egg."</p>
+
+<p>Beaumont-Greene said loftily, "Blow your wife's step-father
+and his third egg. Here's the letter."</p>
+
+<p>He flung down the letter and marched out of the shop.
+The tradesman looked at him, shaking his head. "He'll
+never come back," he muttered. "I know his sort too
+well." Then, business happening to be slack, he re-read
+the letter before putting it away. Then he whistled softly
+and read it for the third time, frowning and biting his lips.
+The "Beaumont-Greene" in the signature and on the
+envelope did not look to be written by the same hand.</p>
+
+<p>"There's something fishy here," muttered the tradesman.
+"I must show this to Amelia."</p>
+
+<p>It was his habit to consult his wife in emergencies. The
+chief cutter and two assistants said that Amelia was the
+power behind the throne. Amelia read the letter, listened
+to what her husband had to say, stared hard at the envelope,
+and delivered herself&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The hand that wrote the envelope never wrote the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+letter, that's plain&mdash;to me. Now, William, you've got me
+and the children to think of. This may mean the loss of
+our business, and worse, too. You put on your hat and go
+straight to the Manor. Mr. Warde's a gentleman, and I
+don't think he'll let me and the children suffer for your
+foolishness. Don't you wait another minute."</p>
+
+<p>Nor did he.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>After prayers that night, Warde asked Beaumont-Greene
+to come to his study. Beaumont-Greene obeyed,
+smiling blandly. Within three weeks he was leaving;
+doubtless Warde wanted to say something civil. The big
+fellow was feeling quite himself. He had paid Scaife and
+Lovell, not without a little pardonable braggadocio.</p>
+
+<p>"You fellows have put me to some inconvenience," he
+said. "I make it a rule not to run things fine, but after all
+thirty quid is no great sum. Here you are."</p>
+
+<p>"We don't want to drive you into the workhouse," said
+Scaife. "Thanks. Give you your revenge any time. I
+dare say between now and the end of the term you'll have
+most of it back."</p>
+
+<p>Warde asked Beaumont-Greene to sit down in a particular
+chair, which faced the light from a large lamp.
+Then he took up an envelope. Suddenly cold chills trickled
+down Beaumont-Greene's spine. He recognized the envelope.
+That scoundrel had betrayed him. Not for a
+moment, however, did he suppose that the forgery had been
+detected.</p>
+
+<p>"On the strength of this letter," said Warde, gravely,
+"you borrowed thirty pounds from a tradesman?"</p>
+
+<p>Denial being fatuous, Beaumont-Greene said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You know, I suppose, that Harrow tradesmen are
+expressly forbidden to lend boys money?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am hardly a boy, sir. And&mdash;er&mdash;under the circumstances&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Warde smiled very grimly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;under the circumstances. Have you any objection
+to telling me the exact circumstances?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, sir. I wished to make some presents to
+my friends. I am going to give a large leaving-breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Still, thirty pounds is a large sum&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not to my father, sir. I&mdash;er&mdash;thought of coming to
+you, sir, with that letter."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you?"</p>
+
+<p>Warde took the letter from the envelope, and glanced at
+it with faint interest, so Beaumont-Greene thought. Then
+he picked up a magnifying glass and played with it. It was
+a trick of his to pick up objects on his desk, and turn them
+in his thin, nervous fingers. Beaumont-Greene was not
+seriously alarmed. He had great faith in a weapon which
+had served him faithfully, his lying tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. I thought you would be willing to advance
+the money for a few days, and then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"And then I thought I wouldn't bother you. It never
+occurred to me that I was getting a tradesman into trouble.
+I hope you won't be hard on him, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not be hard on him," said Warde, "because"&mdash;for
+a moment his eyes flashed&mdash;"because he came to me
+and confessed his fault; but I won't deny that I gave him
+a very uncomfortable quarter of an hour. He sat in your
+chair."</p>
+
+<p>Beaumont-Greene shuffled uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you this thirty pounds in your pocket?" asked
+Warde, casually.</p>
+
+<p>Beaumont-Greene began to regret his haste in settling.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Some of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"None of it."</p>
+
+<p>"You sent it to London? To buy these handsome
+presents?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye-es, sir."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You hadn't much time. Lock-up's early, and you
+received the money in gold. Did you buy Orders?"</p>
+
+<p>Beaumont-Greene's head began to buzz. He found
+himself wondering why Warde was speaking in this smooth,
+quiet voice, so different from his usual curt, incisive tones.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"At the Harrow post-office?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah."</p>
+
+<p>Again the house-master picked up the letter, but this
+time he didn't lay down the lens. Instead he used it, very
+deliberately. Beaumont-Greene shivered; with difficulty
+he clenched his teeth, so as to prevent them clicking like
+castanets. Then Warde held up the sheet of paper to the
+light of the lamp. Obviously he wished to examine the
+watermark. The paper was thin notepaper, the kind that
+is sold everywhere for foreign correspondence. Beaumont-Greene,
+economical in such matters, had bought a couple
+of quires when his people went abroad. The paper he had
+bought did not quite match the Roman envelope. Warde
+opened a drawer, from which he took some thin paper.
+This also he held up to the light.</p>
+
+<p>"It's an odd coincidence," he said, tranquilly; "your
+father in Rome uses the same notepaper that I buy here.
+But the envelope is Italian?"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke interrogatively, but the wretch opposite had
+lost the power of speech. He collapsed. Warde rose,
+throwing aside his quiet manner as if it were a drab-coloured
+cloak. Now he was himself, alert, on edge,
+sanguine.</p>
+
+<p>"You fool!" he exclaimed; "you clumsy fool! Why,
+a child could find you out. And you&mdash;you have dared to
+play with such an edged tool as forgery. Now, do the one
+thing which is left to you: make a clean breast of it to me&mdash;at
+once."</p>
+
+<p>In imposing this command, a command which he knew
+would be obeyed, inasmuch as he perceived that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+dominated the weak, grovelling creature in front of him,
+Warde overlooked the possibility that this boy's confession
+might implicate other boys. Already he had formed in
+his mind a working hypothesis to account for this forged
+letter. The fellow, no doubt, was in debt to some Harrow
+townsman.</p>
+
+<p>"For whom did you <i>steal</i> this money? To whom did
+you pay it to-day? Answer!"</p>
+
+<p>And he was answered.</p>
+
+<p>"I owed the money to Scaife and Lovell."</p>
+
+<p>Then he told the story of the card-playing. At the last
+word he fell on his knees, blubbering.</p>
+
+<p>"Get up," said Warde, sharply. "Pull yourself together
+if you can."</p>
+
+<p>The master began to walk up and down the room,
+frowning and biting his lips. From time to time he glanced
+at Beaumont-Greene. Seeing his utter collapse, he rang
+the bell, answered by the ever-discreet Dumbleton.</p>
+
+<p>"Dumbleton, take Mr. Beaumont-Greene to the sick-room.
+There is no one in it, I believe?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You will fetch what he may require for the night;
+quietly, you understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Follow Dumbleton," Warde addressed Beaumont-Greene.
+"You will consider yourself under arrest. Your
+meals will be brought to you. You will hold no communication
+with anybody except Dumbleton and me;
+you will send no messages; you will write no notes. Do
+you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Then go."</p>
+
+<p>Dumbleton opened the door. Young man and servant
+passed out and into the passage beyond. Warde waited
+one moment, then he followed them into the passage; but
+instead of going upstairs, he paused for an instant with his
+fingers upon the handle of the door which led from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+private side to the boys' quarters. He sighed as he passed
+through.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Lovell was sitting in his room alone
+with Scaife. They had no suspicion of what had taken
+place in the study. In the afternoon there had been a match
+with an Old Harrovian team, and both Scaife and Lovell
+had played for the School. But as yet neither had got his
+Flannels. As Warde passed through the private side door,
+Scaife was saying angrily&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I believe Challoner" (Challoner was captain of the
+football Eleven and a monitor) "has a grudge against us.
+If we had a chance&mdash;and we had&mdash;of getting our Flannels
+last year, why isn't it a cert. this, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Lovell shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a cert.," he answered; "and you're right. Challoner
+doesn't like us, and it amuses him to keep us out
+of our just rights. The monitors know I detest 'em, and
+they don't think you're called the Demon for nothing.
+Challoner is more of a monitor than a footer-player. How
+about a rubber? There's just time."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>Lovell went to the door and opened it.</p>
+
+<p>"Bo-o-o-o-o-o-y!"</p>
+
+<p>The familiar cry&mdash;that imperious call which makes an
+Harrovian feel himself master of more or less willing slaves&mdash;echoed
+through the house. Immediately the night-fag
+came running; it was not considered healthy to keep
+Lovell waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask Beaumont-Greene to come up here and&mdash;&mdash;"
+He paused. Warde had just turned the corner, and was
+approaching. Lovell hesitated. Then he repeated what
+he had just said, with a slight variation for Warde's benefit.
+"Tell him I want to ask him a question about the house-subscriptions."</p>
+
+<p>"Right," said the fag, bustling off.</p>
+
+<p>Lovell waited to receive his house-master. He had
+very good manners.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Can I do anything for you, sir?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Warde, deliberately. He entered Lovell's
+room and looked at Scaife, who rose at once.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to speak with you alone, Lovell."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, sir. Won't you sit down?"</p>
+
+<p>Warde waited till Scaife had closed the door; then he
+said quietly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Lovell, does Beaumont-Greene owe you money?"</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> The Anglo-Saxon form of Harrow.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> The terminal examination.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My
+brethren, ye have done it unto Me."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Decapitation</i></h3>
+
+<div class="block1">"Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of
+the first magnitude!"</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lovell betrayed</span> his astonishment by a slight start;
+however, he faced Warde with a smile. Warde, clean-shaven,
+alert, with youthful figure, looked but little older
+than his pupil. For a moment the two stared steadily at
+each other; then, very politely, Lovell said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, he does not."</p>
+
+<p>Warde continued curtly, "Then he has paid you what
+he did owe you?"</p>
+
+<p>Lovell nodded, shrugging his shoulders. Plainly, Warde
+had discovered the fact of the debt. Probably that fool
+Beaumont-Greene had applied to his father, and the father
+had written to Warde. It was unthinkable that Warde
+knew more than this. Having reached this conclusion,
+Lovell turned over in his mind two or three specious lies
+that might meet the exigency.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, with apparent frankness, "Beaumont-Greene
+did owe me money, and he has paid me."</p>
+
+<p>After a slight pause, Warde said quietly, "It is my duty,
+as your tutor, to ask you how Beaumont-Greene became
+indebted to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I lent him the money," said Lovell.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Please call 'Boy.'"</p>
+
+<p>Lovell went into the passage. Had he an intuition that
+he was about to call "Boy" for the last time, or did the
+pent-up excitement find an outlet in sound? He had never
+called "Boy" so loudly or clearly. The night-fag scurried
+up again.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him to send Scaife here," said Warde.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lovell's florid face paled. Scaife would introduce complications.
+And yet, if it had come to Warde's ears that
+Beaumont-Greene was in debt to two of his schoolfellows,
+and if he had found out the name of one, it was not surprising
+that he knew the name of the other also. As he gave the
+fag the message, he regretted that Scaife and he could not
+have a minute's private conversation together.</p>
+
+<p>"You lent Beaumont-Greene ten pounds, Lovell?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Scaife came in, cool, handsomer than usual because of
+the sparkle in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Shut the door, Scaife. Look at me, please. Beaumont-Greene
+owed you money?"</p>
+
+<p>Scaife glanced at Lovell, whose left eyelid quivered.</p>
+
+<p>"Kindly stand behind Scaife, Lovell. Thank you.
+Answer my question, Scaife."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; he owed me money."</p>
+
+<p>"Have <i>you</i> lent him money, too?" said Lovell.</p>
+
+<p>It was admirably done&mdash;the hint cleverly conveyed, the
+mild amazement. Warde smiled grimly. Scaife understood,
+and took his cue.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I have lent him money," said he, after a slight
+pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty pounds?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe, sir, that is the amount."</p>
+
+<p>"And can you offer me any explanation why Beaumont-Greene,
+whose father, to my knowledge, has always given
+him a very large allowance, should borrow thirty pounds
+of you two?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't the smallest idea, have you, Lovell?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Lovell. "Unless his younger brother, who is at
+Eton, has got into trouble. He's very fond of his brothers."</p>
+
+<p>"Um! You speak up for your&mdash;friend."</p>
+
+<p>Lovell frowned. "A friend, sir&mdash;no."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Warde, reflectively, "if it is true
+that Beaumont-Greene borrowed this money to help a
+brother&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He paused, staring at Lovell. From the bottom of a
+big heart he was praying that Lovell would not lie.</p>
+
+<p>"Beaumont-Greene certainly gave me to understand
+that the affair was pressing. Having the money, I hadn't
+the heart to refuse."</p>
+
+<p>"But you pressed for repayment?" said Warde, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"That is true, sir. I'm on an allowance; and I shall
+have many expenses this holidays."</p>
+
+<p>"You, Scaife, asked for your money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, between you, you have driven this unhappy
+wretch into crime."</p>
+
+<p>"Crime, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>At last their self-possession abandoned them. Crime
+is a word which looms large in the imaginations of youth.
+What had Beaumont-Greene done?</p>
+
+<p>"What crime, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Scaife, the more self-possessed, although fully two
+years the younger, asked the question.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgery."</p>
+
+<p>"Forgery?" Lovell repeated. He was plainly shocked.</p>
+
+<p>"The idiot!" exclaimed Scaife.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;forgery. Have you anything to say? It is a
+time when the truth, all the truth, might be accepted as an
+extenuating circumstance. I speak to you first, Lovell.
+You're a Sixth Form boy&mdash;remember, I have been one
+myself&mdash;and it is your duty to help me."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg pardon, sir," Lovell replied. "I have never
+considered it my duty as a Sixth Form boy to play the
+usher."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor did I; but you ought to work on parallel lines
+with us. You accepted the privileges of the Sixth."</p>
+
+<p>Lovell's flush deepened.</p>
+
+<p>"More," continued Warde, "you know that we, the
+masters, have implicit trust in the Sixth Form, a trust but
+seldom betrayed. For instance, I should not think of
+entering your room without tapping on the door; under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
+ordinary circumstances I should accept your bare word
+unhesitatingly. I say emphatically that if you, knowing
+these things, have accepted the privileges of your order
+with the deliberate intention of ignoring its duties, you have
+not acted like a man of honour."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't bluff! Now, for the last time, will you give me
+what I have given you&mdash;trust?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing more to say," Lovell answered stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Scaife?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry, sir, that Beaumont-Greene has been such
+a fool. We lent him this money, because he wanted it
+badly; and he said he would pay us back before the end
+of the term."</p>
+
+<p>"You stick to that story?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, sir. Why should we tell you a lie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, why, indeed?" sighed Warde. Then his voice
+grew hard and sharp. The persuasiveness, the carefully-framed
+sentences, gave place to his curtest manner. "This
+matter," said he, "is out of my hands. The Head Master
+will deal with it. I must ask you for your keys, Lovell."</p>
+
+<p>"And if I refuse to give them up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then we must break into your boxes. Thanks." He
+took the keys. "Follow me, please."</p>
+
+<p>The pair followed him into the private side, upstairs,
+and into the sick-room. There were three beds in it; upon
+one sat Beaumont-Greene. His complexion turned a
+sickly drab when he saw Lovell and Scaife. He even
+glanced at the window with a hunted expression. The
+window was three stories from the ground, and heavily
+barred ever since a boy in delirium had tried to jump
+from it.</p>
+
+<p>"Your night-things will be brought to you," said Warde.</p>
+
+<p>He went out slowly. The boys heard the key turn in
+the massive lock. They were prisoners. Scaife walked
+up to Beaumont-Greene.</p>
+
+<p>"You told Warde about the bridge?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ye-es; I had to. Scaife, don't look at me like that.
+Lovell"&mdash;his voice broke into a terrified scream&mdash;"don't
+let him hit me. I couldn't help it&mdash;I swear I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You cur!" said Scaife. "I wouldn't touch you with
+a forty-foot pole."</p>
+
+<p>Just what passed between Warde and the Head Master
+must be surmised. Carefully hidden in Lovell's boxes were
+found cards and markers. Upon the latter remained the
+results of the last game played, and under the winning
+column a rough calculation in pounds, shillings, and pence.
+There were no names.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, during first school, a notice came round
+to each Form to be in the Speech-room at 8.30. Not a
+boy knew or guessed the reason of this summons. The
+Manorites, aware that three of their House were in the sick-room,
+believed that an infectious disease had broken out.
+Only Desmond, John, and the Caterpillar experienced
+heart-breaking fears that a catastrophe had taken place.</p>
+
+<p>When the School assembled at half-past eight, the
+monitors came in, followed by the Head Master in cap and
+gown. Then, a moment later, the School Custos entered
+with Scaife. They sat down upon a small bench near the
+door. Immediately the whispers, the shuffling of feet, the
+occasional cough, died down into a thrilling silence. The
+Head Master stood up.</p>
+
+<p>He was a man of singularly impressive face and figure.
+And his voice had what may be described as an edge to
+it&mdash;the cutting quality so invaluable to any speaker who
+desires to make a deep impression upon his audience. He
+began his address in the clear, cold accents of one who
+sets forth facts which can neither be controverted nor
+ignored. Slowly, inexorably, without wasting a word or a
+second, he told the School what had happened. Then he
+paused.</p>
+
+<p>As his voice melted away, the boys moved restlessly.
+Upon their faces shone a curious excitement and relief.
+Gambling in its many-headed forms is too deeply rooted in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
+human hearts to awaken any great antipathy. So far,
+then, the sympathy of the audience lay with the culprits;
+this the Head Master knew.</p>
+
+<p>When he spoke again, his voice had changed, subtly,
+but unmistakably.</p>
+
+<p>"You were afraid," he said, "that I had something
+worse&mdash;ah, yes, unspeakably worse&mdash;to tell you. Thank
+God, this is not one of those cases from which every clean,
+manly boy must recoil in disgust. But, on that account,
+don't blind yourselves to the issues involved. This playing
+of bridge&mdash;a game you have seen your own people playing
+night after night, perhaps&mdash;is harmless enough in itself.
+I can say more&mdash;it is a game, and hence its fascination,
+which calls into use some of the finest qualities of the brain:
+judgment, memory, the faculty of making correct deductions,
+foresight, and patience. It teaches restraint; it
+makes for pleasant fellowship. It does all this and more,
+provided that it never degenerates into gambling. The
+very moment that the game becomes a gamble, if any one
+of the players is likely to lose a sum greater than he can
+reasonably afford to pay, greater than he would cheerfully
+spend upon any other form of entertainment, then bridge
+becomes cursed. And because you boys have not the
+experience to determine the difference between a mere game
+and a gamble, card-playing is forbidden you, and rightly
+so. Now, let us consider what has happened. A stupid,
+foolish fellow, playing with boys infinitely cleverer than
+himself, has lost a sum of money which he could not pay.
+To obtain the means of paying it, he deliberately forged a
+letter and a signature. And then followed the inevitable
+lying&mdash;lie upon lie. That is always the price of lies&mdash;'to
+lie on still.'</p>
+
+<p>"I would mitigate the punishment, if I could, but I
+must think of the majority. This sort of malignant disease
+must be cut out. Two of the three offenders are young
+men; they were leaving at the end of this term. They
+will leave, instead&mdash;to-day. The third boy is much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
+younger. Because of his youth, I have been persuaded by
+his house-master to give him a further chance."</p>
+
+<p>Again he paused. Then he exclaimed loudly, "Scaife!"</p>
+
+<p>Scaife stood up, very pale. "Here, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"Scaife, you will go into the Fourth Form Room,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> and
+prepare to receive the punishment which no member of
+the Eleven should ever deserve."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>John sat with his Form while the Head Master was
+addressing the School. Not far off was the Caterpillar,
+less cool than usual, so John remarked. His collar, for
+instance, seemed to be too tight; and he moved restlessly
+upon his chair. Many very brave men become nervous
+when a great danger has passed them by. Egerton said
+afterwards, "I felt like getting down a hole, and pulling
+the hole after me. Not my own. Some Yankee's, you
+know." Still, he displayed remarkable self-possession
+under trying circumstances. Two of Lovell's particular
+friends were seen to turn the colour of Cheddar cheese.
+But Desmond, so John noticed, grew red rather than yellow.
+Nor did he tremble, but his fists were clenched, and his
+eyes kindled.</p>
+
+<p>As Scaife left the Speech-room, followed by Titchener
+(the provider of birches, whose duty it is to see that boys
+about to be swished are properly prepared to receive
+punishment), the boys began to shuffle in their places.
+But the Head Master held up his hand. It was then that
+Lovell's two particular friends, who had partially recovered,
+felt that the earth was once more slipping from under
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"It takes four to play bridge." The Caterpillar's
+fingers went to his collar again. "In this case there must
+have been a fourth, possibly a fifth and a sixth. Not more,
+I think, because the secret was too well kept. We are confronted
+with the disagreeable fact that three boys are going
+to receive the most severe punishments I can inflict, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+that another escapes scot-free. <i>For I do not know the&mdash;name&mdash;of&mdash;the&mdash;fourth.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The Head Master waited to let each deliberate word
+soak in. Perhaps he had calculated the effect of his voice
+upon a boy of sensibility and imagination. That Scaife,
+his friend, should suffer the indignity of a swishing, and
+that he should escape scot-free, seemed to C&aelig;sar Desmond
+not a bit of rare good fortune&mdash;as it appeared to the others&mdash;but
+an incredible miscarriage of justice. To submit tamely
+to such a burden was unthinkable. He sprang to his feet,
+ardent, impetuous, afire with the spirit which makes men
+accept death rather than dishonour; and then, in a voice
+that rang through the room, thrilling the coldest and most
+callous heart, he exclaimed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I was the fourth."</p>
+
+<p>A curious sound escaped from the audience&mdash;a gasp of
+surprise, of admiration, and of dismay; at least, so the
+Head Master interpreted it. And looking at the faces
+about him, he read approval or disapproval, according as
+each boy betrayed the feeling in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"You, Desmond?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar rose slowly. He was cool enough now.</p>
+
+<p>"I was the fifth."</p>
+
+<p>But Lovell's two particular friends sat tight, as they
+put it. Let us not blame them.</p>
+
+<p>"You, Egerton?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the Head Master hesitated. Into his
+mind there flashed the image of two notable figures&mdash;the
+fathers whom he had entreated to send sons to the Manor.
+If&mdash;if by so doing he had compassed the boys' ruin, could
+he ever have forgiven himself? But now, the boys themselves
+had justified his action; they had proved worthy
+of their breeding and the traditions of the Hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here," he said.</p>
+
+<p>When they stood opposite to him, he continued<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You give yourselves up to receive the punishment I
+am about to inflict upon Scaife?"</p>
+
+<p>The boys did not answer, save with their eyes. The
+silence in the great room was so profound that John made
+sure that the beating of his heart must be heard by everybody.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not punish you. This voluntary confession
+has done much to redeem your fault. Meet me in my
+study at nine this evening, and I will talk to you. When
+I came here I hardly hoped to find saints, but I did expect
+to find&mdash;gentlemen. And I have not been disappointed."
+He addressed the others. "You will return to your
+boarding-houses, and quietly, if you please."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The immediate and most noticeable effect of Lovell's
+expulsion was the loss of the next House match. Damer's
+defeated the Manor easily. Some of the fags whispered
+to each other that the injuries inflicted by the Head Master
+on Scaife had been so severe as to incapacitate the star-player
+of the House. Two boys had concealed themselves
+in the Armoury (which is just below the Fourth Form
+Room) upon the morning when Scaife was flogged. But
+they reported&mdash;nothing. However severe the punishment
+might have been, Scaife received it without a whimper.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, Scaife received but one cut, and that a light
+one. The Head Master wished to lay stripes upon the boy's
+heart, not his body. When he saw him prepared to receive
+punishment, he said gravely&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have never flogged a member of the Eleven. And
+now, at the last moment, I offer you the choice between a
+flogging and expulsion."</p>
+
+<p>"I prefer to be flogged."</p>
+
+<p><i>And then&mdash;one cut.</i></p>
+
+<p>But Scaife never forgot the walk from the Yard to the
+Manor, after execution. He was too proud to run, too
+proud not to face the boys he happened to meet. They
+turned aside their eyes from his furious glare. But he met<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+no members of his own House. They had the delicacy to
+leave the coast clear. When he reached his room, he found
+Desmond alone. Desmond said nervously&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I asked Warde if we could have breakfast here this
+morning, instead of going into Hall. I've got some ripping
+salmon."</p>
+
+<p>Scaife had faced everything with a brazen indifference,
+but the sympathy in his friend's voice overpowered him.
+He flung himself upon the sofa by the window and wept,
+not as a boy weeps, but with the cruel, grinding sobs of a
+man. He wept for his stained pride, for his vain-glory,
+not because he had sinned and caused others to sin. The
+boy watching him, seeing the hero self-abased, hearing his
+heartbreaking sobs, interpreted very differently those
+sounds. Infinitely distressed, turning over and over in
+his mind some soothing phrases, some word of comfort
+and encouragement, Desmond waited till the first paroxysm
+had passed. What he said then shall not be set down in cold
+print. You may be sure he proved that friendship between
+two strong, vigorous boys is no frail thread, but a golden
+chain which adversity strengthens and refines. Scaife
+rose up with his heart softened, not by his own tears, but
+by the tears he saw in Desmond's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm all right now," he said. Then, with frowning
+brows, he added thoughtfully, "I deserve what I got for
+being a fool. I ought to have foreseen that such a swine
+as Beaumont-Greene would be sure to betray us sooner
+or later. I shall be wiser next time."</p>
+
+<p>"Next&mdash;time?" The dismay in Desmond's voice made
+Scaife smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry, C&aelig;sar. No more bridge for me; but,"
+he laughed harshly, "the leopard can't change his spots,
+and he won't give up hunting because he has fallen into
+a trap, and got out of it. Come, let's tackle the salmon."</p>
+
+<p>The winter term came to an end, and the School broke
+up. Upon the evening of the last Sunday, Warde said a
+few words to John.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I propose to make some changes in the house," he
+said abruptly. "Would you like to share No. 7 with
+Desmond?"</p>
+
+<p>No. 7 was the jolliest two-room at the Manor. It overlooked
+the gardens, and was larger than some three-rooms.
+Then John remembered Scaife and the Duffer.</p>
+
+<p>"Desmond has been with Scaife ever since he came to
+the house, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"True. But I'm going to give Scaife a room to himself.
+He's entitled to it as the future Captain of the Eleven.
+That is&mdash;settled. You and Duff must part. He's two
+forms below you in the school, and never likely to soar
+much higher than the Second Fifth. Next term you will
+be in the Sixth, and by the summer I hope Desmond will
+have joined you. You will find<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> together. Of course
+Scaife can find with you, if you wish. I've spoken to him
+and Desmond."</p>
+
+<p>And so, John's fondest hope was realized. When he
+came back to the Manor, Desmond and he spent much time
+and rather more money than they could afford in making
+No. 7 the cosiest room in the house. Consciences were
+salved thus:&mdash;John bought for Desmond some picture or
+other decorative object which cost more money than he
+felt justified in spending on himself; then Desmond made
+John a similar present. It was whipping the devil round
+the stump, John said, but oh! the delight of giving his
+friend something he coveted, and receiving presents from
+him in return.</p>
+
+<p>During this term, Scaife became one of the school
+racquet-players. In many ways he was admittedly the
+most remarkable boy at Harrow, the Admirable Crichton
+who appears now and again in every decade. He won the
+high jump and the hurdle-race. These triumphs kept him
+out of mischief, and occupied every minute of his time. He
+associated with the "Bloods," and one day Desmond told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+John that he considered himself to have been "dropped"
+by this tremendous swell. John discreetly held his tongue;
+but in his own mind, as before, he was convinced that
+Scaife and Desmond would come together again. The
+inexorable circumstance of Scaife's superiority at games had
+separated the boys, but only for a brief season. Desmond
+would become a "Blood" soon, and then it would be John's
+turn to be "dropped." Being a philosopher, our hero did
+not worry too much over the future, but made the most of
+the present, with a grateful and joyous heart. In his
+humility, he was unable to measure his influence on
+Desmond. In athletic pursuits an inferior, in all intellectual
+attainments he was pulling far ahead of his friend. The
+artful Warde had a word to say, which gave John food
+for thought.</p>
+
+<p>"You can never equal your friend at cricket or footer,
+Verney. If you wish to score, it is time to play your own
+game."</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after this, John realized that Warde had read
+C&aelig;sar aright. Charles Desmond's son, as has been said,
+acclaimed quality wherever he met it. John's intellectual
+advance amazed and then fascinated him. When John
+discovered this, he worked harder. Warde smiled. John
+ran second for the Prize Poem. He had genuine feeling
+for Nature, but he lacked as yet the technical ability to
+display it. A more practised versifier won the prize; but
+John's taste for history and literature secured him the
+Bourchier, not without a struggle which whetted to keenness
+every faculty he possessed. More, to his delight, he
+realized that his enthusiasm was contagious. C&aelig;sar
+entered eagerly into his friend's competitions; struggle
+and strife appealed to the Irishman. He talked over John's
+themes, read his verses, and predicted triumphs. Warde
+told John that C&aelig;sar Desmond might have stuck in the
+First Fifth, had it not been for this quickening of the clay.
+The days succeeded each other swiftly and smoothly.
+Warde was seen to smile more than ever during this term.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+Certain big fellows who opposed him were leaving or had
+already left. Bohun, now Head of the House, was a sturdy,
+straightforward monitor, not a famous athlete, but able to
+hold his own in any field of endeavour. Just before the
+Christmas holidays, Warde discovered, to his horror, that
+the drainage at the Manor was out of order. At great
+expense a new and perfect system was laid down. At last
+Warde told himself his house might be pronounced sanitary
+within and without.</p>
+
+<p>When the summer term came, Desmond joined John in
+the Sixth Form. They were entitled to single rooms, but
+they asked and obtained permission to remain in No. 7.
+Desmond was invested with the right to fag, and the right
+to "find." How blessed a privilege the right to find is,
+boys who have enjoyed it will attest. The cosy meals in
+one's own room, the pleasant talk, the sense of intimacy,
+the freedom from restraint. Custom stales all good things,
+but how delicious they taste at first!</p>
+
+<p>The privilege of fagging is not, however, unadulterated
+bliss. When Warde said to C&aelig;sar, "Well, Desmond, how
+do you like ordering about your slave?" Desmond replied,
+ruefully, "Well, sir, little Duff has broken my inkstand, spilt
+the ink on our new carpet, and let Verney's bullfinch escape.
+I think, on the whole, I'd as lief wait on myself."</p>
+
+<p>Early in June it became plain that unless the unforeseen
+occurred, Harrow would have a strong Eleven, and that
+Desmond would be a member of it. John and Fluff were
+playing in the Sixth Form game; but John had no chance
+of his Flannels, although he had improved in batting and
+bowling, thanks to Warde's indefatigable coaching. Scaife
+hardly ever spoke to John now, but occasionally he came
+into No. 7 to talk to Desmond. Upon these rare occasions
+John would generally find an excuse for leaving the room.
+Always, when he returned, Desmond seemed to be restless
+and perplexed. His admiration for Scaife had waxed
+rather than waned. Indeed, John himself, detesting Scaife&mdash;for
+it had come to that&mdash;fearing him on Desmond's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+account, admired him notwithstanding: captivated by his
+amazing grace, good looks, and audacity. His recklessness
+held even the "Bloods" spellbound. A coach ran through
+Harrow in the afternoons of that season. Scaife made a
+bet that he would drive this coach from one end of the
+High Street to the other, under the very nose of Authority.
+The rules of the school set forth rigorously that no boy is to
+drive in or on any vehicle whatever. Only the Cycle Corps
+are allowed to use bicycles. Scaife's bet, you may be sure,
+excited extraordinary interest. He won it easily, disguised
+as the coachman&mdash;a make-up clever enough to deceive
+even those who were in the secret. His friends knew that
+he kept two polo-ponies at Wembley. One afternoon he
+dared to play in a match against the Nondescripts. Warde's
+daughter, just out of the schoolroom, happened to be
+present, and she rubbed her lovely eyes when she saw Scaife
+careering over the field. Scaife laughed when he saw her;
+but before she left the ground a note had reached her.</p>
+
+<div class="lett1"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Miss Warde</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure that you have too much sporting
+blood in your veins to tell your father that you have seen
+me playing polo.</p>
+
+<p class="author">"Yours very sincerely,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 7em;">"<span class="smcap">Reginald Scaife.</span>"</span></p></div>
+
+<p>To run such risks seemed to John madness; to Desmond
+it indicated genius.</p>
+
+<p>"There never was such a fellow," said C&aelig;sar to John.</p>
+
+<p>When C&aelig;sar spoke in that tone John knew that Scaife
+had but to hold up a finger, and that C&aelig;sar would come to
+him even as a bird drops into the jaws of a snake. C&aelig;sar
+was strong, but the Demon was stronger.</p>
+
+<p>After the Zingari Match, Desmond got his Flannels.
+He was cheered at six Bill. Everybody liked him; everybody
+was proud of him, proud of his father, proud of the
+long line of Desmonds, all distinguished, good-looking, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+with charming manners. The School roared its satisfaction.
+John stood a little back, by the cloisters. C&aelig;sar ran past
+him, down the steps and into the street, hat in hand,
+blushing like a girl. John felt a lump in his throat. He
+thrilled because glory shone about his friend; but the
+poignant reflection came, that C&aelig;sar was running swiftly,
+out of the Yard and out of his own life. And before lock-up
+he saw, what he had seen in fancy a thousand times, C&aelig;sar
+arm-in-arm with Scaife and the Captain of the Eleven,
+C&aelig;sar in his new straw,<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> looking happier than John had
+ever seen him, C&aelig;sar, the "Blood," rolling triumphantly
+down the High Street, the envied of all beholders, the hero
+of the hour.</p>
+
+<p>John called himself a selfish beast, because he had
+wished for one terrible moment, wished with heart and soul,
+that C&aelig;sar was unpopular and obscure.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> The place of execution.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> "Finding" is the privilege, accorded to the Sixth Form, of having
+breakfast and tea served in their own rooms instead of in Hall.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> The black-and-white straw hat only worn by members of the School
+Cricket Eleven.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Self-questioning</i></h3>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 15em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Friend, of my infinite dreams<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Little enough endures;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Little howe'er it seems,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It is yours, all yours.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fame hath a fleeting breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hope may be frail or fond;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Love shall be Love till death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And perhaps beyond."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Until the</span> Metropolitan Railway joined Harrow to Baker
+Street, the Hill stood in the midst of genuine and unspoilt
+country, separated by five miles of grass from the nearest
+point of the metropolis, and encompassed by isolated
+dwellings, ranging in rank and scale from villas to country
+houses.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> Most of the latter have fallen victims to the
+speculative builder, and have been cut up into alleys of
+brick and stucco. But one or two still remain among their
+hayfields and rhododendrons.</p>
+
+<p>John Verney had an eager curiosity, not common in
+schoolboys, to know something about the countryside in
+which he dwelt. As a Lower Boy, whenever released from
+"Compulsory" and House-games, he used to wander with
+alert eyes and ears up and down the green lanes of Roxeth
+and Harrow Weald, enjoying fresh glimpses of the far-seen
+Spire, making friends with cottagers, picking up traditions
+of an older and more lawless<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> epoch, and, with these, an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+ever-increasing love and loyalty to Harrow. So Byron had
+wandered a hundred years before.</p>
+
+<p>These solitary rambles, however, were regarded with
+disfavour by schoolfellows who lacked John's imaginative
+temperament. The Caterpillar, for instance, protested,
+"Did I see you hobnobbing with a chaw the other day? I
+thought so; and you looked like a confounded bughunter."
+The Duffer's notions of topography were bounded by the
+cricket-ground on the one side of the Hill, and the footer-fields
+on the other; and his traditions held nothing much
+more romantic than A. J. Webbe's scores at Lord's. Fluff,
+as has been said, was too far removed from John to make
+him more than an occasional companion. And so, for
+several terms, John, for the most part, walked alone. By
+the time Desmond joined him, he had gleaned a knowledge
+which fascinated a friend of like sensibility and imagination.
+Together they revisited the old and explored the new. One
+never-to-be-forgotten day the boys discovered a deserted
+house of some pretensions about a mile from the Hill. Its
+grounds, covering several acres, were enclosed by a high oak
+paling, within which stood a thick belt of trees, effectually
+concealing what lay beyond. Grim iron gates, always
+locked, frowned upon the wayfarer; but John, flattening
+an inquisitive nose against the ironwork, could discern a
+carriage-drive overgrown with grass and weeds, and at the
+end of it a white stone portico. After this the place became
+to both boys a sort of Enchanted Castle. A dozen times
+they peered through the gates. No one went in or out of
+the grass-grown drive. The gatekeeper's lodge was uninhabited;
+there were no adjacent cottages where information
+might be sought. The boys called it "The Haunted
+House," and peopled it with ghosts; gorgeous bucks of the
+Regency, languishing beauties such as Lawrence painted,
+fiery politicians, duellists, mysterious black-a-vised
+foreigners. John connected it in fancy with the days when
+the gorgeous Duke of Chandos (who had Handel for his
+chapel-organist and was a Governor of Harrow and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+guardian of Lord Rodney) kept court at Cannons. He told
+C&aelig;sar anecdotes of Dr. Parr, with his preposterous wig,
+his clouds of tobacco, his sesquipedalian quotations, coming
+down from Stanmore; and also of the great Lord Abercorn,
+another Governor of the school, who used to go out shooting
+in the blue riband of the Garter, and who entertained Pitt
+and Sir Walter Scott at Bentley Priory.</p>
+
+<p>"What a lot you know!" said C&aelig;sar. "And you have
+a memory like my father's. I'm beginning to think,
+Jonathan, that you'll be a swell like him some day&mdash;in the
+Cabinet, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said John, with shining eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I shall live to see it," Desmond added, with
+feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, old chap. A crust or a triumph shared with
+a pal tastes twice as good."</p>
+
+<p>One soft afternoon in spring, after four Bill, Desmond and
+John were approaching the iron gates of the Haunted House.
+They had not taken this particular walk since the day when
+Desmond got his Flannels. During the winter term, Scaife
+and Desmond became members of the Football Eleven.
+During this term Scaife won the hundred yards and quarter-mile;
+Desmond won the half-mile and mile. In a word,
+they had done, from the athletic point of view, nearly all
+that could be done. A glorious victory at Lord's seemed
+assured. Scaife, Captain and epitome of the brains and
+muscles of the Eleven, had grown into a powerful man, with
+the mind, the tastes, the passions of manhood. Desmond, on
+the other hand, while nearly as tall (and much handsomer
+in John's eyes), still retained the look of youth. Indeed, he
+looked younger than John, although a year his senior; and
+John knew himself to be the elder and wiser, knew that
+Desmond leaned upon him whenever a crutch was wanted.</p>
+
+<p>The chief difficulty which besets a school friendship
+between two boys is that of being alone together. In Form,
+in the playing-fields, in the boarding-house, life is public.
+Even in the most secluded lane, a Harrow boy is not secure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
+against the unwelcome salutations of heated athletes who
+have been taking a cross-country run, or leaping over, or
+into, the Pinner brook. To John the need of sanctuary
+had become pressing.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this blessed spring afternoon&mdash;ever afterwards
+recalled with special affection&mdash;a retreat was suddenly
+provided. As the boys jumped over the last stile into the
+lane which led to the Haunted House, Desmond exclaimed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, the gates are open!"</p>
+
+<p>Then they saw that a man, a sort of caretaker, was in the
+act of shutting them.</p>
+
+<p>"May we go in?" John asked civilly.</p>
+
+<p>The man hesitated, eyeing the boys. Desmond's smile
+melted him, as it would have melted a mummy.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing to see," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Then, in answer to a few eager questions, he told the
+story of the Haunted House; haunted, indeed, by the ghosts
+of what might have been. A city magnate owned the place.
+He had bought it because he wished to educate his only son
+at Harrow as a "Home-Boarder," or day-boy. A few weeks
+before the boy should have joined the school, he fell ill with
+diphtheria, and died. The mother, who nursed him, caught
+the disease and died also. The father, left alone, turned his
+back upon a place he loathed, resolving to hold it till
+building-values increased, but never to set eyes on it again.
+The caretaker and his wife occupied a couple of rooms in
+the house.</p>
+
+<p>The boys glanced at the house, a common-place mansion,
+and began to explore the gardens. To their delight they
+found in the shrubberies, now a wilderness of laurel and
+rhododendron, a tower&mdash;what our forefathers called a
+"Gazebo," and their neighbours a "Folly." The top of it
+commanded a wide, unbroken view&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 18em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Of all the lowland western lea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Uxbridge flats and meadows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To where the Ruislip waters see<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Oxhey lights and shadows."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>"There's the Spire," said John.</p>
+
+<p>The man, who had joined them, nodded. "Yes," said
+he, "and my mistress and her boy are buried underneath it.
+She wanted him to be there&mdash;at the school, I mean&mdash;and
+there he is."</p>
+
+<p>"We're very much obliged to you," said Desmond. He
+slipped a shilling into the man's hand, and added, "May
+we stay here for a bit? and perhaps we might come again&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir," the man replied, touching his hat.
+"Come whenever you like, sir. The gates ain't really
+locked. I'll show you the trick of opening 'em when you
+come down."</p>
+
+<p>He descended the steep flight of steps after the boys
+had thanked him.</p>
+
+<p>"Sad story," said John, staring at the distant Spire.</p>
+
+<p>Desmond hesitated. At times he revealed (to John
+alone) a curious melancholy.</p>
+
+<p>"Sad," he repeated. "I don't know about that. Sad
+for the father, of course, but perhaps the son is well out of
+it. Don't look so amazed, Jonathan. Most fellows seem
+to make awful muddles of their lives. You won't, of
+course. I see you on pinnacles, but I&mdash;&mdash;" He broke
+off with a mirthless laugh.</p>
+
+<p>John waited. The air about them was soft and moist
+after a recent shower. The south-west wind stirred the
+pulses. Earth was once more tumid, about to bring forth.
+Already the hedges were green under the brown; bulbs were
+pushing delicate spears through the sweet-smelling soil; the
+buds upon a clump of fine beeches had begun to open. In
+this solitude, alone with teeming nature, John tried to
+interpret his friend's mood; but the spirit of melancholy
+eluded him, as if it were a will-o'-the-wisp dancing over an
+impassable marsh. Suddenly, there came to him, as there
+had come to the quicker imagination of his friend, the overpowering
+mystery of Spring, the sense of inevitable change,
+the impossibility of arresting it. At the moment all things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+seemed unsubstantial. Even the familiar Spire, powdered
+with gold by the slanting rays of the sun, appeared thinly
+transparent against the rosy mists behind it. The Hill, the
+solid Hill, rose out of the valley, a lavender-coloured shade
+upon the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>"He came here," continued Desmond, dreamily&mdash;John
+guessed that he was speaking of the father&mdash;"a rich,
+prosperous man. I dare say he worked like a slave in the
+city. And he wanted peace and quiet after the Stock
+Exchange. Who wouldn't? And he planted out these
+gardens, thinking that every plant would grow up and
+thrive, and his son with them. And then the boy died;
+and the wife followed; and the enchanted castle became
+a place of horror; and now it is a wilderness. Haunted?
+I should think it was&mdash;haunted! I wish we'd never set
+foot in it. There's a curse on it."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Too late. We'll stay now, and we'll come again, every
+Sunday. Wild and desolate as things look, they will be
+lovely when we get back in summer. Don't talk. I'm
+going to light a pipe."</p>
+
+<p>Through the circling cloud of tobacco-smoke John stared
+at the face which had illumined nearly every hour of his
+school-life. Its peculiar vividness always amazed John, the
+vitality of it, and yet the perfect delicacy. Scaife's handsome
+features were full of vitality also, but coarseness underlay
+their bold lines and peered out of the keen, flashing eyes.
+When the Caterpillar left Harrow he had said to John&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, Jonathan. Awful rot your going to such
+a hole as Oxford! One has had quite enough schooling
+after five years here. It's settled I'm going into the Guards.
+My father tells me that old Scaife tried to get the Demon
+down on the Duke's list. But we don't fancy the Scaife
+brand."</p>
+
+<p>Often and often John wondered whether Desmond saw
+the brand as plainly as the Caterpillar and he did. Sometimes
+he felt almost sure that a word, a look, a gesture<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+betraying the bounder, had revolted Desmond; but a few
+hours later the bounder bounded into favour again, captivating
+eye and heart by some brilliant feat. And then his
+brains! He was so diabolically clever. John could always
+recall his face as he lay back in the chair in No. 15, sick,
+bruised, befuddled, and yet even in that moment of extreme
+prostration able to "play the game," as he put it, to defeat
+house-master and doctor by sheer strength of will and
+intellect. It was Scaife who had persuaded Desmond to
+smoke.... C&aelig;sar's voice broke in upon these meditations.</p>
+
+<p>"I say&mdash;what are you frowning about?"</p>
+
+<p>John, very red, replied nervously, "Now that you're
+in the Sixth, you ought to chuck smoking."</p>
+
+<p>"What rot!" said C&aelig;sar. "And here, in this tower,
+where one couldn't possibly be nailed&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's it," said John. "It's just because you can't
+possibly be nailed that it seems to me not quite square."</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar burst out laughing. "Jonathan, you <i>are</i> a rum
+'un. Anyway&mdash;here goes!"</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke he flung the pipe into the bushes below.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," said John, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll come here again. I like this old tower."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't come here without me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ho! I'm not to let the Demon into our paradise&mdash;eh?
+What a jealous old bird you are! Well, I like you
+to be jealous." And he laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"I am jealous," said John, slowly.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The School broke up on the following Tuesday, and
+Desmond went home with John.</p>
+
+<p>This happened to be the first time that the friends had
+spent Easter together. John wondered whether C&aelig;sar
+would take the Sacrament with his mother and him. He
+and C&aelig;sar had been confirmed side by side in the Chapel at
+Harrow. He felt sure that Desmond would not refuse if he
+were asked. On Easter Eve, Mrs. Verney said, in her quiet,
+persuasive voice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You will join us to-morrow morning, Harry?"</p>
+
+<p>Desmond flushed, and said, "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Not remembering his own mother, who had died when
+he was a child, he often told John that he felt like a son to
+Mrs. Verney. Upon Easter morning, the three met in the
+hall, and Desmond asked for a Prayer-book.</p>
+
+<p>"I've lost mine," he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon, when they were alone upon the splendid
+moor above Stoneycross, Desmond said suddenly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Religion means a lot to you, Jonathan, doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But you never talk about it."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how to begin."</p>
+
+<p>"There's such sickening hypocrisy in this world."</p>
+
+<p>John nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"But your religion is a help to you, eh? Keeps you
+straight?"</p>
+
+<p>John nodded again. Then Desmond said with an air of
+finality&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I'd some of your faith. I want it badly."</p>
+
+<p>"If you want it badly, you will get it."</p>
+
+<p>A long silence succeeded. Then Desmond exclaimed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo! By Jove, there's a fox, a splendid fellow!
+He's come up here amongst the rabbits for a Sunday
+dinner. Gone awa-a-a-ay!"</p>
+
+<p>He put his hand to his mouth and halloaed. A minute
+later he was talking of hunting. Religion was not mentioned
+till they were approaching the house for tea. On
+the threshold, Desmond said with a nervous laugh&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like your mother to give me a Prayer-book&mdash;a
+small one, nothing expensive."</p>
+
+<p>During the following week they hunted with foxhounds
+or staghounds every day, except Wednesday.
+In the New Forest the Easter hunting is unique. Tremendous
+fellows come down from the shires&mdash;masters of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
+famous packs, thrusters, keen to see May foxes killed.
+And the Forest entertains them handsomely, you may be
+sure. Big hampers are unpacked under the oaks which
+may have been saplings when William Rufus ruled in
+England; there are dinners, and, of course, a hunt-ball in
+the ancient village of Lyndhurst. But as each pleasant
+day passed, John told himself that the end was drawing
+near. This was almost the last holidays C&aelig;sar and he
+would spend together; and, afterwards, would this friendship,
+so romantic a passion with one at least of them&mdash;would
+it wither away, or would it endure to the end?</p>
+
+<p>At the end of a fortnight, Desmond returned to Eaton
+Square. Upon the eve of departure, Mrs. Verney gave
+him a small Prayer-book.</p>
+
+<p>"I have written something in it," she said; "but
+don't open it now."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the fly-leaf as the train rolled out of
+Lyndhurst Station. Upon it, in Mrs. Verney's delicate
+handwriting, were a few lines. First his name and the
+date. Below, a text&mdash;"Unto whomsoever much is given,
+of him shall be much required." And, below that again, a
+verse&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 18em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Not thankful when it pleaseth me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if Thy blessings had spare days:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But such a heart whose pulse may be&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Thy praise."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>Desmond stared at the graceful writing long after the
+train had passed Totton. "Am I ungrateful?" he asked
+himself. "Not to them," he muttered; "surely not to
+them." He recalled what Warde had said about ingratitude
+being the unpardonable sin. Ah! it was loathsome,
+ingratitude! And much had been given to him. How
+much? For the first time he made, so to speak, an inventory
+of what he had received&mdash;his innumerable blessings.
+<i>What had he given in return?</i> And now the fine handwriting
+seemed blurred; he saw it through tears which he
+ought to have shed. "Oh, my God," he murmured, "am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
+I ungrateful?" The question bit deeper into his mind,
+sinking from there into his soul.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When the School reassembled, a curious incident
+occurred. John happened to be going up the fine flight of
+steps that leads to the Old Schools. He was carrying some
+books and papers. Scaife, running down the steps, charged
+into him. By great good fortune, no damage was done
+except to a nicely-bound Sophocles. John, however, felt
+assured that Scaife had deliberately intended to knock him
+down, seized, possibly, by an ecstasy of blind rage not
+uncommon with him. Scaife smiled derisively, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A thousand apologies, Verney."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>One</i> is enough," John replied, "if it is sincere."</p>
+
+<p>They eyed each other steadily. John read a furious
+challenge in Scaife's bold eyes&mdash;more, a menace, the
+threatening frown of power thwarted. Scaife seemed to
+expand, to fill the horizon, to blot out the glad sunshine.
+Once again the curious certainty gripped the younger that
+Scaife was indeed the personification of evil, the more
+malefic because it stalked abroad masked. For Scaife had
+outlived his reputation as a breaker of the law. Since that
+terrible experience in the Fourth Form Room, he had paid
+tithe of mint and cummin. As a Sixth Form boy he upheld
+authority, laughing the while in his sleeve. He knew, of
+course, that one mistake, one slip, would be fatal. And he
+prided himself on not making mistakes. He gambled, but
+not with boys; he drank, not with boys; he denied his
+body nothing it craved; but he never forgot that expulsion
+from Harrow meant the loss of a commission in a smart
+cavalry regiment. When it was intimated to him that the
+Guards did not want his father's son, he laughed bitterly,
+and swore to himself that he would show the stuck-up snobs
+what a soldier they had turned away. A soldier he fully
+intended to be&mdash;a dashing cavalry leader, if the Fates were
+kind. His luck would stand by him; if not&mdash;why&mdash;what
+was life without luck? He had never been a reader, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
+he read now the lives of soldiers. Murat, Uxbridge,
+Cardigan, Hodson, were his heroes. Talking of their
+achievements, he inflamed his own mind and Desmond's.</p>
+
+<p>The pleasant summer days passed. May melted into
+June. And each Sunday John and Desmond walked to the
+Haunted House, ascended the tower, and talked. Scaife
+was leaving at the end of the summer. Desmond was
+staying on for the winter term; then John would have him
+entirely to himself. This thought illumined dark hours,
+when he saw his friend whirled away by Scaife, transported,
+as it were, by the irresistible power of the man of action.
+That nothing should be wanting to that trebly-fortunate
+youth, he had helped to win the Public Schools' Racquets
+Championship. The Manor was now the crack house&mdash;cock-house
+at racquets and football, certain to be cock-house
+at cricket. And Scaife got most of the credit, not
+Warde, who smiled more than ever, and talked continually
+of Balliol Scholarships. He never bragged of victories past.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, John was devoting all energies to the competition
+for the Prize Essay. The Head Master had propounded
+as theme: "The History and Influence of Parliamentary
+Oratory." Bit by bit, John read or declaimed it
+to Desmond. Then, according to custom, Desmond copied
+it out for his friend. Signed "<i>Spero Infestis</i>," with a sealed
+envelope containing John's name inside and the motto
+outside, the MS. was placed in the Head Master's letter-box.
+John, cooling rapidly after the fever of composition, condemned
+his stuff as hopelessly bad; C&aelig;sar went about
+telling everybody that Jonathan would win easily, "with a
+bit to spare." John did win, but that proved to be the
+least part of his triumph. The Essay had to be declaimed
+upon Speech Day. Once more John experienced the pangs
+that had twisted him at the concert, long ago, when he had
+sung to the Nation's hero. And as before, he began weakly.
+Then, the fire seizing him, self-consciousness was exorcised
+by feeling, and forgetful of the hundreds of faces about him,
+he burst into genuine oratory. Thrilled himself, he thrilled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
+others. His voice faltered again, but with an emotion that
+found an echo in the hearts of his audience; his hand shook,
+feeling the pulse of old and young in front of him. Dominated,
+swept away by his theme, he dominated others.
+When he finished, in the silence that preceded the roar of
+applause, he knew that he had triumphed, for he saw
+Desmond's glowing countenance, radiant with pleasure,
+transfigured by amazement and admiration. Next day a
+great newspaper hailed the Harrow boy as one destined to
+delight and to lead, perhaps, an all-conquering party in
+the House of Commons. And yet, warmed to the core by
+this praise, John counted it as nothing compared with his
+mother's smile and Desmond's fervent grip.</p>
+
+<p>Fortune, however, comes to no man&mdash;or boy&mdash;with both
+hands full. Immediately after Speech Day, John's bubble
+of pride and happiness was pricked by Scaife. Midsummer
+madness seized the Demon. One may conceive that the
+innate recklessness of his nature, suppressed by an iron will,
+and smouldering throughout many months, burst at last
+into flame. Desmond told John that the Demon had
+spent a riotous night in town. He had slipped out of the
+Manor after prayers, had driven up to a certain club in
+Regent Street, returned in time for first school, fresh as
+paint&mdash;so Desmond said&mdash;and then, not content with such
+an achievement, must needs brag of it to Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"And if he's nailed, Eton wins," concluded Desmond.
+"I've told you, because together we must put a stop to
+such larks."</p>
+
+<p>John slightly raised his thick eyebrows. It was curious
+that C&aelig;sar always chose to ignore the hatred which he must
+have known to exist between his two friends. Or did he
+fatuously believe that, because John exercised an influence
+over himself, the same influence would or could be exercised
+over Scaife?</p>
+
+<p>"We?" said John.</p>
+
+<p>"I've tried and failed. But together, I say&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't interfere, C&aelig;sar."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Jonathan, you must."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a fool's errand."</p>
+
+<p>"We three have gone up the School together. You have
+never been fair to Scaife. I tell you he's sound at core.
+Why, after he was swished&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Desmond told John what had passed; John shook his
+head. He could understand better than any one else why
+Scaife had broken down.</p>
+
+<p>"He has splendid ambitions," pursued Desmond.
+"He's going to be a great soldier, you see. He thinks of
+nothing else. You never have liked him, but because of
+that I thought you would do what you could."</p>
+
+<p>The disappointment and chagrin in his voice shook
+John's resolution.</p>
+
+<p>"To please you, I'll try."</p>
+
+<p>And accordingly the absurd experiment was made.
+Afterwards, John asked himself a thousand times why he
+had not foreseen the inevitable result. But the explanation
+is almost too simple to be recorded: he wished to convince
+a friend that he would attempt anything to prove his
+friendship.</p>
+
+<p>That night they went together to Scaife's room. The
+second-best room in the Manor, situated upon the first floor,
+it overlooked the back of the garden, where there was a
+tangled thicket of laurustinus and rhododendron. Scaife
+had spent much money in making this room as comfortable
+as possible. It had the appearance of a man's room, and
+presented all the characteristics of the man who lived in it.
+Everything connected with Scaife's triumphal march
+through the School was preserved. On the walls were his
+caps, fezes, and cups. You could hardly see the paper for
+the framed photographs of Scaife and his fellow "bloods."
+Scaife as cricketer, Scaife as football-player, Scaife as
+racquet-player and athlete, stared boldly and triumphantly
+at you. He had a fine desk covered with massive silver
+ornaments. Upon this, as upon everything else in the
+room, was the hall-mark of the successful man of business.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+The papers, the pens and pencils, the filed bills and letters,
+the books of reference, spoke eloquently of a mind that used
+order as a means to a definite end. All his books were well
+bound. His boots were on trees. His racquets were in
+their press. Had you opened his chest of drawers, you
+would have found his clothes in perfect condition. Obviously,
+to an observant eye, the owner of this room gave his
+mind to details, because he realized that on details hang
+great and successful enterprises.</p>
+
+<p>Scaife stared at John, but welcomed him civilly enough.
+Cricket, of course, explained this unexpected visit. As
+Desmond blurted out what was in his mind, Scaife frowned;
+then he laughed unpleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>"And so I told Jonathan," concluded Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"So you told Jonathan," repeated Scaife. "Are you
+in the habit of telling Jonathan,"&mdash;the derisive inflection as
+he pronounced the name warned John at least that he had
+much better have stayed away&mdash;"things which concern
+others and which don't concern him?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you're going to take it like that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Keep cool, C&aelig;sar. I'll admit that you mean well.
+I should like to hear what Verney has to say."</p>
+
+<p>At that John spoke&mdash;haltingly. Fluent speech upon
+any subject very dear to him had always been difficult. He
+could talk glibly enough about ordinary topics; his sense
+of humour, his retentive memory, made him welcome even
+in the critical society of Eaton Square, but you know him
+as a creature of unplumbed reserves. The matter in hand
+was so vital that he could not touch it with firm hands or
+voice. He spoke at his worst, and he knew it; concluding
+an incoherent and slightly inarticulate recital of the reasons
+which ought to keep Scaife in his house at night with a
+lame "Two heads ought to prevail against one."</p>
+
+<p>Scaife showed his fine teeth. "You think that? Your
+head and C&aelig;sar's against mine?"</p>
+
+<p>The challenge revealed itself in the derisive, sneering
+tone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>John shrugged his shoulders and rose. "I have blundered;
+I am sorry."</p>
+
+<p>"Hold hard," said Scaife. He read censure upon
+Desmond's ingenuous countenance. Then his temper
+whipped him to a furious resentment against John, as an
+enemy who had turned the tables with good breeding; who
+had gained, indeed, a victory against odds. Scaife drew in
+his breath; his brows met in a frown. "You have not
+blundered; and you are not sorry," he said deliberately.
+"I'm not a fool, Verney; but perhaps I have underrated
+your ability. You're as clever as they make 'em. You
+knew well enough that you were the last person in the world
+to lead me in a string; you knew that, I say, and yet you
+come here to pose as the righteous youth, doing his duty&mdash;eh?&mdash;against
+odds, and accepting credit for the same from
+C&aelig;sar. Why, it's plain to me as the nose upon your face
+that in your heart you would like me to be sacked."</p>
+
+<p>Desmond interrupted. "You are mad, Demon. Take
+that back; take it back!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ask him," said Scaife. "He hates me, and common
+decency ought to have kept him out of this room. But he's
+not a liar. Ask him. Put it your own way. Soften it,
+make pap of it, if you like, but get an answer."</p>
+
+<p>"Jonathan, it is not true, is it? You don't like Scaife;
+but you would be sorry, very sorry, to see him&mdash;sacked."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad you've not funked it," said Scaife. "You've
+put it squarely. Let him answer it as squarely."</p>
+
+<p>John was white to the lips, white and trembling; despicable
+in his own eyes, how much more despicable,
+therefore, in the eyes of his friend, whose passionate faith
+in him was about to be scorched and shrivelled.</p>
+
+<p>Scaife began to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, don't laugh!" said Desmond. "Jonathan,
+I know you are too proud to defend yourself against
+such an abominable charge."</p>
+
+<p>"He's not a liar," said Scaife.</p>
+
+<p>"It's true," said John, in a strangled voice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You have wished that he might be sacked?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>John met Desmond's indignant eyes with an expression
+which the other was too impetuous, too inexperienced to
+interpret. Into that look of passionate reproach he flung
+all that must be left unsaid, all that Scaife could read as
+easily as if it were scored in letters of flame. Because, in
+his modesty and humility, he had ever reckoned that Scaife
+would prevail against himself&mdash;because, with unerring
+instinct, he had apprehended, as few boys could apprehend,
+the issues involved, he had desired, fervently desired, that
+Scaife should be swept from C&aelig;sar's path. But this he
+could not plead as an excuse to his friend; and Scaife had
+known that, and had used his knowledge with fiendish
+success. John lowered his eyes and walked from the room.</p>
+
+<p>When he met Desmond again, nothing was said on either
+side. John told himself that he would speak, if Desmond
+spoke first. But evidently Desmond had determined
+already the nature of their future relations. They no longer
+shared No. 7, John being in the Upper Sixth with a room
+to himself, but they still "found" together. To separate
+would mean a public scandal from which each shrank in
+horror. No; let them meet at meals as before till the end
+of the term. Indeed, so little change was made in their
+previous intercourse, that John began to hope that C&aelig;sar
+would walk with him as usual upon the following Sunday.
+And if he did&mdash;if he did, John felt that he would speak.
+On the top of the tower, looking towards the Spire, alone
+with his friend, exalted above the thorns and brambles of
+the wilderness, words would come to him.</p>
+
+<p>But on the following Sunday Desmond walked with Scaife.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Of these, the Park, now a boarding-house, was a characteristic
+specimen. It belonged to Lord Northwick, Lord of the Manor of
+Harrow.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> In the thirties Harrow boys played "Jack o' Lantern," or nocturnal
+Hare and Hounds. They used to attend Kingsbury Races
+and Pinner Fair. Lord Alexander Russell, when he was a boy at the
+Grove, kept a pack of beagles at the foot of the Hill.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3><i>"Lord's"</i></h3>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 18em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"There we sat in the circle vast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hard by the tents, from noon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And looked as the day went slowly past<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the runs came all too soon;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And never, I think, in the years gone by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Since cricketer first went in,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Did the dying so refuse to die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or the winning so hardly win."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">My dear</span> Jonathan, I'm delighted to see you. You know
+my father, I think?" It was the Caterpillar that spoke.</p>
+
+<p>John shook hands with Colonel Egerton.</p>
+
+<p>The three were standing in the Members' Enclosure at
+Lord's. The Caterpillar, gorgeous in frock-coat, with three
+corn-flowers<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> in the lapel of it, was about as great a buck
+as his sire, quite as conspicuous, and, seemingly, as cool.
+It happened to be a blazing hot day, but heat seldom
+affected Colonel Egerton.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove," he said to John, "I'm told it's a certainty
+this year, and I've come early, too early for me, to see a
+glorious victory. There's civil war raging on the top of
+the Trent coach, I give you my word."</p>
+
+<p>"We've won the toss," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, there's Charles Desmond, an early bird, too."</p>
+
+<p>He bustled away, leaving John and the Caterpillar
+together. The great ground in front of them was being
+cleared. One could see, through the few people scattered
+here and there, the wickets pitched in the middle of that
+vast expanse of lawn, and the umpires in their long white
+coats. Upon the top of the steps, in the middle of the
+pavilion, the Eton captain was collecting his Eleven. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
+Duffer, who had got his Flannels at the last moment, came
+up and joined John and the Caterpillar.</p>
+
+<p>"The Manor's well to the front," said the Caterpillar.
+"By Jove! I never thought to see Fluff in the Eleven."</p>
+
+<p>"Fluff came on tremendously this term," the Duffer
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course the Kinlochs are a cricketing family."</p>
+
+<p>"Good joke the brothers playing against each other,"
+said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Warde," the Duffer nodded in the direction of Warde,
+who was talking with Charles Desmond and Colonel Egerton,
+"has worked like a slave. He made a cricketer out
+of Fluff and a scholar out of Jonathan. He's so mad keen
+to see us win, that he's given me the jumps."</p>
+
+<p>"You must keep cool," the Caterpillar murmured.
+"I've just come from the Trent coach. Fluff has it from
+the brother who is playing that the Eton bowling is weak.
+But Strathpeffer, the eldest son, tells me the batsmen are
+stronger than last year. He seemed anxious to bet; so
+we have a fiver about it. They're taking the field."</p>
+
+<p>The Eton Eleven walked towards the wicket, loudly
+cheered. C&aelig;sar came up in his pads, carrying his bat and
+gloves. He shook hands with the Caterpillar, and said,
+with a groan, that he had to take the first ball.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep cool," said the Caterpillar. "The bowling's
+weak; I have it from Cosmo Kinloch. They're in a
+precious funk."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I," said the Duffer.</p>
+
+<p>"But you're a bowler," said Desmond. "If I get out
+first ball, I shall cut my throat."</p>
+
+<p>But C&aelig;sar looked alert, cool, and neither under- nor
+over-confident.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll cut the ball, not your throat," said the Duffer.
+Cutting was C&aelig;sar's strong point.</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar nodded, and spoke oracularly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My governor says he never shoots at a snipe without
+muttering to himself, 'Snipe on toast.' It steadies his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+nerves. When you see the ball leave the bowler's hand,
+you say to yourself, 'Eton on toast.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Your own, Caterpillar?"</p>
+
+<p>"My own," said the Caterpillar, modestly. "I don't
+often make a joke, but that's mine. Pass it on."</p>
+
+<p>The other Harrovian about to go in beckoned to Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"C&aelig;sar won't be bowled first ball," said the Caterpillar.
+"He's the sort that rises to an emergency. Can't we find
+a seat?"</p>
+
+<p>They sat down and watched the Eton captain placing
+his field. Desmond and his companion were walking
+slowly towards the wickets amid Harrow cheers. The
+cheering was lukewarm as yet. It would have fire enough
+in it presently. The Caterpillar pointed out some of the
+swells.</p>
+
+<p>"That's old Lyburn. Hasn't missed a match since '64.
+Was brought here once with a broken leg! Carried in a
+litter, by Jove! That fellow with the long, white beard is
+Lord Fawley. He made 78 <i>not out</i> in the days of Charlemagne."</p>
+
+<p>"It was in '53," said the Duffer, who never joked on
+really serious subjects; "and he made 68, not 78. He's
+pulling his beard. I believe he's as nervous as I am."</p>
+
+<p>Presently the innumerable voices about them were
+hushed; all eyes turned in one direction. Desmond was
+about to take the first ball. It was delivered moderately
+fast, with a slight break. Desmond played forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Well played, sir! Well pla-a-ayed!"</p>
+
+<p>The shout rumbled round the huge circle. The beginning
+and the end of a great match are always thrilling.
+The second and third balls were played like the first. John
+could hear Mr. Desmond saying to Warde, "He has Hugo's
+style and way of standing&mdash;eh?" And Warde replied,
+"Yes; but he's a finer batsman. Ah-h-h!"</p>
+
+<p>The first real cheer burst like a bomb. Desmond had
+cut the sixth ball to the boundary.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Over! The new bowler was a tall, thin boy with flaxen hair.</p>
+
+<p>"That's Cosmo Kinloch, Fluff's brother," said John.
+"I wonder they can't do better than that. Even I knocked
+him all over the shop at White Ladies last summer."</p>
+
+<p>"He's come on, they tell me," said the Caterpillar.
+"Good Lord, he nearly had him first ball."</p>
+
+<p>Fluff's brother bowled slows of a good length, with an
+awkward break from the off to the leg.</p>
+
+<p>"Teasers," said the Caterpillar, critically. "Hullo!
+No, my young friend, that may do well enough in Shropshire,
+not here."</p>
+
+<p>A ball breaking sharply from the off had struck the
+batsman's pad; he had stepped in front of his wicket to
+cut it. Country umpires are often beguiled by bowlers
+into giving wrong decisions in such cases; not so your
+London expert. Cosmo Kinloch appealed&mdash;in vain.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll send a short one down now," said John. "You see."</p>
+
+<p>And, sure enough, a long hop came to the off, curling
+inwards after it pitched. The Eton captain had nearly all
+his men on the off side. The Harrovian pulled the ball
+right round to the boundary.</p>
+
+<p>"Well hit!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well pulled!"</p>
+
+<p>"Two 4's; that's a good beginning," said the Duffer.</p>
+
+<p>A couple of singles followed, and then the first "10"
+went up amid cheers.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's my governor," said the Duffer. "He was three
+years in the Eleven and Captain his last term."</p>
+
+<p>"You've told us that a thousand times," said the Caterpillar.</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. Septimus Duff greeted the boys warmly. His
+eyes sparkled out of a cheery, bearded face. Look at him
+well. An Harrovian of the Harrovians this. His grandfathers
+on the maternal and paternal side had been friends
+at Harrow in Byron's time. The Rev. Septimus wore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+rather a shabby coat and a terrible hat, but the consummate
+Caterpillar, who respected pedigrees, regarded him with
+pride and veneration. He came up from his obscure West
+Country vicarage to town just once a year&mdash;to see the
+match. If you asked him, he would tell you quite simply
+that he would sooner see the match and his old friends than
+go to Palestine; and the Rev. Septimus had yearned to
+visit Palestine ever since he left Cambridge; and it is not
+likely that this great wish will ever be gratified. He is the
+father of three sons, but the Duffer is the first to get into
+the Eleven. Charles Desmond joins them. At the moment,
+Charles Desmond is supposed to be one of the most
+harried men in the Empire. Times are troublous. A war-cloud,
+as large as Kruger's hand, has just risen in the
+South, and is spreading itself over the whole world. But
+to-day the great Minister has left the cares of office in
+Downing Street. He hails the Rev. Septimus with a genial
+laugh and a hearty grasp of the hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Sep, upon your word of honour, now&mdash;would you
+sooner be here to see the Duffer take half a dozen wickets,
+or be down in Somerset, Bishop of Bath and Wells?"</p>
+
+<p>"When <i>you</i> offer me the bishopric," replied the Rev.
+Septimus, with a twinkle, "I'll answer that question, my
+dear Charles, and not before."</p>
+
+<p>"You old humbug! You're so puffed up with sinful
+pride that you've stuck your topper on to your head the
+wrong way about."</p>
+
+<p>"Bless my soul," said the Duffer's father, "so I
+have."</p>
+
+<p>"That topper of the governor's," the Duffer remarked
+solemnly, "has seen twenty-five matches at least."</p>
+
+<p>John looked at no hats; his eyes were on the pitch.
+Another round of cheers proclaimed that "20" had gone
+up. Both boys are batting steadily; no more boundary
+hits; a snick here, a snack there&mdash;and then&mdash;merciful
+Heavens!&mdash;C&aelig;sar has cut a curling ball "bang" into short
+slip's hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Short slip&mdash;wretched youth&mdash;muffs it! Derisive remarks
+from Rev. Septimus.</p>
+
+<p>"Well caught! Well held! Tha-a-nks!"</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar would pronounce this sort of chaff bad
+form in a contemporary. He removes his hat.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove!" says he. "It's very warm."</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar times the next ball beautifully. It glides past
+point and under the ropes.</p>
+
+<p>Early as it is, the ground seems to be packed with
+people. Glorious weather has allured everybody. Stand
+after stand is filled up. The colour becomes kaleidoscopic.
+The Rev. Septimus, during the brief interval of an over,
+allows his eyes to stray round the huge circle. Upon the
+ground are the youth, the beauty, the rank and fashion of
+the kingdom, and, best of all, his old friends. The Rev.
+Septimus has a weakness, being, of course, human to the
+finger-tips. He calls himself a <i>laudator temporis acti</i>. In
+his day, the match was less of a function. The boys sat
+round upon the grass; behind them were the carriages and
+coaches&mdash;you could drive on to the ground then!&mdash;and
+here and there, only here and there, a tent or a small stand.
+<i>Consule Planco</i>&mdash;the parson loves a Latin tag&mdash;the match
+was an immense picnic for Harrovians and Etonians. And,
+my word, you ought to have heard the chaff when an
+unlucky fielder put the ball on the floor. Or, when a
+batsman interposed a pad where a bat ought to have been.
+Or, if a player was bowled first ball. Or, if he swaggered
+as he walked, the cynosure of all eyes, from the pavilion to
+the pitch. Upon this subject the Rev. Septimus will preach
+a longer (and a more interesting) sermon than any you will
+hear from his pulpit in Blackford-Orcas Church.</p>
+
+<p>Loud cheers put an end to the parson's reminiscences.
+Desmond's companion has been clean bowled for a useful
+fifteen runs. He walks towards the pavilion slowly. Then,
+as he hears the Harrow cheers, he blushes like a nymph of
+sixteen, for he counts himself a failure. Last year he made
+a "duck" in his first innings, and five in the second. No<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
+cheers then. This is his first taste of the honey mortals call
+success. He has faced the great world, and captured its
+applause.</p>
+
+<p>"When does Scaife go in?" the Rev. Septimus asks.</p>
+
+<p>"Second wicket down."</p>
+
+<p>More cheers as the second man in strolls down the steps.
+A careful cove, so the Duffer tells his father&mdash;one who will
+try to break the back of the bowling.</p>
+
+<p>"They're taking off Fluff's brother," the Caterpillar
+observes.</p>
+
+<p>A thick-set young man holds the ball. He makes some
+slight alteration in the field. The wicket-keeper stands
+back; the slips and point retreat a few yards. The ball
+that took the first wicket was the last of an over. Desmond
+has to receive the attack of the new bowler.</p>
+
+<p>The thick-set Etonian, having arranged the off side to
+his satisfaction, prepares to take a long run. He holds
+the ball in the left hand, runs sideways at great speed,
+changes the ball from the left hand to the right at the last
+moment, and seems to hurl both it and himself at the
+batsman.</p>
+
+<p>"Greased lightning!" says John.</p>
+
+<p>A dry summer had made the pitch rather fiery. The
+ball, short-pitched, whizzes just over C&aelig;sar's head. A
+second and a third seem to graze his cap. Murmurs are
+heard. Is the Eton bowler trying to kill or maim his
+antagonist? Is he deliberately endeavouring to establish
+a paralysing "funk"?</p>
+
+<p>But the fourth ball is a "fizzer"&mdash;the right length, a
+bailer, terrifically fast, but just off the wicket. Desmond
+snicks it between short slip and third man; it goes to the
+boundary.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what C&aelig;sar likes," says the Duffer. "He can
+cut behind the wicket till the cows come home."</p>
+
+<p>"Cut&mdash;and come again," says the Caterpillar.</p>
+
+<p>The fifth ball is played forward for a risky single. The
+Rev. Septimus forgets that times have changed. And if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
+they have, what of it? He hasn't. His deep, vibrant voice
+rolls across the lawn right up to the batsman&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Steady there! Steady!"</p>
+
+<p>And now the new-comer has to take the last ball of the
+over&mdash;his first. Alas and alack! The sixth ball is dead
+on to the middle stump. The Harrovian plays forward.
+Man alive, you ought to have played back to that! The
+ball grazes the top edge of the bat's blade and flies straight
+into the welcoming hands of the wicket-keeper.</p>
+
+<p>Two wickets for 33.</p>
+
+<p>Breathless suspense, broken by tumultuous cheers as
+Scaife strides on to the ground. His bat is under his arm;
+he is drawing on his gloves. Thousands of men and as
+many women are staring at his splendid face and figure.</p>
+
+<p>"What a mover!" murmurs the Rev. Septimus.</p>
+
+<p>Scaife strides on. Upon his face is the expression John
+knows so well and fears so much&mdash;the consciousness of
+power, the stern determination to be first, to shatter previous
+records. John can predict&mdash;and does so with absolute
+certainty&mdash;what will happen. For six overs the Demon
+will treat every ball&mdash;good, bad, and indifferent&mdash;with the
+most distinguished consideration. And then, when his
+"eye" is in, he will give the Etonians such leather-hunting
+as they never had before.</p>
+
+<p>After a long stand made by Scaife and Desmond, C&aelig;sar
+is caught at cover-point, but Scaife remains. It is a
+Colossus batting, not a Harrow boy. The balls come down
+the pitch; the Demon's shoulders and chest widen; the
+great knotted arms go up&mdash;crash! First singles; then
+twos; then threes; and then boundary after boundary.
+To John&mdash;and to how many others?&mdash;Scaife has been
+transformed into a tremendous human machine, inexorably
+cutting and slicing, pulling and driving&mdash;the embodied
+symbol of force, ruthlessly applied, indefatigable,
+omnipotent.</p>
+
+<p>The Eton captain, hopeful against odds, puts on a
+cunning and cool dealer in "lobs." Fluff is in, playing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
+steadily, holding up his wicket, letting the giant make the
+runs. The Etonian delivers his first ball. Scaife leaves the
+crease. Fluff sees the ball slowly spinning&mdash;harmless
+enough till it pitches, and then deadly as a writhing serpent.
+Scaife will not let it pitch. The ball curves slightly from
+the leg to the off. Scaife is facing the pavilion&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>A stupendous roar bursts from the crowd. The ball, hit
+with terrific force, sails away over the green sward, over the
+ropes, over the heads of the spectators, and slap on to the
+top of the pavilion.</p>
+
+<p>Only four; but one of the finest swipes ever seen at
+Lord's. Shade of Mynn, come forth from the tomb to
+applaud that mighty stroke!</p>
+
+<p>But the dealer in lobs knows that the man who leaves
+his citadel, leaves it, sooner or later, not to return. In the
+hope that Scaife, intoxicated with triumph, will run out
+again, he pitches the next lob too much up&mdash;a half-volley.
+Scaife smiles.</p>
+
+<p>John's prediction has been fulfilled. A record has been
+established. Never before in an Eton and Harrow match
+have two balls been hit over the ropes in succession. The
+crowds have lost their self-possession. Men, women, and
+children are becoming delirious. The Rev. Septimus
+throws his ancient topper into the air; the Caterpillar
+splits a brand-new pair of delicate grey gloves. Upon the
+tops of the coaches, mothers, sisters, aunts, and cousins are
+cheering like Fourth-Form boys.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The Harrow first innings closed with 289 runs, Scaife
+carrying out his bat for an almost flawless 126. Desmond
+made 72; Fluff was in for twenty-seven minutes&mdash;a great
+performance for him&mdash;and was caught in the slips after
+compiling a useful 17.</p>
+
+<p>But the remarkable feature of the innings was the short
+time in which so many runs were made&mdash;exactly three
+hours. The elevens went in to lunch, as the crowd poured
+over the ground, laughing and chattering. This is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+delightful hour to the Rev. Septimus. He will walk to the
+wickets, and wait there for his innumerable friends. It will
+be, "Hullo, Sep!" "By Jove, here's dear old Sep!"
+"Sep, you unfriendly beast, why do you never come to see
+us?" "Sep, when are you going to send that awful tile
+of yours to the British Museum?" And so on.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty men, at least&mdash;some of them with names known
+wherever the Union Jack waves&mdash;will ask the Rev. Sep to
+lunch with them; but the Rev. Sep will say, as he has said
+these thirty years, that he doesn't come to Lord's to
+"gorge." A sandwich presently, and a glass of "fizz," if
+you please; but time is precious. A tall bishop strolls up&mdash;one
+of the pillars of the Church, an eloquent preacher,
+and an autocrat in his diocese. Most people regard him
+with awe. The Rev. Sep greets him with a scandalous slap
+on the back, and addresses him, the apostolic one, as&mdash;Lamper.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a>
+And the Lord Bishop of Dudley says, like the
+others&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Sep! We used to think you a slogger, but you
+never came anywhere near that smite of Scaife's."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought his smite was coming too near me," says the
+Rev. Sep, with a shrewd glance at the pavilion. "Lamper,
+old chap, I <i>am</i> glad to see your 'phiz' again."</p>
+
+<p>And so they stroll off together, mighty prelate and
+humble country parson, once again happy Harrow boys.</p>
+
+<p>And now, before Eton goes in, we must climb on to the
+Trent coach. Fluff and his brother Cosmo, the Eton
+bowler, are lunching in other company, but we shall find
+Colonel Egerton and the Caterpillar and Warde; so the
+Hill slightly outnumbers the Plain, as the duke puts it.
+Next to the duchess sits Mrs. Verney. The duke is torn
+nearly in two between his desire that Fluff should make
+runs and that Cosmo, the Etonian, should take wickets.
+His Eton sons regard him as a traitor, a "rat," and Colonel
+Egerton gravely offers him the corn-flowers out of his
+coat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You can laugh," the duke says seriously, "but when
+I see what Harrow has done for Esm&eacute;, I'm almost sorry"&mdash;he
+looks at his youngest son (nearly, but not quite, as
+delicate-looking as Fluff used to be)&mdash;"I'm almost sorry
+that I didn't send Alastair there also."</p>
+
+<p>Alastair smiles contemptuously. "If you had," he
+says, "I should have never spoken to you again. Esm&eacute; is
+a forgiving chap, but you've wrecked his life. At least,
+that's my opinion."</p>
+
+<p>After luncheon, the crowd on the lawn thickens. The
+ladies want to see the pitch, and, shall we add, to display
+their wonderful frocks. The enclosure at Ascot on Cup
+Day is not so gay and pretty a scene as this. The Caterpillar,
+sly dog, has secured Iris Warde, and looks uncommonly
+pleased with himself and his companion; a smart
+pair, but smart pairs are common as gooseberries. It is
+the year of picture hats and Gainsborough dresses.</p>
+
+<p>"England at its best," says Miss Iris.</p>
+
+<p>"And in its best," the Caterpillar replies solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>Iris Warde is as keen as her father's daughter ought to
+be. She tells the Caterpillar that when she was a small girl
+with only threepence a week pocket-money, she used to
+save a penny a week for twelve weeks preceding the match,
+so as to be able to put a shilling into the plate on Sunday
+<i>if Harrow won</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"And I dare say you'll marry an Etonian and wear light
+blue after all," growls the Caterpillar.</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" says Miss Iris.</p>
+
+<p>Now, amongst the black coats in the pavilion you see a
+white figure or two. The Elevens have finished lunch, and
+are mixing with the crowd. Scaife is talking with a famous
+Old Carthusian, one of the finest living exponents of cricket,
+sometime an "International" at football, and a D.S.O.
+The great man is very cordial, for he sees in Scaife an All-England
+player. Scaife listens, smiling. Obviously, he is
+impatient to begin again. As soon as possible he collects
+his men, and leads them into the field. One can hear the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
+policemen saying in loud, firm voices, "Pass along, please;
+pass along!" As if by magic the crowds on the lawn melt
+away. In a few minutes the Etonians come out of the
+pavilion. The sun shines upon their pale-blue caps and
+sashes, and upon faces slightly pale also, but not yet blue.
+For Eton has a strong batting team, and Scaife and Desmond
+have proved that it is a batsman's wicket.</p>
+
+<p>And now the connoisseurs, the really great players,
+settle themselves down comfortably to watch Scaife field.
+That, to them, is the great attraction, apart from the contest
+between the rival schools. Some of these Olympians
+have been heard to say that Scaife's innings against weak
+bowling was no very meritorious performance, although the
+two "swipes," they admit, were parlous knocks. Still,
+Public School cricket is kindergarten cricket, and if you've
+not been at Eton or Harrow, and if you loathe a fashionable
+crowd, and if you think first-class fielding is worth coming
+to Lord's to see, why, then, my dear fellow, look at
+Scaife!</p>
+
+<p>Scaife stands at cover-point. If you put up your
+binoculars, you will see that he is almost on his toes. His
+heels are not touching the ground. And he bends slightly,
+not quite as low as a sprinter, but so low that he can start
+with amazing speed. For two overs not a ball worth
+fielding rolls his way. Ah! that will be punished. A long
+hop comes down the pitch. The Etonian squares his
+shoulders. His eye, to be sure, is on the ball, but in his
+mind's eye is the boundary; in his ear the first burst of
+applause. Bat meets ball with a smack which echoes from
+the Tennis Court to the stands across the ground. Now
+watch Scaife! He dashes at top speed for the only point
+where his hands may intercept that hard-hit ball. And,
+by Heaven! he stops it, and flicks it up to the wicket-keeper,
+who whips off the bails.</p>
+
+<p>"How's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not out!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well fielded; well fielded, sir!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A very close squeak," says the Caterpillar. "They
+won't steal many runs from the Demon."</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," says Iris Warde, "I really think that he
+<i>is</i> a demon."</p>
+
+<p>The Caterpillar nods. "You're more than half right,
+Miss Warde."</p>
+
+<p>Presently, the first wicket falls; then the second soon
+after. And the score is under twenty. The Rev. Septimus
+is beaming; the Bishop seated beside him looks as if
+he were about to pronounce a benediction; Charles
+Desmond is scintillating with wit and good humour.
+Visions of a single innings victory engross the minds of these
+three. They are in the front row of the pavilion, and
+they mean to see every ball of the game.</p>
+
+<p>But soon it becomes evident that a determined stand
+is being made. Runs come slowly, but they come; the
+score creeps up&mdash;thirty, forty, fifty. Fluff goes on to bowl.
+On his day Fluff is tricky, but this, apparently, is not his
+day. The runs come more quickly. The Rev. Septimus
+removes his hat, wipes his forehead, and replaces his hat.
+It is on the back of his head, but he is unaware of that.
+The Bishop appears now as if he were reading a new commination&mdash;to
+wit, "Cursed is he that smiteth his neighbour;
+cursed is he that bowleth half volleys." The Minister is
+frowning; things may look black in South Africa, but
+they're looking blacker in St. John's Wood.</p>
+
+<p>One hundred runs for two wickets.</p>
+
+<p>The Eton cheers are becoming exasperating. A few
+seats away Warde is twiddling his thumbs and biting his
+lips. Old Lord Fawley has slipped into the pavilion for a
+brandy and soda.</p>
+
+<p>At last!</p>
+
+<p>Scaife takes off Fluff and puts on a fast bowler, changing
+his own place in the field to short slip. The ball, a first
+ball and very fast, puzzles the batsman, accustomed to
+slows. He mistimes it; it grazes the edge of his bat, and
+whizzes off far to the right of Scaife, but the Demon has it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
+Somehow or other, ask of the spirits of the air&mdash;not of the
+writer&mdash;somehow his wonderful right hand has met and
+held the ball.</p>
+
+<p>"Well caught, sir; well caught!"</p>
+
+<p>"That boy ought to be knighted on the spot," says
+Charles Desmond. Then the three generously applaud the
+retiring batsman. He has played a brilliant innings, and
+restored the confidence of all Etonians.</p>
+
+<p>The Eton captain descends the steps; a veteran this,
+not a dashing player, but sure, patient, and full of grit.
+He asks the umpire to give him middle and leg; then he
+notes the positions of the field.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew-w-w-w!"</p>
+
+<p>"D&mdash;&mdash;n it!" ejaculates Charles Desmond. Bishop
+and parson regard him with gratitude. There are times
+when an honest oath becomes expedient. The Eton captain
+has cut the first ball into Fluff's hands, and Fluff has
+dropped it! Alastair Kinloch, from the top of the Trent
+coach, screams out, "Jolly well muffed!" The great
+Minister silently thanks Heaven that point is the Duke's
+son and not his.</p>
+
+<p>And, of course, the Eton captain never gives another
+chance till he is dismissed with half a century to his credit.
+Meantime five more wickets have fallen. Seven down for
+191! Eton leaves the field with a score of 226 against
+Harrow's 289. Harrow goes in without delay, and one
+wicket is taken for 13 runs before the stumps are drawn.
+Charles Desmond looks at the sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks like rain to-night," he says anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>And so ends Friday's play.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The morrow dawned grey, obscured by mist rising from
+ground soaked by two hours' heavy rain. You may be
+sure that all our friends were early at Lord's, and that the
+pitch was examined by thousands of anxious eyes. The
+Eton fast bowler was seen to smile. Upon a similar wicket
+had he not done the famous hat-trick only three weeks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+before? The rain, however, was over, and soon the sun
+would drive away the filmy mists. No man alive could
+foretell what condition the pitch would be in after a few
+hours of blazing sunshine. The Rev. Septimus told Charles
+Desmond that he considered the situation to be critical,
+and, although he had read the morning paper, he was not
+alluding even indirectly to South African affairs. Charles
+Desmond said that, other things being equal, the Hill would
+triumph; but he admitted that other things were very far
+from equal. It looked as if Harrow would have to bat
+upon a treacherous wicket, and Eton on a sound one.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past ten punctually the men were in the field.
+Scaife issued last instructions. "Block the bowling; don't
+try to score till you see what tricks the ground will play.
+A minute saved now may mean a quarter of an hour to us
+later." C&aelig;sar nodded cheerfully. The fact that the luck
+had changed stimulated every fibre of his being. And he
+said that he felt in his bones that this was going to be a
+famous match, like that of '85&mdash;something never to be
+forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Desmond spoke few words while his son was
+batting. It was a tradition among the Desmonds that they
+rose superior to emergency. The Minister wondered
+whether his Harry would rise or fall. The fast bowler
+delivered the first ball. It bumped horribly. The Rev.
+Septimus shuddered and closed his eyes. C&aelig;sar got well
+over it. The third ball was cut for three. The fourth
+whizzed down&mdash;a wide. The fast bowler dipped the ball
+into the sawdust.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't all jam for him," whispered the Rev. Septimus.</p>
+
+<p>"Well bowled&mdash;well bowled!"</p>
+
+<p>Alas! the middle stump was knocked clean out of the
+ground. C&aelig;sar's partner, a steady, careful player, had
+been bowled by his first ball.</p>
+
+<p>Two wickets for 17.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd were expecting the hero, but Fluff was
+walking towards the wickets, wondering whether he should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+reach them alive. Never had his heart beat as at this
+moment. Scaife had come up to him as soon as he had
+examined the pitch.</p>
+
+<p>"Fluff, I am putting you in early because you are a
+fellow I can trust. My first and last word is, hit at nothing
+that isn't wide of the wicket. The ground will probably
+improve fast."</p>
+
+<p>Fluff nodded. A hive of bees seemed to have lodged in
+his head, and an active automatic hammer in his heart;
+but he didn't dare tell the Demon that funk, abject funk,
+possessed him, body and soul.</p>
+
+<p>The second bowler began his first over. He bowled
+slows. Desmond played the six balls back along the
+ground. A maiden over.</p>
+
+<p>And then that thick-set, muscular beast, for so Fluff
+regarded him, stared fixedly at Fluff's middle stump.
+Fluff glanced round. The wicket-keeper had a grim smile
+on his lips, for his billet was no easy one. Cosmo Kinloch
+at short slip looked as if it were a foregone conclusion that
+Fluff would put the ball into his hands. Then Fluff faced
+the bowler. Now for it!</p>
+
+<p>The first ball was half a foot off the wicket, but Fluff let
+it go by. The second came true enough. Fluff blocked it.
+The third flew past Fluff's leg, but he just snicked it. Desmond
+started to run, and then stopped, holding up his
+hand. Cheers rippled round the ring for the first hit to the
+boundary. That was a bit of sheer luck, Fluff reflected.</p>
+
+<p>After this both boys played steadily for some ten minutes.
+Then, very slowly, C&aelig;sar began to score. He had
+made about fifteen when he drove a ball hard to the on,
+Fluff backing up. Desmond, watching the travelling ball,
+called to him to run. It seemed to Desmond almost
+certain that the ball would go to the boundary. Too late
+he realized that it had been magnificently fielded. Desmond
+strained every nerve, but his bat had not reached
+the crease when the bails flew to right and left.</p>
+
+<p>Out! And run out!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Three wickets for 41!</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour later Fluff was bowled with a
+yorker. He had made eleven runs, and kept up his wicket
+during a crisis. Harrow cheered him loudly.</p>
+
+<p>And then came the terrible moment of the morning.
+Scaife went in when Fluff's wicket fell. The ground had
+improved, but it was still treacherous. The fast bowler
+sent down a straight one. It shot under Scaife's bat and
+spread-eagled his stumps.</p>
+
+<p>The wicket-keeper knows what the Harrow captain
+said, but it does not bear repeating. Every eye was on his
+scowling, furious face as he returned to the pavilion; and
+the Rev. Septimus scowled also, because he had always
+maintained that any Harrovian could accept defeat like a
+gentleman. Upon the other side of the ground the Caterpillar
+was saying to his father. "I always said he was
+hairy at the heel."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was admitted afterwards that the Duffer's performance
+was the one really bright spot in Harrow's second
+innings. Being a bowler, he went in last but one. It
+happened that Fluff's brother was in possession of the ball.
+It will never be known why the Duffer chose to treat Cosmo
+Kinloch's balk with utter scorn and contempt. The Duffer
+was tall, strong, and a terrific slogger. Nobody expected
+him to make a run, but he made twenty in one over&mdash;all
+boundary hits. When he left the wicket he had added
+thirty-eight to the score, and wouldn't have changed places
+with an emperor. The Rev. Septimus followed him into
+the room where the players change.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear boy," he said, "I've never been able to give
+you a gold watch, but you must take mine; here it is,
+and&mdash;and God bless you!"</p>
+
+<p>But the Duffer swore stoutly that he preferred his own
+Waterbury.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Eton went in to make 211 runs in four hours, upon a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+wicket almost as sound as it had been upon the Friday.
+Scaife put the Duffer on to bowl. The Demon had belief
+in luck.</p>
+
+<p>"It's your day, Duffer," he said. "Pitch 'em up."</p>
+
+<p>The Duffer, to his sire's exuberant satisfaction, "pitched
+'em up" so successfully that he took four wickets for 33.
+Four out of five! The other bowlers, however, being not
+so successful, Eton accumulated a hundred runs. The
+captains had agreed to draw stumps at 7.30. To win,
+therefore, the Plain must make another hundred in two
+hours; and three of their crack batsmen were out.</p>
+
+<p>After tea an amazing change took place in the temper
+of the spectators. Conviction seized them that the finish
+was likely to be close and thrilling; that the one thing
+worth undivided attention was taking place in the middle
+of the ground. As the minutes passed, a curious silence
+fell upon the crowd, broken only by the cheers of the rival
+schools. The boys, old and young alike, were watching
+every ball, every stroke. The Eton captain was still in,
+playing steadily, not brilliantly; the Harrow bowling was
+getting slack.</p>
+
+<p>In the pavilion, the Rev. Septimus, Warde, and Charles
+Desmond were sitting together. Not far from them was
+Scaife's father, a big, burly man with a square head and
+heavy, strongly-marked features. He had never been a
+cricketer, but this game gripped him. He sat next to a
+world-famous financier of the great house of Neuchatel,
+whose sons had been sent to the Hill. Run after run, run
+after run was added to the score. Scaife's father turned
+to Neuchatel.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd write a cheque for ten thousand pounds," he said,
+"if we could win."</p>
+
+<p>Lionel Neuchatel nodded. "Yes," he muttered; "I
+have not felt so excited since Sir Bevis won the Derby."</p>
+
+<p>In the deep field Desmond was standing, miserable
+because he had nothing to do. No balls came his way; for
+the Eton captain had made up his mind to win this match<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+with singles and twos. Very carefully he placed his balls
+between the fielders; very carefully his partner followed
+his chief's example. No stealing of runs, no scoring off
+straight balls, no gallery play&mdash;till victory was assured.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Lord Fawley retired at this point into an inner
+room, pulling savagely at his white beard. Old Lyburn,
+who had been sitting beside him, gurgling and gasping,
+staggered after him. The Rev. Septimus kept wiping his
+forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't stand this much longer," said Warde, in a
+hoarse whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Well hit, sir! Well hit!"</p>
+
+<p>The Eton cheering became frantic. After nearly an
+hour's pawky, uninteresting play, the Eton captain suddenly
+changed his tactics. His "eye" was in; now or never
+let him score. A half-volley came down from the pavilion
+end&mdash;a half-volley and off the wicket. The Etonian put
+all the strength and power he had suppressed so manfully
+into a tremendous swipe, and hit the ball clean over the
+ropes.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to double that bet?" said Strathpeffer
+to the Caterpillar. They were standing on the top of the
+Trent coach.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thanks."</p>
+
+<p>"Give you two to one, Egerton?"</p>
+
+<p>"Done&mdash;in fivers."</p>
+
+<p>The unhappy bowler sent down another half-volley.
+Once more the Etonian smote, and smote hard; but this
+ball was not quite the same as the first, although it appeared
+identical. The ball soared up and up. Would it fall over
+the ropes? Thousands of eyes watched its flight. Desmond
+started to run. Golconda to a sixpence on the fall! It
+is falling, falling, falling.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll never get there in time," says Charles Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes he will," Warde answers savagely.</p>
+
+<p>"He has!" screamed the Rev. Septimus. "He&mdash;<i>has</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Pandemonium broke loose. Grey-headed men threw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+their hats into the air; M.P.'s danced; lovely women
+shrieked; every Harrovian on the ground howled. For
+C&aelig;sar held the ball fast in his lean, brown hands.</p>
+
+<p>The Eton captain walks slowly towards the pavilion.
+He had to pass C&aelig;sar on his way, and passing him he
+pauses.</p>
+
+<p>"That was a glorious catch," he says, with the smile
+of a gallant gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>And as Harrow, as cordially as Eton, cheers the retiring
+chieftain, the Caterpillar whispers to Mrs. Verney&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see that? Did you see him stop to congratulate
+C&aelig;sar?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says Mrs. Verney.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope Scaife saw it too," the Caterpillar replies
+coolly. "That Eton captain is cut out of whole cloth;
+no shoddy there, by Jove!"</p>
+
+<p>And Desmond. How does Desmond feel? It is futile
+to ask him, because he could not tell you, if he tried. But
+we can answer the question. If the country that he wishes
+to serve crowns him with all the honours bestowed upon a
+favoured son, never, <i>never</i> will C&aelig;sar Desmond know again
+a moment of such exquisite, unadulterated joy as this.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Six wickets down and 39 runs to get in less than half
+an hour!</p>
+
+<p>Every ball now, every stroke, is a matter for cheers,
+derisive or otherwise. The Rev. Septimus need not prate
+of golden days gone by. Boys at heart never change.
+And the atmosphere is so charged with electricity that a
+spark sets the firmament ablaze.</p>
+
+<p><i>Seven wickets for 192.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Eight wickets for 197.</i></p>
+
+<p>Signs of demoralization show themselves on both sides.
+The bowling has become deplorably feeble, the batting even
+more so. Four more singles are recorded. Only ten runs
+remain to be made, with two wickets to fall.</p>
+
+<p>And twelve minutes to play!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Scaife puts on the Duffer again. The lips of the Rev.
+Sep are seen to move inaudibly. Is he praying, or cursing,
+because three singles are scored off his son's first three balls?</p>
+
+<p>"Well bowled&mdash;well bowled!"</p>
+
+<p>A ball of fair length, easy enough to play under all
+ordinary circumstances, but a "teaser" when tremendous
+issues are at stake, has defeated one of the Etonians. The
+last man runs towards the pitch through a perfect hurricane
+of howls. Warde rises.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't stand it," he says, and his voice shakes oddly.
+"You fellows will find me behind the Pavvy after the
+match."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd go with you," says the Rev. Septimus, in a choked
+tone, "but if I tried to walk I should tumble down."</p>
+
+<p>Charles Desmond says nothing. But, pray note the
+expression so faithfully recorded in <i>Punch</i>&mdash;the compressed
+lips, the stern, frowning brows, the protruded jaw. The
+famous debater sees all fights to a finish, and fights himself
+till he drops.</p>
+
+<p><i>Seven runs to make, one wicket to fall, and five minutes to
+play!!!</i></p>
+
+<p>Evidently the last man in has received strenuous instructions
+from his chief. The bowling has degenerated
+into that of an&aelig;mic girls&mdash;and two whacks to the boundary
+mean&mdash;Victory. The new-comer is the square, thick-set
+fast bowler, the worst bat in the Eleven, but a fellow of
+determination, a slogger and a run-getter against village
+teams.</p>
+
+<p>He obeys instructions to the letter. The Duffer's fifth
+ball goes to the boundary.</p>
+
+<p>Three runs to make and two and a half minutes to play!</p>
+
+<p>The Duffer sends down the last ball. The Rev. Septimus
+covers his eyes. O wretched Duffer! O thou whose knees
+are as wax, and whose arms are as chop-sticks in the hands
+of a Griffin! O egregious Duff! O degenerate son of a
+noble sire, dost thou dare at such a moment as this to
+attack thine enemy with a&mdash;long hop?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The square, thick-set bowler shows his teeth as the ball
+pitches short. Then he smites and runs. Runs, because
+he has smitten so hard that no hand, surely, can stop the
+whirling sphere. Runs&mdash;ay&mdash;and so does the Demon at
+cover point. This is the Demon's amazing conjuring-trick&mdash;what
+else can you call it? And he has practised it so
+often, that he reckons failure to be almost impossible. To
+those watching he seems to spring like a tiger at the ball.
+By Heaven! he has stopped it&mdash;he's snapped it up! But
+if he despatches it to the wicket-keeper, it will arrive too
+late. The other Etonian is already within a couple of
+yards of the crease. Scaife does not hesitate. He aims at
+the bowler's wicket towards which the burly one is running
+as fast as legs a thought too short can carry him.</p>
+
+<p>He aims and shies&mdash;instantaneously. He shatters the
+wicket.</p>
+
+<p>"How's that?"</p>
+
+<p>The appeal comes from every part of the ground.</p>
+
+<p>And then, clearly and unmistakably, the umpire's fiat
+is spoken&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Out!"</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. Sep rises and rushes off, upsetting chairs,
+treading on toes, bent only upon being the first to tell
+Warde that Harrow has won.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Io! Io! Io!</i>"</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> The blue of the Harrow colours.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Lamper, <i>i.e.</i> Lamp-post.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3><i>"If I perish, I perish"</i></h3>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 18em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Since we deserved the name of friends,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And thine effect so lives in me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A part of mine may live in thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And move thee on to noble ends."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The cheering</span> at Bill upon the following Tuesday must be
+recorded, inasmuch as it has, indirectly, bearing upon our
+story. It will be guessed that the enthusiasm, the uproar,
+the tumultuous excitement were even greater than on a
+similar occasion some fifteen years before. But, to his
+amazement, Desmond, not Scaife, was made the particular
+hero of the hour. Scaife's display of temper festered in the
+hearts of boys who can forgive anything sooner than low
+breeding. The Hill had seen the Etonian stop to speak his
+cheery word of congratulation to C&aelig;sar, and not the Caterpillar
+alone, but urchins of thirteen had made comparisons.</p>
+
+<p>Scaife, however, could not complain of his reception
+upon that memorable Tuesday afternoon; the cheering
+must have been heard a mile away. But Desmond was
+acclaimed differently. The cheers were no louder&mdash;that
+was impossible&mdash;but afterwards, when the excitement had
+simmered down, C&aelig;sar became the object of a special
+demonstration by the Monitors and Sixth Form. Nearly
+every boy of note in the Upper School insisted upon shaking
+his hand or patting him on the back. Scaife came up with
+the others, but he left the Yard almost immediately and
+retired to his room. He had won the great match; Desmond
+had saved it; and the School apprehended the subtle
+difference. More, Scaife knew that John had gone up to
+Desmond with outstretched hands after the match at Lord's.
+He could hear John's eager voice, see the flame of admiration
+in his eyes, as he said, "Oh, C&aelig;sar, I am glad it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+you who made that catch!" And with those generous
+words, with that warm clasp of the hand, Scaife had seen
+the barrier which he had built between the friends dissolve
+like ice in the dog-days.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The attention of the Manor was now fixed upon the
+house matches. It seemed probable that with four members
+of the School Eleven in the team, the ancient house
+must prove invincible. But to John's surprise, as this delightful
+probability ripened into conviction, Warde betrayed
+unwonted anxiety and even irritability. Miss Iris confided
+to Desmond, who paid her much court, that she couldn't
+imagine what was the matter with papa. And mamma, it
+transpired (from the same source), really feared that the
+strain at Lord's had been too much, that her indefatigable
+husband was about to break down. Finally, John made
+up his mind to ask a question. He was second in command;
+he had a right to ask the chief if anything were seriously
+amiss. Accordingly, he waited upon Warde after prayers.</p>
+
+<p>But when he put his question, and expressed, modestly
+enough, his anxiety and desire to help if he could, Warde
+bit his lips. Then he burst out violently&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am miserable, Verney."</p>
+
+<p>John said nothing. His tutor rose and began to pace
+up and down the study; then, halting, facing John, he
+spoke quickly, with restless gestures indicating volcanic
+disturbance.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm between the devil and the deep sea," he said, "as
+many a better man has been before me. I thought I'd
+wiped out the grosser evils in the Manor, but I haven't&mdash;I
+haven't. Do you know that a fellow in this house,
+perhaps two of 'em, but one at any rate, is getting out at
+night and going up to town? You needn't answer, Verney.
+If you do know it, you are powerless to prevent it, or it
+wouldn't occur."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I can only guess who it is. I am not certain. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
+to make certain, I must play the spy, creep and crawl, do
+what I loathe to do&mdash;suspect the innocent together with the
+guilty. It's almost breaking my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"I can understand that, sir, after what you have done
+for us."</p>
+
+<p>Warde smiled grimly. "I don't think you do quite
+understand," he said slowly. "At this moment I am
+tempted, tempted as I never have been tempted, to let
+things slide, to shut both eyes and ears, till this term is
+over. Next term"&mdash;he laughed harshly&mdash;"I shan't stand
+in such an awkward place. The deep sea will always be
+near me, but the devil&mdash;the devil will be elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>John nodded. His serious face expressed neither
+approval nor disapproval to the man keenly watching it.
+Afterwards Warde remembered this impassivity.</p>
+
+<p>"If I do not act"&mdash;Warde's voice trembled&mdash;"I am
+damned as a traitor in my own eyes."</p>
+
+<p>John had never doubted that his house-master would
+act. As for creeping and crawling, can peaks be scaled
+without creeping and crawling? Never&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You are not to speak a word of warning," Warde
+continued vehemently. "If you know what I don't know
+yet, still you cannot speak to me, because the sinner in this
+case is a Sixth-Form boy. You cannot speak to me; and
+you will not speak to him, on your honour?"</p>
+
+<p>There was interrogation in the last sentence. John
+replied almost inaudibly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not speak&mdash;on my honour!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is hard, hard indeed, that I should have to foul my
+own nest, but it must be so. Good night."</p>
+
+<p>John went back to his room, calm without, terribly
+agitated within. What ruthless spirit had driven him to
+Warde's study? Yes; at last, inexorably, discovery, disgrace,
+the ineffaceable brand of expulsion, impended over
+the head of his enemy, to whom he was pledged to utter no
+word of warning. Like Warde, he did not know absolutely,
+but he guessed that Scaife had spent another riotous night<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+in town since the match. He had read it in the eyes
+glittering with excitement, in the derisive smile of conscious
+power, in the magnetic audacity of Scaife's glance.
+And then he remembered Lawrence's parting words&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It will be a fight to a finish, and, mark me, Warde will
+win!"</p>
+
+<p>Two wretched days and nights passed. More than once
+John spurred himself to the point of going to Warde and
+saying, "Think what you like of me, I am going to warn
+the boy I loathe that you are at his heels." Still, always
+at the last moment he did not go. Some power seemed
+to restrain him. But when he tried to analyse his feelings,
+he confessed himself muddled. He had obtained, nay,
+invited, Warde's confidence; and he dared not abuse it.
+It was a time of anguish. He was unable to concentrate
+his mind upon work or play, deprived of sleep, haunted by
+the conviction that if Desmond knew all, he would turn
+from him for ever. Then, at the most difficult moment of
+his life, the way of escape was opened.</p>
+
+<p>Since the match, John and C&aelig;sar had resumed the former
+unrestrained and continual intimacy and intercourse.
+John was in and out of Desmond's room, Desmond was in
+and out of John's room, at all hours. They "found" together,
+of course, but it is not, fortunately, at meals that
+boys or men discuss the things nearest to their hearts. But
+at night, just before lights were turned out, or just after,
+when an Olympian is privileged to work a little longer by
+the light of the useful "tolly," C&aelig;sar and Jonathan would
+talk freely of past, present, and future. It was during these
+much-valued minutes, or on Sunday afternoons, that John
+would read to his friend the essays or verses which always
+fired Desmond's admiration and enthusiasm. To John's
+intellectual activities C&aelig;sar played, so to speak, gallery;
+even as John upon many an afternoon had sat stewing in
+the covered racquet-court, applauding Desmond's service
+into the corner, or his hot returns just above the line. At
+home, in the holidays, the boys had always met upon the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
+same plane. Of the two, John was the better rider and
+shot. Both were members of the Philathletic Club<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> of
+Harrow, and the fact that Desmond was incomparably his
+superior as an athlete was counterbalanced by John's fine
+intellectual attainments. If John, at times, wished that he
+could cut behind the wicket in C&aelig;sar's faultless style,
+Desmond, on the other hand, spoke enviously of the Medal,
+or the Essay, or some other of John's successes. John spoke
+often and well in the Debating Society, getting up his
+subjects with intelligence and care. So it was give-and-take
+between them, and this adjusted the balance of their
+friendship, and without this no friendship can be pronounced
+perfect.</p>
+
+<p>None the less, free and delightful as this resumption of
+the old intimacy had been, John knew C&aelig;sar too well not
+to perceive that between them lay an unmentionable five
+weeks, during which something had occurred. From signs
+only too well interpreted before, John guessed that C&aelig;sar
+was once more in debt to the Demon. And finally, C&aelig;sar
+confessed that he had been betting, that he had won,
+following Scaife's advice, and then had lost. The loss was
+greater than the gain, and the difference, some five and
+twenty pounds, had been sent to Scaife's bookmaker by
+Scaife. As before, Scaife ridiculed the possibility of such
+a debt causing his pal any uneasiness, but it chafed Desmond
+consumedly.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the Saturday of the semi-final house match, in
+which the Manor had won a great victory by an innings
+and twenty-three runs, John went to Desmond's room after
+prayers. He noticed at once that his friend was unusually
+excited. John, however, attributed this to C&aelig;sar's big
+score. Success always inflamed C&aelig;sar, just as it seemed to
+tranquillize John. John began to talk, but he noticed that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
+C&aelig;sar was abstracted, answered in monosyllables, and
+twice looked at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you an appointment, C&aelig;sar?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. What were you saying, Jonathan?"</p>
+
+<p>"You look rather queer to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I?" He laughed nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not bothering over that debt?"</p>
+
+<p>This time C&aelig;sar laughed naturally.</p>
+
+<p>"Rather not. Why, that debt&mdash;&mdash;" He stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it paid?" said John.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be. Don't worry!"</p>
+
+<p>But John looked worried. He perceived that C&aelig;sar's
+finely-formed hands were trembling, whenever they were
+still.</p>
+
+<p>"Harry," said he&mdash;he never called Desmond Harry except
+when they were at home&mdash;"Harry, what's wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, nothing&mdash;nothing, that is, which amounts to
+anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Harry, you are the worst liar in England. Something
+is wrong. Can't you tell me? You must. I'm hanged
+if I leave you till you do tell me."</p>
+
+<p>He looked steadily at Desmond. In his clear grey eyes
+were tiny, dancing flecks of golden brown, which Desmond
+had seen once or twice before,&mdash;which came whenever
+John was profoundly moved. The dancing flecks transformed
+themselves in Desmond's fancy into sprites, the
+airy creatures of John's will, imposing John's wishes and
+commands.</p>
+
+<p>"Scaife said I might tell you, if I liked."</p>
+
+<p>"Scaife?" John drew in his breath. "Then Scaife
+wanted you to tell me; I am sure of that." He felt his way
+by the dim light of smouldering suspicion. If Scaife wanted
+John to know anything, it was because such knowledge
+must prove pain, not pleasure. John did not say this.
+Then, very abruptly, Desmond continued. "You swear
+that what I'm about to tell you will be regarded as sacred?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is a matter which concerns Scaife and me, not you.
+You won't interfere?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to London."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look at me like that, you silly old ass! It's not&mdash;not
+what you think," he laughed nervously. "I have bet
+Scaife twenty-five pounds, the amount of my debt in fact,
+that the bill-of-fare of to-night's supper at the Carlton
+Hotel will be handed to him after Chapel to-morrow morning.
+I bike up to town, and bike back. If I don't go this
+Saturday, I have one more chance before the term is
+over. That's all."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all," repeated John, stupefied.</p>
+
+<p>"If you can show me an easier way to make a 'pony,'
+I'll be obliged to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Scaife egged you on to this piece of folly?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, he didn't."</p>
+
+<p>"You may as well make a clean breast of it."</p>
+
+<p>Bit by bit John extracted the facts. Behind them, of
+course, stood Scaife, loving evil for evil's sake, planting
+evil, gleaning evil, deliberately setting about the devil's
+work. Desmond, it appeared, had persuaded Scaife not to
+go to town till the Lord's match was over. Since the match
+Scaife had spent two nights in London, whetting an inordinate
+appetite for forbidden fruit; exciting in Desmond
+also, not an appetite for the fruit itself, but for the mad excitement
+of a perilous adventure. Then, when the thoughtless
+"I'd like a lark of that sort" had been spoken, came the
+derisive answer, "You haven't the nerve for it." And then
+again the subtle leading of an ardent and self-willed nature
+into the morass, Scaife pretending to dissuade a friend,
+entreating him to consider the risk, urging him to go to bed,
+as if he were a headstrong child. And finally Desmond's
+challenge, "Bet you I have the nerve," and its acceptance,
+protestingly, by the other, and permission given that John
+should be told.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And it's to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to have that bill-of-fare. Do you think I'd
+back out now?"</p>
+
+<p>In his mind's eye, our poor John was gazing down a long
+lane with no turning at the end of it. Could he make his
+friend believe that Scaife had brought this thing to pass from
+no other motive than wishing to hurt mortally an enemy
+by the hand of a friend? No, never would such an ingenuous
+youth as C&aelig;sar accept, or even listen to, such an
+abominable explanation.</p>
+
+<p>"Good night," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"I see you're rather sick with me, Jonathan. Remember,
+you made me speak. To-morrow morning we'll have
+a good laugh over it. We'll walk to the Haunted House,
+and I'll tell my tale. I shall be on my way in less than an
+hour."</p>
+
+<p>John went back to his room. The necessity for silence
+and thought had become imperative. What could he do?
+It was certain that Warde was waiting and watching. He
+had inexhaustible patience. Desmond, not the Demon,
+would be caught and expelled. John returned to Desmond's
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"You've told me so much," he said; "tell me a little
+more. How are you going to do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"To do what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get out of the house? Get a bike&mdash;and all that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Easy. Lovell went out that way, and others. You
+jump from the sill of the first landing window into the
+horse-chestnut. One must be able to jump, of course;
+but I can jump. Then you shin down the tree, nip through
+the shrubbery, and over the locked wicket-gate."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," John said slowly, "over the gate."</p>
+
+<p>"I borrowed a bike from one of the Cycle Corps, and have
+ridden it in the garden, in a bush to the right of the gate."</p>
+
+<p>John nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"It's moonlight after ten; I shall enjoy the ride immensely."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You will try to get back into the house at night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Too dangerous. Lovell did it; but the Demon
+marches in boldly just before Chapel. He may have
+slipped out on half a dozen errands as soon as the door is
+opened in the morning. I shall sleep under a stack. It's
+a lovely night. Now, old Jonathan, I hope you're satisfied
+that I'm not either the fool or the sinner you took me to
+be."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Harry. If I appeal to you in the name
+of our friendship; if I ask you for my sake and for my
+mother's sake not to do this thing&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Jonathan, I must go. Don't make it harder than it
+is."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it <i>is</i> hard?"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't whine about that. I courted this adventure,
+and, by Jove! I'm going to see it through. The odds are
+a hundred to one against my being nailed."</p>
+
+<p>"All right; I'll say no more. Good night."</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, old Jonathan."</p>
+
+<p>John went back to his room, waited three minutes, and
+then, in despair, made up his mind to seek Scaife. He
+felt certain that the Demon's extraordinary luck was about
+to stand between him and expulsion. Desmond would be
+caught red-handed, but not he. John ground his teeth
+with rage at the thought. He found Scaife alone&mdash;at work
+on cricketing accounts.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Verney!"</p>
+
+<p>"C&aelig;sar tells me that he is going up to London to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he told you that, did he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; you wished him to tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps." Scaife laughed louder.</p>
+
+<p>"You want to prove to me," said John slowly, "that
+you are the stronger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps." Scaife laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I surrender, if I admit that you are the stronger,
+that you have defeated me, won't that be enough?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh? I don't quite take you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You are the stronger." John's voice was very miserable.
+"I have tried to dissuade him, as you knew I
+should try, and I have failed. Isn't that enough? You
+have your triumph. But now be generous. Turn round
+and use your strength the other way. Make him give up
+this folly. You don't want to see your own pal&mdash;sacked?"</p>
+
+<p>"Precious little chance of that!"</p>
+
+<p>"There is the chance."</p>
+
+<p>Scaife hesitated. Did some worthier impulse stir
+within him? Who can tell? His keen eye softened, and
+then hardened again.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said quickly. "If I agree to what you propose,
+it is, after all, you who triumph, not I. And I doubt
+if I could stop him now, even if I tried." He laughed
+again, for the third time, savagely. "You are hoist with
+your own petard, Verney. You wanted to see me sacked;
+and now that there is a chance in a thousand that C&aelig;sar
+will be sacked, you squirm. I swore to get my knife into
+you, and, by God, I've done it."</p>
+
+<p>John went out, very pale. He passed through into the
+private side, and tapped at Warde's study door. Mrs.
+Warde's voice bade him enter. She looked at John's face.
+Afterwards she testified that he looked singularly cool and
+self-possessed.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to see Mr. Warde," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"He's dining at the Head Master's."</p>
+
+<p>"Will he be in soon?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;er&mdash;don't know. Perhaps not. I wouldn't wait
+for him, Verney, if I were you."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said John. "Good night."</p>
+
+<p>He went back to his room. In Mrs. Warde's eyes he
+had read&mdash;what? Excitement? Apprehension? Suddenly,
+conviction came to him that this dinner at the Head
+Master's was a blind. Why, during that very afternoon,
+Warde had mentioned casually to Scaife that he was dining
+out. He had deliberately informed the Demon that the
+coast was clear. And at this moment, probably, Warde<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+lay concealed near the chestnut tree, waiting, watching,
+about to pounce upon the&mdash;wrong man!</p>
+
+<p>The temptation to cry "<i>Cave!</i>" tore at his vitals. Till
+this moment the tyranny of honour had never oppressed
+John. Having resolved to tell Warde that he meant
+to break his word, it may seem inexplicable that he
+shouldn't go a step further and break his word without
+warning the house-master. Upon such nice points of
+conscience hang issues of world-wide importance. To
+John, at any rate, the difference between the two paths out
+of a tangled wood was greater than it might appear to some
+of us. Warde had trusted him implicitly: could he bring
+himself to violate Warde's confidence without giving the
+man notice?</p>
+
+<p>However, what he might have done under pressure
+must remain a matter of surmise. At this moment a third
+path became visible. And down it John rushed, without
+consideration as to where it might lead. The one thing
+plain at this crisis was the certainty that he had discovered
+a plan of action which would save two things he valued
+supremely&mdash;his friendship for C&aelig;sar and his word of
+honour.</p>
+
+<p>Here we are to liberty to speculate what John would
+have done had he considered dispassionately the consequences
+of an action to be accomplished at once or not at
+all. But he had not time to consider anything except the
+fact that action would put to rout some very tormenting
+thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>He crumpled his bed, disarranged his room, and put
+on a cap and a thin overcoat, as all lights in the boys' side
+of the Manor were extinguished. Then he stole out of his
+room, and crept to the window at the end of the passage.
+A moment later, he had squeezed through it, and was
+standing upon the sill outside, gazing fearfully at the void
+beneath, and the distance between the sill and the branch
+in front of him. Afterwards, he confessed that this moment
+was the most difficult. He was an active boy, but he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
+never jumped such a chasm. If he missed the bough&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>To hesitate meant shameful retreat. John felt the
+sweat break upon him; craven fear clutched his heart-strings,
+and set them a-jangling.</p>
+
+<p>He jumped.</p>
+
+<p>The ease with which he caught the branch was such a
+physical relief that he almost forgot his errand. He slid
+quietly down the tree, pausing as he reached the bottom of
+it. The moon was just rising above the horizon, but under
+the trees the darkness was Stygian. John pushed quietly
+through the shrubberies, treading as lightly as possible.
+Every moment he expected to see the flash of a lantern, to
+hear Warde's voice, to feel an arresting hand upon the
+shoulder. It was quite impossible to guess with any reasonable
+accuracy what part of the garden Warde had selected
+for a hiding-place. Very soon he reached the edge of the
+shrubbery, and gazed keenly into the moonlit, park-like
+meadow below him. Peer as he might, he could see no
+trace of Warde. A dozen trees might conceal him. Perhaps
+with the omniscience of the house-master, he had
+divined that the wicket-gate was the ultimate place of
+egress. Perhaps the wicket had been used for a similar
+purpose when Warde himself was a boy at the Manor. It
+was vital to John's plan that Warde should see him without
+recognizing him, and give chase. The chase would end
+in capture at some point as reasonably far from the Manor
+as possible. Warde might ask for explanations, but none
+would be forthcoming till the morrow. Meantime, the
+coast would be clear for Desmond. John, in fine, was
+playing the part of a pilot-engine.</p>
+
+<p>But where was Warde?</p>
+
+<p>The question answered itself within a minute, and after
+a fashion absolutely unforeseen. As John was crossing
+from the shrubbery to the wicket he looked back. To his
+horror, he saw lights in the boys' side, light in the window
+of Scaife's room. Instantly John divined what had come
+to pass, and cursed himself for a fool. Warde, from some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
+coign of vantage, had seen a boy leave his house. Why
+should he try to arrest the boy? why should he risk the
+humiliation of running after him, and, perhaps, failing to
+capture him? No, no; men forty were not likely to work
+in that boyish fashion. Warde had adopted an infinitely
+better plan. Assured that a boy had left the house, he
+had nothing to do but walk round the rooms and find out
+which one was absent. He had begun with Scaife. Next
+to Scaife was the room belonging to the Head of the House;
+then came John's room, and then C&aelig;sar's. Long before
+Warde reached C&aelig;sar's room, C&aelig;sar would have heard him.
+C&aelig;sar, at any rate, was saved. John crept back under
+cover of the shrubberies. He saw the light flicker out of
+Scaife's window, and shine more steadily in the next room.
+The window of this room was open, and John could hear
+the voice of Warde and the Head of the House. John
+waited. And then the light shone in Desmond's room.
+John crouched against the wall, trembling. If C&aelig;sar had
+not heard the voices, if he were fully dressed, if&mdash;&mdash; Suddenly
+he caught Warde's reassuring words: "Ah, Desmond,
+sorry to disturb you. Good night."</p>
+
+<p>John waited. Very soon Scaife would come to Desmond's
+room. Ah! Just so. The night was so still that
+he could hear quite plainly the boys' muffled voices.</p>
+
+<p>"What's up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Warde is going his rounds. Perhaps he smells a rat."</p>
+
+<p>And then whispers! John strained his ears. Only a
+word or two more reached him. "Verney&mdash;&mdash; D&mdash;&mdash;d
+interfering sneak! Let's see!" It was Scaife who was
+speaking.</p>
+
+<p>John heard his own door opened and shut. Scaife,
+then, had discovered his absence, and naturally leaped to
+the conclusion that he had warned Warde. Let him think
+so! The boys were still whispering together. "Not to-night,"
+Scaife said decisively. "No, no," Desmond replied.</p>
+
+<p>John wondered what remained to be done. Warde, of
+course, would satisfy himself that no boy in his house was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
+missing except John, before he pronounced him the
+absentee. Poor Warde! This would be a hard knock for
+him. John's thoughts were jostling each other freely, when
+he recalled Desmond's words: "I have one more chance
+before the term is over." He had wished to clear the way
+for his friend, not to block it. Then he remembered the
+terms of the bet, and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>He ran back to the wicket, found the bicycle, lit the
+lamp, and hoisted the machine over the gate. Then he
+laughed again. After all, this escaping from bondage, this
+midnight adventure beneath the impending sword of
+expulsion, thrilled him to the marrow.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When John returned on Sunday to the Manor, shortly
+after the doors were unlocked in the morning, he found
+Dumbleton awaiting him. Dumber's face expressed such
+amazement and consternation that John nearly laughed in
+spite of himself.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all hup, sir," said the butler. Only in moments
+of intense excitement did Dumber misplace or leave out
+the aspirate. "You're to come with me at once to Mr.
+Warde's study."</p>
+
+<p>John followed the butler into the familiar room. Warde
+was not down yet, but evidently Dumber had instructions
+not to leave the prisoner. John stared at the writing-desk.
+Then he turned to Dumbleton, and said carelessly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This means the sack, eh, Dumber?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. 'Ow could you do it, sir? Such a well-be'aved
+gentleman, too!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Dumber." John took an envelope from
+the desk, and wrote Scaife's name upon it.</p>
+
+<p>"Dumber, please give Mr. Scaife this&mdash;with my compliments.
+It is, as you see, a bill of fare."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, sir."</p>
+
+<p>John placed the card into the envelope and handed both
+to Dumbleton.</p>
+
+<p>"With my compliments!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>after</i> Chapel."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>A moment later Warde came in. Dumbleton went out
+immediately with a sorrowful, backward glance at John.
+The good fellow looked terribly bewildered. For John's
+face, John's deportment, had amazed him. John was
+quite unaware of it, but he looked astonishingly well.
+Excitement had flushed his cheek and lent a sparkle to his
+grey eyes. He had enjoyed his ride to town and back;
+he had slept soundly under the lee of a haystack; and he
+had washed his face and hands in the horse-trough at the
+foot of Sudbury Hill. And the certainty that Desmond
+was safe, that in the end he, John, had triumphed over
+Scaife, filled his soul with joy. Warde, on the other hand,
+looked wretched; he had passed a sleepless night; he
+was pale, haggard, gaunt.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you to say, Verney?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing." Warde clenched his hands, and burst into
+speech, letting all that he had suffered and suppressed
+escape in tumultuous words and gestures. "Nothing.
+You dare to stand there and say&mdash;nothing. That you
+should have done this thing! Why, it's incredible! And
+I who trusted you. And you listened to me with a face
+like brass, laughing in your sleeve, no doubt, at the fool
+who betrayed himself. And you came here, so my wife
+tells me, to see if I was out of the way, if the coast was
+clear. And you were cool as a cucumber. Oh, you hypocrite,
+you damnable hypocrite! I have to see you now,
+but never again will I look willingly upon your face, never!
+Well, this wretched business must be ended. You got out
+of my house last night. You heard I was dining with the
+Head Master. I returned early, and I saw you jump from
+the passage window. You don't deny that you went up
+to London, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir; I don't deny it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the moment John, quite unconsciously, looked as
+if he were glorying in what he had done. Warde could
+have struck his clean, clear face, unblushingly meeting his
+furious glance. In disgust, he turned his back and walked
+to the window. John felt rather than saw that his tutor
+was profoundly moved. When he turned, two tears were
+trickling down his cheeks. The sight of them nearly undid
+John. When Warde spoke again, his voice was choked
+by his emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Verney," he said, "I spoke just now in an unrestrained
+manner, because you&mdash;you"&mdash;his voice trembled&mdash;"have
+shaken my faith in all I hold most dear. I say to you&mdash;I
+say to you that I believed in you as I believe in my wife.
+Even now I feel that somehow there is a mistake&mdash;that you
+are not what you confess yourself to be&mdash;a brazen-faced
+humbug. You have worked as I have worked for this
+House, and in one moment you undo that work. Have
+you paused to think, what effect this will have upon the
+others?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet, sir."</p>
+
+<p>John looked respectfully sympathetic. Poor Warde!
+This was rough indeed upon him.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the door was flung open, and Desmond burst
+into the room, with a complete disregard of the customary
+proprieties, and rushed up to Warde.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," he said vehemently, "Verney did this to save&mdash;<i>me</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Warde saw the slow smile break upon John's face.
+And, seeing it, he came as near hysterical laughter as a
+man of his character and temperament can come. He
+perceived that John, for some amazing reason, had played
+the scape-goat; that, in fact, he was innocent&mdash;not a
+humbug, not a hypocrite, not a brazen-faced sinner.
+And the relief was so stupendous that the tutor flung himself
+back into a chair, gasping. Desmond spoke quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"I was going to town, sir. For the first time, I swear.
+And only to win a bet, and for the excitement of jumping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
+out of a window. John tried to dissuade me. When he
+exhausted every argument, he went himself."</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord be praised!" said Warde. He had divined
+everything; but he let Desmond tell the story in detail.
+Scaife's name was left out of the narrative.</p>
+
+<p>Then Warde said slowly, "I shall not refer this business
+to the Head Master; I shall deal with it myself. For
+your own sake, Desmond, for the sake of your father, and,
+above all else, for the sake of this House, I shall do no
+more than ask you to promise that, for the rest of your
+time at Harrow, you will endeavour to atone for what has
+been."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>All boys worth their salt are creatures of reserves;
+let us respect them. It is easy to surmise what passed
+between the friends&mdash;the gratitude, the self-reproach, the
+humiliation on one side; the sympathy, the encouragement
+and shy, restrained affection on the other. A bitter-sweet
+moment for John this, revealing, without disguise, the
+weakness of Desmond's character, but illuminating the
+triumph over Scaife, the all-powerful. John had been
+inhuman if this knowledge had not been as spikenard to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Chapel over, the boys came pouring back into the
+house. In a minute the fags would be hurrying up with the
+tea and the jam-pots, asking for orders; in a minute Scaife
+would rush in with questions hot upon his lips. John
+chuckled to himself as he heard Scaife's step.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, C&aelig;sar! Why did you cut Chapel? And&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>John saw that the Carlton supper-card was in his hand.
+He chuckled again.</p>
+
+<p>"Dumber has just given me&mdash;<i>this</i>. Did you go, after
+all?" he asked C&aelig;sar. They had not met since Warde's
+visit of the night before.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't go," said C&aelig;sar.</p>
+
+<p>"Dumber gave it to me, with Verney's compliments."</p>
+
+<p>"You've lost your bet," said John.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But how?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jonathan went to town instead of me," said Desmond.
+"We thought he was with Warde&mdash;he wasn't. This
+morning, early, I found out that he hadn't slept in his bed.
+I saw him come back, and I saw Dumber waiting for him.
+When Dumber came out of Warde's room, he told me that
+Jonathan had been up to town, and was going to be&mdash;sacked."</p>
+
+<p>He blurted out the rest of the story, to which Scaife
+listened attentively. When Desmond finished, there was
+a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"You're devilish clever," said Scaife to John.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall pay up the pony," said Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>"No, you won't," said Scaife. "As for the money, I
+never cared a hang about that. I'm glad&mdash;and you ought
+to know it&mdash;that you've won the bet. All the same,
+Verney isn't entitled to all the glory that you give him."</p>
+
+<p>"He is, he is&mdash;and more, too."</p>
+
+<p>Scaife laughed. John felt rather uncomfortable. Always
+Scaife exhibited his amazing resource at unexpected
+moments.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," Scaife continued, "I won't burst the
+pretty bubble. And I admit, remember, Verney's cleverness."</p>
+
+<p>He was turning to go, but Desmond clutched his sleeve.
+When he spoke his fair face was scarlet.</p>
+
+<p>"You sneer at the wrong man and at the wrong time,"
+he said angrily, "and you talk as though I was a fool.
+Well, I am a fool, perhaps, and I blow bubbles. Prick
+this one, if you can. I challenge you to do it."</p>
+
+<p>Scaife shrugged his shoulders. "It's so obvious," he
+said coolly, "that your kind friend ran no risks other than
+a sprained ankle or a cold."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was certain that you would come forward. He
+forced your hand. There was never the smallest chance of
+his being sacked, and he knew it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said John, calmly, "I knew it."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," said Scaife. He went out whistling.</p>
+
+<p>Desmond had time to whisper to John before the fags
+called them to breakfast in John's room&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Jonathan, I'm glad you knew that I wouldn't
+fail you. As the Demon says, you are clever; you are a
+sight cleverer than he is."</p>
+
+<p>John shook his head. "I'm slow," he said. "As a
+matter of fact, the thought that you would come to the
+rescue never occurred to me till I was biking back from
+town."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyway, you saved me from being sacked, and as
+long as I live I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Come on to breakfast," said John.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> The Philathletic Club deals primarily with all matters which
+concern Harrow games; it is also a social club. Distinguished athletes,
+monitors, and so forth, are eligible for membership. The Head of the
+School is <i>ex-Officio</i> President.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Good Night</i></h3>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 22em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Good night! Sleep, and so may ever<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lights half seen across a murky lea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Child of hope, and courage, and endeavour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Gleam a voiceless benison on thee!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Youth be bearer<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Soon of hardihood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Life be fairer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Loyaller to good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the far lamps vanish into light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rest in the dreamtime. Good night! Good night!"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The last</span> Saturday of the summer term saw the Manor
+cock-house at cricket: almost a foregone conclusion, and
+therefore not particularly interesting to outsiders. During
+the morning Scaife gave his farewell "brekker"<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> at the
+Creameries; a banquet of the Olympians to which John
+received an invitation. He accepted because Desmond
+made a point of his so doing; but he was quite aware that
+beneath the veneer of the Demon's genial smile lay implacable
+hatred and resentment. The breakfast in itself struck
+John as ostentatious. Scaife's father sent quails, <i>&agrave; la
+Lucullus</i>, and other delicacies. Throughout the meal the
+talk was of the coming war. At that time most of the
+Conservative papers pooh-poohed the possibility of an appeal
+to arms, but Scaife's father, admittedly a great authority
+on South African affairs, had told his son a fight was inevitable.
+More, he and his friends were already preparing to
+raise a regiment of mounted infantry. At breakfast Scaife
+announced this piece of news, and added that in the event
+of hostilities he would join this regiment, and not try to
+pass into Sandhurst. And he added that any of his friends
+who were present, and over eighteen years of age, were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
+cordially invited to send in their names, and that he
+personally would do all that was possible to secure them
+billets. The words were hardly out of his mouth, when
+C&aelig;sar Desmond was on his feet, with an eager&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Put me down, Demon; put me down first!"</p>
+
+<p>And then Scaife glanced at John, as he answered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Right you are, C&aelig;sar, and if things go well with us, I
+fancy that we shall get our commissions in regular regiments
+soon enough. The governor had had a hint to that effect.
+Let's drink success to 'Scaife's Horse.'"</p>
+
+<p>The toast was drunk with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>During the holidays, John saw nothing of Desmond,
+although they wrote to each other once a week. John was
+reading hard with an eye to a possible scholarship at
+Oxford; Desmond was playing cricket with Scaife. Later,
+Desmond went to the Scaife moor in Scotland. John noted
+that his friend's letters were full of two things only: sport,
+and the ever-increasing probability of war. At the end of
+August John Verney, the explorer, returning to Verney
+Boscobel after an absence of nearly four years, began to
+write his now famous book on the Far East. Then John
+learned from his mother that his uncle had borne all the
+charges of his education. When he thanked him, the uncle
+said warmly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You have more than repaid me, my dear boy; not
+another word, please, about that. Warde tells me they
+expect great things of you at Oxford."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle and nephew were alone, after dinner. John had
+noticed that the hardships endured in Manchuria and
+Thibet had left scars upon the traveller. His hair was white,
+he looked an old man; one whose wanderings in wild places
+must perforce come soon to an end.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle," said John, "I want to chuck Oxford."</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to go into the Army."</p>
+
+<p>"Bless my soul!"</p>
+
+<p>The explorer eyed his nephew with wrinkled brow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
+John gave reasons; we can guess what they were. The
+prospect of war had set all ardent souls afire.</p>
+
+<p>"I must think this over, my boy," the uncle replied
+presently. "I must sleep on it. Have you told your
+mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I counted upon you to persuade her."</p>
+
+<p>"Um. Now tell me about Lord's! Ah! I'm sorry I
+missed that match."</p>
+
+<p>Next day, his uncle said nothing of what lay next to
+John's heart, but the pair rode together over the estate.
+During that ride it became plain to the young man that
+his uncle had no intention of settling down. Once or twice,
+in the driest, most matter-of-fact tone, the elder spoke as
+if his heir were likely to inherit soon. Finally, John blurted
+out a protest&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But, uncle, you are a strong man. Why do you talk
+as if&mdash;as if&mdash;&mdash;" the boy couldn't finish the phrase.</p>
+
+<p>"Tut, tut," said the uncle. "I know what I know";
+and he fell into silence.</p>
+
+<p>Not till the evening, after Mrs. Verney had gone to
+bed, did the man of many wanderings speak freely.</p>
+
+<p>"John," said he, quietly, "I have a story to tell you.
+Years ago, your father and I fell in love with the same girl.
+She married the better man." He paused to fill a pipe:
+John saw that his uncle's fingers trembled slightly; but his
+voice was cool, measured, almost monotonous. "I made
+my first expedition to Patagonia. When I came back you
+were just born; and I asked that I might be your godfather.
+I went to Africa after the christening. And six years later
+your father died. I think he had the purest and most
+unselfish love of the poor and helpless that I have ever
+known. He wore away his life in the service of the outcast
+and forlorn. And before he died, he expressed a wish that
+you should work as he did, for others, but not in precisely
+the same way. He knew, none better, the limitations
+imposed upon a parson. He prayed that you might labour
+in a field larger than one parish. And I promised him that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
+I would do what I could when the time came. It has come&mdash;to-night.
+In my opinion, in Warde's opinion, in your
+dear mother's opinion, Parliament is the place for you.
+You will be sufficiently well off. Take all Oxford can give
+you, and then try for the House of Commons. Charles
+Desmond will make you one of his Private Secretaries. I
+have spoken to him. You have a great career before you."</p>
+
+<p>"But if war breaks out, uncle&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"War <i>will</i> break out. Don't misunderstand me! If
+you are wanted out there, and the thing is going to be
+very serious, if you are wanted, you must go; but decidedly
+you are not wanted yet. And you are an only son; all
+your mother has. John, you must think of her, and you
+will think of her, I know."</p>
+
+<p>The conviction in his quiet voice communicated itself to
+his nephew. There was a pause of nearly a minute; and
+then John answered, in a voice curiously like his uncle's&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"All right."</p>
+
+<p>Verney senior held out his hand. "I knew you would
+say that," he murmured.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>On the 18th of September, when John returned to the
+Hill, the country had just learned that the proposals of the
+Imperial Government to accept the note of August 19th
+(provided it were not encumbered by conditions which
+would nullify the intention to give substantial representation
+to the Uitlanders) had not been accepted. That this
+meant war, none, least of all a schoolboy, doubted. Desmond
+could talk of nothing else. He told John that his
+father had promised to let him leave Harrow before the end
+of the term, if war were declared. The Demon, so John was
+informed, had made already preparations. He was taking
+out his three polo ponies, and had hopes of being appointed
+Galloper to a certain General. Scaife's Horse was being
+organized, but in any case would not take the field before
+several months had elapsed; the Demon intended to be on
+the spot when the first shot was fired.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To all this gunpowder-talk John listened with envious
+ears and a curious sinking of the heart. He had looked
+forward to having Desmond to himself; and lo! his friend
+was seven thousand miles away&mdash;on the veldt, not on the
+Hill.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not keen," said Desmond.</p>
+
+<p>On the day of the Goose Match, Saturday, September
+30th, Scaife came down to Harrow to take leave of his
+friends. Already, John noted an extraordinary difference
+in his manner and appearance. He treated John to a
+slightly patronizing smile, called him Jonathan, asked if he
+could be of service to him, and posed most successfully as
+a sort of sucking Alexander.</p>
+
+<p>That he absorbed Desmond's eyes and mind was indisputable.
+Everything outside South Africa, and in
+particular the Hill and all things thereon, dwindled into
+insignificance. Scaife made Desmond a present of the
+very best maps obtainable, and nailed them on the wall
+above the mantelpiece, pulling down a fine engraving
+which John had given to Desmond about a year before.
+Desmond uttered no protest. The engraving was bundled
+out of sight behind a sofa.</p>
+
+<p>And after Scaife's departure, Desmond talked of him
+continually, and always with enthusiasm. Warde added
+a note or two to the chorus.</p>
+
+<p>"This is an opportunity for Scaife," he told John.
+"He may distinguish himself very greatly, and the discipline
+of the camp will transmute the bad metal into gold.
+War is an alchemist."</p>
+
+<p>Upon the 11th of October war was declared.</p>
+
+<p>After that, Desmond became as one possessed. He
+went about saying that he pitied his father profoundly
+because he was a civilian and a non-combatant. Warde
+wrote to Charles Desmond: "If you mean to send Harry
+out, send him at once. He's fretting himself to fiddle-strings,
+doing no work, and causing others to do no work
+also."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sir William Symons' victory and death followed, and
+then the mortifying retreat of General Yule. Upon the
+30th day of the month eight hundred and fifty officers and
+men were isolated and captured. Who does not remember
+the wave of passionate incredulity that swept across the
+kingdom when the evil tidings flashed over-seas? But
+Buller and his staff were on the <i>Dunottar Castle</i>, and all
+Harrovians believed devoutly that within a month of
+landing the Commander-in-Chief would drive the invaders
+back and conquer the Transvaal.</p>
+
+<p>Day after day, Desmond importuned his father. The
+"fun" would be over, he pointed out, before he got there&mdash;and
+so on. At last word came. A billet had been obtained.
+Desmond received a long envelope from the War
+Office. He showed it to all his friends, old and young.
+Duff junior&mdash;C&aelig;sar's fag&mdash;became so excited that he asked
+Warde for permission to enlist as a drummer-boy. The
+School cheered C&aelig;sar at four Bill.</p>
+
+<p>And then came the parting.</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar was to join the Headquarters' Staff as soon as
+possible. He spent the last hours with John, but his mind,
+naturally enough, was concentrated upon his kit. He
+chattered endlessly of saddlery, revolvers, sleeping bags,
+and Zeiss glasses. John packed his portmanteau. And
+on the morrow the friends parted at the station without a
+word beyond&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, old Jonathan. Wish you were coming."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, C&aelig;sar. Good luck!"</p>
+
+<p>And then the shrill whistle, the inexorable rolling of the
+wheels, the bright, eager face leaning far out of the window,
+the waved handkerchief, the last words: "So long!" and
+John's reply, "So long!"</p>
+
+<p>John saw the face fade; the wheels of the vanishing
+train seemed to have rolled over his heart; the scream of
+the engine was the scream of anguish from himself. He
+left the station and ran to the Tower. There, after the first
+indescribable moments, some kindly spirit touched him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
+He became whole. But he had ceased to be a boy. Alone
+upon the tower he prayed for his friend, prayed fervently
+that it might be well with him, now and for ever&mdash;Amen.</p>
+
+<p>When he returned to the Manor, however, peace seemed
+to forsake him. The horrible gap, ever-widening, between
+himself and Desmond might, indeed, be bridged by prayer,
+but not by the shouts of boys and the turmoil of a Public
+School.</p>
+
+<p>During the rest of the term he worked furiously. Desmond
+was now on the high seas, whither John followed him
+at night and on Sundays. Warde, guessing, perhaps, what
+was passing in John's heart, talked much of Desmond,
+always hopefully. From Warde, John learned that Charles
+Desmond had tried to dissuade his favourite son from
+becoming a soldier.</p>
+
+<p>"He wanted him to go into Parliament," said Warde.</p>
+
+<p>John nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a disappointment. Yes; a great disappointment.
+Harry would have made a debater. Yes; yes;
+a nimble wit, an engaging manner, and the gift of the gab.
+And the father would have had him under his own eye."</p>
+
+<p>"But he wanted to go to South Africa from the beginning."</p>
+
+<p>"You wanted to go," said Warde; "your uncle told me
+so. It was a greater thing for you, John, to stand aside."</p>
+
+<p>And then John put a question. "Do you think that
+Harry ought to have stood aside too?"</p>
+
+<p>Warde, however, unwilling to commit himself, spoke of
+Harry's ardour and patriotism. But at the end he let fall a
+straw which indicated the true current of his thoughts&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Desmond is very lonely."</p>
+
+<p>John swooped on this.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you think, you <i>do</i> think, that Harry should have
+stayed behind?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps. One hesitates to accuse the boy of anything
+more than thoughtlessness."</p>
+
+<p>"If he wished to serve his country," began John, warmly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Warde smiled. "Yes, yes," he assented. "Let us
+believe that, John; but there has been too much cheap
+excitement."</p>
+
+<p>Dark days followed. Who will ever forget Stormberg
+and Magersfontein? A pall seemed to hang over the
+kingdom. Ladysmith remained in the grip of the invader;
+the Boers were not yet driven out of Natal. Meantime
+C&aelig;sar had reached Sir Redvers Buller. A letter to his
+father, describing the few incidents of the voyage out, and
+his arrival in South Africa, was sent on to John and received
+by him on the 1st of February. "John will understand,"
+said C&aelig;sar, in a postscript, "that I have little time for
+writing." But John did not understand. He wrote
+regularly to Desmond; no answer came in return.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>At the end of the Christmas holidays John returned to
+Harrow. He was now Head of his House, and very nearly
+Head of the School. The weeks went by slowly. Soon, he
+and a few others would travel to Oxford for their examination;
+there would be the strenuous excitement of competition,
+and the final announcement of success or failure.
+To all this John told himself that he was lukewarm.
+Nothing seemed to matter since he had lost sight of C&aelig;sar's
+face, since the train whirled his friend out of his life. But
+he worked hard, so hard that the Head Master bade him
+beware of a breakdown.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The hour of triumph came. John had gratified his own
+and Warde's ambition; he was a Scholar of Christ Church.
+And this well-earned success seemed to draw something in
+his heart. The congratulations, the warm hand-clasps, the
+generous joy of schoolfellows not as fortunate, restored his
+moral circulation. A whole holiday was granted in honour
+of his success at Oxford. He told himself that now he
+would take things easy and enjoy himself. The clouds in
+South Africa were lifting, everybody said the glorious end
+was in sight. And so far Desmond had escaped wounds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
+and sickness. He had received a commission in Beauregard's
+Irregular Horse; in the five days' action about
+Spion Kop he behaved with conspicuous gallantry. Scaife,
+having obtained his billet of Galloper, was with a General
+under Lord Methuen.</p>
+
+<p>On the last Monday but one in the term, John was
+entering the Manor just before lock-up, when a Sixth Form
+boy from another house passed him, running.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you heard about poor Scaife?" he called out.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Warde will tell you; he knows." The boy ran on,
+not wishing to be late.</p>
+
+<p>John ran, too, with his heart thumping against his side.
+He felt certain, from the expression upon the boy's face,
+that Scaife was dead. And John recalled with intense
+bitterness and humiliation moments in past years when he
+had wished that Scaife would die. Charles Desmond had
+told him only three weeks before that his Harry hoped to
+join the smart cavalry regiment in which a commission had
+been promised to Scaife. At that moment John was
+sensible of an inordinate desire for anything that might
+come between this wish and its fulfilment. And now, Scaife
+might be lying dead.</p>
+
+<p>He found Warde in his study staring at a telegram. He
+looked up as John entered, and in silence handed him the
+message.</p>
+
+<p class="center">"<i>Demon dead. Died gloriously.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The telegram came from an Harrovian, an old Manorite
+at the War Office.</p>
+
+<p>John sat down, stunned by the news; Warde regarded
+him gravely. John met his glance and could not interpret
+it. Presently, Warde said nervously&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why did the fellow write 'Demon' instead of 'Scaife'?
+I don't like that." He looked sharply at John, who did
+not understand. Then he added, "I've wired for confirmation.
+There may be a&mdash;mistake."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What mistake?" said John. Warde's manner confused
+him, frightened him. "What mistake, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Warde, twisting the paper, answered miserably&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There has been an action, but not in Scaife's part of
+Africa. Beauregard's Horse were engaged and suffered
+severely. And would any one say 'Demon' in such a
+serious context?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my God!" said John, pale and trembling. At
+last he understood. Add two letters to "Demon" and you
+have "Desmond." How easily such a mistake could be
+made!&mdash;"Desmond," ill-written, handed to an old Manorite
+to copy and despatch.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Scaife&mdash;it's Scaife," John cried.</p>
+
+<p>Warde said nothing, staring at the thin slip of paper
+as if he were trying to wrest from it its secret.</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody called him 'Demon,'" said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Still, one ought to be prepared."</p>
+
+<p>For many hideous minutes they sat there, silent, waiting
+for the second telegram. Dumbleton brought it in, and
+lingered, anxiously expectant; but Warde dismissed him
+with a gesture. As the door closed, Warde stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"If our fears are well founded," he said solemnly, "may
+God give you strength, John Verney, to bear the blow."</p>
+
+<p>Then he tore open the envelope and read the truth&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">"<i>Henry Desmond killed in action.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said John, fiercely. "It is Scaife, Scaife!"</p>
+
+<p>Warde shook his head, holding John's hand tight between
+his sinewy fingers. John's face appalled him. He
+had known, he had guessed, the strength of John's feeling
+for Desmond, but, he had not known the strength of John's
+hatred of Scaife. And Desmond had been taken&mdash;and
+Scaife left. The irony of it tore the soul.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't speak," commanded Warde.</p>
+
+<p>John closed his lips with instinctive obedience. When
+he opened them again his face had softened; the words fell
+upon the silence with a heartrending inflection of misery.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And now I shall never know&mdash;I shall never know."</p>
+
+<p>He broke down piteously. Warde let the first passion
+of grief spend itself; then he asked John to explain. The
+good fellow saw that if John could give his trouble words
+it would be lightened enormously. He divined what had
+been suppressed.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it that you will never know, John?"</p>
+
+<p>At that John spoke, laying bare his heart. He gave
+details of the never-ending struggle between Scaife and
+himself for the soul of his friend; gave them with a clearness
+of expression which proved beyond all else how his thoughts
+had crystallized in his mind. Warde listened, holding
+John's hand, gripping it with sympathy and affection.
+The romance of this friendship stirred him profoundly;
+the romance of the struggle for good and evil; a struggle
+of which the issues remained still in doubt; a romance
+which Death had cruelly left unfinished&mdash;this had poignant
+significance for the house-master.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never know now," John repeated, in conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>"But you have faith in your friend."</p>
+
+<p>"He never wrote to me," said John.</p>
+
+<p>At last it was out, the thorn in his side which had tormented
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"If he had written," John continued, "if only he had
+written once. When we parted it was good-bye&mdash;just that,
+nothing more; but I thought he would write, and that
+everything would be cleared up. And now, silence."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The week wore itself away. A few details were forthcoming:
+enough to prove that a glorious deed had been
+done at the cost of a gallant life. England was thrilled
+because the hero happened to be the son of a popular
+Minister. The name of Desmond rang through the Empire.
+John bought every paper and devoured the meagre lines
+which left so much between them. It seemed that a certain
+position had to be taken&mdash;a small hill. For the hundredth
+time in this campaign too few men were detailed for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
+task. The reek of that awful slaughter on Spion Kop was
+still strong in men's nostrils. Beauregard and his soldiers
+halted at the foot of the hill, halted in the teeth of a storm
+of bullets. Then the word was given to attack. But the
+fire from invisible foes simply exterminated the leading
+files. The moment came when those behind wavered and
+recoiled. And then Desmond darted forward&mdash;alone,
+cheering on his fellows. They were all afoot. The men
+rallied and followed. But they could not overtake the
+gallant figure pressing on in front. He ran&mdash;so the Special
+Correspondent reported&mdash;as if he were racing for a goal.
+The men staggered after him, aflame with his ardour.
+They reached the top, captured the guns, drove down the
+enemy, and returned to the highest point to find their leader&mdash;shot
+through the heart, and dead, and smiling at death.
+Of all the men who passed through that blizzard of bullets
+he was the youngest by two years.</p>
+
+<p>Warde told John that the Head Master would preach
+upon the last Sunday evening of the term, with special
+reference to Harry Desmond. Could John bear it? John
+nodded. Since the first breakdown in Warde's study, his
+heart seemed to have turned to ice. His religious sense,
+hitherto strong and vital, failed him entirely. He abandoned
+prayer.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Evensong was over in Harrow Chapel. The Head
+Master, stately in surplice and scarlet hood, entered the
+pulpit, and, in his clear, calm tones, announced his text,
+taken from the 17th verse of the First Chapter of the Book
+of Ruth&mdash;</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"The Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but
+death part thee and me."</p>
+
+<p>The subject of the sermon was "Friendship:" the
+heart's blood of a Public School: Friendship with its
+delights, its perils, its peculiar graces and benedictions.</p>
+
+<p>"To-night," concluded the preacher, amid the breathless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>
+silence of the congregation, "this thought of Friendship has
+for us a special solemnity. It is consecrated by the
+memory of one whom we have just lost. You, who are
+leaving the school, have been the friends and contemporaries
+of Henry Julius Desmond; his features are fresh
+in your memories, and will remain fresh as long as you
+live.</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 19em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Tall, eager, a face to remember,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A flush that could change as the day;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A spirit that knew not December,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That brightened the sunshine of May."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>"Those lines, as you know, were written of another
+Harrovian, who died here on this Hill. Henry Desmond
+died on another hill, and died so gloriously that the shadow
+of our loss, dark as it seemed to us at first, is already melting
+in the radiance of his gain. To die young, clean, ardent;
+to die swiftly, in perfect health; to die saving others from
+death, or worse&mdash;disgrace&mdash;to die scaling heights; to die
+and to carry with you into the fuller, ampler life beyond,
+untainted hopes and aspirations, unembittered memories,
+all the freshness and gladness of May&mdash;is not that cause
+for joy rather than sorrow? I say&mdash;yes. Henry Desmond
+is one stage ahead of us upon a journey which we all must
+take, and I entreat you to consider that, if we have faith
+in a future life, we must believe also that we carry hence
+not only the record of our acts, whether good or evil, but the
+memory of them; and that memory, undimmed by falsehood
+or self-deception, will create for us Heaven or Hell.
+I do not say&mdash;God forbid!&mdash;that you should desire death
+because you are still young, and, comparatively speaking,
+unspotted from the world; but I say I would sooner see
+any of you struck down in the flower of his youth than
+living on to lose, long before death comes, all that makes
+life worth the living. Better death, a thousand times, than
+gradual decay of mind and spirit; better death than faithlessness,
+indifference, and uncleanness. To you who are
+leaving Harrow, poised for flight into the great world of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
+which this school is the microcosm, I commend the memory
+of Henry Desmond. It stands in our records for all we
+venerate and strive for: loyalty, honour, purity, strenuousness,
+faithfulness in friendship. When temptation assails
+you, think of that gallant boy running swiftly uphill,
+leaving craven fear behind, and drawing with him the
+others who, led by him to the heights, made victory
+possible. You cannot all be leaders, but you can follow
+leaders; only see to it that they lead you, as Henry Desmond
+led the men of Beauregard's Horse, onward and
+upward."</p>
+
+<p>The preacher ended, and then followed the familiar
+hymn, always sung upon the last Sunday evening of the
+term:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="cpoem" style="width: 18em;"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Let Thy father-hand be shielding<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All who here shall meet no more;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May their seed-time past be yielding<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Year by year a richer store;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Those returning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Make more faithful than before."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>The last blessing was pronounced, and with glistening
+eyes the boys streamed out of Chapel; some of them for the
+last time.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Upon the next Tuesday, John travelled down into the
+New Forest. April was abroad in Hampshire; the larches
+already were bright green against the Scotch firs; the beech
+buds were bursting; only the oaks retained their drab
+winter's-livery.</p>
+
+<p>During the few days preceding Easter Sunday, John
+rode or walked to every part of the forest which he had
+visited in company with his dead friend. At Beaulieu,
+standing in the ruins of the Abbey, he could hear Desmond's
+delightful laugh as he recited the misadventures of
+Hordle John; at Stoneycross he sat upon the bank overlooking
+the moor, whence they had seen the fox steal into
+the woods about Rufus's Stone; at the Bell tavern at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
+Brook they had lunched; at Hinton Admiral they had
+played cricket.</p>
+
+<p>To his mother's and his uncle's silent sympathy John
+responded but churlishly. His friend had departed without
+a word, without a sign; that ate into John's heart and
+consumed it. For the first time since he had been confirmed,
+he refused to receive the Sacrament. He went to
+church as a matter of form; but he dared not approach the
+altar in his present rebellious mood.</p>
+
+<p>Again and again he accused himself of having yielded to
+a craven fear of offending Desmond by speech too plain.
+Always he had been so terribly afraid of losing his friend;
+and now he had lost him indeed. This poignancy of grief
+may be accounted for in part by the previous long-continued
+strain of overwork. And it is ever the habit of
+those who do much to think that they might have done
+more.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of May, John came back to the Hill,
+for his last term. Out of the future rose the "dreaming
+spires" of Oxford; beyond them, vague and shadowy, the
+great Clock-tower of Westminster, keeping watch and ward
+over the destinies of our Empire.</p>
+
+<p>In a long letter from Charles Desmond, the Minister
+had spoken of the secretaryship to be kept warm for him,
+of the pleasure and solace the writer would take in seeing
+his son's best friend in the place where that son might have
+stood.</p>
+
+<p>His best friend? Was that true?</p>
+
+<p>The question tormented John. Because C&aelig;sar had been
+so much to him, he desired, more passionately than he had
+desired anything in his life, the assurance that he had been
+something&mdash;not everything, only something&mdash;to C&aelig;sar.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>One day, about the middle of the month, John had been
+playing cricket, the game of all games which brought
+C&aelig;sar most vividly to his mind. Then, just before six Bill,
+he strolled up the Hill and into the Vaughan Library, where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
+so many relics dear to Harrovians are enshrined. Sitting
+in the splendid window which faces distant Hampstead,
+John told himself that he must put aside the miseries and
+perplexities of the past month. Had he been loyal to his
+friend's memory? Would not a more ardent faith have
+burned away doubt?</p>
+
+<p>John gazed across the familiar fields to the huge city on
+the horizon. Soon night would fall, darkness would
+encompass all things. And then, out of the mirk, would
+shine the lamps of London.</p>
+
+<p>Warde's voice put his thoughts to instant flight. Some
+intuition told John that something had happened. Warde
+said quietly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A letter has come for you in Harry Desmond's handwriting."</p>
+
+<p>John, unable to speak, stretched out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Take it," said Warde, "to some quiet spot where you
+cannot be disturbed."</p>
+
+<p>John nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen how it was with you," Warde continued,
+with deep emotion, "and you have had my acute sympathy,
+the more acute, perhaps, because long ago a friend went
+out of my life without a sign." Warde paused. "Now,
+unless my whole experience is at fault, you hold in your
+hand what you want&mdash;and what you deserve."</p>
+
+<p>Warde left the library; John put the letter into his
+pocket. Where should he go? One place beckoned him.
+Upon the tower, looking towards the Hill, he would read
+the last letter of his friend.</p>
+
+<p>Within half an hour he was passing through the iron
+gates. He had not visited the garden since that forlorn
+winter's afternoon, when he came here, alone, after bidding
+Desmond good-bye. He could recall the desolation of the
+scene: bleak Winter dripping tears upon the tomb of
+Summer. With what disgust he had perceived the decaying
+masses of vegetation, the sodden turf, the soot upon the
+bare trunks of the trees. He had rushed away, fancying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
+that he heard Desmond's voice, "There is a curse on the
+place."</p>
+
+<p>Now, May had touched what had seemed dead and
+hideous, and, lo! a miracle. The hawthorns shone white
+against the brilliant green of the laurels; the horse-chestnuts
+had&mdash;to use a fanciful expression of C&aelig;sar's&mdash;"lit their
+lamps." Out of the waving grass glimmered and sparkled
+a thousand wild flowers. John heard the glad <i>Fr&uuml;hlingslied</i>
+of bees and birds. Then, opening his lungs, he inhaled the
+life-renewing odours of earth renascent; opening his heart
+he felt a spiritual essence pervading every fibre of his being.
+Once more the chilled sap in his veins flowed generously.
+It was well with him and well with his friend. This
+conviction possessed him, remember, before he opened the
+letter.</p>
+
+<p>He ascended the tower, and broke the seal.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"I have been meaning to write to you, dear old chap,
+ever since we parted; but, somehow, I couldn't bring myself
+to tackle it in earnest till to-night. To-morrow, we have
+a thundering big job ahead of us; the last job, perhaps, for
+me. Old Jonathan, you have been the best friend a man
+ever had, the only one I love as much as my own brothers&mdash;<i>and
+even more</i>. It was from knowing you that I came to see
+what good-for-nothing fools some fellows are. You were
+always so unselfish and <i>straight!</i> and you made me feel that
+I was the contrary, and that you knew it, and that I should
+lose your friendship if I didn't improve a bit. So, if we
+don't meet again in this jolly old world, it may be a little
+comfort to you to remember that what you have done for
+a very worthless pal was not thrown away.</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, Jonathan. I'm going to turn in; we
+shall be astir before daybreak. Over the veldt the stars are
+shining. It's so light, that I can just make out the hill
+upon which, I hope, our flag will be waving within a few
+hours. The sight of this hill brings back our Hill. If I
+shut my eyes, I can see it plainly, as we used to see it from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>
+the tower, with the Spire rising out of the heart of the old
+school. I have the absurd conviction strong in me that,
+to-morrow, I shall get up the hill here faster and easier
+than the other fellows because you and I have so often run
+up our Hill together&mdash;God bless it&mdash;and you! Good
+night."</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Brekker, <i>i.e.</i> breakfast.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="hd2"><small>PRINTED AND BOUND IN ENGLAND BY<br />
+WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES</small></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hill, by Horace Annesley Vachell
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hill, by Horace Annesley Vachell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Hill
+       A Romance of Friendship
+
+Author: Horace Annesley Vachell
+
+Release Date: October 23, 2007 [EBook #23154]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HILL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Stephen Blundell and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+_ALSO BY HORACE A. VACHELL_
+
+QUINNEYS'
+
+
+
+
+           THE HILL
+
+    A ROMANCE OF FRIENDSHIP
+
+
+
+    HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL
+
+
+
+
+
+            LONDON
+ JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
+
+
+
+
+  FIRST EDITION             _April, 1905_
+
+ _Fortieth Impression_      _Jan., 1950_
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Greek
+    text has been transliterated and is shown between {braces}.
+
+
+
+
+ To
+ GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL
+
+I dedicate this Romance of Friendship to you with the sincerest pleasure
+and affection. You were the first to suggest that I should write a book
+about contemporary life at Harrow; you gave me the principal idea; you
+have furnished me with notes innumerable; you have revised every page of
+the manuscript; and you are a peculiarly keen Harrovian.
+
+In making this public declaration of my obligations to you, I take the
+opportunity of stating that the characters in "The Hill," whether
+masters or boys, are not portraits, although they may be called,
+truthfully enough, composite photographs; and that the episodes of
+Drinking and Gambling are founded on isolated incidents, not on habitual
+practices. Moreover, in attempting to reproduce the curious admixture of
+"strenuousness and sentiment"--your own phrase--which animates so
+vitally Harrow life, I have been obliged to select the less common types
+of Harrovian. Only the elect are capable of such friendship as John
+Verney entertained for Henry Desmond; and few boys, happily, are
+possessed of such powers as Scaife is shown to exercise. But that there
+are such boys as Verney and Scaife, nobody knows better than yourself.
+
+                                Believe me,
+                                  Yours most gratefully,
+                              HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL
+
+ BEECHWOOD,
+   _February 22, 1905_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAP.                               PAGE
+
+    I. THE MANOR                        1
+   II. CAESAR                           19
+  III. KRAIPALE                        35
+   IV. TORPIDS                         58
+    V. FELLOWSHIP                      70
+   VI. A REVELATION                    92
+  VII. REFORM                         107
+ VIII. VERNEY BOSCOBEL                123
+   IX. BLACK SPOTS                    140
+    X. DECAPITATION                   158
+   XI. SELF-QUESTIONING               173
+  XII. "LORD'S"                       189
+ XIII. "IF I PERISH, I PERISH"        211
+  XIV. GOOD NIGHT                     230
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+_The Manor_
+
+             "Five hundred faces, and all so strange!
+               Life in front of me--home behind,
+               I felt like a waif before the wind
+             Tossed on an ocean of shock and change.
+
+ "_Chorus._  Yet the time may come, as the years go by,
+               When your heart will thrill
+               At the thought of the Hill,
+             And the day that you came so strange and shy."
+
+
+The train slid slowly out of Harrow station.
+
+Five minutes before, a man and a boy had been walking up and down the
+long platform. The boy wondered why the man, his uncle, was so strangely
+silent. Then, suddenly, the elder John Verney had placed his hands upon
+the shoulders of the younger John, looking down into eyes as grey and as
+steady as his own.
+
+"You'll find plenty of fellows abusing Harrow," he said quietly; "but
+take it from me, that the fault lies not in Harrow, but in them. Such
+boys, as a rule, do not come out of the top drawer. Don't look so
+solemn. You're about to take a header into a big river. In it are rocks
+and rapids; but you know how to swim, and after the first plunge you'll
+enjoy it, as I did, amazingly."
+
+"Ra--ther," said John.
+
+In the New Forest, where John had spent most of his life at his uncle's
+place of Verney Boscobel, this uncle, his dead father's only brother,
+was worshipped as a hero. Indeed he filled so large a space in the boy's
+imagination, that others were cramped for room. John Verney in India, in
+Burmah, in Africa (he took continents in his stride), moved colossal.
+And when uncle and nephew met, behold, the great traveller stood not
+much taller than John himself! That first moment, the instant shattering
+of a precious delusion, held anguish. But now, as the train whirled away
+the silent, thin, little man, he began to expand again. John saw him
+scaling heights, cutting a path through impenetrable forests, wading
+across dismal swamps, an ever-moving figure, seeking the hitherto
+unknowable and irreclaimable, introducing order where chaos reigned
+supreme, a world-famous pioneer.
+
+How good to think that John Verney was _his_ uncle, blood of his blood,
+his, his, his--for all time!
+
+And, long ago, John, senior, had come to Harrow; had felt what John,
+junior, felt to the core--the dull, grinding wrench of separation, the
+sense, not yet to be analysed by a boy, of standing alone upon the edge
+of a river, indeed, into which he must plunge headlong in a few minutes.
+Well, Uncle John had taken his "header" with a stout heart--who dared to
+doubt that? Surely he had not waited, shivering and hesitating, at the
+jumping-off place.
+
+The train was now out of sight. John slipped the uncle's tip into his
+purse, and walked out of the station and on to the road beyond, the road
+which led to the top of the Hill.
+
+_The Hill._
+
+Presently, the boy reached some iron palings and a wicket-gate. His
+uncle had pointed out this gate and the steep path beyond which led to
+the top of the Hill, to the churchyard, to the Peachey tomb on which
+Byron dreamed,[1] to the High Street--and to the Manor. It was pleasant
+to remember that he was going to board at the Manor, with its
+traditions, its triumphs, its record. In his uncle's day the Manor
+ranked first among the boarding-houses. Not a doubt disturbed John's
+conviction that it ranked first still.
+
+The boy stared upwards with a keen gaze. Had the mother seen her son at
+that moment, she might have discerned a subtle likeness between uncle
+and nephew, not the likeness of the flesh, but of the spirit.
+
+September rains, followed by a day of warm sunshine, had lured from the
+earth a soft haze which obscured the big fields at the foot of the Hill.
+John could make out fences, poplars, elms, Scotch firs, and spectral
+houses. But, above, everything was clear. The school-buildings, such as
+he could see, stood out boldly against a cloudless sky, and above these
+soared the spire of Harrow Church, pointing an inexorable finger
+upwards.
+
+Afterwards this spot became dear to John Verney, because here, where
+mists were chill and blinding, he had been impelled to leave the broad
+high-road and take a path which led into a shadowy future. In obedience
+to an impulse stronger than himself he had taken the short cut to what
+awaited him.
+
+For a few minutes he stood outside the palings, trying to choke down an
+abominable lump in his throat. This was not his first visit to Harrow.
+At the end of the previous term, he had ascended the Hill to pass the
+entrance examination. A master from his preparatory school accompanied
+him, an Etonian, who had stared rather superciliously--so John
+thought--at buildings less venerable than those which Henry VI raised
+near Windsor. John, who had perceptions, was elusively conscious that
+his companion, too much of a gentleman to give his thoughts words, might
+be contrasting a yeoman's work with a king's; and when the Etonian,
+gazing across the plains below to where Windsor lay, a soft shadow upon
+the horizon, said abruptly, "I wish Eton had been built upon a hill,"
+John replied effusively: "Oh, sir, it _is_ decent of you to say that."
+The examination, however, distracted his attention from all things save
+the papers. To his delight he found these easy, and, as soon as he left
+the examination-room, he was popped into a cab and taken back to town.
+Coming down the flight of steps, he had seen a few boys hurrying up or
+down the road. At these the Etonian cocked a twinkling eye.
+
+"Queer kit you Harrow boys wear," he said.
+
+John, inordinately grateful at this recognition of himself as an
+Harrovian, forgave the gibe. It had struck him, also, that the shallow
+straw hat, the swallow-tail coat, did look queer, but he regarded them
+reverently as the uniform of a crack corps.
+
+To-day, standing by the iron palings, John reviewed the events of the
+last hour. The view was blurred by unshed tears. His uncle and he had
+driven together to the Manor. Here, the explorer had exercised his
+peculiar personal magnetism upon the house-master, a tall, burly man of
+truculent aspect and speech. John realized proudly that his uncle was
+the bigger of the two, and the giant acknowledged, perhaps grudgingly,
+the dwarf's superiority. The talk, short enough, had wandered into
+Darkest Africa. His uncle, as usual, said little, replying almost in
+monosyllables to the questions of his host; but John junior told himself
+exultantly that it was not necessary for Uncle John to talk; the wide
+world knew what he had done.
+
+Then his house-master, Rutford, had told John where to buy his first
+straw hat.
+
+"You can get one without an order at the beginning of each term," said
+he, in a thick, rasping voice. "But you must ask me for an order if you
+want a second."
+
+Then he had shown John his room, to be shared with two other boys, and
+had told him the hour of lock-up. And then, after tea, came the walk
+down the hill, the tip, the firm grasp of the sinewy hand, and a
+final--"God bless you."
+
+Coming to the end of these reflections, confronted by the inexorable
+future, and the necessity, no less inexorable, of stepping into it, John
+passed through the gate. His heart fluttered furiously, and the lump in
+the throat swelled inconveniently. John, however, had provided himself
+with a "cure-all." Plunging his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a
+cartridge, an unused twenty-bore gun cartridge. Looking at this, John
+smiled. When he smiled he became good-looking. The face, too long,
+plain, but full of sense and humour, rounded itself into the gracious
+curves of youth; the serious grey eyes sparkled; the lips, too firmly
+compressed, parted, revealing admirable teeth, small and squarely set;
+into the cheeks, brown rather than pink, flowed a warm stream of colour.
+
+The cartridge stood for so much. Only a week before, Uncle John, on his
+arrival from Manchuria, had handed his nephew a small leather case and a
+key. The case held a double-barrelled, hammerless, ejector, twenty-bore
+gun, with a great name upon its polished blue barrels.
+
+The sight of the cartridge justified John's expectations. He put it back
+into his pocket, and strode forward and upward.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Close to the School Chapel, John remarked a curly-headed young gentleman
+of wonderfully prepossessing appearance, from whom emanated an air, an
+atmosphere, of genial enjoyment which diffused itself. The bricks of the
+school-buildings seemed redder and warmer, as if they were basking in
+this sunny smile. The youth was smiling now, smiling--at John. For
+several hours John had been miserably aware that surprises awaited him,
+but not smiles. He knew no Harrovians; at his school, a small one, his
+fellows were labelled Winchester, Eton, Wellington; none, curiously
+enough, Harrow. And already he had passed half a dozen boys, the
+first-comers, some strangers, like himself, and in each face he had read
+indifference. Not one had taken the trouble to say, "Hullo! Who are
+you?" after the rough and ready fashion of the private school.
+
+And now this smiling, fascinating person was actually about to address
+him, and in the old familiar style----
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"I met your governor the other day."
+
+"Did you?" John replied. His father had died when John was seven.
+Obviously, a blunder in identity had created this genial smile. John
+wished that his father had not died.
+
+"Yes," pursued the smiling one, "I met him--partridge-shooting at
+home--and he asked me to be on the look-out for you. It's queer you
+should turn up at once, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," said John.
+
+"Your governor looked awfully fit."
+
+"Did he?" Then John added solemnly, "My governor died when I was a kid."
+
+The other gasped; then he threw back his curly head and laughed.
+
+"I say, I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to laugh. If you're not
+Hardacre, who are you?"
+
+"Verney. I've just come."
+
+"Verney? That's a great Harrow name. Are you any relation to the
+explorer?"
+
+"Nephew," said John, blushing.
+
+"Ah--you ought to have been here last Speecher.[2] We cheered him, I can
+tell you. And the song was sung: the one with his name in it."
+
+"Yes," said John. Then he added nervously, "All the same, I don't know a
+soul at Harrow."
+
+Desmond smiled. The smile assured John that his name would secure him a
+cordial welcome. Desmond added abruptly, "My name, Desmond, is a Harrow
+name. My father, my grandfather, my uncles, and three brothers were
+here. It does make a difference. What's your house?"
+
+"The Manor," said John, proudly.
+
+"Dirty Dick's!" Then, seeing consternation writ large upon John's face,
+he added quickly, "We call _him_ Dirty Dick, you know; but the house
+is--er--one of the oldest and biggest--er--houses." He continued
+hurriedly: "I'm going into Damer's next term. Damer's is always
+chock-a-block, you know."
+
+"Why is Rutford called 'Dirty Dick'?" John asked nervously. "He doesn't
+_look_ dirty."
+
+"Oh, we've licked him into a sort of shape," said Desmond. "I _believe_
+he toshes now--once a month or so."
+
+"Toshes?"
+
+"Tubs, you know. We call a tub a 'tosh.' When Dirty Dick came here he
+was unclean. He told his form--oh! the cheek of it!--that in his filthy
+mind one bath a week was plenty," unconsciously the boy mimicked the
+thick, rasping tones--"two, luxury, and three--superfluity! After that
+he was called Dirty Dick. There's another story. They say that years ago
+he went to a Turkish bath, and after a rare good scraping the man who
+was scraping him--nasty job that!--found something which Dirty Dick
+recognized as a beastly flannel shirt he had lost when he was at the
+'Varsity. But only the Fourth Form boys swallow _that_. Hullo! There's a
+pal of mine. See you again."
+
+He ran off gaily. John walked to the shop where straw hats were sold.
+Here he met other new boys, who regarded him curiously, but said
+nothing. John put on his hat, and gave Rutford's name to the young man
+who waited on him. He had an absurd feeling that the young man would
+say, "Oh yes--Dirty Dick's!" One very nice-looking pink-cheeked boy said
+to another boy that he was at Damer's. John could have sworn that the
+hatter's assistant regarded the pink youth with increased deference.
+Why had Uncle John sent him to Dirty Dick's? He hurried out of the shop,
+fuming. Then he remembered the hammerless gun. After all, the Manor had
+been _the_ house once, and it might be _the_ house again.
+
+By this time the boys were arriving. Groups were forming. Snatches of
+chatter reached John's ears. "Yes, I shot a stag, a nine-pointer. My
+governor is going to have it set up for me---- What? Walked up your
+grouse with dogs! We drive ours---- I had some ripping cricket, made a
+century in one match---- By Jove! Did you really?----"
+
+John passed on. These were "bloods," tremendous swells, grown men with a
+titillating flavour of the world about their distinguished persons.
+
+A minute later he was staring disconsolately at a group of his fellows
+just in front of Dir----of Rutford's side door. An impulse seized him to
+turn and flee. What would Uncle John say to that? So he advanced. The
+boys made way politely, asking no questions. As he passed through he
+caught a few eager words. "I was hoping that the brute had gone. It _is_
+a sickener, and no mistake!"
+
+John ascended the battered, worn-out staircase, wondering who the
+"brute" was. Perhaps a sort of Flashman. John knew his _Tom Brown_; but
+some one had told him that bullying had ceased to be. Great emphasis had
+been laid on the "brute," whoever he might be.
+
+Upon the second-floor passage, he found his room and one of its tenants,
+who nodded carelessly as John crossed the threshold.
+
+"I'm Scaife," he said. "Are you the Lord, or the Commoner?" He laughed,
+indicating a large portmanteau, labelled, "Lord Esme Kinloch."
+
+"I'm Verney," said John.
+
+"I've bagged the best bed," said Scaife, after a pause, "and I advise
+you to bag the next best one, over there. It was mine last term."
+
+"I don't see the beds," said John, staring about him.
+
+Scaife pointed out what appeared to be three tall, narrow wardrobes. The
+rest of the furniture included three much-battered washstands and chests
+of drawers, four Windsor chairs, and a square table, covered with
+innumerable inkstains and roughly-carved names.
+
+"The beds let down," Scaife said, "and during the first school the maids
+make them, and shut them up again. It is considered a joke to crawl into
+another fellow's room at night, and shut him up. You find yourself
+standing upon your head in the dark, choking. It is a joke--for the
+other fellow."
+
+"Did some one do that to you?" asked John.
+
+"Yes; a big lout in the Third Fifth," Scaife smiled grimly.
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"I waited for him next day with a cricket stump. There was an awful row,
+because I let him have it a bit too hard; but I've not been shut up
+since. That bed is a beast. It collapses." He chuckled. "Young Kinloch
+won't find it quite as soft as the ones at White Ladies. Well, like the
+rest of us, he'll have to take Dirty Dick's as he finds it."
+
+The bolt had fallen.
+
+John asked in a quavering voice, "Then it _is_ called that?"
+
+"Called what?"
+
+"This house. Dirty Dick's!"
+
+Scaife smiled cynically. He looked about a year older than John, but he
+had the air and manners of a man of the world--so John thought. Also, he
+was very good-looking, handsomer than Desmond, and in striking contrast
+to that smiling, genial youth, being dark, almost swarthy of complexion,
+with strongly-marked features and rather coarse hands and feet.
+
+"Everybody here calls it Dirty Dick's," he replied curtly.
+
+John stared helplessly.
+
+"But," he muttered, "I heard, I was told, that the Manor was the best
+house in the school."
+
+"It used to be," Scaife answered. "To-day, it comes jolly near being the
+worst. The fellows in other houses are decent; they don't rub it in;
+but, between ourselves, the Manor has gone to pot ever since Dirty Dick
+took hold of it. Damer's is the swell house now."
+
+John began to unstrap his portmanteau. Scaife puzzled him. For instance,
+he displayed no curiosity. He did not put the questions always asked at
+a Preparatory School. Without turning his thought into words, John
+divined that at Harrow it was bad form to ask questions. As he wanted to
+ask a question, a very important question, this enforced silence became
+exasperating.
+
+Presently Scaife said, "I suppose you are one of the Claydon lot."
+
+"No; my home is in the New Forest. My uncle is Verney of Verney
+Boscobel."
+
+"Oh! his name is on the panels at the head of the staircase; and it's
+carved on a bed in the next room."
+
+"Crikey! I must go and look at it."
+
+"You can look at the panels, of course; but don't say 'Crikey!' and
+don't go into the next room. Two Fifth Form fellows have it. It would be
+infernal cheek."
+
+John hoped that Scaife would offer to accompany him to the panels. Then
+he went alone. It being now within half an hour of lock-up, the passages
+were swarming with boys. Soon John would see them assembled in Hall,
+where their names would be called over by Rutford. Everybody--John had
+been told--was expected to be present at this first call-over, except a
+few boys who might be coming from a distance. John worked his way along
+the upper passage, and down the second flight of stairs till he came to
+the first landing. Here, close to the house notice-board, were some oak
+panels covered with names and dates, all carved--so John learned
+later--by a famous Harrow character, Sam Hoare, once "Custos" of the
+School. The boy glanced eagerly, ardently, up and down the panels. Ah,
+yes, here was his father's name, and here--his uncle's. And then out of
+the dull, finely-grained oak, shone other names familiar to all who love
+the Hill and its traditions. John's heart grew warm again with pride in
+the house that had held such men. The name of the great statesman and
+below it a mighty warrior's made him thrill and tremble. They were _Old
+Harrovians_, these fellows, men whom his uncle had known, men of whom
+his dear mother, wise soul! had spoken a thousand times. The landing and
+the passages were roaring with the life of the present moment. Boys, big
+and small, were chaffing each other loudly. Under some circumstances,
+this new-comer, a stranger, ignored entirely, might have felt desolate
+and forlorn in the heart of such a crowd; but John was tingling with
+delight and pleasure.
+
+Suddenly, the noise moderated. John, looking up, saw a big fellow slowly
+approaching, exchanging greetings with everybody. John turned to a boy
+close to him.
+
+"Who is it?" he whispered.
+
+The other boy answered curtly, "Lawrence, the Head of the House."
+
+The big fellow suddenly caught John's eyes. What he read
+there--admiration, respect, envy--brought a slight smile to his lips.
+
+"Your name?" he demanded.
+
+"Verney."
+
+Lawrence held out his hand, simply and yet with a certain dignity.
+
+"I heard you were coming," he said, keenly examining John's face. "We
+can't have too many Verneys. If I can do anything for you, let me know."
+
+He nodded, and strode on. John saw that several boys were staring with a
+new interest. None, however, spoke to him; and he returned to his room
+with a blushing face. Scaife had unpacked his clothes and put them away;
+he was now surveying the bare walls with undisguised contempt.
+
+"Isn't this a beastly hole?" he remarked.
+
+John, always interested in people rather than things, examined the room
+carefully. Passing down the passage he had caught glimpses of other
+rooms: some charmingly furnished, gay with chintz, embellished with
+pictures, Japanese fans, silver cups, and other trophies. Comparing
+these with his own apartment, John said shyly--
+
+"It's not very beefy."
+
+"Beefy? You smell of a private school, Verney. Now, is it worth doing
+up? You see, I shall be in a two-room next term. If we all chip in----"
+he paused.
+
+"I've brought back two quid," said John.
+
+Scaife's smile indicated neither approval nor the reverse. John's
+ingenuous confidence provoked none in return.
+
+"We'll talk about it when Kinloch arrives. I wonder why his people sent
+him here."
+
+John had studied some books, but not the Peerage. The great name of
+Kinloch was new to him, not new to Scaife, who, for a boy, knew his
+"Burke" too odiously well.
+
+"Why shouldn't his people send him here?" he asked.
+
+"Because," Scaife's tone was contemptuous, "because the
+Kinlochs--they're a great cricketing family--go to Eton. The duke must
+have some reason."
+
+"The duke?"
+
+"Hang it, surely you have heard of the Duke of Trent?"
+
+"Yes," said John, humbly. "And this is his son?" He glanced at the label
+on the new portmanteau.
+
+"Whose son should he be?" said Scaife. "Well, it's queer. Dukes[3] and
+dukes' sons come to Harrow--all the Hamiltons were here, and the
+FitzRoys, and the St. Maurs--but the Kinlochs, as I say, have gone to
+Eton. It's a rum thing--very. And why the deuce hasn't he turned up?"
+
+The clanging of a bell brought both boys to their feet.
+
+"Lock-up, and call-over," said Scaife. "Come on!"
+
+They pushed their way down the passage. Several boys addressed Scaife.
+
+"Hullo, Demon!--Here's the old Demon!--Demon, I thought you were going
+to be sacked!"
+
+To these and other sallies Scaife replied with his slightly ironical
+smile. John perceived that his companion was popular and at the same
+time peculiar; quite different from any boy he had yet met.
+
+They filed into a big room--the dining-room of the house--a square,
+lofty hall, with three long tables in it. On the walls hung some
+portraits of famous Old Harrovians. As a room it was disappointing at
+first sight, almost commonplace. But in it, John soon found out,
+everything for weal or woe which concerned the Manor had taken place or
+had been discussed. There were two fireplaces and two large doors. The
+boys passed through one door; upon the threshold of the other stood the
+butler, holding a silver salver, with a sheet of paper on it.
+
+"What cheek!" murmured Scaife.
+
+"Eh?" said John.
+
+"Dirty Dick isn't here. Just like him, the slacker! And when he does
+come over on our side of the House, he slimes about in carpet
+slippers--the beast!"
+
+Lawrence entered as Scaife spoke. John saw that his strongly-marked
+eyebrows went up, when he perceived the butler. He approached, and took
+the sheet of paper. The butler said impressively--
+
+"Mr. Rutford is busy. Will you call over, sir?"
+
+At any rate, the butler, Dumbleton, was worthy of the best traditions of
+the Manor. He had a shrewd, clean-shaven face, and the deportment of an
+archbishop. The Head of the House took the paper, and began to call
+over the names. Each boy, as his name was called, said, "Here," or, if
+he wished to be funny, "Here, _sir_!"
+
+"Verney?"
+
+The name rang out crisply.
+
+"Here, _sir_," said John.
+
+The Head of the House eyed him sharply.
+
+"Kinloch?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Kinloch?"
+
+Scaife answered dryly: "Kinloch's portmanteau has come." Then Dumbleton
+said in his smooth, bland voice, "His lordship is in the drawing-room
+with Mr. Rutford."
+
+The boys exchanged knowing glances. Scaife looked contemptuous. The next
+moment the last name had been called, and the boys scurried into the
+passages. Lawrence was the first to leave the hall. Impulsively, John
+rushed up to him.
+
+"I didn't mean to be funny, I didn't really," he panted.
+
+"Quite right. It doesn't pay," Lawrence smiled grimly, "for new boys to
+be funny. I saw you didn't mean it."
+
+Lawrence spoke in a loud voice. John realized that he had so spoken
+purposely, trying to wipe out a new boy's first blunder.
+
+"Thanks awfully," said John.
+
+He reached his room to find three other boys busily engaged in abusing
+their house-master. They took no notice of John, who leaned against the
+wall.
+
+"His lordship is in the drawing-room with Mr. Rutford."
+
+A freckle-faced, red-headed youth, with a big elastic mouth had imitated
+Dumbleton admirably.
+
+"What a snob Dick is!" drawled a very tall, very thin,
+aristocratic-looking boy.
+
+"And a fool," added Scaife. "This sort of thing makes him loathed."
+
+"It _is_ a sell his being here."
+
+All three fell to talking. The question still festering in John's mind
+was answered within a minute. The "brute" was Rutford. Towards the end
+of the previous term gossip had it that the master of the Manor had been
+offered an appointment elsewhere. Whereat the worthier spirits in the
+ancient house rejoiced. Now the joy was turned into wailing and gnashing
+of teeth.
+
+"Is he a beast to _us_?" said John.
+
+The freckle-faced boy answered affably, "That depends. His Imperial
+Highness"--he kicked the new portmanteau hard--"will not find Mr.
+Richard Rutford a beast. Far from it. And he's civil to the Demon,
+because his papa is a man of many shekels. But to mere outsiders, like
+myself, a beast of beasts; ay, the very king of beasts, is--Dirty Dick."
+
+And then--oh, horrors!--the door of No. 15 opened, and Rutford appeared,
+followed by a seemingly young and very fashionably dressed lady. The
+boys jumped to their feet. All, except Scaife, looked preternaturally
+solemn. The house-master nodded carelessly.
+
+"This is Scaife, Duchess," he said in his thick, rasping tones. "Scaife
+and Verney, let me present you to the Duchess of Trent."
+
+He mouthed the illustrious name, as if it were a large and ripe
+greengage.
+
+The duchess advanced, smiling graciously. "These"--Rutford named the
+other boys--"are Egerton, Lovell, and--er--Duff."
+
+Scaife, alone of those present, appreciated the order in which his
+schoolfellows had been named. Egerton--known as the Caterpillar--was the
+son of a Guardsman; Lovell's father was a judge; Duff's father an
+obscure parson.
+
+The duchess shook hands with each boy. "Your father and I are old
+friends," she said to Egerton; "and I have had the pleasure of meeting
+your uncle," she smiled at John.
+
+Duff looked unhappy and ill at ease, because it was almost certain that
+his last sentence had been overheard by the house-master. The duchess
+asked a few questions and then took her leave. She and her son were
+dining with the Head Master. Rutford accompanied her.
+
+"Did the blighter hear?" said Duff.
+
+"How could he help it with his enormous asses' ears?" said the tall,
+thin Egerton.
+
+Duff, an optimist, like all red-headed, freckled boys, appealed to the
+others, each in turn. The verdict was unanimous.
+
+"He hates me like poison," said Duff. "I shall catch it hot. What an
+unlucky beggar I am!"
+
+"Pooh!" said Scaife. "He knows jolly well that the whole school calls
+him Dirty Dick."
+
+But whatever hopes Duff may have entertained of his house-master's
+deafness were speedily laid in the dust. Within five minutes Rutford
+reappeared. He stood in the doorway, glaring.
+
+"Just now, Duff," said he, "I happened to overhear your voice, which is
+singularly, I may say vulgarly, penetrating. You were speaking of me,
+your house-master, as 'Dick.' But you used an adjective before it. What
+was it?"
+
+Duff writhed. "I don't--remember."
+
+"Oh yes, you do. Why lie, Duff?"
+
+John's brown face grew pale.
+
+"The adjective you used," continued Rutford, "was 'dirty.' You spoke of
+_me_ as 'Dirty Dick,' and I fancy I caught the word 'beast.' You will
+write out, if you please, one hundred Greek lines, accents and stops,
+and bring them to me, or leave them with Dumbleton, _twenty-five_ lines
+at a time, _every_ alternate half hour during the afternoon of the next
+half holiday. Good night to you."
+
+"Good night, sir," said all the boys, save John and Scaife.
+
+"Good night, Verney."
+
+Master and pupil confronted each other. John's face looked impassive;
+and Rutford turned from the new boy to Scaife.
+
+"Good night, Scaife."
+
+Scaife drew himself up, and, in a quiet, cool voice, replied--
+
+"Good night, sir."
+
+Duff waited till Rutford's heavy step was no longer heard; then he
+rushed at John.
+
+"I say," he spluttered, "you're a good sort--ain't he, Demon? Refusing
+to say 'Good night' to the beast because he was ragging me. But he'll
+never forgive you--never!"
+
+"Oh yes, he will," said Scaife. "It won't be difficult for Dirty Dick to
+forgive the future Verney of Verney Boscobel."
+
+John stared. "Verney Boscobel?" he repeated. "Why, that belongs to my
+uncle. Mother and I hope he'll marry and have a lot of jolly kids of his
+own."
+
+"You hope he'll marry? Well, I'm----"
+
+John's jaw stuck out. The emphasis on the "hope" and the upraised
+eyebrow smote hard.
+
+"You don't mean to say," he began hotly, "you don't _think_ that----"
+
+"I can think what I please," said Scaife, curtly; "and so can you." He
+laughed derisively. "_Thinking_ what they please is about the only
+liberty allowed to new boys. Even the Duffer learned to hold his tongue
+during his first term."
+
+The Caterpillar--the tall, thin, aristocratic boy--spoke solemnly. He
+was a dandy, the understudy--as John soon discovered--of one of the
+"Bloods"; a "Junior Blood," or "Would-be," a tremendous authority on
+"swagger," a stickler for tradition, who had been nearly three years in
+the school.
+
+"The Demon is right," said he. "A new boy can't be too careful, Verney.
+Your being funny in hall just now made a dev'lish bad impression."
+
+"But I didn't mean to be funny. I told Lawrence so directly after
+call-over."
+
+The Caterpillar pulled down his cuffs.
+
+"If you didn't mean to be funny," he concluded, "you must be an ass."
+
+Duff, however, remembered that John was nephew to an explorer.
+
+"I say," he jogged John's elbow, "do you think you could get me your
+uncle's autograph?"
+
+"Why, of course," said John.
+
+"Thanks. I've not a bad collection," the Duffer murmured modestly.
+
+"And the gem of it," said Scaife, "is Billington's, the hangman! The
+Duffer shivers whenever he looks at it."
+
+"Yes, I do," said Duff, grinning horribly.
+
+After supper and Prayers, John went to bed, but not to sleep for at
+least an hour. He lay awake, thinking over the events of this memorable
+day. Whenever he closed his eyes he beheld two objects: the spire of
+Harrow Church and the vivid, laughing face of Desmond. He told himself
+that he liked Desmond most awfully. And Scaife too, the Demon, had been
+kind. But somehow John did not like Scaife. Then, in a curious
+half-dreamy condition, not yet asleep and assuredly not quite awake, he
+seemed to see the figure of Scaife expanding, assuming terrific
+proportions, impending over Desmond, standing between him and the spire,
+obscuring part of the spire at first, and then, bit by bit,
+overshadowing the whole.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Byron, writing to John Murray, May 26, 1822, and giving directions
+for the burial of poor little Allegra's body, says--
+
+"I wish it to be buried in Harrow Church. There is a spot in the
+churchyard, near the footpath, on the brow of the hill looking towards
+Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie, or
+Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours as a boy: this was my
+favourite spot; but, as I wish to erect a tablet to her memory, the body
+had better be deposited in the church."
+
+See also "Lines written beneath an elm in the churchyard of Harrow," in
+"Hours of Idleness."
+
+[2] "Speecher"--_i.e._ Speech-Day. At Harrow "er" is a favourite
+termination of many substantives. "Harder," for hard-ball racquets,
+"Footer," "Ducker," etc.
+
+[3] The Duke of Dorset was Byron's fag. _Cf._--
+
+    "Though the harsh custom of our youthful band
+    Bade thee obey, and gave me to command."
+                                  _Hours of Idleness._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+_Caesar_
+
+    "You come here where your brothers came,
+      To the old school years ago,
+    A young new face, and a Harrow name,
+      'Mid a crowd of strangers? No!
+    You may not fancy yourself alone,
+      You who are memory's heir,
+    When even the names in the graven stone
+      Will greet you with 'Who goes there--
+          You?--
+          Pass, Friend--All's well.'"
+
+
+John never forgot that memorable morning when he learned for the first
+time what place he had taken in the school. He sat with the other
+new-comers, staring, open-eyed, at nearly six hundred boys, big and
+small, assembled together in the Speech-room. So engrossed was he that
+he scarcely heard the Head Master's opening prayers. John was obsessed,
+inebriated, with the number of Harrovians, each of whom had once felt
+strange and shy like himself. From his place close to the great organ,
+he could look up and up, seeing row after row of faces, knowing that
+amongst them sat his future friends and foes.
+
+Suddenly, a neighbour nudged him. The Head Master was reading from a
+list in his hand the school-removes, and the names and places taken by
+new boys. He began at the lowest form with the name of a small urchin
+sitting near John. The urchin blinked and blushed as he realized that he
+was "lag of the school." John knew that he had answered fairly well the
+questions set by the examiners; he had no fear of finding himself
+pilloried in the Third Fourth; still, as form after form did not include
+his name, he grew restless and excited. Had he taken a higher place
+than the Middle Shell? Yes; no Verney in the Middle Shell. The Head
+Master began the removes of the top Shell. Now, now it must be coming.
+No; the clear, penetrating tones slowly articulated name after name, but
+not his.
+
+"Verney."
+
+At last. Many eyes were staring at him, some enviously, a few
+superciliously. John had taken the Lower Remove, the highest form but
+one open to new boys. He was sipping the wine called Success.
+
+Moreover, Desmond of the frank, laughing face and sparkling blue eyes,
+and Scaife and Egerton were also in the Lower Remove.
+
+After this, John sat in a blissful dream, hardly conscious of his
+surroundings, seeing his mother's face, hearing her sigh of pleasure
+when she learned that already her son was halfway up the school.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+You may be sure those first forty-eight hours were brim-full of
+excitements. First, John bought his books, stout leather-tipped,
+leather-backed volumes, on which his name will be duly stamped on
+fly-leaf and across the edges of the pages. And he bought also, from
+"Judy" Stephens,[4] a "squash" racquet, "squash" balls, and a yard ball.
+From the school Custos--"Titchy"--a noble supply of stationery was
+procured. Moreover, young Kinloch announced that his mother had given
+him three pounds to spend upon the decoration of No. 15, so Scaife
+declared his intention of spending a similar sum, and in consequence No.
+15 became a gorgeous apartment, the cynosure of every eye that passed.
+The characters of the three boys were revealed plainly enough by their
+simple furnishings. Scaife bought sporting prints, a couple of
+Detaille's lithographs, and an easy-chair, known to dwellers upon the
+Hill as a "frowst"; Kinloch hung upon his side of the wall four pretty
+reproductions of French engravings, and with the help of three yards of
+velveteen and some cheap lace he made a very passable imitation of the
+mantel-cover in his mother's London boudoir; John scorned velveteen,
+lace, "frowsts," and French engravings. He put his money into a pair of
+red curtains, and one excellent photogravure of Landseer's "Children of
+the Mist." Having a few shillings to spare, he bought half a dozen
+ferns, which were placed in a box by the window, and watered so
+diligently that they died prematurely.
+
+Secondly, John played in a house-game at football, and learned the
+difference between a scrimmage at a small preparatory school and the
+genuine thing at Harrow. Lawrence insisted that all new boys should
+play, and the Caterpillar informed him that he would have to learn the
+rules of Harrow "footer" by heart, and pass a stiff examination in them
+before the House Eleven, with the penalty of being forced to sing them
+in Hall if he failed to satisfy his examiners. The Duffer lent him a
+House-shirt of green and white stripes, and a pair of white duck shorts,
+and with what pride John put them on, thinking of the far distant day
+when he would wear a "fez"[5] instead of the commonplace house-cap!
+Lawrence said a few words.
+
+"You'll have to play the compulsory games, Verney, which begin after the
+Goose Match,[6] but I want to see you playing as hard as ever you can in
+the house-games. You'll be knocked about a bit; but a Verney won't mind
+that--eh?"
+
+"Rather not," said John, feeling very valiant.
+
+Thirdly, there was the first Sunday, and the first sermon of the Head
+Master, with its plain teaching about the opportunities and perils of
+Public School life. John found himself mightily affected by the singing,
+and the absence of shrill treble voices. The booming basses and
+baritones of the big fellows made him shiver with a curious bitter-sweet
+sensation never experienced before.
+
+Lastly, the pleasant discovery that his Form treated him with courtesy
+and kindness. Desmond, in particular, welcomed him quite warmly. And
+then and there John's heart was filled with a wild and unreasonable
+yearning for this boy's friendship. But Desmond--he was called "Caesar,"
+because his Christian names were Henry Julius--seemed to be very
+popular, a bright particular star, far beyond John's reach although for
+ever in his sight. Caesar never offered to walk with him: and he refused
+John's timid invitation to have food at the "Tudor Creameries."[7] Was
+it possible that a boy about to enter Damer's would not be seen walking
+and talking with a fellow out of Dirty Dick's? This possibility
+festered, till one morning John saw his idol walking up and down the
+School Yard with Scaife. That evening he said to Scaife--
+
+"Do you like Desmond?"
+
+"Yes," Scaife replied decisively. "I like him better than any fellow at
+Harrow. You know that his father is Charles Desmond--the Cabinet
+Minister and a Governor of the school?"
+
+"I didn't know it. I suppose Caesar Desmond likes you--_awfully_."
+
+"Do you? I doubt it."
+
+No more was said. John told himself that Caesar--he liked to think of
+Desmond as Caesar--could pick and choose a pal out of at least three
+hundred boys, half the school. How extremely unlikely that he, John,
+would be chosen! But every night he lay awake for half an hour longer
+than he ought to have done, wondering how, by hook or crook, he could do
+a service to Caesar which must challenge interest and provoke,
+ultimately, friendship.
+
+Meantime, he was slowly initiated by the Caterpillar into Harrow ways
+and customs. Fagging, which began after the first fortnight, he found a
+not unpleasant duty. After first and fourth schools the other fags and
+he would stand not far from the pantry, and yell out "Breakfast," or
+"Tea," as it might be, "for Number So-and-So." Perhaps one had to nip up
+to the Creameries to get a slice of salmon, or cutlets, or sausages.
+Fagging at Harrow--which varies slightly in different houses--is hard or
+easy according to the taste and fancy of the fag's master. Some of the
+Sixth Form at the Manor made their fags unlace their dirty football
+boots. Kinloch, who since he left the nursery had been waited upon by
+powdered footmen six feet high, now found, to his disgust, that he had
+to varnish Trieve's patent-leathers for Sunday. Trieve was second in
+command, and had been known as "Miss" Trieve. John would have gladly
+done this and more for Lawrence, his fag-master; but Lawrence, a manly
+youth, scorned sybaritic services. The Caterpillar taught John to carry
+his umbrella unfolded, to wear his "straw" straight (a slight list to
+port was allowed to "Bloods" only), not to walk in the middle of the
+road, and so forth. How he used to envy the members of the Elevens as
+they rolled arm-in-arm down the High Street! How often he wondered if
+the day would ever dawn when Caesar and he, outwardly and inwardly linked
+together, would stroll up and down the middle-walk below the Chapel
+Terrace: that sunny walk, whence, on a fair day, you can see the
+insatiable monster, London, filling the horizon and stretching red,
+reeking hands into the sweet country--the middle-walk, from which all
+but Bloods were rigidly excluded.
+
+Much to his annoyance--an annoyance, be it said, which he managed to
+hide--John seemed to attract young Kinloch almost as magnetically as he
+himself was attracted to Caesar. John had not the heart to shake off the
+frail, delicate child, who was christened "Fluff" after his first
+appearance in public. Fluff had taken the First Fourth and ingenuously
+confessed to any one who cared to listen that he ought to have gone to
+Eton. A beast of a doctor prescribed the Hill. And even the almighty
+duke failed to get him into Damer's, another grievance. He had been
+entered since birth at the crack house at Eton; and now to be
+pitchforked into Dirty Dick's at Harrow----! The Duffer kicked him,
+feeling an unspeakable cad when poor Fluff burst into tears.
+
+"Sorry," said the Duffer. "Only you mustn't slang Harrow. And you'd
+better get it into your silly head that it's the best school in this or
+any other world--isn't it, Demon?"
+
+"I'm sure the Verneys, and the Egertons, and the Duffs have always
+thought so."
+
+"But it isn't really," whimpered poor Fluff. "You fellows know that
+everybody talks of Eton and Harrow. Who ever heard of Harrow and Eton?
+People say--I've heard my eldest brother, Strathpeffer, say it again and
+again--'Eton and Harrow,' just as they say 'Gentlemen and Players.'"
+
+"Oh," said the Caterpillar. "The Etonians are the gentlemen--eh? Well,
+Fluff, after their performance at Lord's last year, you couldn't expect
+us to admit that they're--players."
+
+The Duffer chuckled.
+
+"I say, Caterpillar, that was a good 'un."
+
+"Not mine," said the Caterpillar, solemnly; "my governor's, you know."
+
+The Duffer continued: "Now, Fluff, I won't touch your body, because you
+might tumble to pieces, but if I hear you slanging the school or our
+house, I'll pull out handfuls of fluff. D'ye hear?"
+
+"Yes," said Fluff, meekly.
+
+"Say '_Floreat Herga_' on your bended knees!"
+
+Fluff obeyed.
+
+"And remember," said the Duffer, impressively, "that we've had a king
+here, haven't we, Caterpillar?"
+
+"Yes," said the Caterpillar.
+
+"I never believed it," said Scaife.
+
+"He was a Spaniard,[8] or an Italian, you know," the Duffer explained.
+"The duke of something or t'other; and an ambassador came down and
+offered the beggar the Spanish crown, when he was in the First Fourth,
+and of course he gobbled it--who wouldn't? And then Victor Emmanuel
+interfered. That's all true, you can take your Bible oath, because my
+governor told me so, and he--well, he's a parson."
+
+"Then it _must_ be true," said Scaife. "Now, young Fluff, don't forget
+that Harrow is a school fit for a king and nearer to Heaven than Eton by
+at least six hundred feet."
+
+So saying, the Demon marched out of the room, followed by Fluff,
+slightly limping.
+
+"Sorry I turfed[9] that little ass so hard," said the Duffer to John. "I
+say, Verney, the Demon is rather a rum 'un, ain't he? Sometimes I can't
+quite make him out. He's frightfully clever and all that, but I had a
+sort of beastly feeling just now that he didn't--eh?--quite mean what he
+said. Was he laughin' at _us_, pullin' our legs--what?"
+
+John's brain worked slowly, as he had found out to his cost under a
+form-master who maintained that it was no use having a fact stored in
+the head unless it slipped readily out of the mouth. The Duffer, who
+never thought, because speaking was so much easier, grew impatient at
+John's silence.
+
+"Well, you needn't look like an owl, Verney. You know that Scaife's
+grandfather was a navvy."
+
+"I don't know," John replied.
+
+"And I don't care," said the Duffer. "Let's go and have some food at the
+Creameries."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Looking back afterwards, John often wondered whether, unconsciously,
+the Duffer had sown a grain of mustard-seed destined to grow into a
+large tree. Or, had the intuition that Scaife was other than what he
+seemed furnished the fertile soil into which the seed fell? In any case,
+from the end of this first week began to increase the suspicion, which
+eventually became conviction, that the Demon, keen at games, popular in
+his house, clever at work--clever, indeed! inasmuch as he never achieved
+more or less than was necessary--generous with his money, handsome and
+well-mannered, blessed, in fine, with so many gifts of the gods, yet
+lacked a soul.
+
+This, of course, is putting into words the vague speculations and
+reasonings of a boy not yet fourteen. If an Olympian--one of the
+masters, for instance, or the Head of the House--had said, "Verney, has
+the Demon a soul?" John would have answered promptly, "Ra--ther! He's
+been awfully decent to Fluff and me. We'd have had a hot time if it
+hadn't been for him," and so forth.... And, indeed, to doubt Scaife's
+sincerity and goodness seemed at times gross disloyalty, because he
+stood, firm as a rock, between the two urchins in his room and the
+turbulent crowd outside. This defence of the weak, this guarding of
+green fruit from the maw of Lower School boys, afforded Scaife an
+opportunity of exercising power. He had the instincts of the potter,
+inherited, no doubt; and he moulded the clay ready to his hand with the
+delight of a master-workman. Nobody else knew what the man of millions
+had said to his boy when he despatched him to Harrow; but the Demon
+remembered every word. He had reason to respect and fear his sire.
+
+"I'm sending you to Harrow to study, not books nor games, but boys, who
+will be men when you are a man. And, above all, study their weaknesses.
+Look for the flaws. Teach yourself to recognize at a glance the liar,
+the humbug, the fool, the egotist, and the mule. Make friends with as
+many as are likely to help you in after life, and don't forget that one
+enemy may inflict a greater injury than twenty friends can repair.
+Spend money freely; dress well; swim with the tide, not against it."
+
+A year at Harrow confirmed Scaife's confidence in his father's worldly
+wisdom. Big for his age, strong, with his grandsire's muscles, tough as
+hickory, he had become the leader of the Lower School boys at the Manor.
+The Fifth were civil to him, recognizing, perhaps, the expediency of
+leaving him alone ever since the incident of the cricket stump. The
+Sixth found him the quickest of the fags and uncommonly obliging. His
+house-master signed reports which neither praised nor blamed. To Dirty
+Dick the boy was the son of a man who could write a cheque for a
+million.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two things worthy of record happened within a month; the one of lesser
+importance can be set down first. Charles Desmond, Caesar's father, came
+down to Harrow and gave a luncheon at the King's Head. From time
+immemorial the Desmonds had been educated on the Hill. The family had
+produced some famous soldiers, a Lord Chancellor, and a Prime Minister.
+In the Fourth Form Room the stranger may read their names carved in oak,
+and they are carved also in the hearts of all ardent Harrovians. Mr.
+Desmond, though a Cabinet Minister, found time to visit Harrow once at
+least in each term. He always chose a whole holiday, and after attending
+eleven-o'clock Bill[10] in the Yard, would carry off his son and his
+son's friends. The School knew him and loved him. To the thoughtful he
+stood for the illustrious past, the epitome of what John Lyon's[11] boys
+had fought for and accomplished. Four sons had he--Harrovians all. Of
+these Caesar was youngest and last. Each had distinguished himself on the
+Hill either in work or play, or in both.
+
+Charles Desmond stood upon the step just above the master who was
+calling Bill.
+
+"That's Caesar's father," said Scaife. "I'm going to lunch with him.
+Isn't he a topper?"
+
+John's eyes were popping out of his face. He had never seen any man like
+this resplendent, stately personage, smiling and nodding to the biggest
+fellows in the school.
+
+"And my governor says," Scaife added, "that he's not a rich man, nothing
+much to speak of in the way of income over and above his screw as a
+Cabinet Minister."
+
+Scaife moved away, and John could hear him say to another boy, in an
+easy, friendly tone, "Mr. Desmond told Caesar that he wanted to meet
+_me_--very civil of him--eh?"
+
+Presently John was in line waiting to pass by the steps.
+
+"Verney?"
+
+"Here, sir."
+
+He was hurrying by, with a backward glance at the great man. Suddenly
+Caesar's father beckoned, nodding cheerily. John ascended the steps, to
+feel the grasp of a strong hand, to hear a ringing voice.
+
+"You're John Verney's nephew. Just so. I think I should have spotted
+you, even if Harry had not told me you were in his form. You must lunch
+with us. Cut along, now."
+
+So John was dismissed, brim-full of happiness, which almost overflowed
+when Caesar met him with an eager--
+
+"I'm so glad, Verney. I say, the governor's a nailer at picking out the
+old names, isn't he?"
+
+So John ate his luncheon in distinguished company, and felt himself for
+the first time to be somebody. As the youngest guest present, to him was
+accorded the place of honour, next the most charming host in
+Christendom, who put him at ease in a jiffy. How good the cutlets and
+the pheasant tasted! And how the talk warmed the cockles of his heart!
+The brand of the Crossed Arrows shone upon all topics. Who could expect,
+or desire, aught else! Caesar's governor seemed to know what every
+Harrovian had done worth the doing. Easily, fluently, he discoursed of
+triumphs won at home, abroad, in the camp, on the hustings, at the bar,
+in the pulpit. And his anecdotes, which illustrated every phase of life,
+how pat to the moment they were! One boy complained ruefully of having
+spent three terms under a form-master who had "ragged" him. Charles
+Desmond sympathized--
+
+"Bless my soul," said he, "don't I remember being three terms in the
+Third Fifth when that tartar old Heriot had it? I dare swear I got no
+more than my deserts. I was an idle vagabond, but Heriot made my life
+such a burden to me that I entreated my people to take me away from
+Harrow. And then my governor urged me to put my back into the work and
+get a remove. And I did. And would you believe it, upon the first day of
+the next term I wired to my people, 'You must take me away. I've got my
+remove all right--and so has Heriot.'"
+
+How gaily the speaker led the laugh which followed this recital! And the
+chaff! Was it possible that Caesar dared to chaff a man who was supposed
+to have the peace of Europe in his keeping? And, by Jove! Caesar could
+hold his own.
+
+So the minutes flew. But John noticed, with surprise, that the Demon
+didn't score. In fact, John and he were the only guests that contributed
+nothing to the feast save hearty appetites. It was strange that the
+Demon, the wit of his house and form, never opened his mouth except to
+fill it with food. He answered, it is true, and very modestly, the
+questions addressed to him by his host; but then, as John reflected, any
+silly fool in the Fourth Form could do that.
+
+After luncheon, the boys were dismissed, each with a hearty word of
+encouragement and half a sovereign. John was passing the plate-glass
+splendours of the Creameries, when the Demon overtook him, and they
+walked down the winding High Street together. Scaife had never walked
+with John before.
+
+"That was worth while," Scaife said quietly. John could not interpret
+this speech, save in its obvious meaning.
+
+"Rather," he replied.
+
+"Why?" said Scaife, very sharply.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Why was it worth while?"
+
+John stammered out something about good food and jolly talk.
+
+"Pooh!" said Scaife, contemptuously. "I thought you had brains, Verney."
+He glanced at him keenly. "Now, speak out. What's in that head of yours?
+You can be cheeky, if you like."
+
+John wondered how Scaife had divined that he wished to be cheeky. His
+mentor had said so much to Fluff and him about the propriety of not
+putting on "lift" or "side" in the presence of an older boy, that he had
+choked back a retort which occurred to him.
+
+"You're thinking," continued the Demon, in his clear voice, "that I
+didn't use my brains just now, but, my blooming innocent, I can assure
+you I did. Very much so. I played 'possum. Put that into your little
+pipe and smoke it."
+
+At four-o'clock Bill, John noticed Caesar's absence: a fact accounted for
+by the presence of a mail-phaeton, which, he knew, belonged to Mr.
+Desmond, drawn up--oddly enough--opposite the Manor. What a joke to
+think that Caesar was drinking tea with Dirty Dick!
+
+After Bill, having nothing better to do, John and Fluff went for a walk
+on the Sudbury road. They had played football before Bill, and each had
+realized his own awkwardness and insignificance. Poor Fluff, almost
+reduced to tears, with a big black bruise upon his white forehead,
+confessed that he preferred peaceful games--like croquet, and intended
+to apply for a doctor's certificate of exemption. Demanding sympathy, he
+received a slating.
+
+"I play nearly as rotten a game as you do, Fluff," John said; "but
+Scaife expects us to be Torpids,[12] so we jolly well have to buck up.
+That bruise over your eye has taken off your painted-doll look. Now, if
+you're going to blub, you'd better get behind that hedge."
+
+Fluff exploded.
+
+"This is a beastly hole," he cried. "And I loathe it. I'm going to write
+to my father and beg him to take me away."
+
+"You ought to be at a girls' school."
+
+"I hate everything and everybody. I thought you were my friend, the only
+friend I had."
+
+John was somewhat mollified.
+
+"I am your friend, but not when you talk rot."
+
+"Verney, look here, if you'll be decent to me, I _will_ try to stick it
+out. I wish I was like you; I do indeed. I wish I was like Scaife. Why,
+I'd sooner be the Duffer, freckles and all, than myself."
+
+John looked down upon the delicately-tinted face, the small, regular,
+girlish features, the red, quivering mouth. Suddenly he grasped that
+this was an appeal from weakness to strength, and that he, no older and
+but a little bigger than Fluff, had strength to spare, strength to
+shoulder burdens other than his own.
+
+"All right," he said stiffly; "don't make such a fuss!"
+
+"You'll have me for a friend, Verney?"
+
+"Yes; but I ain't going to kiss your forehead to make it well, you
+know."
+
+"May I call you John, when we're alone? And I wish you'd call me Esme,
+instead of that horrid 'Fluff.'"
+
+John pondered deeply.
+
+"Look here," he said. "You can call me John, and I'll call you Esme,
+when we're Torpids. And now, you'd better cut back to the house. I must
+think this all out, and I can't think straight when I look at you."
+
+"May I call you John once?"
+
+"You are the silliest idiot I ever met, bar none. Call me 'John,' or
+'Tom Fool,' or anything; but hook it afterwards!"
+
+"Yes, John, I will. You're the only boy I ever met whom I really wanted
+for a friend." He displayed a radiant face, turned suddenly, and ran
+off. John watched him, frowning, because Fluff was a good little chap,
+and yet, at times, such a bore!
+
+He walked on alone, chewing the cud of a delightful experience; trying,
+not unsuccessfully, to recall some of Mr. Desmond's anecdotes. How proud
+Caesar was of his father! And the father, obviously, was just as proud of
+his son. What a pair! And if only Caesar were his friend! By Jove! It was
+rather a rum go, but John was as mad keen to call Caesar friend as poor
+Fluff to call John friend. Serious food for thought, this. "But I would
+never bother him," said John to himself, "as Fluff has bothered me,
+never!"
+
+"Hullo, Verney!"
+
+"Hullo!" said John.
+
+Coincidence had thrust Caesar out of his thought and on to the narrow
+path in front of him.
+
+"I'm not a ghost," said Caesar.
+
+John hesitated.
+
+"I was thinking of you," he confessed; "and then I heard your voice and
+saw you. It gave me a start. I say, it _was_ good of your governor to
+ask me."
+
+"Hang my governor! He's the----"
+
+Caesar closed his lips firmly, as if he feared that terrible adjectives
+might burst from them. John missed the sparkling smile, the gay glance
+of the eyes.
+
+"What's up?" he demanded.
+
+Caesar hesitated; looked at John, read, perhaps, the sympathy, the honest
+interest, possibly the affection, in the grey orbs which met his own so
+steadily.
+
+"What's up?" he repeated. "Why, I'm not going into Damer's, after all."
+
+"Oh!" said John.
+
+"My governor has just told me. I came down here to curse and swear."
+
+"Not going into Damer's? What rot--for you!"
+
+"It is sickening. Look here, Verney; I feel like telling you about it. I
+know you won't go bleating all over the shop. No. I said to myself,
+'Mum's the word,' but----"
+
+John's heart beat, his body glowed, his grey eyes sparkled.
+
+"It's like this," continued Caesar, after a slight pause. "Damer told the
+governor that two fellows he had expected to leave at the end of this
+term were staying on. The governor hinted that Damer added something
+about straining a point, and letting me in ahead of three other fellows;
+but the governor wouldn't listen to that----"
+
+"Jolly decent of him," said John.
+
+"Was it? In my opinion he ought to have thought of me first. All my
+brothers have been at Damer's. And he knew I'd set my heart on going
+there. Look how civil the fellows are to me. I've been in and out of the
+house like a tame cat. Confound it! if Damer did want to strain a point,
+why shouldn't he? The governor played his own game, not mine. What right
+has he to be so precious unselfish at my expense? I argued with him; but
+he can put his foot down. Let's cut all that. Of course, I don't want to
+stop in a beastly Small House for ever, and, if Damer's is closed to me,
+I should like Brown's, but Brown's is full too. And there are other good
+houses. But where--where do you think I _am_ going?"
+
+"Reeds?"
+
+"I don't call Reed's so bad. No; I'm going to Dirty Dick's. I'm coming
+to you."
+
+"Oh, I say."
+
+"Why, dash it all, you're grinning. I don't want to be a cad--Dirty
+Dick's is _your_ house--but--after Damer's! O Lord!"
+
+The grin faded out of John's face. Caesar's loss outweighed his own gain.
+
+"Your governor was a Manorite," he said slowly.
+
+"Yes, in its best days; and he's always had a sneaking liking for it;
+but he knows, he knows, I say, that now it's rotten, and yet he sends me
+there. Why?"
+
+"Ask another," said John.
+
+"I asked him another, and what do you think he said, in that peculiar
+voice of his which always dries me up? 'Harry,' said he, 'when you're a
+little older and a good deal wiser, you'll be able to answer that
+question yourself.'"
+
+John's face brightened. A glimmering of the truth shone out of the
+darkness. He tried to advance nearer to it, gropingly.
+
+"I dare say----"
+
+"Well, go on!"
+
+"Your governor may feel that we want a fellow like you."
+
+John was blushing because he remembered what the Head of the House had
+said about the Verneys. Desmond glanced at him keenly. He detested
+flattery laid on too thick. But this was a genuine tribute. For the
+first time he smiled.
+
+"Thank you, Verney," he said, more genially. "What you say is utter rot;
+but it was decent of you to say it, and I'm glad that you and I are
+going to be in the same house."
+
+For his life John could not help adding, "And Scaife, you forget
+Scaife?" Jealousy pierced him as Scaife's name slipped out.
+
+"Yes, there's the Demon. I always liked him."
+
+"And he likes you."
+
+"Does he? Good old Demon! I like to be liked. That's the Irish in me.
+I'm half Irish, you know. I want fellows to be friendly to me. I'd
+forgotten Scaife. That's rum too, because he's not the sort one forgets,
+is he? No, I wonder if I could get into the Demon's room next term?"
+
+"I'm in his room. It's a three-room."
+
+"A two-room is much jollier."
+
+"Our room is not bad."
+
+Caesar was hardly listening. John caught a murmur: "The old Demon and I
+would get along capitally."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] The racquet Professional.
+
+[5] The cap of honour worn by the House Football Eleven.
+
+[6] The Goose Match, the last cricket-match of the year, played between
+the Eleven and Old Boys, on the nearest half-holiday to Michaelmas Day.
+
+[7] A fashionable "tuck"-shop.
+
+[8] H.R.H. Prince Thomas of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, was elected King by
+the Cortes of Spain, October 3, 1869, while he was a boy at Harrow. The
+crown was finally declined January 1, 1870. The Prince was nick-named
+"King Tom."
+
+[9] To "turf," _i.e._ to kick.
+
+[10] Calling over.
+
+[11] John Lyon founded Harrow School, 1571.
+
+[12] Boys who have not been more than two years in the school are
+eligible as "Torpids;" out of each house a Torpid football Eleven is
+chosen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+_Kraipale_[13]
+
+    "Life is mostly froth and bubble;
+      Two things stand like stone--
+    Kindness in another's trouble,
+      Courage in your own."
+
+
+Some five years afterwards John Verney learned what had passed between
+Cabinet Minister and Head Master upon that eventful day which sent Caesar
+to curse and swear upon the Sudbury road. The Head Master was not an
+Harrovian, and on that account was the better able to perceive
+time-honoured abuses. At Harrow the dominant chord among masters and
+boys is a harmony of strenuousness and sentiment. Inevitably, the
+sentiment becomes, at times, sentimental; and then strenuousness pushes
+it into a corner. When honoured veterans are wearing out, loyalty,
+gratitude for past service, reluctance to inflict pain, keep them in
+positions of responsibility which mentally and physically they are unfit
+to administer. It is almost as difficult to turn an Eton or Harrow
+master out of his house, as to turn a parson of the Church of England
+out of his pulpit. More, in selecting a house-master as in selecting a
+parson, a man's claims to preferment are too often determined by
+scholarship, by length of former service, by interest with authority,
+rather than by ability to govern a body of boys made up of widely
+different parts. A capable form-master may prove an incapable
+house-master. Richard Rutford, to give a concrete example, came to
+Harrow knowing nothing about Public Schools, and caring as little for
+the traditions of the Hill, but with the prestige of being a Senior
+Classic. Nobody questioned his ability to teach Greek. In his own line,
+and not an inch beyond, the Governors were assured that Rutford was a
+success. In due time he accepted a Small House, so small that its
+autocrat's incapacity as an administrator escaped notice. Rutford waited
+patiently for a big morsel. He wrote a couple of text-books; he married
+a wife with money and influence; he entertained handsomely. It is true
+he became popular neither with masters nor boys, but his wine was as
+sound as his scholarship, and his wife had a peer for a second cousin.
+Eventually he accepted the Manor. Within a month, those in authority
+suspected that a blunder had been made; within a year they knew it. The
+house began to go down. Leaven lay in the lump, but not enough to make
+it rise, because the baker refused to stir the dough. First and last,
+Rutford disliked boys, misunderstood them, insulted them, ignored those
+who lacked influential connections, toadied and pampered the "swells."
+
+Just before John Verney came to Harrow, the Manor was showing
+unmistakable signs of decay. A new Head Master, recognizing "dry-rot,"
+realizing the necessity of cutting it out, was confronted with that
+bristling obstacle--Tradition. He possessed enough moral courage to have
+told Rutford to resign, because in a thousand indescribable ways the man
+had neglected his duty; but, so said the Tories, such a step might
+provoke a public scandal, and if Rutford refused to go--what then?
+Nothing definite could be proved against the man. His sins had been of
+omission. Dismayed, not defeated, the Head Master considered other
+methods of regenerating the Manor. Very quietly he made his appeal to
+the Old Harrovians, many of whom were sending their sons and nephews to
+other houses. He invited co-operation. John Verney, the Rev. Septimus
+Duff, Colonel Egerton--half a dozen enthusiastic Manorites--stepped
+forward. Lastly, for Charles Desmond the Head Master baited his hook.
+
+"The reform which we have at heart," said he, "must come from within
+and from below. The house wants a Desmond in it. I was not allowed to
+wield the axe; but, after all, there are more modern methods of
+decapitation. And, believe me, I am not asking any man more than I am
+prepared to do myself. My own nephew goes to the Manor after next
+holidays."
+
+"Um!" said Mr. Desmond, stroking his chin.
+
+"Lawrence, the Head of the House, is a tower of strength, like all the
+Lawrences."
+
+"How did you beguile the Duke of Trent?"
+
+"Fortune gave me that weapon. The duke"--he laughed genially----
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Will turn scales which my heaviest arguments won't budge. A bit of
+luck! The duke wanted to send his son, a delicate lad, to Harrow, and I
+did mention to him that Rutford had a vacancy."
+
+"O Ulysses! And Scaife? How did you handle that large bale of
+bank-notes?"
+
+"Rutford captured Scaife."
+
+"Handsome boy--his son. Lunched with us this morning. Well, well, you
+have persuaded me. But what an unpleasant quarter of an hour I shall
+have with Harry!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As a new boy, John slaved at "footer," and displayed a curious
+inaptitude for squash racquets. At all games Caesar and Scaife were
+precociously proficient. John's clumsiness annoyed them. Often the
+Caterpillar joined him and Fluff, giving them to understand that this
+must be regarded as an act of grace and condescension which might be
+suitably acknowledged at the Tudor Creameries.
+
+The Caterpillar mightily impressed the two small boys. He had acquired
+his nick-name from the very leisurely pace at which he advanced up the
+school. He wore "Charity tails," as they were called, the swallow-tail
+coat of the Upper School mercifully given to boys of the Lower School
+who are too tall to wear with decency the short Eton jacket; he
+possessed a trouser-press; and his "bags" were perfectly creased and
+quite spotless. From tip to toe, at all seasons and in all weathers, he
+looked conspicuously spick and span. Chaff provoked the solemn retort:
+"One should be well groomed." He spoke impersonally, considering it bad
+form to use for first person singular. Amongst the small boys he ranked
+as the Petronius of the Lower School.
+
+One day the Caterpillar said grandiloquently, "You kids will oblige me
+by not shouting and yelling when you speak to me. I've a bit of a head."
+
+"What's wrong with it?" said Fluff.
+
+"It looks splendid _outside_," said John, in his serious voice.
+
+The Caterpillar, detecting no cheek, answered gravely--
+
+"Some of us had a wet night of it, last night."
+
+"Wet?" exclaimed the innocent Fluff. "Why, all the stars were shining."
+
+"Your brothers at Eton know what a 'wet night' means," said the
+Caterpillar. "I was talking with one of the Fifth, when a fellow came in
+with a flask. A gentleman ought to be able to carry a few glasses of
+wine, but one is not accustomed to spirits."
+
+"Spirits?"
+
+"Whisky, not prussic acid, you know."
+
+"But where do they get the whisky?" demanded John.
+
+"Comparing it with my father's old Scotch, I should say at the
+grocer's," replied the Caterpillar. "There's some drinking going on in
+our house, and--and other things. One mentions it to you kids as a
+warning."
+
+"Thanks," said John.
+
+"Not at all; you're rather decent little beggars. They" (the Fifth Form
+was indicated), "they've let you alone so far, but you may have trouble
+next term, so look out! And if you want advice, come to me."
+
+Beneath his absurd pompous manner beat a kindly heart, and the small
+boys divined this and were grateful. None the less the word "spirits"
+frightened them. Next day John happened to find himself alone with
+Caesar. Very nervously he asked the question--
+
+"I say, do any of the big fellows at Damer's drink?"
+
+"Drink? Drink--what?"
+
+"Well, spirits."
+
+Caesar snorted an indignant denial. The fellows at Damer's were above
+that sort of thing. The house prided itself upon its tone. Tone
+constituted Damer's glory, and was the secret of its success. John
+nodded, but two days afterwards the Demon took him by the arm, twisted
+it sharply, and said--
+
+"What the deuce did you mean by telling Caesar that the Manorites drink?"
+
+"Oh, Scaife--I didn't."
+
+"You gave us away."
+
+"_Us?_" John's eyes opened. "_You_ don't drink with 'em?" he faltered.
+
+"Don't bother your head about what I do, or don't do." Scaife answered
+roughly; "and because you took the Lower Remove don't think for an
+instant that you are on a par with Caesar and me, or even the old
+Caterpillar--for you ain't."
+
+"I know that," said John, humbly.
+
+"Don't forget it, or there may be ructions."
+
+"I shan't forget it."
+
+"That's right. And, by the way, you're getting into the habit of hanging
+about Caesar, which bores him to death. Stop it."
+
+But to this John made no reply. He read dislike in Scaife's bold eyes,
+detected it in his clear, peremptory voice, felt it in the cruel twist
+of the arm. And he had brains enough to know that Scaife was not the boy
+to dislike any one without reason. John crawled to the conclusion that
+Scaife had become jealous of his increasing intimacy with Desmond.
+
+However, when the three boys were preparing their Greek for First
+School, Scaife seemed his old self, friendly, amusing, and cool as a
+cucumber. Long ago he had initiated John into Manorite methods of work.
+
+"Our object is," he explained to the new boy, "to get through the 'swat'
+with as little squandering of valuable time as possible. It doesn't pay
+to be skewed. We must mug up our 'cons' well enough to scrape along
+without 'puns' and extra school."
+
+The three co-operated. Out of forty lines of Vergil, Scaife would be
+fifteen, John fifteen, and the Caterpillar ten; _ten_, because, as he
+pointed out, he had been nearly three years in the school. Then each
+fellow in turn construed his lines for the benefit of the others. A
+difficult passage was taken by Scaife to a clever friend in the Fifth.
+Sometimes Scaife would be absent twenty minutes, returning flushed of
+face, and slightly excited. John wondered if he had been drinking, and
+wondered also what Caesar would say if he knew. About this time fear
+possessed his soul that Caesar would come into the Manor and be taught by
+Scaife to drink. An occasional nightmare took the form of a desperate
+struggle between himself and Scaife, in which Scaife, by virtue of
+superior strength and skill, had the mastery, dragging off the beloved
+Caesar, to plunge with him into fathomless pools of Scotch whisky.
+Somehow in these horrid dreams, Caesar played an impressive part. Scaife
+and John fought for his body, while he looked on, an absurd state of
+affairs, never--as John reflected in his waking hours--likely to happen
+in real life. Of all boys Caesar seemed to be the best equipped to fight
+his own battles, and to take, as he would have put it, "jolly good care
+of himself."
+
+After the first of the football house-matches, Scaife got his "fez" from
+Lawrence, the captain of the House Eleven, and the only member of the
+School Eleven in Dirty Dick's. Some of the big fellows in the Fifth
+seized this opportunity to "celebrate," as they called it. Scaife was
+popular with the Fifth because--as John discovered later--he cheerfully
+lent money to some of them and never pressed for repayment. And
+Scaife's getting his "fez" before he was fifteen might be reckoned an
+achievement. Caesar, in particular, could talk of nothing else. He
+predicted that the Demon would be Captain of both Elevens, school
+racquet-player, and bloom into a second C. B. Fry.
+
+John, upon this eventful evening, soon became aware of a shindy. It
+happened that Rutford was giving a dinner-party, and extremely unlikely
+to leave the private side of the house. John heard snatches of song,
+howls, and cheers. Ordinarily Lawrence (in whose passage the shindy was
+taking place) would have stopped this hullabaloo; but Lawrence was
+dining with his house-master, and Trieve, an undersized, weakly
+stripling, lacked the moral courage to interfere. John was getting a
+"con" from Trieve when an unusually piercing howl penetrated the august
+seclusion.
+
+"What _are_ they doing?" asked Trieve, irritably.
+
+John hesitated. "It's the Fifth," he blurted out. "They've got Scaife in
+there, you know."
+
+"Oh, indeed! Scaife is an excuse, is he, for this fiendish row? Go and
+tell Scaife I want to see him."
+
+John looked rather frightened. He felt like a spaniel about to retrieve
+a lion. And scurrying along the passage he ran headlong into the Duffer,
+to whom he explained his errand.
+
+"Phew-w-w!" said that young gentleman. "I'd sooner it was you than me,
+Verney. They're pretty well ginned-up, I can tell you."
+
+John tapped timidly at the door of the room whence the songs and
+laughter proceeded. Then he tapped again, and again. Finally, summoning
+his courage, he rapped hard. Instantly there was silence, and then a
+furtive rustling of papers, followed by a constrained "Come in!"
+
+John entered.
+
+Most of the boys--there were about six of them--gazed at him in
+stupefaction. Scaife, very red in the face, burst into shrill shouts of
+laughter. Somehow the laughter disconcerted John. He forgot to deliver
+his message, but stood staring at Scaife, quaking with a young boy's
+terror of the unknown. Upon the table were some siphons, syrups, and the
+remains of a "spread."
+
+"What the blazes do you want?" said Lovell, the owner of the room.
+
+"I want Scaife," said John. "I mean that Trieve wants Scaife."
+
+"Oh, Miss Trieve wants Master Scaife, does she? Well, young 'un, you
+tell Trieve, with my compliments, that Scaife can't come. See? Now--hook
+it!"
+
+But John still stared at Scaife. The boy's dishevelled appearance, his
+wild eyes, his shrill laughter, revealed another Scaife.
+
+"You'd better come, Scaife," he faltered.
+
+"Not I," said Scaife. He spoke in a curiously high-pitched voice, quite
+unlike his usual cool, quiet tone. "Wait a mo'--I'm not Trieve's fag.
+I'm nobody's fag now, am I?"
+
+He appealed to the crowd. It was an unwritten rule at the Manor that
+members of the House cricket or football Elevens were exempt from
+fagging. But the common law of fagging at Harrow holds that any lower
+boy is bound to obey the Monitors, provided such obedience is not
+contrary to the rules of the school. In practice, however, no boy is
+fagged outside his own house, except for cricket-fagging in the summer
+term.
+
+"Fag? Not you? Tell Miss Trieve to mind her own business."
+
+John departed, feeling that an older and wiser boy might have tact to
+cope with this situation. For him, no course of action presented itself
+except delivering what amounted to a declaration of war.
+
+"Won't come? Is he mad?"
+
+"'Can't come,' they said."
+
+"Oh, can't come? Has he hurt himself--sprained anything?"
+
+John was truthful (more of a habit than some people believe). He told
+the truth, just as some boys quibble and prevaricate, simply and
+naturally. But now, he hesitated. If he hinted--a hint would
+suffice--that Scaife had hurt himself--and what more likely after the
+furious bit of playing which had secured his "fez"?--Trieve, probably,
+would do nothing. John felt in his bones that Trieve would be glad of an
+excuse to do--nothing.
+
+"No; he hasn't sprained himself."
+
+"Then why don't he come?"
+
+"I--I----" Then he burst into excited speech. "He looks as if he _was_ a
+little mad. Oh, Trieve, won't you leave him alone? Please do! They must
+stop before prayers, and then Lawrence will be here."
+
+O unhappy John--thou art not a diplomatist! Why lug in Lawrence, who has
+inspired mordant jealousy and envy in the heart of his second in
+command?
+
+"Tell Scaife to come here at once," said Trieve, eyeing a couple of
+canes in the corner. "And if he should happen to ask what I want him
+for, say that I mean to whop him."
+
+John fled.
+
+"Whop him?"
+
+The Fifth howled rage and remonstrance. Scaife fiercely announced his
+intention of not taking a whopping from Trieve. None the less, the
+announcement had a sobering effect upon the elder boys. The consequence
+of a refusal must prove serious. Sooner or later Scaife would be
+whopped, probably by Lawrence, no ha'penny matter that!
+
+"You'd better go, Demon," said Lovell. "Trieve can't hurt you. I'd speak
+to the idiot, only he hates me so poisonously, just as I hate him."
+
+"I'll go," said the Caterpillar.
+
+John had not noticed the Caterpillar before. He stood up, spick and
+span, carefully adjusting his coat, pulling down his immaculate cuffs.
+
+"Good old Caterpillar," said somebody. "By Jove, he really thinks that
+Trieve will listen to--him!"
+
+"Any one who has been nearly three years in this house," said the
+Caterpillar, "has the right to tell Miss Trieve that she is--er--not
+behaving like a lady."
+
+"And he'll tell you you're screwed, you old fool."
+
+"I am not screwed," replied the Caterpillar, solemnly. "Whisky and
+potass does not agree with everybody; but I am not screwed, not at all."
+So speaking he sat down rather suddenly.
+
+Lovell shrugged his shoulders, glanced at the Caterpillar and Scaife,
+and left the room. Within two minutes he returned, chapfallen and
+frowning.
+
+"I knew it would be useless. Look here, Demon, you must grin and bear
+it."
+
+"No," said Scaife, "not from Miss Trieve."
+
+He laughed as before. The Fifth exchanged glances. Then Scaife said
+thickly, "Give me another drink, I want a drink; so does young Verney.
+Look at him!"
+
+John was white about the gills and trembling, but not for himself.
+
+"Do go, Scaife!" he entreated.
+
+The Fifth formed a group; holding a council of war, engrossed in trying
+to find a way out of a wood which of a sudden had turned into a tangled
+thicket. And so what each would have strenuously prevented came to pass.
+Scaife pulled a bottle from under a sofa-cushion, and put it to his
+lips--John, standing at the door, could not see what was taking place.
+
+When the bottle was torn from Scaife's hands, the mischief had been
+done. The boy had swallowed a quantity of raw spirit. Till now the
+whisky had been much diluted with mineral water.
+
+"I'm going to him," yelled Scaife, struggling with his friends. "And I'm
+going to take a cricket stump with me. Le'me go--le'me go!"
+
+The Caterpillar surveyed him with disgust. After a brief struggle Scaife
+succumbed, helpless and senseless.
+
+"One is reminded sometimes," said the Caterpillar, solemnly, "that the
+poor Demon is the son of a Liverpool merchant, bred in or about the
+Docks."
+
+Nobody, however, paid any attention to Egerton, who, to do him justice,
+was the only boy present absolutely unmindful of his own peril.
+Expulsion loomed imminent. The window was flung wide open, eau de
+Cologne liberally applied. Scaife lay like a log.
+
+And then, in the middle of the confusion, Trieve walked in.
+
+"Scaife has had a sort of fit," explained an accomplished liar. "You
+know what his temper is, Trieve? And when he heard that you meant to
+'whop' him, he went stark, staring mad."
+
+This explanation was so near the truth that Trieve accepted it, probably
+with mental reservations.
+
+"You had better send for Mrs. Puttick," he replied coldly.
+
+The Caterpillar was despatched for the matron; but before that worthy
+woman panted upstairs, Scaife had been carried to his own room, hastily
+undressed and put into bed, where he lay breathing stertorously. The
+matron, good, easy soul, accepted the boys' story unhesitatingly. A fit,
+of course, poor dear child! Mr. Rutford must be summoned.
+
+With the optimism of youth, those present began to hope that dust might
+be thrown into the eyes of Dirty Dick. And, with a little discreet
+delay, the Demon might recover, when he could be relied upon to play his
+part with adroitness and ability. Accordingly, the matron was urged to
+try her ministering hand first, amid the chaff, which, even in
+emergencies, slips so easily out of boys' mouths.
+
+"Mrs. Puttick, you're better than any doctor--Scaife is all right,
+_really_. We knew that he was subject to fits--Rather! Some one was
+telling me that one of his aunts died in a fit"--"Shut up, you silly
+fool," this in a whisper, emphasized by a kick; "do you want to send her
+out of this with a hornets' nest tied to her back hair?--That's a lie,
+Mrs. Puttick. He's humbugging you. Scaife told me that his fits were
+nothing. Yes; he had a slight sun-stroke when he was a kid, you know,
+and the least bit of excitement affects him."
+
+"Perhaps I'd better fetch a drop of brandy," said Mrs. Puttick, staring
+anxiously at Scaife. "He looks very bad."
+
+"Yes, please do, Mrs. Puttick."
+
+She bustled away.
+
+"Now we _must_ bring him to," said the Fifth Form.
+
+Everything was tried, even to the expedient of flicking Scaife's body
+with a wet towel; but the body lay motionless, his face horribly red
+against the white pillow, his heavy breathing growing more laboured and
+louder. And despite the perfume of the eau de Cologne which had drenched
+pillow and pyjamas, the smell of whisky spread terror to the crowd. If
+Rutford came in, he would swoop on the truth.
+
+"We'll souse the brandy all over him," said the Caterpillar; "and then
+no one can guess."
+
+"How about burnt feathers?" suggested Lovell. He had seen a fainting
+housemaid treated with this family restorative.
+
+Mrs. Puttick appeared with the brandy, which Lovell administered
+externally. Still, Scaife remained unconscious. Then a pillow was ripped
+open, and enough feathers burned to restore--as the Caterpillar put it
+afterwards--a ruined cathedral. The stench filled the passage and
+brought to No. 15 a chattering crowd of Lower Boys. And then the
+conviction seized everybody that Scaife was going to die.
+
+"Make way, make way, please!"
+
+It was Rutford, who, followed by Lawrence, strode down the passage into
+No. 15, and up to the bed.
+
+"If you please, sir," said Lovell, "Scaife has had a fit."
+
+"It looks like a fit," said Rutford, gravely. "I have telephoned for the
+doctor. You've tried," he sniffed the air, "all the wrong remedies, of
+course. Feathers--phaugh!--perfume--brandy! The boy must be propped up
+and the blood drawn from his head by applying hot water to his feet."
+
+The Fifth exchanged glances. Why had this not occurred to them? What a
+fool Mrs. Puttick was!
+
+"A rush of blood to the head!" Rutford liked to hold forth, and he had
+been told that he was a capital after-dinner speaker. He had just risen
+from an excellent dinner; he was not much alarmed; and his audience
+listened with flattering attention. Scaife was lifted into a chair; ice
+was applied to his head; his feet were thrust into a "tosh" filled with
+steaming water.
+
+"Note the effect," said Rutford. Already a slight change might be
+perceived; the breathing became easier, the face less red. Rutford
+continued in his best manner: "Mark the _vis medicatrix naturae_. Nature,
+assisted by hot water, gently accomplishes her task. Very simple, and
+not one of you had the wit to think of a remedy close at hand, and so
+easy to administer. The breathing is becoming normal. In a few minutes I
+predict that we shall have the satisfaction of seeing the poor dear
+fellow open his eyes, and he will tell us that he is but little the
+worse. Yes, yes, a rush of blood to the head producing cerebral
+disturbance."
+
+He smiled blandly, receiving the homage of the Fifth.
+
+"And now, Lovell, what do you know about this? Did this fit take place
+here?"
+
+"In my room, sir."
+
+"In your room--eh? What was Scaife, a Lower Boy, doing in your room?"
+
+"Lawrence gave him his 'fez' to-day, sir."
+
+Lawrence nodded.
+
+"Ah! And Scaife was excited, perhaps unduly excited--eh?"
+
+The Fifth joined in a chorus of, "Yes, sir--Oh, yes, sir--awfully
+excited, sir--never saw a boy so excited, sir."
+
+"That will do. Now, Lovell, go on!"
+
+"We had some siphons in our room, sir." A stroke of genius this--for the
+siphons were still on the table and the syrups, and the _debris_ of
+cakes and meringues. Rutford would be sure to examine the scene of the
+catastrophe; and the whisky bottle was carefully hidden. "We were having
+a spread, sir, and we asked Scaife to join us. His play to-day made him
+one of us."
+
+The other boys gazed admiringly at Lovell. What a cool, knowing hand!
+
+"Yes, yes, I see nothing objectionable about that."
+
+"Well, sir--we were rather noisy----"
+
+"Go on."
+
+"To speak the exact truth, sir, I fear we were _very_ noisy; and Trieve,
+it seems, heard us. Instead of sending for me, sir, he sent Verney for
+Scaife----"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Lovell's hesitation at this point was really worthy of Coquelin _cadet_.
+
+"Of course you know, sir, that Scaife's getting his 'fez' releases him
+from house-fagging. We thought Trieve had forgotten that, sir; and that
+it would be rather fun--I'm not excusing myself, sir--we thought it
+would be a harmless joke if we persuaded Scaife not to go."
+
+"Um!"
+
+"We were very foolish, sir. And then Trieve sent another message saying
+that Scaife was to go to his room at once to be--whopped."
+
+"To be whopped. Um! Rather drastic that, very drastic under the
+circumstances."
+
+"So we thought, sir; and I went to represent the facts to Trieve----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I'm not much of a peacemaker, I fear, sir. Trieve refused to listen to
+me. He insisted upon whopping Scaife for what he called disobedience and
+impudence. Upon my honour, sir, I tried, we all tried, to persuade
+Scaife to take his whopping quietly, but he seemed to go quite mad. He
+has a violent temper, sir----"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"A very violent temper. He--he----"
+
+"Frothed at the mouth," put in a bystander. "I particularly noticed
+that."
+
+"Really, really----"
+
+"Yes," said Lovell, nodding his head reflectively. "He frothed at the
+mouth, and then----"
+
+"Grew quite black in the face," interpolated a third boy, who was
+determined that Lovell should not carry off all the honours.
+
+"I should say--purple," amended Lovell. "And then he gave----"
+
+"A beastly gurgle----"
+
+"A sort of snort, and fell flat on his face. I'm not sure that he didn't
+strike the edge of the table as he fell."
+
+"He did," said one of the boys. "I saw that."
+
+At this moment Scaife moved in his chair, drawing all eyes to his face.
+John, peering from behind the circle of big boys, could see the first
+signs of returning consciousness, a flicker of the eyelids, a convulsive
+tremor of the limbs. Rutford bent down.
+
+"Well, my dear Scaife, how are you? We've been a little anxious, all of
+us, but, I ventured to predict, without cause. Tell us, my poor boy, how
+do you feel?"
+
+Scaife opened his eyes. Then he groaned dismally. Rutford was standing
+to the right of the chair and foot-bath. The Fifth were facing Scaife.
+He met their anxious, admonishing glances, unable to interpret them.
+
+Lovell senior repeated the house-master's question--
+
+"How are you, old chap?"
+
+But, in his anxiety to convey a warning, he came too near, obscuring
+Rutford's massive figure. Scaife groaned again, putting his hand to his
+head.
+
+"How am I?" he repeated thickly. "Why, why, I'm jolly well screwed,
+Lovell; that's how I am! Jolly well screwed--hay? Ugh! how screwed I am.
+Ugh!"
+
+The groans fell on a terrifying silence. Rutford glanced keenly from
+face to face. Then he said slowly--
+
+"The wretched boy is--_drunk_!"
+
+At the sound of his house-master's voice, Scaife relapsed into an
+insensibility which no one at the moment cared to pronounce counterfeit
+or genuine. Rutford glared at Lovell.
+
+"Who was in your room, Lovell?"
+
+Without waiting for Lovell to answer, the other boys, each in turn,
+said, "I, sir," or "Me, sir." John came last.
+
+"Anybody else, Lovell?"
+
+A discreet master would not have asked this question, but Dirty Dick was
+the last man to waive an advantage. Now, the Caterpillar had quietly
+left No. 15, as soon as Rutford entered it. Not from any cowardly
+motive, but--as he put it afterwards--"because one makes a point of
+retiring whenever a rank outsider appears. One ought to be particular
+about the company one keeps." It says something for the boy's character,
+that this statement was accepted by the house as unvarnished truth.
+Lovell glanced at the other Fifth Form boys, as Rutford repeated the
+question.
+
+"Anybody else, Lovell? Be careful how you answer me!"
+
+"Nobody else," said Lovell.
+
+"On your honour, sir?"
+
+"On my honour, sir."
+
+And, later, all Manorites declared that Lovell had lied like a
+gentleman. Rutford and he stared at each other, the boy pale, but
+self-possessed, the big, burly man flushed and ill at ease.
+
+"You will all go to my study. A word with you, Lawrence."
+
+The boys filed quietly out. Rutford looked at John and Fluff. Large, fat
+tears were trickling down Fluff's cheeks. Somehow he felt convinced
+that John was involved in a frightful row.
+
+"Run away, Kinloch," said his house-master. "I wish to speak with
+Lawrence and Verney."
+
+He turned to Lawrence as he spoke. John glanced at Scaife. His eyes were
+open. Silently, Scaife placed a trembling finger upon his lips. The
+action, the expression in the eyes, were unmistakable. John understood,
+as plainly as if Scaife had spoken, that silence, where expulsion
+impended, was not only expedient but imperative. Kinloch crept out of
+the room. Rutford examined Scaife, who feigned insensibility. Then he
+addressed Lawrence.
+
+"Go to Lovell's room, Lawrence, and institute a thorough search. If you
+find wine or spirits, let me know at once."
+
+Lawrence left the room.
+
+"Now, Verney, I am going to ask you a few questions." He assumed his
+rasping, truculent tone. "And don't you dare to tell me lies, sir!"
+
+John was about to repudiate warmly his house-master's brutal injunction,
+when the habit of thinking before he spoke closed his half-opened lips.
+Immediately, his face assumed the obstinate, expressionless look which
+made those who searched no deeper than the surface pronounce him a dull
+boy. Rutford, for instance, interpreted this stolidity as unintelligence
+and lack of perception. John, meantime, was struggling with a thought
+which shaped itself slowly into a plan of action. He had just heard
+Lovell lie to save the Caterpillar. John knew well enough that he might
+be called upon to lie also, to save not himself, but Scaife. If he held
+his tongue and refused to answer questions, Rutford would assume, and
+with reason, that Scaife had been made drunk by the Fifth Form fellows.
+
+Then John said quietly, "I am not a liar, sir."
+
+"Certainly, I have never detected you in a lie," said Rutford.
+
+"All the same," continued John, in a hesitating manner, "I _would_ lie,
+if I thought a lie might save a friend's life."
+
+Rutford was so unprepared for this deliberate statement, that he could
+only reply--
+
+"Oh, you would, would you?"
+
+"Yes," said John; then he added, "Any decent boy or man would."
+
+"Oh! Oh, indeed! This is very interesting. Go on, Verney."
+
+"Scaife said he _felt_ as if he was jolly well screwed, sir; but he
+isn't. I'm quite sure he isn't. He may feel like it; but he isn't."
+
+John could see Scaife's eyes, slightly blood-shot, but sparkling with a
+sort of diabolical sobriety. At that moment, one thing alone seemed
+certain, Scaife had regained full possession of his faculties. Rutford
+stared at John, frowning.
+
+"You dare to look me in the face and tell me that Scaife is not drunk?"
+
+Very seriously, John answered, "I'm sure he's not drunk, sir."
+
+Rutford eyed the boy keenly.
+
+"Have you ever seen anybody drunk?" he demanded.
+
+"I live in the New Forest," said John, as gravely as before, "and on
+Whit-Monday----" He was aware that he had made an impression upon this
+big, truculent man.
+
+"Don't try to be funny with me, Verney."
+
+"On no, sir, as if I should dare!"
+
+"Well, well, we are wasting time. Trieve sent you to Lovell's room to
+fetch Scaife?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And what was Scaife doing when you went into the room? Be very
+careful!"
+
+John considered. "He was laughing, sir."
+
+"Laughing, was he?"
+
+"But he stopped laughing when I gave him Trieve's message, and then he
+said what Lovell told you, sir."
+
+"Never mind what Lovell told me. Give me your version of the story."
+
+"Scaife asked the other fellows if Trieve had any right to fag him, now
+that he had got his 'fez.' If he had been drunk, sir, he wouldn't have
+thought of that, would he?"
+
+"Um," said Rutford, slightly shaken. John described his return to
+Trieve's room, and Trieve's threat.
+
+"Lovell and you tell the same story."
+
+"Why, yes, sir." John made no deliberate attempt to look simple; but his
+face, to the master studying it, seemed quite guileless.
+
+Just then, Dumbleton ushered in the doctor. To him Rutford recited what
+he knew and what he suspected. He had hardly finished speaking, when
+Scaife opened his eyes for the second time. By a curious coincidence,
+the doctor used the words of the house-master.
+
+"Well, sir, how do you feel?"
+
+And then Scaife answered, in the same dazed fashion as before--
+
+"I feel as if I was jolly well screwed, sir."
+
+Rutford nodded portentously.
+
+"I feel," continued Scaife, "as I did once long ago, when I was a kid
+and got hold of some curacoa at one of my father's parties."
+
+"Just so," said the doctor.
+
+"Same buzzing in the head, same beastly feeling, same--same old--same
+old--giddiness." He closed his eyes, and his head fell heavily upon his
+chest.
+
+"It looks like concussion," said the doctor, doubtfully. "You say he
+fell?" He turned to John.
+
+"I was just outside the door," said John.
+
+"We'll put him into the sick-room, Mr. Rutford. And in a day or two
+he'll be himself again."
+
+"Are you sure that what I--er--feared--er----?"
+
+The doctor frowned. "The boy has had brandy, of course."
+
+"Mrs. Puttick and Lovell gave him plenty of that," John interpolated.
+
+"I believe you can exonerate the boy entirely," said the doctor.
+
+John saw that Rutford seemed relieved.
+
+"I have ordered Lovell's room to be searched. If no wine or spirits are
+found, I shall be glad to believe that I have made a very pardonable
+mistake."
+
+While Scaife was being removed, Lawrence came in with his report.
+Nothing alcoholic had been discovered in Lovell's room. After prayers,
+which were late that night, Dirty Dick made a short speech.
+
+"I had reason to suspect," said he, "that a gross breach of the rules of
+the school had been made to-night by certain boys in this house. It
+appears I was mistaken. No more will be said on the subject by me; and I
+think that the less said by you, big and small, the better. Good night."
+
+He strode away into the private side.
+
+Two days later, Scaife came back to No. 15. John wondered why he stared
+at him so hard upon the first occasion when they happened to be alone.
+Then Scaife said--
+
+"Well, young Verney, I shan't forget that, if it hadn't been for you, I
+should have been sacked. And I shan't forget either that you're not half
+such a fool as you look."
+
+John exhibited surprise.
+
+"The way you handled the beast," continued Scaife, "was masterly. I
+heard every word, though my head was bursting. I shall tell Lovell that
+you saved us. Oh, Lord--didn't I give the show away?"
+
+He never tried to read the perplexity upon the other's face, but went
+away laughing. He came back with the Caterpillar half an hour later, and
+the three boys sat down as usual to prepare some Livy. John was sensible
+that his companions treated him not only as an equal--a new and
+agreeable experience--but as a friend. In the course of the first ten
+minutes Scaife said to the Caterpillar--
+
+"He told Dick to his face that he would lie to save a pal."
+
+And the Caterpillar replied seriously, "Good kid, very good kid. Lovell
+says he's going to give a tea in his honour."
+
+"No, he isn't. It's my turn."
+
+Accordingly, upon the next half-holiday, Scaife gave a tea at the
+Creameries. Of all the strange things that had happened during the past
+fortnight, this to our simple John seemed the strangest. He was not
+conscious of having done or said anything to justify the esteem and
+consideration in which Scaife, the Caterpillar, and Lovell seemed to
+hold him.
+
+"You've forgotten Desmond," he said to Scaife, when the latter mentioned
+the names of his guests.
+
+"Caesar isn't coming. By the way, Verney, you've not been talking to
+Caesar about the row in our house?"
+
+"No," said John. "Lawrence came round and said that I must keep my mouth
+shut."
+
+"And naturally you did what you were told to do?"
+
+The half-mocking tone disappeared in a burst of laughter as John
+answered--
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"And I suppose it never entered your head that Lawrence would not have
+been so particular about shutting your mouth without good reason."
+
+"Perhaps," said John, after a pause, "Lawrence was in a funk lest,
+lest----"
+
+"Go on!"
+
+"Lest the thing should be exaggerated."
+
+"Exactly. Lots of fellows would go about saying that I was dead
+drunk--eh?"
+
+"They might."
+
+"And that would be coming dangerously near the truth."
+
+"Oh, Scaife! Then you really _were_----"
+
+Scaife laughed again. "Yes, I really was, my Moses in the bulrushes!
+Don't look so miserable. I guessed all along that you weren't _quite_ in
+the know. Well, I'm every bit as grateful. You stood up to Dick like a
+hero. And my tea is in your honour."
+
+"Oh, Scaife--you--you won't do it again?"
+
+"Get screwed?" said Scaife, gravely. "I shall not. It isn't good enough.
+We've chucked the stuff away."
+
+"If they'd found it----"
+
+"Ah--if! The old Caterpillar attended to that. He's a downy bird, I can
+tell you. When Dick came into our room, he slipped back to Lovell's
+room, carried off the whisky, hid it, washed the glasses, and then
+dirtied them with siphon and syrup. The Caterpillar and you showed great
+head. We shall drink your healths to-morrow--in tea and chocolate."
+
+John wondered what Scaife had said to the Fifth. At any rate, they asked
+John no questions, and treated him with distinguished courtesy and
+favour; but that evening, when John was fagging in Lawrence's room, the
+great man said abruptly--
+
+"I saw you walking with Lovell senior this afternoon."
+
+John explained. Lawrence frowned.
+
+"Oh, you've been celebrating, have you? Thanksgiving service at the
+Creameries. Now, look here, Verney, I've met your uncle, and he asked me
+to keep an eye on you. Because of that I made you my fag--you, a green
+hand, when I had the pick of the House."
+
+"It was awfully good of you," said John, warmly.
+
+"We'll sink that. I'm five years older than you, and I know every
+blessed--and _cursed_"--he spoke with great emphasis--"thing that goes
+on in this house. I know, for instance, that dust was thrown, and very
+cleverly thrown, into Rutford's eyes, and you helped to throw it. Don't
+speak! You didn't quite know what you were up to. Well, it's lucky for
+Lovell and Co. that one innocent kid was mixed up in that affair. But
+it's been rather unlucky for you. I'd sooner see you kicked about a bit
+by those fellows than petted. I'm sorry--sorry, do you hear?--the whole
+lot were not sacked. And now you can hook it. I've said enough, perhaps
+too much, but I believe I can trust you."
+
+After this John showed his gratitude by painstaking attention to
+fagging. Lawrence became aware of faithful service: that his toast was
+always done to a turn, that his daily paper was warmed, as John had seen
+the butler at home warm the _Times_, that his pens were changed, his
+blotting-paper renewed, and so forth. In John's eyes, Lawrence occupied
+a position near the apex of the world's pyramid of great men.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] {kraipale} is translated by Liddell and Scott as "the result of a
+debauch."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+_Torpids_
+
+    "Again we rush across the slush,
+      A pack of breathless faces,
+    And charge and fall, and see the ball
+      Fly whizzing through the bases."
+
+
+The remainder of the term slipped away without farther accident or
+incident. Apart from the preparation of work, John saw little of Scaife
+or Egerton. The Fifth nodded to him in a friendly fashion when he passed
+them in the street, and, greater kindness on their part, left him alone.
+Possibly, Lawrence had said a word to Lovell. Such leisure as John
+enjoyed (a new boy at Harrow has not much) he spent with the devoted
+Fluff. Desmond and Scaife walked together on Sunday afternoons. But the
+fact that Desmond seemed to be vanishing out of his horizon made no
+difference to John's ever-increasing affection for him. Very humbly, he
+worshipped at a distance. On clear, dry days Fluff and he would climb to
+the top of the wall of the squash racquet-courts to see Scaife and
+Desmond play a single. They were extraordinarily well-matched in
+strength, activity, and skill. John noticed, however, that the Demon
+lost his temper when he lost a game, whereas Caesar only laughed. Somehow
+John divined that the Demon was making the effort of his life to secure
+Desmond's friendship. And Caesar had ideals, standards to which the Demon
+pretended to attain. Good, simple John made sure that Caesar would
+elevate the Demon to his plane, that evil would be exorcised by good.
+Only in his dreams did the Demon have the advantage.
+
+Just before the end of the term, Caesar said to him--
+
+"After all, I'm jolly glad I'm coming into your House, because the old
+Demon is such a ripper; and he and I have been talking things over. He's
+as mad keen as I am about games, and although the Manorites have not
+played in a cock-house match at cricket or footer for years, still there
+is a chance for us at Torpids next term. You'll play, Verney. You've
+improved a lot, so the Demon says, and he'll be captain. Then there are
+the sports. If only Dirty Dick could be knocked on the head, the Manor
+might jump to the front again."
+
+"It will," said John.
+
+When the School reassembled after Christmas, Desmond entered the Manor,
+and found himself with Scaife in a two-room. A civil note from the man
+of millions had arranged this. To John was given a two-room, also, with
+the Duffer as stable companion. Fluff remained in No. 15. The Duffer had
+got his remove from the Top Shell into John's form. Scaife and Desmond
+were elevated into the Upper Remove. It followed, therefore, that Scaife
+and Desmond prepared work in their own room, the Caterpillar joining the
+Duffer and John. Thus it will be seen that, although Desmond had become
+a Manorite, he was, practically speaking, out of John's orbit.
+
+The Caterpillar had now been three years in the school, and he governed
+himself accordingly. He put on a "barmaid"[14] collar and spent much
+time on the top step of the boys' entrance to the Manor. No mere
+two-year-old presumed to occupy this sacred spot. Had he dared to do so,
+the Caterpillar would have made things very sultry for him. Also, he
+informed the Duffer and John that, by virtue of his position, he
+proposed to prepare no work at all. Each "con" was divided into two
+equal parts: the Duffer "mugged" up one; John the other. Then the
+Caterpillar would be summoned, and glean the harvest. The Duffer had a
+crib or two, but the Caterpillar forbade their use.
+
+"You kids," said he, "ought not to use 'Bohns.' Besides, it's
+dangerous."
+
+The Caterpillar's deportment and coolness filled John and the Duffer
+with respect and admiration. The master in charge of the Lower Remove
+happened to be short-sighted. The Caterpillar took shameful advantage of
+this. At repetitions, for instance, he would read Horace's odes off a
+torn-out page concealed in the palm of his hand, or--if practicable--pin
+the page on to the master's desk.
+
+He had genius for extricating himself (and others) out of what boys call
+tight places. One anecdote, well known to the Lower School and repeated
+as proof of the Caterpillar's masterly methods, may serve to illustrate
+the sort of influence Egerton wielded. When he was in the Fourth, his
+form met in the Old Schools in a room not far from that august chamber
+used by the Head Master and Upper Sixth. One day, the master in charge
+of the form happened to be late. The small boys in the passage
+celebrated his absence with dance and song. When the belated man
+arrived, a monitor awaited him. The Head Master presented his
+compliments to Mr. A---- and wished to learn the names of the boys who
+had created such a scandalous disturbance. Mr. A---- invited the
+roysterers to give up their names under penalties of extra school.
+Hateful necessity! Silence succeeded. A---- grew irate. The monitor
+tried to conceal a smile.
+
+"Any boy who was making any noise at all--stand up."
+
+The Caterpillar rose slowly, long and thin, spick and span.
+
+"If you please, sir," said he, "I was _whispering_!"
+
+A----'s sense of humour was tickled.
+
+"My compliments to the Head Master," said he, "and please tell him that
+I find, on careful inquiry, that Egerton was--whispering."
+
+A shout of laughter from Olympus proclaimed that the message had been
+delivered. The Caterpillar had saved the situation.
+
+John became a disciple of this accomplished young gentleman and tried
+to imitate him. For Egerton represented, faithfully enough, traditions
+to which John bowed the knee. Upon any point of schoolboy honour his
+authority ruled supreme. He told the truth among his peers; he loathed
+obscenity; he disliked and condemned bad language.
+
+"The best men don't swear much," he would say. "It's doosid bad form. I
+allow myself a 'damn' or two, nothing more. My great-grandfather, who
+was one of the Regency lot, was known as Cursing Egerton, but nowadays
+we leave that sort of thing to bargees."
+
+Quite unconsciously, John assimilated the Caterpillar's axioms.
+
+"We're not sent here at enormous expense to learn only Latin and Greek.
+At Harrow and Eton one is licked into shape for the big things:
+diplomacy, politics, the Services. One is taught manners, what? I'm not
+a marrying sort of man, but if I do have sons I shall send 'em here,
+even if I have to pinch a bit."
+
+This was the side of Egerton which appealed so strongly to John. The
+Caterpillar was an Harrovian to the core, like the Duffer and Caesar
+Desmond. He deplored the increasing predominance of sons of very rich
+men. And he anathematized Harrovian fathers who were persuaded by
+Etonian wives to send their sons to the Plain instead of to the Hill.
+That some of the famous Harrow families, who owed so much to the School,
+should forsake it, seemed to Egerton the unpardonable sin.
+
+During this term, regretfully must it be recorded that John scamped his
+"prep" and "ragged" in form whenever a suitable chance presented itself.
+The Duffer and he bribed a "Chaw"[15] to throw gravel against the
+windows of the room where the boys were supposed to be mastering the
+problems of Euclid and algebra. The "tique"[16] master had been Third
+Wrangler, but he couldn't tackle his Division properly. Upon this
+occasion the "chaw" created such a disturbance that (on audacious
+demand) leave was granted to the Duffer and John to capture the
+offender. The young rascals pursued the "chaw" as far as the
+Metropolitan Station, and presented that conscientious youth with
+another sixpence. Then it occurred to John that it might be expedient to
+capture some bogus prisoner; so by means of talk, sugared with
+chocolates, they persuaded a little girl to impersonate the thrower of
+gravel. The little girl, carefully coached in her part, was led to the
+Wrangler, but stage-fright made her burst into tears at the critical
+moment. Somehow or other the truth leaked out; the Duffer and John were
+sent up to the Head Master and "swished." Each collected a few twigs of
+the birch, carefully preserved to this day.
+
+Meantime, the Torpid house-matches were coming on, and the School
+agreed, wonderingly, that Dirty Dick's had a chance of being cock-house.
+The fact that the Manor has lost caste brought about this possibility.
+Boys just under fifteen found room at the Manor when other houses were
+full. All the Manorites in the Shell and Removes were fellows who had
+come to Harrow rather over than under fourteen years of age.
+
+And when the list of the Torpid Eleven was posted, didn't John's heart
+boil with pride when he read his own name at the bottom of it?
+
+The Manor won the first and the second of the matches. Then came the
+semi-final, with Damer's. When the teams met in the playing-fields the
+difference in the size of the players was remarked. Damer's Torpids were
+small boys, not much bigger than John or the Duffer. But they had behind
+them that stupendous force which is fashioned out of pride, _esprit de
+corps_, self-confidence begotten of long-continued success, and,
+strongest of all, the conviction that every man-Jack would fight till he
+dropped for the honour and glory of the crack house at Harrow. Not a boy
+in Damer's team was Scaife's equal as a player, but in Scaife's
+strength lay the weakness of the Manorites. They relied upon one player;
+Damer's pinned faith to eleven.
+
+As it happened to be a fine day, the School turned out in force to
+witness the match. Most of the masters were present, and some ladies.
+Rutford, however, had business elsewhere. The School commented upon his
+absence with sly smiles and shrugs of the shoulder. Some of the
+Manorites were indifferent; the better sort raged. The Caterpillar
+appeared upon the ground in a faultless overcoat, carrying a large bag
+of lemons. His straw hat was cocked at a slight angle.
+
+"One is really uncommonly obliged to Dirty Dick for staying away," he
+told everybody. "Speaking personally, the mere sight of him is very
+upsetting to me. Keen as one feels about this match, one can't deny that
+there is not room in a footer field for Dirty Dick and a self-respecting
+person."
+
+None the less, the absence of their house-master had a bad effect upon
+the Torpids. Damer, you may be sure, had come down, prepared to cheer
+louder than any boy in his house; Damer, it was whispered, had been
+known to shed tears when his house suffered defeat; Damer, in fine,
+inspired ardours--a passion of endeavour.
+
+Scaife won the toss and kicked off.
+
+For the first five minutes nothing of interest happened. Damer's played
+collectively; the Manorites rather waited upon the individual. When
+Scaife's chance came, so it was predicted, he would go through the
+Damer's centre as irresistibly as a Russian battleship cuts through a
+fleet of fishing-smacks.
+
+Rutford being absent, Dumbleton, the butler, stood well to the fore. He
+never missed a house-match, and no one could guess, looking at his
+wooden countenance, how the game was going; for he accepted either
+defeat or victory with a dignified self-restraint. A smart bit of work
+provoked a bland, "Well played, sir, _very well_ played, sir!" uttered
+in the same respectful tone in which he requested Lovell, let us say, to
+go to Mr. Rutford's study after prayers. The fags believed that
+"Dumber," who had begun his career as boot-boy at the Manor in the
+glorious days of old, had given notice to leave when he learned that
+Dirty Dick was about to assume command; but had been prevailed upon to
+stay by the promise of an enormous salary. Nothing disturbed his
+equanimity. On the previous Saturday evening, John had heated the wrong
+end of the poker in No. 15, knowing that Dumber's duty constrained him
+to march round the House after "lights out," to rake out any fires that
+might be still burning. Snug under his counterpane, the practical joker
+awaited, chuckling, a choleric word from the impassive and impeccable
+butler. How did Dumber divine that the poker was unduly hot and black
+with soot underneath? Who can answer that question? The fact remains
+that he seized John's best Sunday trousers which were laid out on a
+chair, and holding the poker with these, accomplished his task without
+remark or smile. The trousers had to be sent to the tailor's to be
+cleaned.
+
+Not far from Dumber stood a group of small boys, including the unhappy
+Fluff--unhappy because he was not playing, despite arduous training
+(entirely to please John) and systematic coaching. His failure meant
+further separation from John, whom, it will be remembered, he would have
+been allowed to call by his Christian name, had he been included amongst
+the Torpids. Of late, Fluff had not seen much of John, and in his dark
+hours he allowed his thoughts to linger, not unpleasantly sometimes,
+upon premature death and John's subsequent remorse.
+
+Meantime, Scaife and Desmond were playing a furious game which must have
+proved successful had it not been for the admirable steadiness of the
+enemy. Lawrence watched their efforts with compressed lips and frowning
+brows. He knew--who better?--that his cracks were tearing themselves to
+tatters; but his protests were drowned by the shrill cheers of the
+fags.
+
+"Rutfords--Rutfor-r-r-r-r-ds! Go it, old Demon!--Jolly well played,
+Caesar!--Sky him![17]--Well skied, sir!--Ah-h-h-h! Well given--well
+taken!"
+
+The last, long-drawn-out exclamation proclaimed that "Yards"[18] had
+been given to Scaife right in front of Damer's base. Damer's retreated;
+Scaife, with heaving chest, balanced the big ball between the tips of
+his fingers.
+
+"Oh-h-h-h-h!"
+
+Scaife had missed an easy shot. Lawrence could see that the boy was
+trembling with disappointment and mortification. Barbed arrows from
+Damer's small boys pierced Manorite hearts.
+
+"Jolly well boshed, Scaife!--Good, kind, old Demon!--Thank you,
+Scaife!--" and like derisive approbation rolled from lip to lip. The
+Caterpillar turned to Lovell.
+
+"Showing temper, ain't he?"
+
+"Yes," said Lovell.
+
+"Clever chap," said the Caterpillar, reflectively; "but one is reminded
+that a stream can't rise higher than its source. Not mine that--the
+governor's! Caesar is facing the chaff with a grin."
+
+The game began again. But soon it became evident that Scaife had lost,
+not only his temper, but his head. He rushed here and there with so
+little judgment that the odds amongst the sporting fellows went to six
+to four against the Manor. At the beginning of the game they were six to
+four the other way. And, inevitably, Scaife's wild and furious efforts
+unbalanced Desmond's play. Both boys were out of their proper places to
+the confusion of the rest of the team. Within half an hour Damer's had
+scored two bases to nothing.
+
+The Caterpillar distributed halves of lemons. Lawrence went up to
+Scaife. The captain of the Torpids was standing apart, not far from
+Desmond, who was sucking a lemon with a puzzled expression. Gallant,
+sweet-tempered, and always hopeful, Caesar could not understand his
+friend's passion of rage and resentment. With the tact of his race,
+however, he held aloof, smiling feebly, because he had sworn to himself
+not to frown. Had he looked to his right, he would have seen John, also
+sucking a lemon, but understudying his idol's nonchalant attitude and
+smile. John was sensible of an overpowering desire to fling himself upon
+the ground and howl. Instead he sucked his lemon, stared at Desmond, and
+smiled--valiantly.
+
+"Scaife," said Lawrence, gravely, "you're not playing the game."
+
+Scaife scowled. "I only know I've half killed myself," he muttered.
+
+Lawrence continued in the same steady voice, "Yes; because you missed an
+easy base which has happened to me and every other player scores of
+times. Come here, Desmond."
+
+Desmond joined them. Lawrence's face brightened when he saw hopeful eyes
+and a gallant smile.
+
+"You don't despair?"
+
+"We'll knock 'em into smithereens yet."
+
+"That's the Harrow spirit, but temper your determination to win with a
+little common sense. You've overdone it, both of you. Take my tip:
+they'll play up like blazes. Defend your own base; and then, when
+they're spent, trample on 'em."
+
+"Thank you," said Desmond.
+
+Scaife nodded sulkily.
+
+None the less he had too great respect for Lawrence's ability and
+experience as a captain to disregard his advice. After the kick-off,
+Damer's _did_ play up, and the Manor had to defend its base against
+sustained and fierce attack. Again and again a third base was almost
+kicked, again and again superior weight prevailed in the scrimmages.
+Within ten minutes Damer's were gasping and weary. And then, the ball
+was forced out of the scrimmage and kicked to the top side, Desmond's
+place in the field. Comparatively fresh, seeing the glorious
+opportunity, grasping it, hugging it, Caesar swooped on the ball. He had
+the heels of any boy on the opposite side. Down the field he sped,
+faster and faster, amid the roars of the School, roars which came to his
+ears like the deep booming of breakers upon a lee shore. To many of
+those watching him, the sight of that graceful figure, that shining,
+ardent face, revealing the promise which youth and beauty always offer
+to a delighted world, became an ineffaceable memory. Damer turned to the
+Head of his house.
+
+"And Desmond ought to be one of _us_," he groaned.
+
+And now Caesar had passed all forwards. If he keeps his wits a base is
+certain. The full back alone lies between him and triumph. But this is
+the moment, the psychological moment, when one tiny mistake will prove
+irrevocable. The Head of Damer's whispers as much to Damer, who smiles
+sadly.
+
+"His father's son will not blunder now," he replies.
+
+Nor does he. The mistake--for mistake there must be on one side or
+t'other--is made by Damer's back. As the ball rolls halfway between
+them, the back hesitates and falters.
+
+One base to two--and eighteen minutes to play!
+
+The second base was kicked by Scaife five minutes later.
+
+By this time the School knew that they were looking on at a cock-house
+match, not a semi-final. It was the wealth of Dives against the widow's
+mite that the winner of this match would defeat easily either of the two
+remaining houses. And not a man or boy on the ground could name with any
+conviction the better eleven. The betting languished at evens.
+
+Moreover, both sides were playing "canny," risking nothing, nursing
+their energies for the last furious five minutes. Damer began to fidget;
+than he dropped out of the front rank of spectators. He couldn't stand
+still to see his boys win--or lose. He paced up and down behind the
+fags, who winked at each other.
+
+"Damer's got the needle," they whispered.
+
+Dumbleton, however, stood still; a graven image of High Life below
+Stairs.
+
+"What do you think, Dumber?" asked Fluff.
+
+"I think, my lord," replied Dumber, solemnly, "that every minute
+improves our chance, but if it goes on _much_ longer," he added
+phlegmatically, "I shall fall down dead. My 'eart's weak, my lord."
+
+This was an ancient joke delivered by Dumber as if it were brand-new,
+and received by the fags in a like spirit.
+
+"Bless you, you've got no heart, Dumber. It's turned into tummy long
+ago," or, in scathing accents, "It's not your heart that's out of whack,
+Dumber, but your blithering old headpiece. What a pity you can't buy a
+new one!" and so on and so forth.
+
+Very soon, however, this chaff ceased. Excitement began to shake the
+spectators. They felt it up and down their spinal columns; it formed
+itself into lumps in their throats; it gave one or two cramp in the
+calves of their legs; it reddened many cheeks and whitened as many more.
+The Caterpillar pulled out his watch.
+
+"Three and a half minutes," he announced in a voice which fell like the
+crack of doom upon the silent crowd. If they could have cheered or
+chaffed! But the absolute equality of the last desperate struggle
+prevented any demonstration. The ball was worried through a scrimmage,
+escaped to the right, slid out to the left, only to be returned whence
+it came. It seemed as if both sides were unable to kick it, and when
+kicked it seemed to refuse to move as if weighted by the ever-increasing
+burden of suspense....
+
+"Now--now's your chance!" yelled the Manorites. To their flaming senses
+the ball appeared to be lying, a huge blurred sphere, upon the muddy
+grass; and the Elevens were stupidly staring at it. The Saints be
+praised! Some fellow can move. Who is it? The players, big and little,
+are so daubed with mud from head to foot as to be unrecognizable.
+Ah-h-h! It's young Verney.
+
+"Good kid! Well played--I say, well played, well pla-a-a-a-yed!"
+
+Our John has, it seems, distinguished himself. He has charged valiantly
+into the captain of Damer's at the moment when that illustrious chief is
+about to kick the ball to a trusted lieutenant on the left. He succeeds
+in kicking the ball into John's face. John goes over backwards; but the
+ball falls just in front of the Duffer.
+
+"Kick it, Duffer--kick it, you old ass!"
+
+The Duffer kicks it most accurately, kicks it well out to the top side.
+Now, can Desmond repeat his amazing performance? Yes--No--he can't. The
+conditions are no longer the same. Half a dozen fellows are between him
+and the Damer base.
+
+Alas! The Manor is about to receive a second object-lesson upon the
+fatuity of trusting to individuals. Confident in Caesar's ability to take
+the ball at least within kicking distance of the base, they have rushed
+forward, leaving unguarded their own citadel. Caesar, going too fast,
+misjudges the distance between himself and the back. A second later the
+ball is well on its way to the Manor's base. The back awaits it, coolly
+enough; knowing that Damer's forwards are offside. Then he kicks the
+sodden, slippery ball--hard. An exclamation of horror bursts from the
+Manorites. Their back has kicked the ball straight into the hands of the
+Damerite captain, the steadiest player on the ground.
+
+"_Yards!_"
+
+The chief collects himself for a decisive effort, and then despatches
+the ball straight and true for the target.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It passed between the posts within forty-five seconds of time.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[14] The "barmaid" collar is the double collar, at that time just coming
+into fashion.
+
+[15] "Chaw," short for Chawbacon.
+
+[16] "Tique," ab. for arithmetic. "Tique-beaks" are mathematical
+masters.
+
+[17] To "sky," _i.e._ to charge and overthrow.
+
+[18] In the Harrow game a boy may turn and kick the ball into the hands
+of one of his own side. The boy who catches it calls "Yards!" and, the
+opposite side withdrawing three yards, the catcher is allowed a free
+kick.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+_Fellowship_
+
+    "Fellowship is Heaven, and the lack of it is Hell."
+
+
+John was squelching through the mud, wondering whether his nose was
+broken or not, when Lawrence touched his shoulder.
+
+"Never mind, Verney," he said cheerily; "the Manor will be cock-house at
+Torpids next year, and I venture to prophesy that you'll be Captain."
+
+"Oh, thanks, Lawrence," said John.
+
+But, much as he appreciated this tribute from the great man, and much as
+it served to mitigate the pangs of defeat, a yet happier stroke of
+fortune was about to befall him. Desmond, who always walked up from the
+football field with Scaife, conferred upon John the honour of his
+company.
+
+"Where's Scaife?" said John.
+
+"The Demon is demoniac," said Desmond. "He's lost his hair, and he
+blames me. Well, I did my best, and so did he, and there's no more to be
+said. It's a bore that we shall be too old to play next year. I told the
+Demon that if we had to be beaten, I would sooner take a licking from
+Damer's than any other house; and he told me that he believed I wanted
+'em to win. When a fellow's in that sort of blind rage, I call him
+dotty, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," said John.
+
+"You played jolly well, Verney; I expect Lawrence told you so."
+
+"He did say something decent," John replied.
+
+The Caterpillar joined them as they were passing through the stile. "We
+should have won," he said deliberately, "if the Demon hadn't behaved
+like a rank outsider."
+
+"Scaife is my pal," said Desmond, hotly.
+
+The Caterpillar shrugged his shoulders, and held high his well-cut,
+aquiline nose, as he murmured--
+
+"One doesn't pretend to be a Christian, but as a gentleman one accepts a
+bit of bad luck without gnashing one's teeth. What? That Spartan boy
+with the fox was a well bred 'un, you can take my word for it. Scaife
+isn't."
+
+The Caterpillar joined another pair of boys before Desmond could reply.
+John looked uncomfortable. Then Desmond burst out with Irish vehemence--
+
+"Egerton is always jawing about breeding. It's rather snobbish. I don't
+think the worse of Scaife because his grandfather carried a hod. The
+Egertons have been living at Mount Egerton ever since they left Mount
+Ararat, but what have they done? And he ought to make allowances for the
+old Demon. He was simply mad keen to win this match, and he has a
+temper. You like him, Verney, don't you?"
+
+John hesitated, realizing that to speak the truth would offend the one
+fellow in the school whom he wished to please and conciliate. Then he
+blurted out--
+
+"No--I don't."
+
+"You don't?" Desmond's frank, blue eyes, Irish eyes, deeply blue, with
+black lashes encircling them, betrayed amazement and curiosity--so John
+thought--rather than anger. "You don't?" he continued. "Why not? The old
+Demon likes you; he says you got him out of a tight place. Why don't you
+like him, Verney?"
+
+John's mind had to speculate vaguely whether or not Desmond knew the
+nature of the tight place--_tight_ was such a very descriptive
+adjective--out of which he had pulled Scaife. Then he said nervously--
+
+"I don't like him because--because he likes--you."
+
+"Likes me? What a rum 'un you are, Verney! Why shouldn't he like me?"
+
+"Because," said John, boldly meeting the emergency with the conviction
+that he had burnt his ships, and must advance without fear, "because
+he's not half good enough for you."
+
+Desmond burst out laughing; the clear, ringing laugh of his father,
+which had often allayed an incipient mutiny below the gangway, and
+charmed aside the impending disaster of a snatch-division. And it is on
+_one's own side_ in the House of Commons that good temper tells
+pre-eminently.
+
+"Not good enough for me!" he repeated. "Thanks awfully. Evidently you
+have a high opinion of--_me_."
+
+"Yes," said John.
+
+The quiet monosyllable, so soberly, so seriously uttered, challenged
+Desmond's attention. He stared for a moment at John's face--not an
+attractive object. Blood and mud disfigured it. But the grey eyes met
+the blue unwaveringly. Desmond flushed.
+
+"You've stuck me on a sort of pedestal." His tone was as serious as
+John's.
+
+"Yes," said John.
+
+They were opposite the Music Schools. The other Manorites had run on.
+For the moment they stood alone, ten thousand leagues from Harrow, alone
+in those sublimated spaces where soul meets soul unfettered by flesh.
+Afterwards, not then, John knew that this was so. He met the real
+Desmond for the first time, and Desmond met the real John in a
+thoroughfare other than that which leads to the Manor, other than that
+which leads to any house built by human hands, upon the shining highway
+of Heaven.
+
+Shall we try to set down Desmond's feelings at this crisis? Till now,
+his life had run gaily through fragrant gardens, so to speak:
+pleasaunces full of flowers, of sweet-smelling herbs, of stately trees,
+a paradise indeed from which the ugly, the crude, the harmful had been
+rigorously excluded. Happy the boy who has such a home as was allotted
+to Harry Desmond! And from it, ever since he could remember, he had
+received tender love, absolute trust, the traditions of a great family
+whose name was part of English history, an exquisite refinement, and
+with these, the gratification of all reasonable desires. And this
+magnificent upbringing shone out of his radiant face, the inexpressible
+charm of youth unspotted--white. Scaife's upbringing, of which you shall
+know more presently, had been far different, and yet he, the cynic and
+the unclean, recognized the God in Harry Desmond. He had not, for
+instance, told Desmond of the nature of that "tight" place; he had kept
+a guard over his tongue; he had interposed his own strong will between
+his friend and such attention as a boy of Desmond's attractiveness might
+provoke from Lovell senior and the like. It is true that Scaife was well
+aware that without these precautions he would have lost his friend; none
+the less, above and beyond this consciousness hovered the higher, more
+subtle intuition that the good in Desmond was something not lightly to
+be tampered with, something awe-inspiring; the more so because, poor
+fellow! he had never encountered it before.
+
+Desmond stood still, with his eyes upon John's discoloured face. Not the
+least of Caesar's charms was his lack of self-consciousness. Now, for the
+first time, he tried to see himself as John saw him--on a pedestal. And
+so strong was John's ideal that in a sense Desmond did catch a glimpse
+of himself as John saw him. And then followed a rapid comparison, first
+between the real and the ideal, and secondly between himself and Scaife.
+His face broke into a smile.
+
+"Why, Verney," he exclaimed, "you mustn't turn me into a sort of Golden
+Calf. And as for Scaife not being good enough for me, why, he's miles
+ahead of me in everything. He's cleverer, better at games, ten thousand
+times better looking, and one day he'll be a big power, and I shall
+always be a poor man. Why, I--I don't mind telling you that I used to
+keep out of Scaife's way, although he was always awfully civil to me,
+because he has so much and I so little."
+
+"He's not half good enough for you," repeated John, with the Verney
+obstinacy. Unwittingly he slightly emphasized the "good."
+
+"Good? Do you mean 'pi'? He's not _that_, thank the Lord!"
+
+This made John laugh, and Desmond joined in. Now they were Harrow boys
+again, within measurable distance of the Yard, although still in the
+shadow of the Spire. The Demon described as "pi" tickled their ribs.
+
+"You must learn to like the Demon," Desmond continued, as they moved on.
+Then, as John said nothing, he added quickly, "He and I have made up our
+minds not to try for remove this term. You see, next term is the
+jolliest term of the year--cricket and 'Ducker'[19] and Lord's. And we
+shall know the form's swat thoroughly, and have time to enjoy ourselves.
+You'll be with us. Your remove is a 'cert'--eh?"
+
+John beamed. He had made certain that Caesar would be in the Third Fifth
+next term and hopelessly out of reach.
+
+"Oh yes, I shall get my remove. So will the Caterpillar."
+
+"Hang the Caterpillar," said Desmond.
+
+"He'd ask for a silken rope, as Lord Ferrers did," said John, with one
+of his unexpected touches of humour. Again Desmond bent his head in the
+gesture John knew so well, and laughed.
+
+"I say, Verney, you _are_ a joker. Well, the old Caterpillar's a good
+sort, but he's not fair to Scaife. Here we are!"
+
+They ran upstairs to "tosh" and change. John found the Duffer just
+slipping out of his ducks. He looked at John with a rueful grin.
+
+"Are you going to chuck me?" he asked.
+
+"Chuck you?"
+
+"Fluff says you've chucked him. He was in here a moment ago to ask if
+your nose was squashed. I believe the silly little ass thinks you the
+greatest thing on earth."
+
+"I don't chuck anybody," said John, indignantly. And he made a point of
+asking Fluff to walk with him on Sunday.
+
+After the Torpid matches the school settled down to train (more or less)
+for the athletic sports. John came to grief several times at Kenton
+brook, essaying to jump it at places obviously--as the Duffer pointed
+out--beyond his stride. The Duffer and he put their names down for the
+house-handicaps, and curtailed their visits to the Creameries. After
+this self-denial it is humiliating to record that neither boy succeeded
+in winning anything. Caesar won the house mile handicap; Scaife won the
+under sixteen high jump--a triumph for the Manor; and Fluff, the
+despised Fluff, actually secured an immense tankard, which one of the
+Sixth offered as a prize because he was quite convinced that his own
+particular pal would win it. The distance happened to be half a mile.
+Fluff was allowed an enormous start and won in a canter.
+
+The term came to an end soon after these achievements, and John spent a
+week of the holidays at White Ladies, the Duke of Trent's Shropshire
+place. Here, for the first time, he saw that august and solemn
+personage, a Groom of the Chambers, with carefully-trimmed whiskers, a
+white tie, a silky voice, and the appearance of an archdeacon. This
+visit is recorded because it made a profound impression upon a plastic
+mind. John had never sat in the seats of the mighty. Verney Boscobel was
+a delightful old house, but it might have been put, stables and all,
+into White Ladies, and never found again. Fluff showed John the famous
+Reynolds and Gainsborough portraits, the Van Dycks and Lelys, the
+Romneys and Richmonds. Fair women and brave men smiled or frowned at our
+hero wherever he turned his wondering eyes. After the first tour of the
+great galleries, he turned to his companion.
+
+"I say," he whispered solemnly, "some of 'em look as if they didn't like
+my calling you--Fluff."
+
+"I wish you'd call me Esme."
+
+"All right," said John, "I will; and--er--although you didn't get into
+the Torpids, you can call me--John."
+
+"Oh, John, thanks awfully."
+
+Ponies were provided for the boys to ride, and they shot rabbits in the
+Chase. Also, they appeared at dinner, a tremendous function, and were
+encouraged by some of the younger guests to spar (verbally, of course)
+with the duke's Etonian sons. Fluff looked so much stronger and happier
+that his parents, delighted with their experiment, were inclined to cry
+up the Hill, much to the exasperation of the dwellers in the Plain.
+
+When he left White Ladies John had learned one valuable lesson. His
+sense of that hackneyed phrase, _noblesse oblige_, the sense which
+remains nonsense with so many boys (old and young), had been quickened.
+Little more than a child in many ways, he realized, as a man does, the
+true significance of rank and wealth. The Duke of Trent had married a
+pleasure-loving dame; White Ladies was essentially a pleasure-house, to
+which came gladly enough the wit and beauty of the kingdom. And yet the
+duke, not clever as compared to his guests, not even good-looking as
+compared to the splendid gentlemen whom Van Dyck and Lely had painted,
+_undistinguished_, in fine, in everything save rank and wealth, worked,
+early and late, harder than any labourer upon his vast domain. And when
+John said to Fluff, "I say, Esme, why does the duke work so beastly
+hard?" Fluff replied with emphasis, "Why, because he has to, you know.
+It's no joke to be born a duke, and I'm jolly glad that I'm a younger
+son. Father says that he has no amusements, but plenty of occupation.
+Mother says he's the unpaid land-agent of the Trent property."
+
+John went back to Verney Boscobel, and repeated what Fluff had said, as
+his own.
+
+"It was simply splendid, mum, like a sort of castle in fairyland and all
+that, but I _am_ glad I'm not a duke. And I expect that even an earl has
+a lot of beastly jobs to do which never bother _us_."
+
+"Oh, you've found that out, have you, John? Well, I hesitated when the
+invitation came; but I'm glad now that you went."
+
+"Yes; and it's ripping to be home again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The summer term began in glorious sunshine; and John forgot that he
+owned an umbrella. The Caterpillar and he had achieved their remove, but
+the unhappy Duffer was left behind alone with the hideous necessity of
+doing his form's work by himself. The boys occupied the same rooms, but
+John prepared his Greek and Latin with Scaife, Caesar, and the
+Caterpillar; whom he was now privileged to call by their nick-names.
+They began to call him John, hearing young Kinloch do so; and then one
+day, Scaife, looking up with his derisive smile, said--
+
+"I'm going to call you Jonathan."
+
+"Good," said Desmond. "All the same, we can't call either the Duffer or
+Fluff--David, can we?"
+
+"I was not thinking of Kinloch or Duff," said Scaife, staring hard at
+John. And John alone knew that Scaife read him like a book, in which he
+was contemptuously amused--nothing more. After that, as if Scaife's will
+were law, the others called John--Jonathan.
+
+Very soon, the sun was obscured by ever-thickening clouds. John happened
+to provoke the antipathy of a lout in his form known as Lubber Sprott.
+Sprott began to persecute him with a series of petty insults and
+injuries. He accused him of "sucking up" to a lord, of putting on "lift"
+because he was the youngest boy in the Upper Remove, of kow-towing to
+the masters--and so forth. Then, finding these repeated gibes growing
+stale, he resorted to meaner methods. He upset ink on John's books, or
+kicked them from under his arm as he was going up to the New Schools.
+He put a "dringer"[20] into the pocket of John's "bluer."[21] He pinched
+him unmercifully if he found himself next to John in form, knowing that
+John would not betray him. When occasion offered he kicked John. In
+short, he was successful in taking all the fun and sparkle out of the
+merrie month of May.
+
+Finally, Caesar got an inkling of what was going on.
+
+"Is Sprott ragging you?" he asked point-blank.
+
+"Ye-es," said John, blushing. "It's n-nothing," he added nervously.
+"He'll get tired of it, I expect."
+
+"I saw him kick you," said Desmond, frowning. "Now, look here, Jonathan,
+you kick him; kick him as hard as ever you can where, where he kicks
+you--eh? And do it to-morrow in the Yard, at nine Bill, when everybody
+is looking on. You can dodge into the crowd; but if I were you I'd kick
+him at the very moment he gets into line, and then he can't pursue. And
+if he does pursue--which I'll bet you a bob he don't, he'll have to
+tackle you and me."
+
+"I'll do it," said John.
+
+Next day, a whole holiday, at nine Bill, both Caesar and John were
+standing close to the window of Custos' den, waiting for Lubber Sprott
+to appear. While waiting, an incident occurred which must be duly
+chronicled inasmuch as it has direct bearing upon this story. Only the
+week before Rutford had come up to the Yard late for Bill, he being the
+master whose turn it was to call over. Such tardiness, which happens
+seldom, is reckoned as an unpardonable sin by Harrow boys. Briefly it
+means that six hundred suffer from the unpunctuality of one. Therefore,
+when Rutford appeared, slightly flushed of countenance and visibly
+annoyed, the School emphasized their displeasure by derisive cheers.
+Rutford, ever tactless where boys were concerned, was unwise enough to
+make a speech from the steps condemning, in his usual bombastic style, a
+demonstration which he ought to have known he was quite powerless to
+punish or to prevent. When he had finished, the School cheered more
+derisively than before. After Bill, he left the Yard, purple with rage
+and humiliation.
+
+Upon this particular morning, one of the younger masters, Basil Warde,
+was calling Bill. The School knew little of Warde, save that he was an
+Old Harrovian in charge of a Small House, and that his form reported
+him--_queer_. He had instituted a queer system of punishments, he made
+queer remarks, he looked queer: in fine, he was generally regarded as a
+radical, and therefore a person to be watched with suspicion by boys
+who, as a body, are intensely conservative. He was of a clear red
+complexion with lapis-lazuli blue eyes, that peculiar blue which is the
+colour of the sea on a bright, stormy day. The Upper School knew that,
+as a member of the Alpine Club, Warde had conquered half a dozen
+hitherto unconquerable peaks.
+
+Into the Yard and into this book Warde comes late. As he hurried to his
+place, the School greeted him as they had greeted Rutford only the week
+before. If anything, the demonstration was slightly more hostile. That
+Bill should be delayed twice within ten days was unheard-of and
+outrageous. When the hoots and cheers subsided, Warde held up his hand.
+He smiled, and his chin stuck out, and his nose stuck up at an angle
+familiar to those who had scaled peaks in his company. In silence, the
+School awaited what he had to say, hoping that he might slate them,
+which would afford an excuse for more ragging. Warde, guessing, perhaps,
+the wish of the crowd, smiled more genially than before. Then, in a
+loud, clear voice, he said--
+
+"I beg pardon for being late. And I thank you for cheering me. I haven't
+been cheered in the Yard since the afternoon when I got my Flannels."
+
+A deafening roar of applause broke from the boys. Warde might be queer,
+but he was a good sort, a gentleman, and, henceforward, popular with
+Harrovians.
+
+He began to call over as Lubber Sprott neared the place where Desmond
+and John awaited him. The Lubber took up his position near the boys,
+turning a broad back to them. He stood with his hands in his pockets,
+talking to another boy as big and stupid as himself. The Lubber, it may
+be added, ought to have worn "Charity" tails, but he had not applied for
+permission to do so. He was fat and gross rather than tall, and
+certainly too large for his clothes.
+
+"Now," said Caesar.
+
+John measured the distance with his eye, as Caesar thoughtfully nudged
+other members of the Upper Remove. John had room for a very short run.
+The Lubber was swaying backwards and forwards. John timed his kick,
+which for a small boy he delivered with surprising force, so accurately
+that the Lubber fell on his face. The boys looking on screamed with
+laughter. The Lubber, picking himself up (John dodged into the crowd,
+who received him joyfully) and glaring round, encountered the
+contemptuous face of Desmond.
+
+"Let me have a shot," said Caesar.
+
+The Lubber advanced, spluttering with rage.
+
+"Where is he--where is he, that infernal young Verney?"
+
+By this time fifty boys at least were interested spectators of the
+scene. Desmond stood square in the Lubber's path.
+
+"You like to kick small boys," said Caesar, in a very loud voice. "I'm
+small, half your size, why don't you kick me?"
+
+The Lubber could have crushed the speaker by mere weight; but he
+hesitated, and the harder he stared at Desmond the less he fancied the
+job of kicking him. Quality confronted quantity.
+
+"Kick me," said Desmond, "if--if you dare, you big, hulking coward and
+cad!"
+
+"Come on, Lubber, get into line!" shouted some boy.
+
+Sprott turned slowly, glancing over his vast, fat shoulder to guard
+against further assault. Then he took his place in the line, and passed
+slowly out of the Yard and out of these pages. He never persecuted John
+again.[22]
+
+Not yet, however, was the sun to shine in John's firmament. As the days
+lengthened, as June touched all hearts with her magic fingers,
+insensibly relaxing the tissues and warming the senses, John became more
+and more miserably aware that, in the fight between Scaife and himself
+for the possession of Desmond, the odds were stupendously against him.
+Truly the Demon had the subtlety of the serpent, for he used the
+failings which he was unable to hide as cords wherewith to bind his
+friend more closely to him. When the facts, for instance, of what had
+taken place in Lovell's room came to Desmond's ears, he denied fiercely
+the possibility of Scaife, his pal, making a "beast" of himself. The
+laughter which greeted his passionate protest sent him hot-foot to
+Scaife himself.
+
+"They say," panted Caesar, "that last winter you were dead drunk in
+Lovell's room. I told the beasts they lied."
+
+Scaife's handsome face softened. Was he touched by Caesar's loyalty? Who
+can tell? Always he subordinated emotion to intelligence: head commanded
+heart.
+
+"Perhaps they did," he answered steadily; "and perhaps they didn't. I
+deny nothing; I admit nothing. But"--his fine eyes, so dark and
+piercing, flamed--"Caesar, if I was dead drunk at your feet now, would
+you turn away from me, would you chuck me?"
+
+Desmond winced. Scaife pursued his advantage.
+
+"If you _are_ that sort of a fellow--the Pharisee"--Desmond winced
+again--"the saint who is too pure, too holy, to associate with a
+sinner, say so, and let us part here--and now. For I _am_ a--sinner. You
+are not a sinner. Hold hard! let me have my say. I've always known that
+this moment was coming. Yes, I am a sinner. And my governor is a sinner,
+a hardened sinner. His father made our pile by what you would call
+robbery. The whole world knows it, and condones it, because we are so
+rich. Even my mother----"
+
+He paused, trembling, white to the lips.
+
+"Don't," said Desmond. "Please don't."
+
+"You're right. I won't. But I'm handicapped on both sides. It's only
+fair that you should know what sort of a fellow you've chosen for a pal.
+And it's not too late to chuck me. Rutford will put Verney in here, if I
+ask him. And, by God! I'm in the mood to ask him _now_. Shall I go to
+him, Desmond, or shall I stay?"
+
+He had never raised his voice, but it fell upon the sensitive soul of
+the boy facing him as if it were a clarion-call to battle.
+
+Desmond sprang forward, ardent, eager, afire with generous
+self-surrender.
+
+"Forgive me," he cried. "Oh, forgive me, because I can't forgive
+myself!"
+
+After this breaking of barriers, Scaife took less pains to disguise a
+nature which turned as instinctively to darkness as Desmond's to light.
+A score of times protest died when Scaife murmured, "There I go again,
+forgetting the gulf between us"; and always Desmond swore stoutly that
+the gulf, if a gulf did yawn between them, should be bridged by
+friendship and hope. But, insensibly, Caesar's ideals became tainted by
+Scaife's materialism. Scaife, for instance, spent money lavishly upon
+"food" and clothes. So far as a Public Schoolboy is able, he never
+denied his splendid young body anything it coveted. Desmond, too proud
+to receive favours without returning them, tried to vie with this
+reckless spendthrift, and found himself in debt. In other ways a keen
+eye and ear would have marked deterioration. John noticed that Caesar
+laughed, although he never sneered, at things he used to hold sacred;
+that he condemned, as Scaife did, whatever that clever young reprobate
+was pleased to stigmatize as narrow-minded or intolerant.
+
+Cricket, however, kept them fairly straight. Each was certain to get his
+"cap,"[23] if, as Lawrence told them, they stuck to the rigour of the
+game. This was Lawrence's last term. He had stayed on to play at Lord's,
+and when he left Trieve would become the Head of the House--a prospect
+very pleasing to the turbulent Fifth.
+
+About the middle of June John suffered a parlous blow. He was never so
+happy as when he was sitting in Scaife's room, cheek by jowl with
+Desmond, sharing, perhaps, a "dringer," poring over the same dictionary.
+This delightful intimacy came to a sudden end in this wise. The
+form-master of the Upper Remove happened to be a precisian in English. A
+sure road to his favour was the right use of a word. The Demon,
+appreciating this, bought a dictionary of synonyms, and made a point of
+discarding the commonplace and obvious, substituting a phrase likely to
+elicit praise and marks. Desmond and John joined in this hunt of the
+right word with enthusiasm.
+
+One evening the four boys encountered the simple sentence--"_majoris
+pretii quam quod aestimari possit_."
+
+"'Priceless''ll cover that," said Caesar.
+
+"Or 'inest_ee_mable,'" said the Demon.
+
+The three other boys stared at the Demon, and then at each other. The
+Caterpillar, something of a purist in his way, drawled out--
+
+"One pronounces that 'inestimable.'"
+
+"My father doesn't," said Scaife, hotly. "I've heard him say
+'inesteemable.'"
+
+"No doubt," said Egerton, coldly. "How does _your_ father pronounce it,
+Caesar?"
+
+Desmond said hurriedly, "Oh, 'inestimable'; but what does it matter?"
+
+The Demon sprang up, furious. "It matters this," he cried. "I'm d----d
+if I'll have Egerton sitting in my room sneering at my governor. After
+this he'll do his work in his own room, or I'll do mine in the passage."
+
+Before Desmond could speak, Scaife had whirled out of the room, slamming
+the door. John looked stupefied with dismay.
+
+The Caterpillar shrugged his shoulders. Then he said slowly--
+
+"Scaife's father pronounces 'connoisseur' 'connoysure,' and so does
+Scaife."
+
+Desmond stood up, flushed and distressed, but emphatic.
+
+"Scaife is right about one thing," he said. "He won't sit here like a
+cad and listen to Egerton sneering at his father. I'm very sorry, but
+after this we'd better split up. Verney and you, Egerton; and Scaife and
+I."
+
+"Certainly," said the Caterpillar, rising in his turn.
+
+Poor John cast a distracted and imploring glance at Desmond, which
+flashed by unheeded. Then he got up, and followed the Caterpillar out of
+the room. The passage was empty.
+
+The Caterpillar sniffed as if the atmosphere in Scaife's room had been
+polluted.
+
+"One has nothing to regret," he remarked. "Scaife has good points,
+and--er--bad. You've noticed his hands--eh! _Very_ unfinished! And his
+foot--short, but broad." The Caterpillar surveyed his long, slender feet
+with infinite satisfaction; then he added, with an accent of finality,
+"Scaife talks about going into the Grenadiers; but they'll give him a
+hot time there, a very hot time. One is really sorry for the poor
+fellow, because, of course, he can't help being a bounder. What does
+puzzle me is, why did Caesar want such a fellow for his pal?"
+
+"But he didn't," said John.
+
+"Eh?--what?"
+
+"Scaife wanted Caesar," John explained. "And I've noticed, Caterpillar,
+that whatever Scaife wants he gets."
+
+"He wants breeding, Jonathan, but he'll never get that--never."
+
+After this, John saw but little of Desmond; and Scaife hardly spoke to
+him. Accordingly, much of our hero's time was spent in the company of
+the Duffer and Fluff. The three passed many delightful hours together at
+"Ducker." Armed with buns and chocolate, they would rush down the hill,
+bathe, lie about on the grass, eat the buns, and chaff the kids who were
+learning to swim.
+
+    "Long, long, in the misty hereafter
+      Shall echo, in ears far away,
+    The lilt of that innocent laughter,
+      The splash of the spray."
+
+During the School matches they spent the afternoons on the Sixth Form
+ground, carefully criticizing every stroke. The theory of the game lay
+pat to the tongue, but in practice John was a shocking bungler. At his
+small preparatory school in the New Forest, he had not been taught the
+elementary principles of either racquets or cricket; but he had a good
+eye, played a capital game of golf, rode and shot well for a small boy.
+Fluff, although still delicate, gave promise of being a cricketer as
+good, possibly, as his brothers, when he became stronger.
+
+Upon Speech Day John's mother and uncle came down to Harrow, and you may
+be sure that John escorted them in triumph to the Manor. Mrs. Verney has
+since confessed that John's expression as she greeted him surprised and
+distressed her. He looked quite unhappy. And the dear woman, thinking
+that he must be in debt, seriously considered the propriety of tipping
+him handsomely _in advance_. A moment later, as she slipped out of an
+old and shabby dust-cloak, revealing the splendours of a dress fresh
+from Paris, she divined from John's now radiant face what had troubled
+him.
+
+"John," she said, "you didn't really think that I was going to shame you
+by wearing this dreadful cloak--did you?"
+
+"I wasn't quite sure," John answered; then he burst out, "Mum, you look
+simply lovely. All the fellows will take you for my sister."
+
+And after the great function in Speech-room came the cheering. How
+John's heart throbbed when the Head of the School, standing just outside
+the door, proclaimed the illustrious name--
+
+"Three cheers for Mr. John Verney."
+
+And how the boys in the road below cheered, as the little man descended
+the steps, hat in hand, bowing and blushing! Everybody knew that he was
+on the eve of departure for further explorations in Manchuria. He would
+be absent, so the papers said, three years at least. The School cheered
+the louder, because each boy knew that they might never see that gallant
+face again.
+
+Later in the afternoon a selection of Harrow songs was given in the
+Speech-room. "Five Hundred Faces," as usual, was sung by a new boy, who
+is answered, in chorus, by the whole School. How John recalled his own
+feelings, less than a year ago, as he stood shivering upon the bank of
+the river, funking the first plunge! And his uncle, now sitting beside
+him, had said that he would soon enjoy himself amazingly--and so he had!
+The new boy began the second verse. His voice, not a strong one,
+quavered shrilly--
+
+    "A quarter to seven! There goes the bell!
+      The sleet is driving against the pane;
+      But woe to the sluggard who turns again
+    And sleeps, not wisely, but all too well!"
+
+In reply to the weak, timid notes came the glad roar of the School--
+
+    "Yet the time may come, as the years go by,
+      When your heart will thrill
+      At the thought of the Hill,
+    And the pitiless bell, with its piercing cry!"
+
+Ah, that pitiless bell! And yet because of it one wallowed in Sunday and
+whole-holiday "frowsts."[24] John, you see, had the makings of a
+philosopher. And now the Eleven were grunting "Willow the King." And
+when the last echo of the chorus died away in the great room, Uncle John
+whispered to his nephew that he had heard Harrow songs in every corner
+of the earth, and that convincing proof of merit shone out of the fact
+that their charm waxed rather than waned with the years; they improved,
+like wine, with age.
+
+Caesar's father came down with the Duke of Trent. The duke tipped John
+magnificently and asked him to spend his exeat at Trent House, and to
+witness the Eton and Harrow match at Lord's from the Trent coach. John
+accepted gratefully enough; but his heart was sore because, just before
+the row over that infernal word "inestimable," Caesar had asked John if
+he would like to occupy an attic in Eaton Square. After the row nothing
+more was said about the attic; but John would have preferred bare boards
+in Eaton Square to a tapestried chamber in Park Lane.
+
+Now, during the whole of this summer term there was much animated
+discussion in regard to the rival claims of lines or spots upon the
+white waistcoat worn by all self-respecting Harrovians at Lord's. Upon
+this important subject John had betrayed scandalous indifference.
+Accordingly, just before the match, the Caterpillar took him aside and
+spoke a solemn word.
+
+"Look here," he said; "one doesn't as a rule make personal remarks, but
+it's rather too obvious that you buy your clothes in Lyndhurst. I was
+sorry to see that the Duke of Trent was the worst-dressed man at
+Speecher; but a duke can look like a tinker, and nobody cares."
+
+"I'd be awfully obliged if you'd tell me what's wrong," said John,
+humbly.
+
+"Everything's wrong," said the Caterpillar, decisively. He looked
+critically at John's boots. "Your boots, for instance--most excellent
+boots for wading through the swamps in the New Forest, but quite
+impossible in town. And the 'topper' you wear on Sunday! Southampton,
+you say? Ah, I thought it was a Verney heirloom. Now, it wouldn't
+surprise me to hear that your mother, who dresses herself quite
+charmingly, bought your kit."
+
+"She did," John confessed.
+
+"Just so. One need say no more. Now, you come along with me."
+
+They marched down the High Street to the most fashionable of the School
+tailors, where John was measured for an Eton jacket of the best, white
+waistcoat with blue spots, light bags; while the Caterpillar selected a
+new "topper," an umbrella, a pair of gloves, and a tie.
+
+"Be _very_ careful about the bags," said the Caterpillar. "They are
+cutting 'em in town a trifle tighter about the lower leg, but loose
+above. You understand?"
+
+"Perfectly, Mr. Egerton," replied the obsequious snip. "What we call the
+'tighto-looso' style, sir."
+
+"I don't think they call it that in Savile Row," said the Caterpillar;
+"but be careful."
+
+The tailor was assured that he would receive an order properly signed by
+Mr. Rutford. And then John was led to the bootmaker's, and there
+measured for his first pair of patent-leathers. The Caterpillar was so
+exhausted by these labours that a protracted visit to the Creameries
+became imperative.
+
+"You've always looked like a gentleman," said the Caterpillar, after his
+"dringer," "and it's a comfort to me to think that now you'll be dressed
+like one."
+
+So John went up to town looking very smart indeed; and Fluff (who had
+ordered a similar kit) whispered to John at luncheon that his brothers,
+the Etonians, had expressed surprise at the change for the better in
+their general appearance.
+
+This luncheon was eaten on the top of the duke's coach, and it happened
+that the next coach but one belonged to Scaife's father. John could just
+see Scaife's handsome head, and Caesar sitting beside him. The boys
+nodded to each other, and the Etonians asked questions. At the name of
+Scaife, however, the young Kinlochs curled contemptuous lips.
+
+"Unspeakable bounder, old Scaife, isn't he?" they asked; and the duchess
+replied--
+
+"My dears, his cheques are honoured to any amount, even if _he_ isn't."
+
+Her laughter tinkled delightfully; but John reflected that Desmond was
+eating the Scaife food and drinking the Scaife wine--all bought with
+ill-gotten gold.
+
+Later in the afternoon it became evident that the Scaife champagne was
+flowing freely. To John's dismay, the Harrovians (including Caesar) on
+the top of the Scaife coach became noisy. The Caterpillar and his
+father, Colonel Egerton, sauntered up, and were invited by the duke to
+rest and refresh themselves. John was amused to note that the colonel
+was even a greater buck than his son. He quite cut out the poor old
+Caterpillar, challenging and monopolizing the attention of all who
+beheld him.
+
+"Those boys are makin' the devil of a row," said the colonel, fixing his
+eyeglass. "Ah, the Scaifes! A man I know dined with them last week. He
+reported everything _over_done, except the food. Their _chef_ is
+Marcobruno, you know."
+
+Presently, to John's relief, Desmond left the Scaifes and joined the
+Trent party, upon whom his gay, radiant face and charming manners made a
+most favourable impression. He laughed at the duchess's stories, and
+made love to her quite unaffectedly. The Etonians looked rather glum,
+because their wickets were falling faster than had been expected.
+Desmond told the duke, in answer to a question, that his father was in
+his seat in the pavilion, with his eyes glued to the pitch.
+
+"He's awfully keen," said Caesar.
+
+"You boys are not so keen as we were," said the duke, nodding
+reflectively.
+
+"Oh, but we are, sir--indeed we are," said Caesar. "Aren't we,
+Caterpillar?"
+
+The Caterpillar replied, thoughtfully, "One bottles up that sort of
+thing, I suppose."
+
+"Ah," said the duke, kindly, "if it's the right sort of thing, it's none
+the worse for being bottled up."
+
+The boys went to the play that night and enjoyed themselves hugely. Next
+day, however, the match ended in a draw. John was standing on the top of
+the coach, very disconsolate, when he saw Desmond beckoning to him from
+below. The expression on Caesar's face puzzled him.
+
+"How can you pal up with those Etonians?" whispered Caesar, after John
+had descended. "Every Eton face I see now I want to hit." Then he added,
+with a smile and a chuckle, "I say, there's going to be a ruction in
+front of the Pavvy. Come on."
+
+A minute later John was in the thick of a very pretty scrimmage between
+the Hill and the Plain. Hats were bashed in; cornflowers torn from
+buttonholes; pale-blue tassels were captured; umbrellas broken. Finally,
+the police interfered.
+
+"Short, but very, very sweet," said Caesar, panting.
+
+John and he were lamentable objects for fond parents to behold, but the
+sense of depression had vanished. And then Caesar said suddenly--
+
+"By Jove! I _have_ got a bit of news. It quite takes the sting out of
+this draw."
+
+"What's happened?"
+
+"My governor has been talking with Warde. Rutford is leaving Harrow."
+
+John gasped. "That is ripping."
+
+"Isn't it? But who do you think is coming to us? Why, Warde himself. He
+was at the Manor when it was _the_ house, and the governor says that
+Warde will make it _the_ house, again. He's got his work cut out for
+him--eh?"
+
+"You bet your life," said John.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[19] "Duck-Puddle," the school bathing-place.
+
+[20] A "Dringer" is composed of the following ingredients: a layer of
+strawberries is secreted in sugar and cream at the bottom of a clean
+jam-pot; and this receives a decent covering of strawberry ice, which
+brings the surface of the dringer and the top edge of the jam-pot into
+the same plane. The whole may be bought for sixpence. (P. C. T., 1905.)
+
+[21] A "Bluer" is the blue-flannel jacket worn in the playing fields. It
+must be worn _buttoned_ by boys who have been less than three years in
+the school.
+
+[22] Small boys are not advised to copy John's tactics. The victory is
+not always to the weak.
+
+[23] The house-cap, only worn by members of the House Cricket Eleven.
+
+[24] Lying in bed in the morning when there is no First School is a
+"frowst." By a subtle law of association, an armchair is also a
+"frowst."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+_A Revelation_
+
+    "Forty years on, when afar and asunder
+      Parted are those who are singing to-day,
+    When you look back, and forgetfully wonder
+      What you were like in your work and your play;
+    Then, it may be, there will often come o'er you
+      Glimpses of notes like the catch of a song,--
+    Visions of boyhood shall float them before you,
+      Echoes of dreamland shall bear them along."
+
+
+Before the end of the summer term, both Desmond and Scaife received
+their "caps" and a word of advice from Lawrence.
+
+"There are going to be changes here," said he; "and I wish I could see
+'em, and help to bring 'em about. Now, I'm not given to buttering
+fellows up, but I see plainly that the rebuilding of this house depends
+a lot upon you two. It's not likely that you're able to measure your
+influence; if you could, there wouldn't be much to measure. But take it
+from me, not a word, not an action of yours is without weight with the
+lower boys. Everything helps or hinders. Next term there will be war--to
+the knife--between Warde and some fellows I needn't name, and Warde will
+win. Remember I said so. I hope you," he looked hard at Desmond, "will
+fight on the right side."
+
+The boys returned to their room, jubilant because the house-cap was
+theirs, but uneasy because of the words given with it. As soon as they
+were alone, Scaife said sullenly--
+
+"Does Lawrence expect us to stand in with Warde against Lovell and his
+pals? If he does, he's jolly well mistaken, as far as I'm concerned."
+
+Desmond flushed. He had spent nearly five terms at Harrow, but only two
+at the Manor. Of what had been done or left undone by certain fellows in
+the Fifth he was still in twilight ignorance. He discerned shadows,
+nothing more, and, boylike, he ran from shadows into the sunlight.
+Desmond knew that there were beasts at the Manor. Had you forced from
+him an expression approaching, let us say, definiteness, he would have
+admitted that beasts lurked in every house, in every school in the
+kingdom. You must keep out of their way (and ways)--that was all. And he
+knew also that too many beasts wreck a house, as they wreck a regiment
+or a nation.
+
+But once or twice within the past few months he had suspected that his
+cut-and-dried views on good and evil were not shared by Scaife. Scaife
+confessed to Desmond that the Old Adam was strong in him. He liked,
+craved for, the excitement of breaking the law. Hitherto, this breaking
+of the law had been confined to such offences as smoking or drinking a
+glass of beer at a "pub,"[25] or using cribs, or, generally speaking,
+setting at naught authority. That Scaife had escaped severe punishment
+was due to his keen wits.
+
+Now, when Scaife gave Desmond the unexpurgated history of the row which
+so nearly resulted in the expulsion of six boys, Desmond had asked a
+question--
+
+"Do you _like_ whisky? I loathe it."
+
+Scaife laughed before he answered. Doubtless one reason why he exacted
+interest and admiration from Desmond lay in a rare (rare at fifteen)
+ability to analyse his own and others' actions.
+
+"I loathe it, too," he admitted. "Really, you know, we drank precious
+little, because it _is_ such beastly stuff. But I liked, we all liked,
+to believe that we were doing the correct thing--eh? And it warmed us
+up. Just a taste made the Caterpillar awfully funny."
+
+"I see."
+
+"Do you see? I doubt it, Caesar. Perhaps I shall horrify you when I tell
+you that vice interests me. I used to buy the _Police News_ when I was a
+kid, and simply wallow in it. I told a woman that last Easter, and she
+laughed--she was as clever as they make 'em--and said that I suffered
+from what the French call _la nostalgie de la boue_; that means, you
+know, the homesickness for the gutter. Rather personal, but dev'lish
+sharp, wasn't it?"
+
+"I think she was a beast."
+
+"Not she, she's a sort of cousin; she came from the same old place
+herself; that's why she understood. You don't want to know what goes on
+in the slums, but I do. Why? Because my grand-dad was born in 'em."
+
+"He pulled himself out by brains and muscles."
+
+"But he went back--sometimes. Oh yes, he did. And the governor--I'm up
+to some of _his_ little games. I could tell you----"
+
+"Oh--shut up!" said Caesar, the colour flooding his cheeks.
+
+Upon the last Saturday of the term the School Concert took place. Few of
+the boys in the Manor, and none out of it, knew that John Verney had
+been chosen to sing the treble solo; always an attractive number of the
+programme. John, indeed, was painfully shy in regard to his singing, so
+shy that he never told Desmond that he had a voice. And the
+music-master, enchanted by its quality, impressed upon his pupil the
+expediency of silence. He wished to surprise the School.
+
+The concerts at Harrow take place in the great Speech-room. Their
+characteristic note is the singing of Harrow songs. To any boy with an
+ear for music and a heart susceptible of emotion these songs must appeal
+profoundly, because both words and music seem to enshrine all that is
+noble and uplifting in life. And, sung by the whole School (as are most
+of the choruses), their message becomes curiously emphatic. The spirit
+of the Hill is acclaimed, gladly, triumphantly, unmistakably, by
+Harrovians repeating the creed of their fathers, knowing that creed will
+be so repeated by their sons and sons' sons. Was it happy chance or a
+happier sagacity which decreed that certain verses should be sung by the
+School "Twelve," who have struggled through form after form and know
+(and have not yet had time to forget) the difficulties and temptations
+which beset all boys? They, to whom their fellows unanimously accord
+respect at least, and often--as in the case of a Captain of the Cricket
+Eleven--enthusiastic admiration and fealty; these, the gods, in a word,
+deliver their injunction, transmit, in turn, what has been transmitted
+to them, and invite their successors to receive it. To many how poignant
+must be the reflection that the trust they are about to resign might
+have been better administered! But to many there must come upon the
+wings of those mighty, rushing choruses the assurance that the Power
+which has upheld them in the past will continue to uphold them in the
+future. In many--would one could say in all--is quickened, for the first
+time, perhaps, a sense of what they owe to the Hill, the overwhelming
+debt which never can be discharged.
+
+Desmond sat beside Scaife. Scaife boasted that he could not tell "God
+save the Queen" from "The Dead March in Saul." He confessed that the
+concert bored him. Desmond, on the other hand, was always touched by
+music, or, indeed, by anything appealing to an imagination which gilded
+all things and persons. He was Scaife's friend, not only (as John
+discovered) because Scaife had a will strong enough to desire and secure
+that friendship, but because--a subtler reason--he had never yet seen
+Scaife as he was, but always as he might have been.
+
+Desmond told Scaife that he could not understand why John had bottled up
+the fact that he was chosen to sing upon such an occasion. Scaife smiled
+contemptuously.
+
+"You never bottle up anything, Caesar," said he.
+
+"Why should I? And why should he?"
+
+"I expect he'll make an awful ass of himself."
+
+"Oh no, he won't," Desmond replied. "He's a clever fellow is Jonathan."
+
+As he gave John his nickname, Desmond's charming voice softened. A boy
+of less quick perceptions than Scaife would have divined that the
+speaker liked John, liked him, perhaps, better than he knew. Scaife
+frowned.
+
+"There are several Old Harrovians," he said, indicating the seats
+reserved for them. "It's queer to me that they come down for this
+caterwauling."
+
+Desmond glanced at him sharply, with a wrinkle between his eyebrows. For
+the moment he looked as if he were short-sighted, as if he were trying
+to define an image somewhat blurred, conscious that the image itself was
+clear enough, that the fault lay in the obscurity of his own vision.
+
+"They come down because they're keen," he replied. "My governor can't
+leave his office, or he'd be here. I like to see 'em, don't you, Demon?"
+
+"I could worry along without 'em," the Demon replied, half-smiling. "You
+see," he added, with the blend of irony and pathos which always
+captivated his friend, "you see, my dear old chap, I'm the first of my
+family at Harrow, and the sight of all your brothers and uncles and
+fathers makes me feel like Mark Twain's good man, rather _lonesome_."
+
+At once Desmond responded, clutching Scaife's arm.
+
+"You're going to be Captain of the cricket and footer Elevens, and
+School racquet-player, and a monitor; and after you leave you'll come
+down here, and you'll see that Harrow hasn't forgotten you, and then
+you'll know why these fellows cut engagements. My governor says that an
+hour at a School Concert is the finest tonic in the world for an Old
+Harrovian."
+
+"Oh, shut up!" said Scaife; "you make me feel more of an outsider than
+good old Snowball." He glanced at a youth sitting close to them.
+Snowball was as black as a coal: the son of the Sultan of the Sahara.
+"Yes, Caesar, you can't get away from it, I _am_ an 'alien.'"
+
+"You're a silly old ass! I say, who's the guest of honour?"
+
+Next to the Head Master was sitting a thin man upon whose face were
+fixed hundreds of eyes. The School had not been told that a famous Field
+Marshal, the hero of a hundred fights, was coming to the concert. And,
+indeed, he had accepted an invitation given at the last moment--accepted
+it, moreover, on the understanding that his visit was to be informal.
+None the less, his face was familiar to all readers of illustrated
+papers. And, suddenly, conviction seized the boys that a conqueror was
+among them, an Old Etonian, making, possibly, his first visit to the
+Hill. Scaife whispered his name to Desmond.
+
+"Why, of course," Desmond replied eagerly. "How splendid!"
+
+He leaned forward, devouring the hero with his eyes, trying to pierce
+the bronzed skin, to read the record. From his seat upon the stage John,
+also, stared at the illustrious guest. John was frightfully nervous, but
+looking at the veteran he forgot the fear of the recruit. Both Desmond
+and he were wondering what "it felt like" to have done so much.
+And--they compared notes afterwards--each boy deplored the fact that the
+great man was not an Old Harrovian. There he sat, cool, calm, slightly
+impassive. John thought he must be rather tired, as a man ought to be
+tired after a life of strenuous endeavour and achievement. He had
+done--so John reflected--an awful lot. Even now, he remained the active,
+untiring servant of Queen and country. And he had taken time to come
+down to Harrow to hear the boys sing. And, dash it all! he, John, was
+going to sing to him.
+
+At that moment Desmond was whispering to Scaife--
+
+"I say, Demon; I'm jolly glad that I've not got to sing before _him_. I
+bet Jonathan is in a funk."
+
+"A big bit of luck," replied Scaife, reflectively. Then, seeing the
+surprise on Desmond's face, he added, "If Jonathan can sing--and I
+suppose he can, or he wouldn't be chosen--this is a chance----"
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"Caesar, sometimes I think you've no brains. Why, a chance of attracting
+the notice of a tremendous swell--a man, they say, who never
+forgets--never! Jonathan may want a commission in the Guards, as I do;
+and if he pleases the great man, he may get it."
+
+"Jonathan's not thinking of that," said Desmond. "Shush-h-h!"
+
+The singers stood up. They faced the Field Marshal, and he faced them.
+He looked hardest at Lawrence, pointed out to him by the Head Master.
+Perhaps he was thinking of India; and the name of Lawrence indelibly cut
+upon the memories of all who fought in the Mutiny. And Lawrence, you may
+be sure, met his glance steadily, being fortified by it. The good fellow
+felt terribly distressed, because he was leaving the Hill; and, being a
+humble gentleman, the old songs served to remind him, not of what he had
+done, but of what he had left undone--the words unspoken, the actions
+never now to be performed. The chief caught his eye, smiled, and nodded,
+as if to say, "I claim your father's son as a friend."
+
+When the song came to an end, John was seized with an almost
+irresistible impulse to bolt. His turn had come. He must stand up to
+sing before nearly six hundred boys, who would stare down with gravely
+critical and courteously amused eyes. And already his legs trembled as
+if he were seized of a palsy. John knew that he could sing. His mother,
+who sang gloriously, had trained him. From her he had inherited his
+vocal chords, and from her he drew the knowledge how to use them.
+
+When he stood up, pale and trembling, the silence fell upon his
+sensibilities as if it were a dense, yellow fog. This silence, as John
+knew, was an unwritten law. The small boy selected to sing to the
+School, as the representative of the School, must have every chance. Let
+his voice be heard! The master playing the accompaniment paused and
+glanced at his pupil. John, however, was not looking at him; he was
+looking within at a John he despised--a poltroon, a deserter about to
+run from his first engagement. He knew that the introduction to the song
+was being played a second time, and he saw the Head Master whispering to
+his guest. Paralysed with terror, John's intuition told him that the
+Head Master was murmuring, "That's the nephew of John Verney. Of course
+you know him?" And the Field Marshal nodded. And then he looked at John,
+as John had seen him look at Lawrence, with the same flare of
+recognition in the steel-grey eyes. Out of the confused welter of faces
+shone that pair of eyes--twin beacons flashing their message of
+encouragement and salvation to a fellow-creature in peril--at least, so
+John interpreted that piercing glance. It seemed to say, far plainer
+than words, "I have stood alone as you stand; I have felt my knees as
+wax; I have wished to run away. But--_I didn't_. Nor must you. Open your
+mouth and sing!"
+
+So John opened his mouth and sang. The first verse of the lyric went
+haltingly.
+
+Scaife growled to Desmond, "He _is_ going to make an ass of himself."
+
+And Desmond, meeting Scaife's eyes, half thought that the speaker wished
+that John would fail--that he grudged him a triumph. None the less, the
+first verse, sung feebly, with wrong phrasing and imperfect
+articulation, revealed the quality of the boy's voice; and this quality
+Desmond recognized, as he would have recognized a fine painting or a bit
+of perfect porcelain. All his short life his father had trained him to
+look for and acclaim quality, whether in things animate or inanimate. He
+caught hold of Scaife's arm.
+
+"Make an ass of himself!" he whispered back. "Not he. But he may make an
+ass of me."
+
+Even as he spoke he was aware that tears were horribly near his eyes.
+Some catch in John's voice, some subtle inflection, had smitten his
+heart, even as the prophet smote the rock.
+
+"Rot!" said Scaife, angrily.
+
+He was angry, furiously angry, because he saw that Caesar was beyond his
+reach, whirled innumerable leagues away by the sound of another's voice.
+John had begun the second verse. He stared, as if hypnotized, straight
+into the face of the great soldier, who in turn stared as steadily at
+John; and John was singing like a lark, with a lark's spontaneous
+delight in singing, with an ease and self-abandonment which charmed eye
+almost as much as ear. Higher and higher rose the clear, sexless notes,
+till two of them met and mingled in a triumphant trill. To Desmond, that
+trill was the answer to the quavering, troubled cadences of the first
+verse; the vindication of the spirit soaring upwards unfettered by the
+flesh--the pure spirit, not released from the pitiful human clay without
+a fierce struggle. At that moment Desmond loved the singer--the singer
+who called to him out of heaven, who summoned his friend to join him, to
+see what he saw--"the vision splendid."
+
+John began the third and last verse. The famous soldier covered his face
+with his hand, releasing John's eyes, which ascended, like his voice,
+till they met joyfully the eyes of Desmond. At last he was singing to
+his friend--_and his friend knew it_. John saw Desmond's radiant smile,
+and across that ocean of faces he smiled back. Then, knowing that he was
+nearer to his friend than he had ever been before, he gathered together
+his energies for the last line of the song--a line to be repeated three
+times, loudly at first, then more softly, diminishing to the merest
+whisper of sound, the voice celestial melting away in the ear of
+earth-bound mortals. The master knew well the supreme difficulty of
+producing properly this last attenuated note; but he knew also that
+John's lungs were strong, that the vocal chords had never been strained.
+Still, if the boy's breath failed; if anything--a smile, a frown, a
+cough--distracted his attention, the end would be--weakness, failure. He
+wondered why John was staring so fixedly in one direction.
+
+Now--now!
+
+The piano crashed out the last line; but far above it, dominating it,
+floated John's flute-like notes. The master played the same bars for the
+second time. He was still able to sustain, if it were necessary, a
+quavering, imperfect phrase. But John delivered the second repetition
+without a mistake, singing easily from the chest. The master put his
+foot upon the soft pedal. Nobody was watching him. Had any one done so,
+he would have seen the perspiration break upon the musician's forehead.
+The piano purred its accompaniment. Then, in the middle of the phrase,
+the master lifted his hands and held them poised above the instrument.
+John had to sing three notes unsupported. He was smiling and staring at
+Desmond. The first note came like a question from the heart of a child;
+the second, higher up, might have been interpreted as an echo to the
+innocent interrogation of the first, the head no wiser than the heart;
+but the third and last note had nothing in it of interrogation: it was
+an answer, all-satisfying--sublime. Nor did it seem to come from John at
+all, but from above, falling like a snowflake out of the sky.
+
+And then, for one immeasurable moment--_silence_.
+
+John slipped back to his seat, crimson with bashfulness, while the
+School thundered applause. The Field Marshal shouted "Encore," as loudly
+as any fag; but the Head Master whispered--
+
+"We don't encourage _encores_. A small boy's head is easily turned."
+
+"Not his," the hero replied.
+
+Two numbers followed, and then the School stood up, and with them all
+Old Harrovians, to sing the famous National Anthem of Harrow, "Forty
+Years on." Only the guests and the masters remained seated.
+
+    "Forty years on, growing older and older,
+      Shorter in wind, as in memory long,
+    Feeble of foot and rheumatic of shoulder,
+      What will it help you that once you were strong?
+    God give us bases to guard or beleaguer,
+      Games to play out, whether earnest or fun;
+    Fights for the fearless, and goals for the eager,
+      Twenty, and thirty, and forty years on!
+    Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! Follow up!
+    Till the field ring again and again,
+      With the tramp of the twenty-two men.
+                Follow--up!"
+
+As the hundreds of voices, past and present indissolubly linked
+together, imposed the mandate, "_Follow up!_" the Head Master glanced at
+his guest, but left unsaid the words about to be uttered. Tears were
+trickling down the cheeks of the man who, forty years before, had won
+his Sovereign's Cross--For Valour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After the concert, but before he left the Speech-room, the Field Marshal
+asked the Head Master to introduce Lawrence and John, and, of course,
+the Head of the School. When John came up, there was a twinkle in the
+veteran's eye.
+
+"Ha--ha!" said he; "you were in a precious funk, John Verney."
+
+"I was, sir," said John.
+
+"Gad! Don't I know the feeling? Well, well," he chuckled, smiling at
+John, "you climbed up higher than I've ever been in my life. What was
+it--hey? 'F' in 'alt'?"
+
+"'G,' sir."
+
+"You sang delightfully. Tell your uncle to bring you to see me next time
+you are in town. You must consider me a friend," he chuckled again--"an
+old friend. And look ye here," his pleasant voice sank to a whisper, "I
+daren't tip these tremendous swells, but I feel that I can take such a
+liberty with you. Shush-h-h! Good-bye."
+
+John scurried away, bursting with pride, feeling to the core the strong
+grip of the strong man, hearing the thrill of his voice, the thrill
+which had vibrated in thousands of soldier-hearts. Outside, Fluff was
+awaiting him.
+
+"Oh, Jonathan, you can sing, and no mistake."
+
+"Five--six--seven mistakes," John answered.
+
+The boys laughed.
+
+John told Fluff what the hero had said to him, and showed the piece of
+gold.
+
+"What ho! The Creameries! Come on, Esme."
+
+At the Creameries several boys congratulated John, and the Caterpillar
+said--
+
+"You astonished us, Jonathan; 'pon my soul you did. Have a 'dringer'
+with me? And Fluff, too? By the way, be sure to keep your hair clipped
+close. These singing fellows with manes may be lions in their own
+estimation, but the world looks upon 'em as asses."
+
+"That's not bad for you, Caterpillar," said a boy in the Fifth.
+
+"Not my own," said the Caterpillar, solemnly--"my father's. I take from
+him all the good things I can get hold of."
+
+John polished off his "dringer," listening to the chaff, but his
+thoughts were with Desmond. He had an intuition that Desmond would have
+something to say to him. As soon as possible he returned to the Manor.
+
+There he found his room empty. John shut the door and sat down, looking
+about him half-absently. The Duffer had not contributed much to the
+mural decoration, saying, loftily, that he preferred bare walls to
+rubbishy engravings and Japanese fans. But, with curious inconsistency
+(for he was the least vain of mortals), he had bought at a "leaving
+auction" a three-sided mirror--once the property of a great buck in the
+Sixth. The Duffer had got it cheap, but he never used it. The lower boys
+remarked to each other that Duff didn't dare to look in it, because what
+he would see must not only break his heart but shatter the glass.
+Generally, it hung, folded up, close to the window, and the Duffer said
+that it would come in handy when he took to shaving.
+
+John's eye rested on this mirror, vacantly at first, then with gathering
+intensity. Presently he got up, crossed the room, opened the two
+folding panels, and examined himself attentively, pursing up his lips
+and frowning. He could see John Verney full face, three-quarter face,
+and half-face. And he could see the back of his head, where an obstinate
+lock of hair stuck out like a drake's tail. John was so occupied in
+taking stock of his personal disadvantages that a ringing laugh quite
+startled him.
+
+"Why, Jonathan! Giving yourself a treat--eh?"
+
+John turned a solemn face to Desmond. "I think my head is hideous," he
+said ruefully.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"It's too long," John explained. "I like a nice round head like yours,
+Caesar. I wish I wasn't so ugly."
+
+Desmond laughed. John always amused him. Caesar was easily amused, saw
+the funny side of things, and contrasts tickled his fancy agreeably. But
+he stopped laughing when he realized that John was hurt. Then, quickly,
+impulsively, he said--
+
+"Your head is all right, old Jonathan. And your voice is simply
+beautiful." He spoke seriously, staring at John as he had stared in the
+Speech-room when John began to sing. "I came here to tell you that. I
+felt odd when you were singing--quite weepsy, you know. You like me, old
+Jonathan, don't you?"
+
+"Awfully," said John.
+
+"Why did you look at me when you sang that last verse? Did you know that
+you were looking at me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You looked at me because--well, because--bar chaff--you--liked--me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You--you like me better than any other fellow in the school?"
+
+"Yes; better than any other fellow in the world."
+
+"Is it possible?"
+
+"I have always felt that way since--yes--since the very first minute I
+saw you."
+
+"How rum! I've forgotten just where we did meet--for the first time."
+
+"I shall never forget," said John, in the same slow, deliberate fashion,
+never taking his eyes from Desmond's face. Ever since he had sung, he
+had known that this moment was coming. "I shall never forget it," he
+repeated--"never. You were standing near the Chapel. I was poking about
+alone, trying to find the shop where we buy our straws. And I was
+feeling as all new boys feel, only more so, because I didn't know a
+soul."
+
+"Yes," said Desmond, gravely; "you told me that. I remember now; I
+mistook you for young Hardacre."
+
+"You smiled at me, Caesar. It warmed me through and through. I suppose
+that when a fellow is starving he never forgets the first meal after
+it."
+
+"I say. Go on; this is awfully interesting."
+
+"I can remember what you wore. One of your bootlaces had burst----"
+
+"Well; I'm----"
+
+"I had a wild sort of wish to run off and buy you a new lace----"
+
+"Of all the rum starts I----"
+
+"Afterwards," John continued, "I tried to suck-up. I asked you to come
+and have some 'food.' Do you remember?"
+
+"I'll bet I came, Jonathan."
+
+"No; you didn't. You said 'No.'"
+
+"Dash it all! I certainly said, 'No thanks.'"
+
+"I dare say; but the 'No' hurt awfully because I did feel that it was
+cheek asking you."
+
+"Jonathan, you funny old buster, I'll never say 'No' again. 'Pon my
+word, I won't. So I said 'No.' That's odd, because it's not easy for me
+to say 'No.' The governor pointed that out last hols. Somehow, I can't
+say 'No,' particularly if there's any excitement in saying 'Yes.' And my
+beastly 'No' hurt, did it? Well, I'm very, _very_ sorry."
+
+He held out his hand, which John took. Then, for a moment, there was a
+pause before Desmond continued awkwardly--
+
+"You know, Jonathan, that the Demon is my pal. You like him better than
+you did, don't you?"
+
+John had the tact not to speak; but he shook his head dolefully.
+
+"And I couldn't chuck him, even if I wanted to, which I don't--which I
+don't," he repeated, with an air of satisfying himself rather than John.
+And John divined that Scaife's hold upon Desmond's affections was not so
+strong as he had deemed it to be. Desmond continued, "But I want you,
+too, old Jonathan, and if--if----"
+
+"All right," said John, nobly. He perceived that Desmond's loyalty to
+Scaife made him hesitate and flush. "I understand, Caesar, and if I can't
+be first, let me be second; only, remember, with me you're first, rain
+or shine."
+
+Desmond looked uneasy. "Isn't that a case of 'heads I win, tails you
+lose'?"
+
+John considered; then he smiled cheerfully, "You know you are a winner,
+Caesar. You're cut out for a winner; you can win whatever you want to
+win."
+
+"Oh, that's all rot," said Desmond. He looked very grave, and in his
+eyes lay shadows which John had never seen before.
+
+And so ended John's first year at Harrow.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[25] All Public Houses are out of bounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+_Reform_
+
+    "'It must be a gran' thing to be a colledge profissor.'
+
+    "'Not much to do,' said Mr. Hennessy.
+
+    "'But a gr--reat deal to say,' said Mr. Dooley."
+
+
+When John returned to the Hill at the beginning of the winter term the
+great change had taken place. Rutford had assumed the duties of
+Professor of Greek at a Scotch University; Warde was in possession of
+the Manor; Scaife and Desmond and John--but not the Caterpillar--had got
+their remove. They were Fifth Form boys--and in tails! John, it is true,
+although tougher and broader, was still short for his years and juvenile
+of appearance, but Scaife and Desmond were quite big fellows, and their
+new coats became them mightily. Trieve was Head of the House; Lovell,
+Captain of the House football Eleven and in the Lower Sixth.
+
+"Lovell will have to behave himself now," the Duffer remarked to Scaife,
+who laughed derisively, as he answered--
+
+"He couldn't, even if he tried."
+
+Warde welcomed the House at lock-up, and introduced the boys to his wife
+and daughter. Mrs. Warde had a plain, pleasant face. Miss Warde,
+however, was a beauty, and she knew it, the coquette, and had known it
+from the hour she could peep into a mirror. The Caterpillar pronounced
+her "fetching." Being only fifteen, she wore her hair in a plait tied by
+a huge bow, and the hem of her skirt barely touched the neatest ankle on
+Harrow Hill. Give her a saucy, pink-and-white face, pop a pert,
+tip-tilted nose into the middle of it just above a pouting red mouth,
+and just below her father's lapis-lazuli eyes, and you will see Iris
+Warde. Her hair was reddish, not red--call it warm chestnut; and she had
+a dimple.
+
+After the introductions, mother and daughter left the hall. Warde stood
+up, inviting the House to sit down. Warde was about half the width of
+the late Rutford, but somehow he seemed to take up more room. He had
+spent the summer holidays in Switzerland, climbing terrific peaks. Snow
+and sun had coloured his clear complexion. John, who saw beneath tanned
+skins, reflected that Warde seemed to be saturated with fresh air and
+all the sweet, clean things which one associates with mountains. "He
+loves hills," thought John, "and he loves our Hill." Warde began to
+speak in his jerky, confidential tones. Dirty Dick had always been
+insufferably dull, pompous, and didactic.
+
+"I don't like speechmaking," said Warde, "but I want to put one thing to
+you as strongly as a man may. I have always wished to be master of the
+Manor. Some men may think mine a small ambition. Master of a house at
+Harrow? Nothing big about that. Perhaps not. But I think it big. And it
+is big--for me. Understand that I'm in love with my job--head over
+heels. I'd sooner be master of the Manor than Prime Minister. I couldn't
+tackle his work. Enough of that. Now, forget for a moment that I'm a
+master. Let me talk as an Old Harrovian, an old Manorite who remembers
+everything, ay--everything, good and bad. Some lucky fellows remember
+the good only; we call them optimists. Others remember the bad.
+Pessimists those. Put me between the two. The other day I had an eye,
+_one_ eye, fixed on the top of a certain peak--by Jove! how I longed to
+reach that peak!--but the other eye was on a _crevasse_ at my feet. Had
+I kept both eyes on the peak, I should be lying now at the bottom of
+that _crevasse_. You take me? Well, twenty years ago I sat here, in
+hall, my last night in the old house, and I hoped that one day I might
+come back. Why? This is between ourselves, a confidence. I came to the
+Manor from a beastly school, such schools are hardly to be found
+nowadays--a hardened young sinner at thirteen. The Manor licked me into
+shape. Speaking generally, I suppose the tone of the house insensibly
+communicated itself to me. The Manor was cock-house at games and work. I
+began by shirking both. But the spirit of the Hill was too much for me.
+I couldn't shirk that. Some jolly old boys, we all know them and like
+them, are always saying that their early school-days were the happiest
+of their lives. They're fond of telling this big lie just as they're
+settling down to their claret. I really believe that they believe what
+they say, but it _is_ a lie. The smallest boy here knows it's a lie.
+Let's hark back a bit. I said I was licked into shape--and I mean
+_licked_. I had a lot of really hard fagging--much harder than any of
+you boys know--I was sent up and swished, I had whoppings innumerable,
+and it wasn't pleasant. My mother had pinched herself to send me here,
+because my father had been here before me; and I wondered why she did
+it. At that time I couldn't see why cheaper schools shouldn't be not
+only as good as Harrow, but perhaps better. Not till I was in the Fifth
+did I get a glimmering of what my mother and the Manor were doing for
+me. When I got into the Sixth and into the Eleven, I knew. And my last
+year here made up, and more, too, for the previous four. I enjoyed that
+year thoroughly; I had ceased to be a slacker. I tell you, all of you,
+that happiness, like liberty, must be earned before we can enjoy it. And
+you are sent here to earn it. I'm not going to keep you much longer. I
+have come to the marrow of the matter. I owe the Manor a debt which I
+hope to pay to--you. Just as you, in turn, will pay back to boys not yet
+born the money your people have gladly spent on you, and other greater
+things besides. I want to see this house at the top of the tree again:
+cock-house at cricket, cock-house at footer, with a Balliol Scholar in
+it, and a school racquet-player. And now Dumbleton is going to bring in
+a little champagne. We'll drink high health and fellowship to the Manor
+and the Hill!"
+
+His face broke into the smile his form knew so well; he sat down, as the
+house roared its welcome to a friend.
+
+As soon as the champagne was drunk ("Dumber" was careful to put more
+froth than wine into the glasses of the kids), the boys filed out of the
+Hall. The Duffer, Desmond, John, and the Caterpillar assembled in John's
+room. Desmond, you may be sure, was afire with resolution. Warde was the
+right sort, a clinker, a first flighter. And he meant to stick by him
+through thick and thin. John said nothing. The Caterpillar drawled out--
+
+"Warde didn't surprise me--much. I've found out that he's one of the
+Wardes of Warde-Pomeroy, the real old stuff. Our families intermarried
+in Elizabeth's reign."
+
+"Chance to do it again, Caterpillar," said the Duffer. "Warde's daughter
+is an uncommonly pretty girl."
+
+Then the Caterpillar used the epithet "fetching."
+
+"She's fetching, very fetching," he said. "It's a pleasure to remember
+that we're of kin. One must be civil to Warde. He's a well bred 'un."
+
+"You think too much of family," said Desmond.
+
+"_One can't_," replied the Caterpillar, solemnly. "One knows that family
+is not everything, but, other things being equal, it means refinement.
+The first of the Howards was a swineherd, I dare say, but generations of
+education, of association with the best, have turned them from
+swine-herds into gentlemen, and it takes generations to do it."
+
+"Good old Caterpillar!" said the Duffer.
+
+"Not my own," said the Caterpillar; adding, as usual, "My governor's,
+you know."
+
+"Warde hasn't a soft job ahead of him," said Desmond.
+
+"Soft or hard, he'll handle it his own way."
+
+Desmond went out, wondering what had become of Scaife. Scaife was in his
+room, talking to Lovell senior, who spent a fortnight with Scaife's
+people in Scotland, fishing and grousing. Desmond had been asked also,
+but his father, rather to Caesar's disgust (for the Scaife moor was
+famous), had refused to let him go. Lovell and Scaife were arguing
+about something which Desmond could not understand.
+
+"I left it to my partner," said Scaife, "and the fool went no trumps
+holding two missing suits. The enemy doubled, my partner redoubled, and
+the others redoubled again: that made it ninety-six a trick. The fellow
+on the left held my partner's missing suits; he made the Little Slam,
+and scored nearly six hundred below the line. It gave 'em the rubber,
+too, and I had to fork out a couple of quid."
+
+"What are you jawing about, Demon?" said Desmond.
+
+"Bridge. It's the new game. It's going to be the rage. Do you play
+bridge, Caesar?"
+
+"No. I want to learn it."
+
+"All right, I must teach you."
+
+"We could get up a four in this house," said Lovell. "We three and the
+Caterpillar. He plays, I know. The Colonel is one of the cracks at the
+Turf. It would be an awful lark. A mild gamble: small points--eh? A bob
+a hundred. What do you say, Caesar?"
+
+Desmond hesitated. Bridge had not yet reached its delirious stage. But
+Desmond had seen it played, had heard his father praise it as the most
+fascinating of card-games, and had determined to learn it at the first
+convenient opportunity. None the less Warde's words still echoed in his
+ear.
+
+"I think we ought to give Warde a chance," he said.
+
+"You don't mean to say you were taken in by him?" said Lovell,
+contemptuously.
+
+Desmond burst into enthusiastic praise of Warde and his methods. Lovell
+shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room, nodding to Scaife,
+but ignoring Desmond.
+
+"You must go canny with Lovell," said Scaife. "He's the fellow who ought
+to give you your 'fez' after the first house-game."
+
+"Never mind that. You won't play bridge, Demon, will you?"
+
+"Why not?" said Scaife. "Where's the harm? Your governor plays----"
+
+"Yes; but----"
+
+"You're afraid of getting sacked?"
+
+"I'm not."
+
+"All right; I'll take that back. You're not a funk, Caesar, but you're so
+easily humbugged. Warde caught you with his 'pi jaw' and a glass of
+gooseberry."
+
+"The champagne was all right, wasn't it?"
+
+"Oh, ho! So you do mean to stand in with Warde against Lovell and me?
+Thanks for being so candid. Now I'll be candid with you. I like Lovell.
+There's no nonsense about him. He don't put on frills because he's in
+the Sixth, and he don't mean to take to their sneaking, spying ways.
+He's just as anxious as Warde to see the Manor cock-house at footer and
+cricket, and I'm as keen as he is; but we stop there. The Balliol
+Scholarship may go hang. And as for sympathy and fellowship and pulling
+together between masters and boys, I never did believe in it, and never
+shall. My hand is against the masters, so long as they interfere with
+anything I want to do. I like bridge, and I mean to play it. And I'll
+take jolly good care that I'm not nailed. That's part of the fun, as the
+drinking used to be. I chucked that because it wasn't good enough; but
+bridge is ripping, and, take my word for it, you'll be keener than I
+when you begin."
+
+"Perhaps. But I'm not going to begin here."
+
+"Right--oh!"
+
+Scaife turned aside, whistling, but out of the corner of his shrewd eye
+he marked the expression of Desmond's face, the colour ebbing and
+flowing in the round, boyish cheeks, the perplexity on the brow. Then he
+spoke in a different voice.
+
+"Don't worry, old chap. You've stuck to me through thick and thin, and
+I'm grateful, really and truly. You're right, and I'm wrong; I always am
+wrong. I was looking forward to larks. If you count 'em purple sins, I
+don't blame you for letting me go to the devil by myself."
+
+"I never said bridge was a purple sin."
+
+"Warde thinks it is. If you're going to look at life here with his eyes,
+you'll have to rename things. Babies play Beggar my Neighbour for
+chocolates; why shouldn't we play bridge for a bob a hundred? The game
+is splendid for the brain; ten thousand times better than translating
+Greek choruses."
+
+"But it is--gambling, Demon; you can't get away from that."
+
+"Pooh! It's gambling if I bet you a 'dringer' that you won't make ten
+runs in a house-match; it's gambling if I raffle a picture and you take
+a sixpenny ticket. Are you going to give up that sort of gambling?"
+
+"No; but----"
+
+"What would Warde say to our co-operative system of work--eh? You're not
+prepared to go the whole hog? You want to pick and choose. Good! But
+give me the same right, that's all. Play bridge with your old pals, or
+don't play, just as you please."
+
+No more was said. Scaife's manner rather than his matter confounded the
+younger and less experienced boy. Scaife, too, tackled problems which
+many men prefer to leave alone. Here heredity cropped up. Scaife's sire
+and grandsire were earning their bread before they were sixteen. Of
+necessity they faced and overcame obstacles which the ordinary Public
+School-boy never meets till he leaves the University.
+
+For some time after this bridge was not mentioned. Lovell, acting,
+possibly, under advice from Scaife, treated Desmond courteously, and
+gave him his "fez" after the first house-game. Both boys now were
+members of the Manor cricket and football Elevens, and, as such, persons
+of distinction in their small world. Scaife, moreover, began to play
+football with such extraordinary dash and brilliancy, that it seemed to
+be quite on the cards that he might get his School Flannels. This
+possibility, and the Greek in the Fifth, absorbed his energies for the
+first six weeks of the winter quarter. John had come back to Scaife's
+room to prepare work. Desmond felt that Scaife had been generous in
+proposing that John should join them, because in many small ways it had
+become evident that the Demon disliked John, although he still spoke of
+the tight place out of which John had hauled him. Through Scaife John
+received his "fez"; and when John wore it for the first time, Scaife
+came up and said, smiling--
+
+"I'm nearly even with you, Verney."
+
+"What do you mean?" said John.
+
+"You know well enough what I mean," said Scaife, winking his eye
+maliciously.
+
+John flushed, because in his heart he did know. But when he told Egerton
+what Scaife had said, that experienced man of the world turned up his
+nose.
+
+"Just like him," he said. "He wants you to feel that he has wiped out
+his debt."
+
+"Do you think my 'fez' ought to have been given to young Lovell?"
+
+The Caterpillar, who played back for the Manor, considered the question.
+
+"I don't know," he said. "You are pretty nearly equal; but it's a fact
+that the Demon turned the scale. He pointed out to Lovell that if he
+gave a 'fez' to his young brother, the house might accuse him of
+favouritism. That did the trick."
+
+This made John uneasy and unhappy for a week or two; but the
+consciousness that another might be better entitled to the coveted "fez"
+made him play up with such energy that he succeeded in proving to all
+critics that he had honestly earned what luck had bestowed on him.
+
+During the last week of October, John began those long walks with
+Desmond which, afterwards, he came to regard as perhaps the most
+delightful hours spent at Harrow. Scaife detested walking. He had his
+father's power of focusing attention and energy upon a single object.
+For the moment he was mad about football. Talk about books, scenery,
+people, bored him, and he said so with his usual frankness and
+impatience of restraint. Desmond, on the other hand, was also like his
+father, inasmuch as his tastes were catholic. He was a bit of a
+naturalist, learned in the lore of woods and fields, and he liked to
+talk about books, and he liked to talk about his home. Simple John would
+sooner hear Caesar talk than listen to the heavenly choir. So it came to
+pass that once a week at least the boys would stroll down the avenue at
+Orley Farm (where Anthony Trollope's sad boyhood was passed), or take
+the Northwick Walk, which winds through meadows to the Bridge, or visit
+John Lyon's farm at Preston, or, getting signed for Bill, attempt a
+longer ramble to Ruislip Reservoir, or Oxhey Wood, or Headstone with its
+moated grange, or Horsington Hill with its long-stretching view across
+the Uxbridge plain.
+
+Very soon it became the natural thing for Caesar to give John a glimpse,
+at least, of whatever floated in and out of his mind. John, being
+himself a creature of reserves, could not quite understand this unlocking
+of doors, but he appreciated his privileges. Caesar's ingenuousness,
+sympathy, and impulsiveness, seemed the more enchanting because John
+himself was of the look-before-you-leap, think-before-you-speak, sort.
+One Sunday evening they were hurrying back to Chapel, when they passed a
+woman carrying a heavy child. The poor creature appeared to be almost
+fainting with fatigue and possibly hunger. Her pinched face, her bent
+figure, her thin garments, bespoke a passionate protest against
+conditions which obviously she was powerless to avert or control. The
+boys glanced at her with pitying eyes as they passed. Then Desmond said
+quickly--
+
+"I say, Jonathan, she looks as if she was going to fall down."
+
+John, seeing what was in his friend's mind, said--
+
+"We must hurry up, or we shall miss Chapel."
+
+They offered the woman sixpences, and blushes, because through the
+tattered shawl might be seen a shrunken bosom.
+
+The woman stared, stammered, and burst into tears.
+
+"We shall miss Chapel," John repeated.
+
+"Hang Chapel," said Desmond.
+
+He was looking at the child. When the woman took the silver, she let the
+child slip to the ground, where it lay inert.
+
+"What's the matter with it?" said Desmond.
+
+Half sobbing, the woman explained that the child had sprained its ankle.
+
+"I'm just about done," she gasped; "an' the sight o' you two young
+gen'lemen runnin' up the 'ill finished me. I ain't the leaky sort," she
+added fiercely, still gasping and trembling.
+
+Then she bent down and tried to lift the heavy child, which moaned
+feebly.
+
+"You run on, Jonathan," said Desmond.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I'm going to carry this kid up the hill."
+
+"I'll help."
+
+"No--hook it, you ass."
+
+"I won't hook it."
+
+Between them they carried the child as far as the Speech-room, where a
+policeman accepted a shilling, and gave in return a positive assurance
+that he would see woman and child to their destination. When the boys
+were alone, John said--
+
+"Caesar----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"What a fellow you are! I wouldn't have thought of that. It was
+splendid."
+
+"Oh, shut up." There was a slight pause; then Caesar said defiantly, "I
+thought of carrying that kid; but I wouldn't have done it, unless I'd
+known that every boy was safe in Chapel. I couldn't have faced the
+chaff. And--you could."
+
+They were punished for cutting Chapel, because Caesar refused to give the
+reason which would have saved them.
+
+"I'd have told the truth," he admitted to John, "if I could have
+shouldered that kid with the Manorites looking on."
+
+John agreed that this was an excellent and a Caesarean (he coined the
+adjective on this occasion) reason.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among the Fifth Form boys of the Manor was a big, coarse-looking youth
+of the name of Beaumont-Greene. Everybody called him Beaumont-Greene in
+full, because upon his first appearance at Bill he had stopped the line
+of boys by refusing to answer to the name of Greene.
+
+"My name," said he, in a shrill pipe, "is Beaumont-Greene, and we spell
+the Greene with a final 'e'."
+
+Beaumont-Greene was a type of boy, unhappily, too common at all Public
+Schools. He had no feeling whatever for Harrow, save that it was a place
+where it behoved a boy to escape punishment if he could, and to run, hot
+foot, towards anything which would yield pleasure to his body. He was
+known to the Manorites as a funk at footer, and a prodigious consumer of
+"food" at the Creameries. His father, having accumulated a large fortune
+in manufacturing what was advertised in most of the public prints as the
+"Imperishable, Seamless, Whale-skin Boot," gave his son plenty of money.
+As a Lower Boy, Beaumont-Greene had but a sorry time of it. Somebody
+discovered that he was what Gilbert once described as an "imperfect
+ablutioner." The Caterpillar made a point of telling new boys the nature
+of the punishment meted out to the unclean. He had assisted at the
+"toshing" of Beaumont-Greene.
+
+"A nasty job," the Caterpillar would remark, looking at his own
+speckless finger-nails: "but it had to be done. We took the Greene
+person" (the Caterpillar alone refused to defame the fine name of
+Beaumont by linking it to Greene) "and placed him naked in a large
+tosh. Into that tosh the house was invited to pour any fluid that could
+be spared. One forgets things; but, unless I'm mistaken, the particular
+sheep-wash used was made up of lemonade, syrups, ink--plenty of
+that--milk (I bought a quart myself), tooth-powder, paraffin, and a cake
+of Sapolio--Monkey Brand! We scrubbed the Yahoo thoroughly, washed its
+teeth, ears, hair, and then we dried it. I don't know who smeared
+marmalade on to the towel, but the drying part was not very successful.
+Rather tough--eh? Yes, very tough--on _us_, but effective. The Greene
+person has toshed regularly ever since. At least, so I'm told; I never
+go near him myself, and he's considerate enough to keep out of my way."
+
+Beaumont-Greene had not, it is true, the appetite for reckless breaking
+of the law which distinguished Lovell and his particular pals; but
+Lovell's good qualities cancelled to a certain extent what was vicious.
+A fine cricketer, a plucky football-player, he might have proved a
+credit to his house had a master other than Dirty Dick been originally
+in command of it. Before he was out of the Shell, he had declared war
+against Authority. Beaumont-Greene, on the other hand, detested games,
+and sneered at those who played them. Pulpy, pimply, gross in mind and
+body, he stood for that heavy, amorphous resistance to good, which is so
+difficult to overcome.
+
+During the first half of the winter quarter, John saw but little of Esme
+Kinloch. It is one of the characteristics of a Public School that the
+boys--as in the greater world for which it is a preparation--are in
+layers. Some layers overlap; others never touch. Fluff was a fag; his
+friend John was in the Fifth Form, and a "fez." In a word, an Atlantic
+rolled between them. John, however, would often give Fluff a "con," and
+occasionally they would walk together. Fluff was no longer the delicate,
+girlish child of a year ago. He had bloomed into a very handsome boy,
+attractive, like all the members of his mother's family, with engaging
+manners, and he had also shown signs of developing into a cricketer.
+Fluff could paddle his own canoe, provided, of course, that he kept out
+of the rapids.
+
+But about the middle of the term John noticed that Fluff was losing
+colour and spirits, the latter never very exuberant. It was not in
+John's nature to ask questions which he might answer for himself by
+taking pains to do so. He watched Fluff closely. Then he demanded
+bluntly--
+
+"What's up?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"That's a cram," said John, severely. "I didn't believe you'd tell me a
+cram, Esme."
+
+"You don't care tuppence whether I tell crams or not--_now_."
+
+John weighed the "now" deliberately.
+
+"That's another cram," he said slowly. "Has anybody been rotting you?"
+
+Silence. John repeated the question. Still silence. Then John added--
+
+"You know, Esme, that I shall stick to you till I find out what's up; so
+you may as well save time by telling me at once."
+
+"It's Beaumont-Greene," faltered Fluff.
+
+"That fat beast! What's he done?"
+
+"He hasn't done much--yet."
+
+"Tell everything!"
+
+"He came into my room one night and turned me up in my bed. I woke, on
+my head, in the dark, half-smothered, and couldn't think what had
+happened; it was simply awful. Then I heard his beastly voice saying,
+'If I let you down, will you do what I ask you?' I'd have promised
+anything to get out of that horrible, choking prison, and now he
+threatens to turn me up every night, and I dream of it----"
+
+"Go on," said John, grimly. "No, you needn't go on. I can guess what
+this low cad is up to."
+
+"He said he'd be my friend; as if I'd have a beast like that for a
+friend."
+
+"Did you tell him that?"
+
+"Yes, I did."
+
+"You're a good-plucked 'un, Esme. And he's made it warm for you ever
+since?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But he hasn't turned you up again?"
+
+"N-no; but he will. I'd almost sooner he'd do it, and have done with it.
+I can't sleep."
+
+"Now, don't be a silly fool," John commanded. "I'm going to think this
+out, and I'll bet I make that fat, pimply beast sit up and howl."
+
+"Thanks awfully, John."
+
+But the more John thought of what he had undertaken to do, the less
+clearly he saw his way to do it. Evidently Beaumont-Greene was too
+prudent to bully Fluff; he had resorted to the crueller alternative of
+terrorizing him. Lawrence would have settled this fellow's hash--so John
+reflected--in a jiffy, but Trieve, "Miss Trieve," was hopelessly
+incapable. Presently inspiration came. He seized an opportunity when
+Beaumont-Greene happened to be by himself; then he marched boldly into
+his room, leaving the door ajar.
+
+"Hullo! what do you want?"
+
+Beaumont-Greene was sitting opposite the fire, reading a novel and
+leisurely consuming macaroons.
+
+"I want you to leave young Kinloch alone--_please_."
+
+Beaumont-Greene nearly choked; then he spluttered out--
+
+"Say that again, will you?"
+
+"I want you to leave young Kinloch alone."
+
+"Really? Anything else?"
+
+"Nothing more, thank you."
+
+Beaumont-Greene slowly raised himself out of his chair and glared at
+John, whose head came to his chin.
+
+"You've plenty of cheek."
+
+"What I have isn't spotty, anyway."
+
+John saw the veins begin to swell in Beaumont-Greene's throat. He
+thought with relief of the door ajar, but it was part of his policy--a
+carefully devised policy--to provoke, if possible, a scene. Then others
+would interfere, explanations would be in order, and public opinion
+would accomplish the rest.
+
+"You infernal young jackanapes!"
+
+"You pretty pet!"
+
+"Get out of my room! Hook it!"
+
+"I want to," said John, coolly enough, although his heart was throbbing.
+"It's horribly fuggy in here, and I've Jambi[26] to do; but I'm not
+going till you give me your word that you'll leave young Kinloch alone."
+
+"If you don't walk out I'll chuck you out."
+
+"You must catch me first," said John.
+
+And then a very pretty chase took place. Beaumont-Greene, fat, scant of
+breath, full of macaroons, began to pursue John round and round the
+table. John skilfully interposed chairs, sofa-cushions, anything he
+could lay hands on. Passing the washstand, he secured an enormous
+sponge, which an instant later flew souse into the face of the grampus.
+An abridged edition of Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon followed. This
+nearly brought the big fellow to grass. In his rage he, too, began to
+hurl what objects happened to be within reach, but he was a shocking bad
+shot; he missed, or John dodged every time. John did not miss. Finally,
+as John had foreseen, a couple of Sixth Form fellows rushed in.
+
+"What's the meaning of this infernal row?" asked one.
+
+"Ask him," said John.
+
+Authority stared at Beaumont-Greene, and then at his wrecked room.
+
+"I told him to hook it, and he wouldn't," spluttered the gasping Greene.
+
+"Why?"
+
+Half a dozen other fellows had come into the room. Amongst them the
+Duffer and the Caterpillar.
+
+"I wanted to hook it," John explained, "because it's so beastly fuggy;
+but Beaumont-Greene wouldn't promise me to do something he ought to do."
+
+"This is mysterious."
+
+"The swaggering young blackguard cheeked me," growled Greene.
+
+"I was very polite--at first," pleaded John.
+
+"Hook it now, anyway," said Authority.
+
+"Not till he promises. If you turn me out, I'll come back after you're
+gone."
+
+"What is it you want him to promise?"
+
+John had achieved his object.
+
+"I want him to leave young Kinloch _alone_."
+
+The two Sixth Form boys glanced at each other; at John; at the gross,
+spotted face of Beaumont-Greene. Then the senior said coldly--
+
+"I suppose you have no objection, Beaumont-Greene, to promising Verney
+or any one else that you will leave young Kinloch alone?"
+
+"I've never laid a finger on the kid," growled the big fellow; but he
+looked pale and frightened.
+
+"Then you promise--eh?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"On your word of honour?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+That night John told Fluff with great glee how Beaumont-Greene had been
+made to "sit up and howl."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] "Jambi"--Iambic verses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_Verney Boscobel_
+
+    "In honour of all who believe that life was made for friendship."
+
+
+The immediate result of the incident described in the last chapter was
+to strengthen the bond between John and Desmond. Desmond had the epic
+from Fluff, from the Caterpillar, and finally from John himself.
+
+"You bearded that poisonous beast in his den," exclaimed he; "you
+plotted and planned for the scrimmage; you foresaw what would happen.
+Well, you are a corker, Jonathan."
+
+"You'd have thought of something much better."
+
+"Not I," Desmond replied.
+
+Scaife, however, made no remarks. Possibly, because Desmond made too
+many, singing John's praises behind his back and to his face, in and out
+of season. This, of course, was indiscreet, and led to hard words and
+harder feelings. Beaumont-Greene realized that John had tarred and
+feathered him. The fags, you may be sure, rubbed the tar in. If
+Beaumont-Greene threatened to kick an impudent Fourth Form boy, that
+youngster would bid him be careful.
+
+"If you don't behave yourself," he would say, "I shall have to send
+Verney to your room."
+
+Lovell senior remarked that Beaumont-Greene was a "swine," but that
+Verney had put on "lift" and must be snubbed. What? A boy who had not
+been two years in the school _dared_ to take the law into his own hands!
+The matter ought to have been laid before the Head of the House.
+
+Accordingly, John found himself, much to his dismay, unpopular with the
+Olympians. The last month of this term was, in some ways, the most
+disagreeable he had yet spent at Harrow.
+
+But the gain of Desmond's friendship far outweighed the loss of
+popularity. John tingled with pleasure when he reflected that he had
+achieved his ambition to stand between Scaife and Desmond. At the same
+time, he was uncomfortably aware that Scaife seemed to have climbed high
+above Desmond, who had stood still. In moments of depression John told
+himself that he was a makeshift, that Desmond would leave him and join
+the Demon whenever that splendid young person chose to whistle him up.
+Scaife had failed to get his Football Flannels, but he came so near to
+beating all previous records that the School began to regard him as a
+"Blood." He was seen arm-in-arm with Lovell, strolling up and down the
+High Street, and the fags breathlessly repeated what Desmond had
+predicted a year ago: the Demon was the coming man. And always, when
+John and Desmond passed him, John thought he could read a derisive
+triumph upon the Demon's handsome face, an expression which said
+plainly: "You young fool, don't you know that I'm playing cat and mouse
+with _you_?"
+
+The three still met twice daily to prepare work. But the moment that was
+done, Scaife disappeared, leaving John and Desmond together.
+
+"He's playing bridge in Lovell's room," said Desmond.
+
+More facts were gleaned from the Caterpillar, who had joined the
+bridge-players, but played seldom.
+
+"One draws the line," said he, "at playing for stakes one can't afford
+to lose. Lovell and the Demon have made it too hot."
+
+"And Warde will make it hotter," said John.
+
+"Not he," replied the Caterpillar. "The Demon is a wonder. Thanks to his
+brains, detection is impossible. He suggested that Lovell's room should
+be used. Warde wouldn't dare to burst in upon one of the Sixth. And you
+ought to see their dodgy arrangements. Lovell has his young brother on
+guard. I'm hanged if the Demon didn't invent a sort of drill, which they
+go through with a stop-watch. It's a star performance, I tell you. Young
+Lovell bolts in. In thirty-five seconds--they have got it down to
+that--the cards and markers are hidden; and the four of 'em are jawing
+away about footer."
+
+"All the same," said John, obstinately, "Warde will be too much for
+'em."
+
+"Oh, rot!" said the Caterpillar.
+
+The Manor got into the semi-finals of the football matches, and when the
+School broke up for the Christmas holidays it was generally conceded
+that the fortunes of the ancient house were mending. In the Manor itself
+Warde's influence was hardly yet perceptible: only a very few knew that
+it was diffusing itself, percolating into nooks and crevices undreamed
+of: the hearts of the Fourth Form, for instance. In Dirty Dick's time
+there had been almost universal slackness. In pupil-room Rutford read a
+book; boys could work or not as they pleased, provided their tutor was
+not disturbed. Warde, on the other hand, made it a point of honour to
+work with his pupils. His indefatigable energies, his good humour, his
+patience, were never so conspicuous as when he was coaching duffers. In
+other ways he made the boys realize that he was at the Manor for their
+advantage, not his own. The gardens and park were kept strictly private
+by Dirty Dick. Warde threw them open: a favour hardly appreciated in the
+whiter quarter, but the House admitted that it would be awfully jolly in
+the summer to lie under the trees far from the "crowd." In a word--a
+"privilege."
+
+Upon the last Saturday, to John's delight, Desmond asked him to spend a
+week in Eaton Square. John had paid two visits to White Ladies; he was
+now about to experience something entirely new. White Ladies and Verney
+Boscobel were typical of the past; they illustrated the history of the
+families who had inhabited them. The great world went to White Ladies to
+see the pictures and the gardens, the Gobelin tapestries, the Duchess
+and her guests; but the same world dined in Eaton Square to see Charles
+Desmond.
+
+During this visit, our John first learned what miracles one individual
+may accomplish. At White Ladies, he had dimly perceived, as has been
+said, the duties and responsibilities imposed upon rank and wealth. In
+Eaton Square he saw more plainly the duties and responsibilities imposed
+upon a man of great talents. Both Charles Desmond and the Duke of Trent
+were hard workers, but the labours of the duke seemed to John (and to
+other wise persons) drab-coloured. Charles Desmond's work, in contrast,
+presented all the colours of the spectrum. John left White Ladies,
+thanking his stars that he was not a duke; he came away from Eaton
+Square filled with the ambition to be Private Secretary to the great
+Minister. And when Mr. Desmond said to him with his genial smile, "Well,
+young John, Harry, I hope, will be my secretary, and the crutch of my
+declining years. But what would you like to be?" John replied fervently,
+"Oh, sir, I should like to be Harry's understudy."
+
+"Would you?"
+
+And then John saw the face of his kind host change. The smile faded. Mr.
+Desmond had taken his answer as John meant it to be taken--seriously. He
+examined John as if he were already a candidate for office. The piercing
+eyes probed deep. Then he said slowly, "I should like to have you under
+me, John. We shall talk of this again, my boy. My own sons----" He
+paused, sighed, and then laughed, tapping John's cheek with his slender,
+finely-formed fingers. But he passed on without finishing his sentence.
+John knew that, of Caesar's brothers, Hugo, the eldest, was Secretary of
+Legation at Teheran; Bill "devilled" for a famous barrister; Lionel wore
+her Majesty's livery. Strange that none had elected to serve his own
+father! Caesar explained later.
+
+"You see," he said, "the dear old governor outshines everybody. Hugo
+and the others felt that under him they would be in eclipse, for ever
+and ever--eh?"
+
+"I see," said John, gravely. "Yes, there's something in that. He wants
+you, Caesar."
+
+"Dear old governor!" the other replied. "Yes--he's keen on that. But I
+hope to make my own little mark. I'd like to have my name on a brass
+tablet in Harrow Chapel; that would be something." His eyes began to
+glow and sparkle.
+
+Next day, at dinner, Rodney's name cropped up.
+
+"Rodney paved the way for Nelson," Mr. Desmond observed. "I look upon
+him as one of our greatest Harrovians. We ought to have a building to
+Rodney's memory. I put him before Peel or Byron."
+
+"Oh, I say, father----" Hot protest from Caesar.
+
+"Act before word, Harry; practice before precept. Rodney was a man of
+action. I should like to have been Rodney."
+
+"I should like to have been Sheridan," said Caesar. "I often look at his
+name on the third panel of the Fourth Form Room."
+
+He glanced at his father, who smiled, knowing that a delicate compliment
+was intended, for enthusiastic admirers had spoken of Charles Desmond as
+the Richard Brinsley Sheridan of the modern House of Commons. The father
+said curtly--
+
+"A sky-rocket, my dear Harry." Then he turned to John. "And of all our
+famous Harrovians whom would you like to take as a pattern, young John?"
+
+John hesitated. Two or three of the guests present were celebrities.
+Amongst them was England's greatest critic sitting beside an ambassador.
+There happened to be a lull in the talk. All looked curiously at John.
+
+"I'd like to be another Lord Shaftesbury," he said slowly.
+
+"Good! Capital!" Mr. Desmond nodded his head. "I knew him well." He
+poured out anecdote after anecdote illustrating the character and
+temperament of the statesman-philanthropist: his self-sacrifice, his
+devotion to an ideal, his curious exclusiveness, his refinement, his
+faith in an aristocracy never diminished by the indefatigable zeal
+wherein he laboured to better the condition of the poor. "If every rich
+man were animated by Shaftesbury's spirit," said Mr. Desmond, in
+conclusion, "extreme poverty would be wiped out of England, and yet we
+should retain all that makes life charming and profitable. He was no
+leveller, save of foul rookeries. First and last he believed in order,
+particularly his own--a true nobleman. And the inspiration of his great
+career came to him on the Hill."
+
+"Indeed?" said the Critic.
+
+"John Verney will tell you all about it," said Mr. Desmond, glancing
+cheerily at our hero. His was ever the habit to draw out the humblest of
+his guests.
+
+So John recited how young Anthony Ashley, standing on the Hill, just
+below the churchyard, chanced to see a pauper's coffin fall to the
+ground and burst open, revealing the pitiful corpse within, and how he
+had exclaimed in horror, "Good heavens! Can this be permitted simply
+because the man was poor and friendless?" And how, then and there, the
+boy had sworn to devote his powers to the amelioration of
+poverty-stricken lives.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Desmond. "He told me that the next fifteen minutes
+decided his career. Ah, he succeeded greatly. Why, when I was at Harrow
+we used to cross from Waterloo to Euston through some of the worst slums
+in the world. You boys can't realize what they looked like. And
+Shaftesbury's work and example wiped them out of our civilization."[27]
+
+When John returned to his uncle's house of Verney Boscobel (his home
+since his father's death), Caesar Desmond accompanied him. Then it seemed
+to John that his cup brimmed, that everything he desired had been
+granted unto him. Verney Boscobel stood in the heart of the great
+forest, one of the few large manors within that splendid demesne. The
+boys arrived at Lyndhurst Road Station late in the evening, long after
+dusk, and were driven in darkness through Bartley and Minstead up to the
+high-lying moors of Stoneycross. Next morning, early, John woke his
+friend, and opened the shutters.
+
+"Jolly morning," he said. "Have a look at the Forest, old chap."
+
+Caesar jumped out of bed, and drew a long breath.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed; "it's fairyland."
+
+Frost had silvered all things below. Above, motionless upon the blue
+heavens, as if still frozen by the icy fingers of a December night, were
+some aerial transparencies of aqueous vapour, amethystine in colour,
+with edges of white foam. In the east, obscured, but not concealed, by
+grey mist, hung the crimson orb of the sun. From it faint rays shot
+forth, touching the clouds beneath, which, roused, so to speak, out of
+sleep, drifted lethargically in a southerly direction.
+
+        "Underneath the young grey dawn
+    A multitude of dense, white, fleecy clouds
+    Were wandering in thick flocks, ...
+    Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind."
+
+Desmond drew in his breath, sighing with purest delight. From the lawns
+encompassing the house his eyes strayed into a glade of bracken, gold
+gleaming through silver--a glade shadowed by noble oaks and beeches,
+with one birch tree in the middle of it surpassingly graceful. Upon this
+each delicate bough and spray were outlined sharply against the sky.
+Beyond the glade stretched the moor, rugged, bleak, and treeless,
+sloping sharply upward. Beyond the moor lay the Forest--belts of firs
+darkly purple; and flanking these the irregular masses of oaks and
+beeches, varying in tint from palest lavender to rose and brown, some
+still in shadow, some in ever-increasing glow of sunlight; not one the
+same and each in itself containing a thousand differing forms, yet all
+harmonious parts of the resplendent whole.
+
+"I'm so glad you like my home," said John. "Shall we have a gallop
+before breakfast? It's only a white frost."
+
+So they galloped away into fairyland, returning with mortal appetites to
+the oak-panelled dining-hall, whence a Verney had ridden forth to join
+his kinsman, Sir Edmund, in arms for the King upon the distant field of
+Edge Hill. After breakfast the boys explored the quaint old house; and
+John showed Caesar the twenty-bore gun, and promised his guest much
+rabbit-shooting, and two days' hunting, at least, with the New Forest
+Hounds, and some pike-fishing, and possibly an encounter with a big
+grayling--which, later, the boys saw walloping about in the Test above
+Broadlands--a splendid fish, once hooked by John, and lost--a
+three-pounder, of course.
+
+O golden age! You will never forget that Christmas--will you, John? If
+you live to be Prime Minister of England, the memory of those first days
+alone with your friend will remain green when the colour has been sucked
+by Time out of everything else. Fifty years hence, maybe, you will see
+Caesar's curly head and his blue eyes full of fun and life, and you will
+hear his joyous laughter--peal upon peal--echoing through the corridors
+of Verney Boscobel. Your mother took him to her heart--didn't she? And
+all the servants, from butler to scullery maid, voted him the jolliest,
+cheeriest boy that ever came to Hampshire. Why, Mrs. Osman, the cook,
+with a temper like tinder from too much heat, refused flatly to let
+Caesar make toffee in her kitchen. But just then a barrel-organ turned
+up, and before she could open her mouth, Caesar was dancing a polka with
+her; and after that he could make toffee, or hay, or anything else,
+wherever and whenever he pleased.
+
+When they returned to the Manor, John hoped and prayed that this blessed
+intimacy would continue. It did--for a time. The three boys got their
+remove, and found themselves in the Second Fifth, where they proposed to
+linger till after the summer term. Lovell and Scaife seemed inseparable,
+and bridge began again, apparently an inexhaustible source of amusement
+and excitement. Then came the Torpid matches; and John, as Lawrence
+predicted, was captain of the cock-house Eleven--the first great victory
+of the Manorites. During the term, Scaife and Desmond won no races,
+being in age betwixt and between winners of Upper and Lower School
+races. Scaife refused to train. Desmond took a few runs, but abandoned
+them for racquets, the chief game in the Easter term, but only played
+regularly by boys whose purses are well lined. John confined his
+attention to "Squash." Caesar played "Harder" with the Demon. The three
+worked together as of yore. John now perceived that Scaife had joined a
+clique pledged to fight Reform. It was in the air that something might
+happen. Warde eyed the big fellows shrewdly, as if measuring weapons. He
+confounded some by asking them to dine with him. At dessert he would
+talk of sport, or games, or politics--everything, in fine, except
+"shop." The more worthy came away from these pleasant evenings with
+rather a hangdog expression, as if they had been receiving goods under
+false pretences. John and Desmond were made especially welcome. And,
+after dinner, John, whose voice had not yet cracked, would sing, to Mrs.
+Warde's accompaniment, such songs as "O Bay of Dublin, my heart yu're
+throublin'," or "Think of me sometimes," or Handel's "Where'er you
+walk." The Caterpillar made no secret of a passion for Iris Warde, and
+became a dangerous rival of one of the younger masters. He talked to
+Warde about genealogies and hunting, topics of conversation in which
+they had a common interest outside Harrow. John guessed that Warde was
+making an effort to secure Egerton, who, for his part, took the world
+as he found it, consorting alike with John and his friends, and also
+with Lovell and Co. From the Caterpillar John learned that
+Beaumont-Greene had begun to play bridge.
+
+"Scaife and Lovell are skinning the beast," he added confidentially.
+"Green he is, and no error."
+
+"Ructions soon," said John.
+
+"I don't believe it," replied the Caterpillar. "Take my word, Warde
+knows what he's about. He's playing up to the younger members of the
+house--you, Caesar, and you, Jonathan--and he's letting the others
+slide."
+
+"Giving 'em rope," said John, "to hang 'emselves."
+
+"Well, now, there's something in that. That hadn't occurred to me. What?
+You think that he's eggin' 'em on, eh? Eggin' 'em on!"
+
+"I think that, if I were you, Caterpillar, I'd cut loose from that
+gang."
+
+"They've made it rather warm for you."
+
+"I don't care a hang about that."
+
+As a matter of fact, John's life had been made very unpleasant by the
+fast set. Upon the other hand, the Duffer, Fluff, and many Lower School
+boys reckoned him their leader and adviser. And--such is the irony of
+Fate--John's popularity with friends caused him more anxiety than
+unpopularity with enemies. Towards the end of the term, Desmond spoke of
+applying to Warde for a certain room to be shared by himself and John.
+John had to decline an arrangement desired passionately, because he had
+indiscreetly promised not to chuck the Duffer. Caesar dropped the
+subject. After this, John noticed a slight coldness. He wondered whether
+Caesar were jealous, jealousy being John's own besetting sin. Finally, he
+came to the conclusion that his friend might be not jealous but
+unreasonable. In any case, during the last three weeks of the term, John
+saw less of Caesar, and more--more, indeed, than he wanted--of the Duffer
+and Fluff.
+
+And then came the paralysing news that Desmond had promised to spend ten
+days with Scaife's people, that a Professional had been hired, and that
+both boys were going to give their undivided energies to cricket.
+
+Afterwards, John often wondered whether Scaife, with truly demoniac
+insight into Desmond's character, had let him go, so as to seize him
+with more tenacious grasp when an opportunity presented itself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As soon as John saw Caesar after the Easter holidays, he knew that,
+temporarily, at any rate, he had lost his friend. Caesar, indeed, was
+demonstratively glad to see him, and dragged him off next day to walk to
+a certain bridge where a few short weeks before the boys had carved
+their names upon the wooden railing, surrounding them with a circle and
+the Crossed Arrows. But Caesar could talk of nothing else but Scaife and
+cricket. They had both "come on" tremendously. Scaife's people had a
+splendid cricket-ground.
+
+Poor John! If he could have submerged the Scaife cricket-ground and the
+Scaife family by nodding his head, I fear that he would have nodded it,
+although he told himself that he was an ungenerous beast and cad not to
+sympathize with his pal.
+
+And before the boys got back to the Manor, Caesar said, not without a
+blush, that he had learned to play bridge.
+
+"I shall teach you, Jonathan."
+
+"No."
+
+"I say--yes."
+
+"You're not going to play with Lovell and that beast Beaumont-Greene?"
+
+"The Demon says no cards this term, when lock-up's late. And look here,
+Jonathan, I've made the Demon promise to make the peace between Lovell
+and you. You'll play for the House, of course, and we must all pull
+together, as Warde says."
+
+John might have smiled at this opportune mention of Warde, but sense of
+humour was swamped in apprehension. Desmond went on to talk about
+Scaife.
+
+"He'll make 'em sit up, you see! The 'pro.' we had is the finest
+cover-point in England. I never saw such a chap. He dashes at the ball.
+Hit it as hard as you please, he runs in, picks it up, and snaps it back
+to the wicket-keeper as easy as if he was playing pitch and toss. And,
+by Jove! the Demon can do it. You wait. I never saw any fellow like him.
+He's only just sixteen, and he'll get his Flannels. You needn't shake
+your old head, I know he will. And we must work like blazes to get ours
+next summer."
+
+John discounted much of this talk, but he soon found out that Caesar had
+not overestimated the Demon's activity. The draw at Lord's in the
+previous summer had been attributed, by such experts as Webbe and
+Hornby, to bad fielding. The Demon told John, with his hateful, derisive
+smile, that he had remembered this when he selected a "pro." Not for the
+first time, John realized Scaife's overpowering ability to achieve his
+own ends. Who, but Scaife, would have made fielding the principal object
+of his holiday practice?
+
+Within a fortnight, Scaife was put into the Sixth Form game. Desmond
+found himself--thanks to Scaife--playing in the First Fifth game; but
+John was placed in Second Fifth Beta. Fortunately, he found an ally in
+Warde, who had a private pitch in the small park surrounding the Manor,
+where he coached the weaker players of his House. John told himself that
+he ought to get his "cap"; but, as the weeks slipped by, despite several
+creditable performances, he became aware that the "cap" was withheld,
+although it had been given to Fluff. There were five vacancies in the
+House Eleven, but, according to precedent, these need not be filled up
+till after the last House-match, and possibly not even then. In a word,
+John might play for the House, and even distinguish himself, without
+receiving the coveted distinction. How sore John felt!
+
+About the end of May he noticed that something was amiss with Caesar.
+Generally they walked together on Sunday, but not always. During these
+walks, as has been said, Caesar did most of the talking. Now, of a
+sudden, he became a half-hearted listener, and to John's repeated
+question, "What's up?" he would reply irritably, "Oh, don't
+bother--nothing."
+
+Finally, John heard from the Caterpillar that Caesar was playing bridge,
+and losing.
+
+"They don't play often," the Caterpillar added; "but on wet afternoons
+they make up for lost time. Caesar is outclassed. I've told him, but he's
+mad keen about the game."
+
+Later, John learned from the same source that Sunday afternoon was a
+bridge-fixture with Lovell and Co. At any rate, Caesar did not play on
+Sunday. That was something.
+
+Upon the following Saturday, after making an honest fifteen runs and
+taking three wickets in a closely-contested game, John was running into
+the Yard just before six Bill, when Lovell stopped him.
+
+"You can get your 'cap,'" he said coldly.
+
+"Oh, thanks; thanks awfully!"
+
+Caesar received this agreeable news with indifference.
+
+"You ought to have had it before Fluff," he growled.
+
+"To-morrow, we'll walk to John Lyon's farm," said John, eagerly.
+
+"Engaged," Caesar replied.
+
+"Oh, Caesar, you're--you're----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You're going to play bridge?"
+
+"Yes. What of it? It's only once in a way. I _do_ bar cards on Sunday;
+but there are reasons."
+
+"What reasons?"
+
+"Reasons which--er--I'll keep to myself."
+
+"All right," said John, stiffly, but with a breaking heart.
+
+Next day he asked Fluff to walk with him, but Fluff was walking with
+some one else. The Duffer had letters to write, and stigmatized walking
+as a beastly grind. John determined to walk by himself; but as he was
+leaving the Manor he met the Caterpillar, a tremendous buck, arrayed in
+his best--patent-leather boots, white waistcoat, a flower in his
+buttonhole.
+
+"Where are you off to, Jonathan?"
+
+"To Preston. You'd better come, Caterpillar."
+
+"I never walk far in these boots. Peal made 'em."
+
+"Change 'em, can't you?"
+
+"Right."
+
+While he was absent, John seriously considered the propriety of taking
+Egerton into his confidence. Sincerely attached to Egerton, and valuing
+his advice, he knew, none the less, that the Caterpillar looked at
+everybody and everything with the eyes of a colonel in the Guards. To
+tell Colonel Egerton's son that one's heart was lacerated because Caesar
+Desmond was playing bridge on Sunday seemed to invite jeers. And,
+besides, that wasn't the real reason. John felt wretched because the
+Sunday walk had been sacrificed to Moloch. Presently Egerton came
+downstairs, spick and span, but not quite so smart. The boys walked
+quickly, talking of cricket.
+
+"The Demon'll get his Flannels," said Egerton. "I'm glad Lovell gave you
+your cap, Jonathan; you deserved it a month ago. It wasn't my fault you
+didn't get it at the beginning of the term."
+
+"I'm sure of that," said John, gratefully.
+
+"You don't look particularly bucked-up. A grin improves your face, my
+dear fellow."
+
+At this John burst into explosive speech. Those beasts had got hold of
+Caesar. The Caterpillar stared; he had never heard John let himself go.
+John's vocabulary surprised him.
+
+"Whew-w-w!" he whistled. "Gad! Jonathan, you do pile on the agony.
+Caesar's all right. Don't worry."
+
+"He's not all right. I thought Caesar had backbone, I----"
+
+"Hold on," said the Caterpillar, gravely.
+
+John thought he was about to be rebuked for disloyalty to a pal, an
+abominable sin in the Caterpillar's eyes.
+
+"Well?" said John.
+
+"I'm going to tell you something," said Egerton. "But you must swear not
+to give me away."
+
+"I'll swear."
+
+"You're a good little cove, Jonathan, but sometimes you smell just a
+little bit of--er--bread and butter. Keep cool. Personally, I would
+sooner that you, at your age, did smell of bread and butter than whisky.
+Well, you think that Caesar is going straight to the bow-wows because he
+plays bridge. You accuse him in your own little mind of feebleness, and
+so forth. Yes, just so. And it's doosid unfair to Caesar, because he's
+given up his walk to-day entirely on your account. Ah! I thought that
+would make you sit up."
+
+"My account?" John repeated blankly.
+
+"Yes; Caesar would be furious if he knew that I was peaching, but he
+won't know, and instead of this--er--trifling affair weakening your good
+opinion of your pal, it will strengthen it."
+
+"Oh, do go on, Caterpillar."
+
+"Yesterday I was in Lovell's room. We were talking of the first House
+match. Scaife and Caesar were there. I took it upon myself to say you
+ought to be given your 'cap'; and then Caesar burst out, 'Oh yes, Lovell,
+do give him his "cap." If you knew how he'd slaved to earn it.' But
+Lovell only laughed. And then Scaife chipped in, 'Look here, Caesar,' he
+said, 'do I understand that you put this thing, which after all is none
+of your business or mine, as a favour which Lovell might do _you_?' And
+Caesar answered, 'You can put it that way, if you like, Demon.' And then
+Scaife laughed. I don't like Scaife's laugh, Jonathan."
+
+"I loathe it," said John.
+
+"Well, when Scaife laughed, Lovell looked first at him and then at
+Caesar. It came to me that Lovell was primed to say something. At any
+rate, he turned to Caesar, and said slowly, 'Tit for tat. If I do this
+for you, will you do something for me?' And Caesar spoke up as usual,
+without a second's hesitation, 'Of course I will.' And then Scaife
+laughed again, just as Lovell said, 'All right, I'll give Verney his
+"cap" before tea, and you will make a fourth at bridge with us to-morrow
+afternoon.'"
+
+"Oh, oh!" groaned John.
+
+"Dash it all, don't look so wretched. There's not much more. Caesar
+hesitated a moment. Then he said quietly enough, 'Done!' Personally, I
+don't think Lovell was playing--well--cricket, but I do know that he
+wanted a fourth at bridge, because I'd just refused to make that fourth
+myself. They play too high for me."
+
+"It's awfully good of you to have told me this."
+
+"Pray don't mention it! Hullo! What's up now?"
+
+John's face was very red, and his fists were clenched.
+
+"Nothing," he gasped. "Only this--I'd like to kill Scaife. I'd like to
+cut off his infernal head."
+
+The Caterpillar laughed indulgently. "Jonathan, you're a rum 'un. You
+think it wicked to play cards on Sunday; but you would like"--he
+imitated John's trembling, passionate voice--"you would like to cut off
+Scaife's infernal head."
+
+"Yes--I would," said John.
+
+That same week he had a memorable talk with Warde; recorded because it
+illustrates Warde's methods, and because, ultimately, it came to be
+regarded by John as the turning-point of his intellectual life. Since he
+had taken the Lower Remove, John's energies of mind and body had been
+concentrated upon improving himself at games. Vaguely aware that some of
+the School-prizes were within his grasp, he had not deemed them worth
+the winning. To him, therefore, Warde abruptly began--
+
+"You pride yourself upon being straight--eh, Verney?"
+
+"Why, yes," said John, meeting Warde's blue eyes not without misgiving.
+
+"Well, to me, you're about as straight as a note of interrogation. I
+never see you without saying to myself, 'Is Verney going to bury his
+talents in the cricket-ground?'"
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Some parents, too many of them, send their boys here to make a few nice
+friends, to play games, to scrape up the School with a remove once a
+year. That, I take it, is not what Mrs. Verney wants?"
+
+"N--no, sir."
+
+"You ought to be in the Sixth--and you know it. Twice, or oftener, you
+have deliberately taken things easy, because you wanted a soft time of
+it during the summer term, and because you wished to remain in the same
+form with Desmond, who, intellectually, is your--inferior. Is that
+square dealing with your people?"
+
+John was silent, but red of countenance. Warde went on, more
+vehemently--
+
+"I know all about your co-operative system of work. I have a harder name
+for it. And I know just what you can do, and I want to see you do it,
+for your own sake, for the sake of Mrs. Verney, and for the Hill's sake.
+I've pushed you on at cricket a bit, haven't I? Yes. You owe me
+something. Pay up by entering for a School-prize, and winning it!"
+
+"A School-prize?"
+
+"Yes; Lord Charles Russell's Shakespeare Medal. The exam. is next
+October. I'll coach you. Is it a bargain?"
+
+He held out his hand, staring frankly, but piercingly, into John's eyes.
+
+"All right, sir," said John, after a pause. "I'll try."
+
+"And buck up for your remove."
+
+John smiled feebly, and sighed.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[27] There is a tablet on the wall of the Old Schools which bears the
+following inscription:--Near this spot ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER Afterwards
+the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G. While yet a boy in Harrow School Saw
+with shame and indignation The pauper's funeral Which helped to awaken
+his lifelong Devotion to the service of the poor And the oppressed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+_Black Spots_
+
+    "The Avon bears to endless years
+      A magic voice along,
+    Where Shakespeare strayed in Stratford's shade,
+      And waked the world to song.
+    We heard the music soft and wild,
+      We thrilled to pulses new;
+    The winds that reared the Avon's child
+      Were Herga's[28] nurses too."
+
+
+That evening John told Caesar what Warde had said to him, and then added,
+"I mean to have a shot at 'the Swan of Avon.'" Caesar looked glum.
+
+"But how about the remove? We'd agreed to stay in the Second Fifth till
+Christmas. It's the jolliest form in the school."
+
+"If we put our backs--and heads--into Trials,[29] we can easily get a
+remove."
+
+"Blow Trials."
+
+John turned aside.
+
+"Look here, Jonathan," said Caesar, eagerly. "To please me, give up your
+swatting scheme. We can't spoil the end of this jolly term."
+
+He caught hold of John's arm, squeezing it affectionately. Never had our
+hero been so sorely tempted.
+
+"We must stick together, you and I," entreated Desmond.
+
+"No," said John.
+
+"As you please," Caesar replied coldly.
+
+A detestable week followed. John tackled his Shakespeare alone, working
+doggedly. Then, quite suddenly, the giant gripped him. He had always
+possessed a remarkable memory, and as a child he had learnt by heart
+many passages out of the plays (a fact well known to the crafty Warde);
+but these he had swallowed without digesting them. Now he became keen,
+the keener because he met with violent opposition from the Caterpillar
+and the Duffer, who were of opinion that Shakespeare was a "back
+number."
+
+John won the prize, and on the following Speech Day saw his mother's
+face radiant with pride and happiness, as he received the Medal from the
+Head Master's hands.
+
+"You look as pleased as if I'd got my Flannels," said John.
+
+"Surely this Medal is a greater thing?"
+
+"Oh, mum, you don't know much about boys."
+
+"Perhaps not, but," her eyes twinkled, "I know something about
+Shakespeare, and he's a friend that will stand by you when cricketing
+days are over."
+
+"If you're pleased, so am I," said John.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Scaife got his Flannels; and at Lord's his fielding was mentioned as the
+finest ever seen in a Public School match. John witnessed the game from
+the top of the Trent coach, and he stopped at Trent House. But he didn't
+enjoy his exeat, because he knew that Caesar was in trouble. Caesar owed
+Scaife thirteen pounds, and the fact that this debt could not be paid
+without confession to his father was driving him distracted. Scaife, it
+is true, laughed genially at Caesar's distress. "Settle when you please,"
+he said, "but for Heaven's sake, don't peach to your governor! Mine
+would laugh and pay up; yours will pay up and make you swear not to
+touch another card while you're at Harrow."
+
+"Just what he _will_ do," Caesar told John.
+
+"And the best thing that could happen," John said bluntly. "If you don't
+cut loose now, it will be much worse next term."
+
+"Rot," Desmond had replied. "I'm paying the usual bill for learning a
+difficult game. That's how the Demon puts it. But I've a turn for
+bridge, and now I can hold my own. I'm better than Beaumont-Greene, and
+quite as good as Lovell. The Demon, of course, is in another class."
+
+"And therefore he oughtn't to play with you. It's robbery."
+
+"Now you're talking bosh."
+
+The Eton and Harrow match ended in another draw. Time and Scaife's
+fielding saved Harrow from defeat. The fact of a draw had significance.
+A draw spelled compromise. John had indulged in a superstitious fancy
+common enough to persons older than he. "If Harrow wins," he put it to
+himself, "Caesar will triumph; if Eton wins, Caesar will lose." When the
+match proved a draw, John drew the conclusion that his pal would "funk"
+telling the truth; an apprehension presently confirmed.
+
+"I didn't tell the governor," said Caesar, when John and he met. "My
+eldest brother, Hugo, is coming home, and I shall screw it out of him.
+He's a good sort, and he's going to marry a girl who is simply rolling.
+He'll fork out, I know he will. I feel awfully cheery."
+
+"I don't," said John.
+
+He had good reason to fear that Caesar and he were drifting apart. Now he
+worked by himself. And his voice had broken. A small thing this, but
+John was sensible that his singing voice touched corners in Caesar's soul
+to which his speaking voice never penetrated. More, Caesar and he had
+agreed to differ upon points of conscience other than card-playing. And
+every point of conscientious difference increases the distance between
+true friends in geometrical progression. Poor Jonathan!
+
+But we have his grateful testimony that Warde stood by him. And Warde
+made him see life at Harrow (and beyond) in a new light. Warde, indeed,
+decomposed the light into primary colours, a sort of experiment in
+moral chemistry, and not without fascination for an intelligent boy.
+Sometimes, it became difficult to follow Warde--members of the Alpine
+Club said that often it was impossible--because he jumped where others
+crawled. And he clipped words, phrases, thoughts so uncommonly short.
+
+"You're beginning to see, Verney, eh? Scales crumbling away, my boy. And
+strong sunshine hurts the eyes--at first. Black spots are dancing before
+you. I know the little devils."
+
+Or again--
+
+"This remove will wipe a bit more off the debt, won't it? Ha, ha! I've
+made you reckon up what you owe Mrs. Verney. But there are others----"
+
+"I'm awfully grateful to you, sir."
+
+"Never mind me."
+
+"What do you mean, sir?"
+
+"New Testament; Matthew; twenty-fifth chapter--I forget verse.[30] Look
+it up. Christ answers your question. Make life easier and happier for
+some of the new boys. Pass on gratitude. Set it a-rolling. See?"
+
+John had appetite for such talk, but Warde never gave much of it--half a
+dozen sentences, a smile, a nod of the head, a keen look, and a striding
+off elsewhere. But when John repeated what Warde had said to Caesar, that
+young gentleman looked uneasy.
+
+"Warde means well," he said; "and he's doing wonders with the Manor, but
+I hope he's not going to make a sort of tin parson of you?"
+
+"As if he could!" said John.
+
+"You're miles ahead of me, Jonathan."
+
+"No, no."
+
+"I say--yes."
+
+"Caesar," said John, in desperation, "perhaps we _are_ sliding apart, but
+it isn't my fault, indeed it isn't. And think what it means to--me.
+You've heaps of friends, and I never was first, I know that. You can do
+without me, but I can't do without you."
+
+"Dear old Jonathan." Caesar held out his hand, smiling.
+
+"I'm a jealous ass, Caesar. And, as for calling me a parson," he laughed
+scornfully, "why, I'd sooner walk with you, even if you were the worst
+sinner in the world, than with any saint that ever lived."
+
+The feeling in John's voice drove Caesar's gay smile from his face. Did
+he realize, possibly, for the first time, that if John and he remained
+friends, he might drag John down? Suddenly his face brightened.
+
+"Jonathan," he said gravely, "to please you, I'll not touch a card again
+this term, and we'll have such good times these last three weeks that
+you'll forget the rest of it."
+
+    "And what delights can equal those
+      That stir the spirit's inner deeps,
+      When one that loves but knows not reaps
+    A truth from one that loves and knows?"
+
+The Manor played in the cock-house match at cricket, being but barely
+beaten by Damer's. Everybody admitted that this glorious state of
+affairs was due to Warde's coaching of the weaker members of the Eleven.
+Scaife fielded brilliantly, and John, watching him, said to himself that
+at such times the Demon was irresistible. Warde invited the Eleven to
+dinner, and spoke of nothing but football, much to every one's
+amusement.
+
+"He's right," said the Caterpillar; "we're not cock-house at cricket
+this year, but we may be at footer."
+
+John spent his holidays abroad with his mother, and when the School
+reassembled, he found himself in the First Fifth _alone_. With
+satisfaction he reflected that this was Lovell's last term, and
+Beaumont-Greene's, too. Warde said a few words at first lock-up.
+
+"We are going to be cock-house at footer, I hope," he began, "and next
+term Scaife will show the School what he can do at racquets; but I want
+more. I'm a glutton. How about work, eh? Lot o' slacking last term. Is
+it honest? You fellows cost your people a deal of money. And it's well
+spent, if, _if_ you tackle everything in school life as you tackled Mr.
+Damer's last July. That's all."
+
+"He's giving you what he gave me," said John.
+
+"Good fellow, Warde," observed the Caterpillar; "in his room every night
+after prayers to mug up his form work."
+
+"What?" Murmurs of incredulity.
+
+"Fact, 'pon my word. And he never refuses a 'con' to a fellow who wants
+it."
+
+"He's paid for it," sneered Scaife.
+
+The other boys nodded; enthusiasm was chilled. Yes, of course Warde was
+paid for it. John caught Scaife's eye.
+
+"You don't believe that he's in love with his job, as he told us?"
+
+"Skittles--that!"
+
+John looked solemn. He had a bomb to throw.
+
+"Skittles, is it?" he echoed. The other boys turned to listen. "Do you
+think he'd take a better paid billet?"
+
+Scaife laughed derisively. "Of course he would, like a shot. But he's
+not likely to get the chance."
+
+"He has just been offered the Head Mastership of Wellborough. It's worth
+about four thousand a year."
+
+"Pooh! who told you that?"
+
+"Caesar's father."
+
+"It's true," said Caesar.
+
+"And he refused it," said John, triumphantly.
+
+"Then he's a fool," said Scaife, angrily. He marched out of the room,
+slamming the door. But the Manor, as a corporate body, when it heard of
+Warde's refusal to accept promotion, was profoundly impressed. Thus the
+term began with good resolutions upon the part of the better sort.
+
+Very soon, however, with the shortening days, bridge began again. John
+made no protest, afraid of losing his pal. He called himself coward, and
+considered the expediency of learning bridge, so as to be in the same
+boat with Caesar. Caesar told him that he had not asked his brother Hugo
+for the thirteen pounds. Hugo, it seemed, had come back from Teheran
+with a decoration and the air of an ambassador. He spoke of his
+"services."
+
+"I knew that Hugo would make me swear not to play again," said Caesar to
+John, "and naturally I want to get some of the plunder back. I am
+getting it back. I raked thirty bob out of Beaumont-Greene last night."
+
+John said nothing.
+
+Presently it came to his ears that Caesar was getting more plunder back.
+The Caterpillar, an agreeable gossip, because he condemned nothing
+except dirt and low breeding, told John that Beaumont-Greene was losing
+many shekels. And about the middle of October Caesar said to John--
+
+"What do you think, old Jonathan? I've jolly nearly paid off the Demon.
+And you wanted me to chuck the thing. Nice sort of counsellor."
+
+"Beaumont-Greene must have lost a pot?"
+
+"You bet," said Caesar; "but that doesn't keep me awake at night. He has
+got the _Imperishable Seamless Whaleskin Boot_ behind him."
+
+Next time John met Beaumont-Greene he eyed him sharply. The big fellow
+was pulpier than ever; his complexion the colour of skilly. Yes; he
+looked much worried. Perhaps the "Imperishable Boot" lasted too long.
+And, nowadays, so many fellows wore shoes. Thus John to himself.
+
+Beaumont-Greene, indeed, not only looked worried, he was worried,
+hideously worried, and with excellent reason. He had an absurdly,
+wickedly, large allowance, but not more than a sovereign of it was left.
+More, he owed Scaife twenty pounds, and Lovell another ten. Both these
+young gentlemen had hinted plainly that they wanted to see their money.
+
+"I must have the stuff now," said Lovell, when Beaumont-Greene asked for
+time. "I'm going to shoot a lot this Christmas, and the governor makes
+me pay for my cartridges."
+
+"So does mine," said Scaife, grinning. He was quite indifferent to the
+money, but he liked to see Beaumont-Greene squirm. He continued suavely,
+"You ought to settle before you leave. Ain't your people in Rome? Yes.
+And you're going to join 'em. Why, hang it, some Dago may stick a knife
+into you, and where should we be then--hey? Your governor wouldn't
+settle a gambling debt, would he?"
+
+This was too true. Scaife grinned diabolically. He knew that
+Beaumont-Greene's father was endeavouring to establish a credit-account
+with the Recording Angel. Originally a Nonconformist, he had joined the
+Church of England after he had made his fortune (cf. _Shavings from the
+Workshops of our Merchant Princes_, which appeared in the pages of
+"Prattle"). Then, the famous inventor of the Imperishable Boot had taken
+to endowing churches; and he published pamphlets denouncing drink and
+gambling, pamphlets sent to his son at Harrow, who (with an eye to
+backsheesh) had praised his sire's prose somewhat indiscreetly.
+
+"You shall have your confounded money," said Beaumont-Greene, violently.
+
+"Thanks," said Scaife, sweetly. "When we asked you to join us" (slight
+emphasis on the "us"), "we knew that we could rely on you to settle
+promptly."
+
+The Demon grinned for the third time, knowing that he had touched a weak
+spot; not a difficult thing to do, if you touched the big fellow at all.
+A young man of spirit would have told his creditors to go to Jericho.
+Beaumont-Greene might have said, "You have skinned me a bit. I don't
+whine about that; I mean to pay up; but you'll have to wait till I have
+the money. I'm stoney now." Scaife and Lovell must have accepted this as
+an ultimatum. But Beaumont-Greene's wretched pride interfered. He had
+posed as a sort of Golden Youth. To confess himself pinchbeck seemed an
+unspeakable humiliation.
+
+Men have been known to take to drink under the impending sword of
+dishonour. Beaumont-Greene swallowed instead large quantities of food at
+the Creameries; and then wrote to his father, saying that he would like
+to have a cheque for thirty pounds by return of post. He was leaving
+Harrow, he pointed out, and he wished to give his friends some handsome
+presents. Young Desmond, for instance, the great Minister's son, had
+been kind to him (Beaumont-Greene prided himself upon this touch), and
+Scaife, too, he was under obligations to Scaife, who would be a power
+by-and-by, and so forth.... To confess frankly that he owed thirty
+pounds gambled away at cards required more cheek than our stout youth
+possessed. His father refused to play bridge on principle, because he
+could never remember how many trumps were out.
+
+The father answered by return of post, but enclosed no cheque. He
+pointed out to his dear Thomas that giving handsome presents with
+another's money was an objectionable habit. Thomas received a large,
+possibly too large an allowance. He must exercise self-denial, if he
+wished to make presents. His quarterly allowance would be paid as usual
+next Christmas, and not a minute before. There would be time then to
+reconsider the propriety of giving young Desmond a suitable gift....
+
+Common sense told Beaumont-Greene to show this letter to Scaife and
+Lovell. But he saw the Demon's derisive grin, and recoiled from it.
+
+At this moment temptation seized him relentlessly. Beaumont-Greene never
+resisted temptation. For fun, so he put it, he would write the sort of
+letter which his father ought to have written, and which would have put
+him at his ease. It ran thus--
+
+ "MY DEAR THOMAS,
+
+"No doubt you will want to give some leaving presents, and a spread or
+two. I should like my son to do the thing handsomely. You know better
+than I how much this will cost, but I am prepared to send you, say,
+twenty-five or thirty pounds for such a purpose. Or, you can have the
+bills sent to me.
+
+                              "With love,
+                                "Your affectionate father,
+                                  "GEORGE BEAUMONT-GREENE."
+
+Beaumont-Greene, like the immortal Mr. Toots, rather fancied himself as
+a letter-writer. The longer he looked at his effusion, the more he liked
+it. His handwriting was not unlike his father's--modelled, indeed, upon
+it. With a little careful manipulation of a few letters----!
+
+The day was cold, but Beaumont-Greene suddenly found himself in a
+perspiration. None the less, it seemed easier to forge a letter than to
+avow himself penniless. Detection? Impossible! Two or three tradesmen in
+Harrow would advance the money if he showed them this letter. Next
+Christmas they would be paid. Within a quarter of an hour he made up his
+mind to cross the Rubicon, and crossed it with undue haste. He forged
+the letter, placed it in an envelope which had come from Rome, and went
+to his tailor's.
+
+Under pretext of looking at patterns, he led the man aside.
+
+"You can do me a favour," he began, in his usual, heavy, hesitating
+manner.
+
+"With pleasure," said the tradesman, smiling. Then, seeing an
+opportunity, he added, "You are leaving Harrow, Mr. Beaumont-Greene, but
+I trust, sir, you will not take your custom with you. We have always
+tried to please you."
+
+Beaumont-Greene, in his turn, saw opportunity.
+
+"Yes, yes," he answered. Then he produced the letter, envelope and all.
+"I have here a letter from my father, who is in Rome. I'll read it to
+you. No; you can read it yourself."
+
+The tailor read the letter.
+
+"Very handsome," he replied; "_very_ handsome indeed, sir. Your father
+is a true gentleman."
+
+"It happens," said Beaumont-Greene, more easily, for the thing seemed to
+be simpler than he had anticipated--"it happens that I _do_ want to make
+some presents, but I'm not going to buy them here. I shall send to the
+Stores, you know. I have their catalogue."
+
+"Just so, sir. Excellent place the Stores for nearly everything; except,
+perhaps, my line."
+
+"I should not think of buying clothes there. But at the Stores one must
+pay cash. I've not got the cash, and my father is in Rome. I should like
+to have the money to-day, if possible. Will you oblige me?"
+
+The tradesman hesitated. In the past there have been grave scandals
+connected with lending money to boys. And Harrow tradesmen are at the
+mercy of the Head Master. If a school-tailor be put out of bounds, he
+can put up his shutters at once. Still----
+
+"I'll let you have the money," said the man, eyeing Beaumont-Greene
+keenly.
+
+"Thanks."
+
+The tailor observed a slight flush and a sudden intake of breath--signs
+which stirred suspicion.
+
+"Will you take it in notes, sir?"
+
+Here Beaumont-Greene made his first blunder. He had an ill-defined idea
+that paper was dangerous stuff.
+
+"In gold, please."
+
+He forgot that gold is not easily sent in a letter. The tailor
+hesitated, but he had gone too far to back out.
+
+"Very well, sir. I have not twenty-five pounds----"
+
+"Thirty, if you please. I shall want thirty."
+
+"I have not quite that amount here, but I can get it."
+
+When the man came back with a small canvas bag in his hand,
+Beaumont-Greene had pocketed the letter. He received the money, counted
+it, thanked the tailor, and turned to go.
+
+"If you please, sir----"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I should like to keep your father's letter, sir. As a form of receipt,
+sir. When you settle I'll return it. If--if anything should happen
+to--to you, sir, where would I be?"
+
+Beaumont-Greene's temper showed itself.
+
+"You all talk as if I was on my death-bed," he said.
+
+The tailor stared. Others, then, had suggested to this large,
+unwholesome youth the possibility of premature decease.
+
+"Not at all, sir, but we do live in the valley of shadders. My wife's
+step-father, as fine and hearty a specimen as you'd wish to see, sir,
+was taken only last month; at breakfast, too, as he was chipping his
+third egg."
+
+Beaumont-Greene said loftily, "Blow your wife's step-father and his
+third egg. Here's the letter."
+
+He flung down the letter and marched out of the shop. The tradesman
+looked at him, shaking his head. "He'll never come back," he muttered.
+"I know his sort too well." Then, business happening to be slack, he
+re-read the letter before putting it away. Then he whistled softly and
+read it for the third time, frowning and biting his lips. The
+"Beaumont-Greene" in the signature and on the envelope did not look to
+be written by the same hand.
+
+"There's something fishy here," muttered the tradesman. "I must show
+this to Amelia."
+
+It was his habit to consult his wife in emergencies. The chief cutter
+and two assistants said that Amelia was the power behind the throne.
+Amelia read the letter, listened to what her husband had to say, stared
+hard at the envelope, and delivered herself--
+
+"The hand that wrote the envelope never wrote the letter, that's
+plain--to me. Now, William, you've got me and the children to think of.
+This may mean the loss of our business, and worse, too. You put on your
+hat and go straight to the Manor. Mr. Warde's a gentleman, and I don't
+think he'll let me and the children suffer for your foolishness. Don't
+you wait another minute."
+
+Nor did he.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After prayers that night, Warde asked Beaumont-Greene to come to his
+study. Beaumont-Greene obeyed, smiling blandly. Within three weeks he
+was leaving; doubtless Warde wanted to say something civil. The big
+fellow was feeling quite himself. He had paid Scaife and Lovell, not
+without a little pardonable braggadocio.
+
+"You fellows have put me to some inconvenience," he said. "I make it a
+rule not to run things fine, but after all thirty quid is no great sum.
+Here you are."
+
+"We don't want to drive you into the workhouse," said Scaife. "Thanks.
+Give you your revenge any time. I dare say between now and the end of
+the term you'll have most of it back."
+
+Warde asked Beaumont-Greene to sit down in a particular chair, which
+faced the light from a large lamp. Then he took up an envelope. Suddenly
+cold chills trickled down Beaumont-Greene's spine. He recognized the
+envelope. That scoundrel had betrayed him. Not for a moment, however,
+did he suppose that the forgery had been detected.
+
+"On the strength of this letter," said Warde, gravely, "you borrowed
+thirty pounds from a tradesman?"
+
+Denial being fatuous, Beaumont-Greene said--
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You know, I suppose, that Harrow tradesmen are expressly forbidden to
+lend boys money?"
+
+"I am hardly a boy, sir. And--er--under the circumstances----"
+
+Warde smiled very grimly.
+
+"Ah--under the circumstances. Have you any objection to telling me the
+exact circumstances?"
+
+"Not at all, sir. I wished to make some presents to my friends. I am
+going to give a large leaving-breakfast."
+
+"Oh! Still, thirty pounds is a large sum----"
+
+"Not to my father, sir. I--er--thought of coming to you, sir, with that
+letter."
+
+"Did you?"
+
+Warde took the letter from the envelope, and glanced at it with faint
+interest, so Beaumont-Greene thought. Then he picked up a magnifying
+glass and played with it. It was a trick of his to pick up objects on
+his desk, and turn them in his thin, nervous fingers. Beaumont-Greene
+was not seriously alarmed. He had great faith in a weapon which had
+served him faithfully, his lying tongue.
+
+"Yes, sir. I thought you would be willing to advance the money for a few
+days, and then----"
+
+"And then?"
+
+"And then I thought I wouldn't bother you. It never occurred to me that
+I was getting a tradesman into trouble. I hope you won't be hard on him,
+sir."
+
+"I shall not be hard on him," said Warde, "because"--for a moment his
+eyes flashed--"because he came to me and confessed his fault; but I
+won't deny that I gave him a very uncomfortable quarter of an hour. He
+sat in your chair."
+
+Beaumont-Greene shuffled uneasily.
+
+"Have you this thirty pounds in your pocket?" asked Warde, casually.
+
+Beaumont-Greene began to regret his haste in settling.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Some of it?"
+
+"None of it."
+
+"You sent it to London? To buy these handsome presents?"
+
+"Ye-es, sir."
+
+"You hadn't much time. Lock-up's early, and you received the money in
+gold. Did you buy Orders?"
+
+Beaumont-Greene's head began to buzz. He found himself wondering why
+Warde was speaking in this smooth, quiet voice, so different from his
+usual curt, incisive tones.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"At the Harrow post-office?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Ah."
+
+Again the house-master picked up the letter, but this time he didn't lay
+down the lens. Instead he used it, very deliberately. Beaumont-Greene
+shivered; with difficulty he clenched his teeth, so as to prevent them
+clicking like castanets. Then Warde held up the sheet of paper to the
+light of the lamp. Obviously he wished to examine the watermark. The
+paper was thin notepaper, the kind that is sold everywhere for foreign
+correspondence. Beaumont-Greene, economical in such matters, had bought
+a couple of quires when his people went abroad. The paper he had bought
+did not quite match the Roman envelope. Warde opened a drawer, from
+which he took some thin paper. This also he held up to the light.
+
+"It's an odd coincidence," he said, tranquilly; "your father in Rome
+uses the same notepaper that I buy here. But the envelope is Italian?"
+
+He spoke interrogatively, but the wretch opposite had lost the power of
+speech. He collapsed. Warde rose, throwing aside his quiet manner as if
+it were a drab-coloured cloak. Now he was himself, alert, on edge,
+sanguine.
+
+"You fool!" he exclaimed; "you clumsy fool! Why, a child could find you
+out. And you--you have dared to play with such an edged tool as forgery.
+Now, do the one thing which is left to you: make a clean breast of it to
+me--at once."
+
+In imposing this command, a command which he knew would be obeyed,
+inasmuch as he perceived that he dominated the weak, grovelling
+creature in front of him, Warde overlooked the possibility that this
+boy's confession might implicate other boys. Already he had formed in
+his mind a working hypothesis to account for this forged letter. The
+fellow, no doubt, was in debt to some Harrow townsman.
+
+"For whom did you _steal_ this money? To whom did you pay it to-day?
+Answer!"
+
+And he was answered.
+
+"I owed the money to Scaife and Lovell."
+
+Then he told the story of the card-playing. At the last word he fell on
+his knees, blubbering.
+
+"Get up," said Warde, sharply. "Pull yourself together if you can."
+
+The master began to walk up and down the room, frowning and biting his
+lips. From time to time he glanced at Beaumont-Greene. Seeing his utter
+collapse, he rang the bell, answered by the ever-discreet Dumbleton.
+
+"Dumbleton, take Mr. Beaumont-Greene to the sick-room. There is no one
+in it, I believe?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"You will fetch what he may require for the night; quietly, you
+understand."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+"Follow Dumbleton," Warde addressed Beaumont-Greene. "You will consider
+yourself under arrest. Your meals will be brought to you. You will hold
+no communication with anybody except Dumbleton and me; you will send no
+messages; you will write no notes. Do you hear?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Then go."
+
+Dumbleton opened the door. Young man and servant passed out and into the
+passage beyond. Warde waited one moment, then he followed them into the
+passage; but instead of going upstairs, he paused for an instant with
+his fingers upon the handle of the door which led from the private side
+to the boys' quarters. He sighed as he passed through.
+
+At this moment Lovell was sitting in his room alone with Scaife. They
+had no suspicion of what had taken place in the study. In the afternoon
+there had been a match with an Old Harrovian team, and both Scaife and
+Lovell had played for the School. But as yet neither had got his
+Flannels. As Warde passed through the private side door, Scaife was
+saying angrily--
+
+"I believe Challoner" (Challoner was captain of the football Eleven and
+a monitor) "has a grudge against us. If we had a chance--and we had--of
+getting our Flannels last year, why isn't it a cert. this, eh?"
+
+Lovell shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It is a cert.," he answered; "and you're right. Challoner doesn't like
+us, and it amuses him to keep us out of our just rights. The monitors
+know I detest 'em, and they don't think you're called the Demon for
+nothing. Challoner is more of a monitor than a footer-player. How about
+a rubber? There's just time."
+
+"I don't mind."
+
+Lovell went to the door and opened it.
+
+"Bo-o-o-o-o-o-y!"
+
+The familiar cry--that imperious call which makes an Harrovian feel
+himself master of more or less willing slaves--echoed through the house.
+Immediately the night-fag came running; it was not considered healthy to
+keep Lovell waiting.
+
+"Ask Beaumont-Greene to come up here and----" He paused. Warde had just
+turned the corner, and was approaching. Lovell hesitated. Then he
+repeated what he had just said, with a slight variation for Warde's
+benefit. "Tell him I want to ask him a question about the
+house-subscriptions."
+
+"Right," said the fag, bustling off.
+
+Lovell waited to receive his house-master. He had very good manners.
+
+"Can I do anything for you, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said Warde, deliberately. He entered Lovell's room and looked at
+Scaife, who rose at once.
+
+"I wish to speak with you alone, Lovell."
+
+"Certainly, sir. Won't you sit down?"
+
+Warde waited till Scaife had closed the door; then he said quietly--
+
+"Lovell, does Beaumont-Greene owe you money?"
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[28] The Anglo-Saxon form of Harrow.
+
+[29] The terminal examination.
+
+[30] "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My
+brethren, ye have done it unto Me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+_Decapitation_
+
+    "Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the
+    first magnitude!"
+
+
+Lovell betrayed his astonishment by a slight start; however, he faced
+Warde with a smile. Warde, clean-shaven, alert, with youthful figure,
+looked but little older than his pupil. For a moment the two stared
+steadily at each other; then, very politely, Lovell said--
+
+"No, sir, he does not."
+
+Warde continued curtly, "Then he has paid you what he did owe you?"
+
+Lovell nodded, shrugging his shoulders. Plainly, Warde had discovered
+the fact of the debt. Probably that fool Beaumont-Greene had applied to
+his father, and the father had written to Warde. It was unthinkable that
+Warde knew more than this. Having reached this conclusion, Lovell turned
+over in his mind two or three specious lies that might meet the
+exigency.
+
+"Yes," he replied, with apparent frankness, "Beaumont-Greene did owe me
+money, and he has paid me."
+
+After a slight pause, Warde said quietly, "It is my duty, as your tutor,
+to ask you how Beaumont-Greene became indebted to you?"
+
+"I lent him the money," said Lovell.
+
+"Ah! Please call 'Boy.'"
+
+Lovell went into the passage. Had he an intuition that he was about to
+call "Boy" for the last time, or did the pent-up excitement find an
+outlet in sound? He had never called "Boy" so loudly or clearly. The
+night-fag scurried up again.
+
+"Tell him to send Scaife here," said Warde.
+
+Lovell's florid face paled. Scaife would introduce complications. And
+yet, if it had come to Warde's ears that Beaumont-Greene was in debt to
+two of his schoolfellows, and if he had found out the name of one, it
+was not surprising that he knew the name of the other also. As he gave
+the fag the message, he regretted that Scaife and he could not have a
+minute's private conversation together.
+
+"You lent Beaumont-Greene ten pounds, Lovell?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Scaife came in, cool, handsomer than usual because of the sparkle in his
+eyes.
+
+"Shut the door, Scaife. Look at me, please. Beaumont-Greene owed you
+money?"
+
+Scaife glanced at Lovell, whose left eyelid quivered.
+
+"Kindly stand behind Scaife, Lovell. Thank you. Answer my question,
+Scaife."
+
+"Yes, sir; he owed me money."
+
+"Have _you_ lent him money, too?" said Lovell.
+
+It was admirably done--the hint cleverly conveyed, the mild amazement.
+Warde smiled grimly. Scaife understood, and took his cue.
+
+"Yes; I have lent him money," said he, after a slight pause.
+
+"Twenty pounds?"
+
+"I believe, sir, that is the amount."
+
+"And can you offer me any explanation why Beaumont-Greene, whose father,
+to my knowledge, has always given him a very large allowance, should
+borrow thirty pounds of you two?"
+
+"I haven't the smallest idea, have you, Lovell?"
+
+"No," said Lovell. "Unless his younger brother, who is at Eton, has got
+into trouble. He's very fond of his brothers."
+
+"Um! You speak up for your--friend."
+
+Lovell frowned. "A friend, sir--no."
+
+"Of course," said Warde, reflectively, "if it is true that
+Beaumont-Greene borrowed this money to help a brother----"
+
+He paused, staring at Lovell. From the bottom of a big heart he was
+praying that Lovell would not lie.
+
+"Beaumont-Greene certainly gave me to understand that the affair was
+pressing. Having the money, I hadn't the heart to refuse."
+
+"But you pressed for repayment?" said Warde, sharply.
+
+"That is true, sir. I'm on an allowance; and I shall have many expenses
+this holidays."
+
+"You, Scaife, asked for your money?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, between you, you have driven this unhappy wretch into crime."
+
+"Crime, sir?"
+
+At last their self-possession abandoned them. Crime is a word which
+looms large in the imaginations of youth. What had Beaumont-Greene done?
+
+"What crime, sir?"
+
+Scaife, the more self-possessed, although fully two years the younger,
+asked the question.
+
+"Forgery."
+
+"Forgery?" Lovell repeated. He was plainly shocked.
+
+"The idiot!" exclaimed Scaife.
+
+"Yes--forgery. Have you anything to say? It is a time when the truth,
+all the truth, might be accepted as an extenuating circumstance. I speak
+to you first, Lovell. You're a Sixth Form boy--remember, I have been one
+myself--and it is your duty to help me."
+
+"I beg pardon, sir," Lovell replied. "I have never considered it my duty
+as a Sixth Form boy to play the usher."
+
+"Nor did I; but you ought to work on parallel lines with us. You
+accepted the privileges of the Sixth."
+
+Lovell's flush deepened.
+
+"More," continued Warde, "you know that we, the masters, have implicit
+trust in the Sixth Form, a trust but seldom betrayed. For instance, I
+should not think of entering your room without tapping on the door;
+under ordinary circumstances I should accept your bare word
+unhesitatingly. I say emphatically that if you, knowing these things,
+have accepted the privileges of your order with the deliberate intention
+of ignoring its duties, you have not acted like a man of honour."
+
+"Sir!"
+
+"Don't bluff! Now, for the last time, will you give me what I have given
+you--trust?"
+
+"I have nothing more to say," Lovell answered stiffly.
+
+"And you, Scaife?"
+
+"I am sorry, sir, that Beaumont-Greene has been such a fool. We lent him
+this money, because he wanted it badly; and he said he would pay us back
+before the end of the term."
+
+"You stick to that story?"
+
+"Why, yes, sir. Why should we tell you a lie?"
+
+"Ah, why, indeed?" sighed Warde. Then his voice grew hard and sharp. The
+persuasiveness, the carefully-framed sentences, gave place to his
+curtest manner. "This matter," said he, "is out of my hands. The Head
+Master will deal with it. I must ask you for your keys, Lovell."
+
+"And if I refuse to give them up?"
+
+"Then we must break into your boxes. Thanks." He took the keys. "Follow
+me, please."
+
+The pair followed him into the private side, upstairs, and into the
+sick-room. There were three beds in it; upon one sat Beaumont-Greene.
+His complexion turned a sickly drab when he saw Lovell and Scaife. He
+even glanced at the window with a hunted expression. The window was
+three stories from the ground, and heavily barred ever since a boy in
+delirium had tried to jump from it.
+
+"Your night-things will be brought to you," said Warde.
+
+He went out slowly. The boys heard the key turn in the massive lock.
+They were prisoners. Scaife walked up to Beaumont-Greene.
+
+"You told Warde about the bridge?"
+
+"Ye-es; I had to. Scaife, don't look at me like that. Lovell"--his voice
+broke into a terrified scream--"don't let him hit me. I couldn't help
+it--I swear I----"
+
+"You cur!" said Scaife. "I wouldn't touch you with a forty-foot pole."
+
+Just what passed between Warde and the Head Master must be surmised.
+Carefully hidden in Lovell's boxes were found cards and markers. Upon
+the latter remained the results of the last game played, and under the
+winning column a rough calculation in pounds, shillings, and pence.
+There were no names.
+
+Next day, during first school, a notice came round to each Form to be in
+the Speech-room at 8.30. Not a boy knew or guessed the reason of this
+summons. The Manorites, aware that three of their House were in the
+sick-room, believed that an infectious disease had broken out. Only
+Desmond, John, and the Caterpillar experienced heart-breaking fears that
+a catastrophe had taken place.
+
+When the School assembled at half-past eight, the monitors came in,
+followed by the Head Master in cap and gown. Then, a moment later, the
+School Custos entered with Scaife. They sat down upon a small bench near
+the door. Immediately the whispers, the shuffling of feet, the
+occasional cough, died down into a thrilling silence. The Head Master
+stood up.
+
+He was a man of singularly impressive face and figure. And his voice had
+what may be described as an edge to it--the cutting quality so
+invaluable to any speaker who desires to make a deep impression upon his
+audience. He began his address in the clear, cold accents of one who
+sets forth facts which can neither be controverted nor ignored. Slowly,
+inexorably, without wasting a word or a second, he told the School what
+had happened. Then he paused.
+
+As his voice melted away, the boys moved restlessly. Upon their faces
+shone a curious excitement and relief. Gambling in its many-headed forms
+is too deeply rooted in human hearts to awaken any great antipathy. So
+far, then, the sympathy of the audience lay with the culprits; this the
+Head Master knew.
+
+When he spoke again, his voice had changed, subtly, but unmistakably.
+
+"You were afraid," he said, "that I had something worse--ah, yes,
+unspeakably worse--to tell you. Thank God, this is not one of those
+cases from which every clean, manly boy must recoil in disgust. But, on
+that account, don't blind yourselves to the issues involved. This
+playing of bridge--a game you have seen your own people playing night
+after night, perhaps--is harmless enough in itself. I can say more--it
+is a game, and hence its fascination, which calls into use some of the
+finest qualities of the brain: judgment, memory, the faculty of making
+correct deductions, foresight, and patience. It teaches restraint; it
+makes for pleasant fellowship. It does all this and more, provided that
+it never degenerates into gambling. The very moment that the game
+becomes a gamble, if any one of the players is likely to lose a sum
+greater than he can reasonably afford to pay, greater than he would
+cheerfully spend upon any other form of entertainment, then bridge
+becomes cursed. And because you boys have not the experience to
+determine the difference between a mere game and a gamble, card-playing
+is forbidden you, and rightly so. Now, let us consider what has
+happened. A stupid, foolish fellow, playing with boys infinitely
+cleverer than himself, has lost a sum of money which he could not pay.
+To obtain the means of paying it, he deliberately forged a letter and a
+signature. And then followed the inevitable lying--lie upon lie. That is
+always the price of lies--'to lie on still.'
+
+"I would mitigate the punishment, if I could, but I must think of the
+majority. This sort of malignant disease must be cut out. Two of the
+three offenders are young men; they were leaving at the end of this
+term. They will leave, instead--to-day. The third boy is much younger.
+Because of his youth, I have been persuaded by his house-master to give
+him a further chance."
+
+Again he paused. Then he exclaimed loudly, "Scaife!"
+
+Scaife stood up, very pale. "Here, sir!"
+
+"Scaife, you will go into the Fourth Form Room,[31] and prepare to
+receive the punishment which no member of the Eleven should ever
+deserve."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+John sat with his Form while the Head Master was addressing the School.
+Not far off was the Caterpillar, less cool than usual, so John remarked.
+His collar, for instance, seemed to be too tight; and he moved
+restlessly upon his chair. Many very brave men become nervous when a
+great danger has passed them by. Egerton said afterwards, "I felt like
+getting down a hole, and pulling the hole after me. Not my own. Some
+Yankee's, you know." Still, he displayed remarkable self-possession
+under trying circumstances. Two of Lovell's particular friends were seen
+to turn the colour of Cheddar cheese. But Desmond, so John noticed, grew
+red rather than yellow. Nor did he tremble, but his fists were clenched,
+and his eyes kindled.
+
+As Scaife left the Speech-room, followed by Titchener (the provider of
+birches, whose duty it is to see that boys about to be swished are
+properly prepared to receive punishment), the boys began to shuffle in
+their places. But the Head Master held up his hand. It was then that
+Lovell's two particular friends, who had partially recovered, felt that
+the earth was once more slipping from under them.
+
+"It takes four to play bridge." The Caterpillar's fingers went to
+his collar again. "In this case there must have been a fourth,
+possibly a fifth and a sixth. Not more, I think, because the secret
+was too well kept. We are confronted with the disagreeable fact that
+three boys are going to receive the most severe punishments I can
+inflict, and that another escapes scot-free. _For I do not know
+the--name--of--the--fourth._"
+
+The Head Master waited to let each deliberate word soak in. Perhaps he
+had calculated the effect of his voice upon a boy of sensibility and
+imagination. That Scaife, his friend, should suffer the indignity of a
+swishing, and that he should escape scot-free, seemed to Caesar Desmond
+not a bit of rare good fortune--as it appeared to the others--but an
+incredible miscarriage of justice. To submit tamely to such a burden was
+unthinkable. He sprang to his feet, ardent, impetuous, afire with the
+spirit which makes men accept death rather than dishonour; and then, in
+a voice that rang through the room, thrilling the coldest and most
+callous heart, he exclaimed--
+
+"I was the fourth."
+
+A curious sound escaped from the audience--a gasp of surprise, of
+admiration, and of dismay; at least, so the Head Master interpreted it.
+And looking at the faces about him, he read approval or disapproval,
+according as each boy betrayed the feeling in his heart.
+
+"You, Desmond?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The Caterpillar rose slowly. He was cool enough now.
+
+"I was the fifth."
+
+But Lovell's two particular friends sat tight, as they put it. Let us
+not blame them.
+
+"You, Egerton?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+For a moment the Head Master hesitated. Into his mind there flashed the
+image of two notable figures--the fathers whom he had entreated to send
+sons to the Manor. If--if by so doing he had compassed the boys' ruin,
+could he ever have forgiven himself? But now, the boys themselves had
+justified his action; they had proved worthy of their breeding and the
+traditions of the Hill.
+
+"Come here," he said.
+
+When they stood opposite to him, he continued--
+
+"You give yourselves up to receive the punishment I am about to inflict
+upon Scaife?"
+
+The boys did not answer, save with their eyes. The silence in the great
+room was so profound that John made sure that the beating of his heart
+must be heard by everybody.
+
+"I shall not punish you. This voluntary confession has done much to
+redeem your fault. Meet me in my study at nine this evening, and I will
+talk to you. When I came here I hardly hoped to find saints, but I did
+expect to find--gentlemen. And I have not been disappointed." He
+addressed the others. "You will return to your boarding-houses, and
+quietly, if you please."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The immediate and most noticeable effect of Lovell's expulsion was the
+loss of the next House match. Damer's defeated the Manor easily. Some of
+the fags whispered to each other that the injuries inflicted by the Head
+Master on Scaife had been so severe as to incapacitate the star-player
+of the House. Two boys had concealed themselves in the Armoury (which is
+just below the Fourth Form Room) upon the morning when Scaife was
+flogged. But they reported--nothing. However severe the punishment might
+have been, Scaife received it without a whimper.
+
+In truth, Scaife received but one cut, and that a light one. The Head
+Master wished to lay stripes upon the boy's heart, not his body. When he
+saw him prepared to receive punishment, he said gravely--
+
+"I have never flogged a member of the Eleven. And now, at the last
+moment, I offer you the choice between a flogging and expulsion."
+
+"I prefer to be flogged."
+
+_And then--one cut._
+
+But Scaife never forgot the walk from the Yard to the Manor, after
+execution. He was too proud to run, too proud not to face the boys he
+happened to meet. They turned aside their eyes from his furious glare.
+But he met no members of his own House. They had the delicacy to leave
+the coast clear. When he reached his room, he found Desmond alone.
+Desmond said nervously--
+
+"I asked Warde if we could have breakfast here this morning, instead of
+going into Hall. I've got some ripping salmon."
+
+Scaife had faced everything with a brazen indifference, but the sympathy
+in his friend's voice overpowered him. He flung himself upon the sofa by
+the window and wept, not as a boy weeps, but with the cruel, grinding
+sobs of a man. He wept for his stained pride, for his vain-glory, not
+because he had sinned and caused others to sin. The boy watching him,
+seeing the hero self-abased, hearing his heartbreaking sobs, interpreted
+very differently those sounds. Infinitely distressed, turning over and
+over in his mind some soothing phrases, some word of comfort and
+encouragement, Desmond waited till the first paroxysm had passed. What
+he said then shall not be set down in cold print. You may be sure he
+proved that friendship between two strong, vigorous boys is no frail
+thread, but a golden chain which adversity strengthens and refines.
+Scaife rose up with his heart softened, not by his own tears, but by the
+tears he saw in Desmond's eyes.
+
+"I'm all right now," he said. Then, with frowning brows, he added
+thoughtfully, "I deserve what I got for being a fool. I ought to have
+foreseen that such a swine as Beaumont-Greene would be sure to betray us
+sooner or later. I shall be wiser next time."
+
+"Next--time?" The dismay in Desmond's voice made Scaife smile.
+
+"Don't worry, Caesar. No more bridge for me; but," he laughed harshly,
+"the leopard can't change his spots, and he won't give up hunting
+because he has fallen into a trap, and got out of it. Come, let's tackle
+the salmon."
+
+The winter term came to an end, and the School broke up. Upon the
+evening of the last Sunday, Warde said a few words to John.
+
+"I propose to make some changes in the house," he said abruptly. "Would
+you like to share No. 7 with Desmond?"
+
+No. 7 was the jolliest two-room at the Manor. It overlooked the gardens,
+and was larger than some three-rooms. Then John remembered Scaife and
+the Duffer.
+
+"Desmond has been with Scaife ever since he came to the house, sir."
+
+"True. But I'm going to give Scaife a room to himself. He's entitled to
+it as the future Captain of the Eleven. That is--settled. You and Duff
+must part. He's two forms below you in the school, and never likely to
+soar much higher than the Second Fifth. Next term you will be in the
+Sixth, and by the summer I hope Desmond will have joined you. You will
+find[32] together. Of course Scaife can find with you, if you wish. I've
+spoken to him and Desmond."
+
+And so, John's fondest hope was realized. When he came back to the
+Manor, Desmond and he spent much time and rather more money than they
+could afford in making No. 7 the cosiest room in the house. Consciences
+were salved thus:--John bought for Desmond some picture or other
+decorative object which cost more money than he felt justified in
+spending on himself; then Desmond made John a similar present. It was
+whipping the devil round the stump, John said, but oh! the delight of
+giving his friend something he coveted, and receiving presents from him
+in return.
+
+During this term, Scaife became one of the school racquet-players. In
+many ways he was admittedly the most remarkable boy at Harrow, the
+Admirable Crichton who appears now and again in every decade. He won the
+high jump and the hurdle-race. These triumphs kept him out of mischief,
+and occupied every minute of his time. He associated with the "Bloods,"
+and one day Desmond told John that he considered himself to have been
+"dropped" by this tremendous swell. John discreetly held his tongue; but
+in his own mind, as before, he was convinced that Scaife and Desmond
+would come together again. The inexorable circumstance of Scaife's
+superiority at games had separated the boys, but only for a brief
+season. Desmond would become a "Blood" soon, and then it would be John's
+turn to be "dropped." Being a philosopher, our hero did not worry too
+much over the future, but made the most of the present, with a grateful
+and joyous heart. In his humility, he was unable to measure his
+influence on Desmond. In athletic pursuits an inferior, in all
+intellectual attainments he was pulling far ahead of his friend. The
+artful Warde had a word to say, which gave John food for thought.
+
+"You can never equal your friend at cricket or footer, Verney. If you
+wish to score, it is time to play your own game."
+
+Shortly after this, John realized that Warde had read Caesar aright.
+Charles Desmond's son, as has been said, acclaimed quality wherever he
+met it. John's intellectual advance amazed and then fascinated him. When
+John discovered this, he worked harder. Warde smiled. John ran second
+for the Prize Poem. He had genuine feeling for Nature, but he lacked as
+yet the technical ability to display it. A more practised versifier won
+the prize; but John's taste for history and literature secured him the
+Bourchier, not without a struggle which whetted to keenness every
+faculty he possessed. More, to his delight, he realized that his
+enthusiasm was contagious. Caesar entered eagerly into his friend's
+competitions; struggle and strife appealed to the Irishman. He talked
+over John's themes, read his verses, and predicted triumphs. Warde told
+John that Caesar Desmond might have stuck in the First Fifth, had it not
+been for this quickening of the clay. The days succeeded each other
+swiftly and smoothly. Warde was seen to smile more than ever during this
+term. Certain big fellows who opposed him were leaving or had already
+left. Bohun, now Head of the House, was a sturdy, straightforward
+monitor, not a famous athlete, but able to hold his own in any field of
+endeavour. Just before the Christmas holidays, Warde discovered, to his
+horror, that the drainage at the Manor was out of order. At great
+expense a new and perfect system was laid down. At last Warde told
+himself his house might be pronounced sanitary within and without.
+
+When the summer term came, Desmond joined John in the Sixth Form. They
+were entitled to single rooms, but they asked and obtained permission to
+remain in No. 7. Desmond was invested with the right to fag, and the
+right to "find." How blessed a privilege the right to find is, boys who
+have enjoyed it will attest. The cosy meals in one's own room, the
+pleasant talk, the sense of intimacy, the freedom from restraint. Custom
+stales all good things, but how delicious they taste at first!
+
+The privilege of fagging is not, however, unadulterated bliss. When
+Warde said to Caesar, "Well, Desmond, how do you like ordering about your
+slave?" Desmond replied, ruefully, "Well, sir, little Duff has broken my
+inkstand, spilt the ink on our new carpet, and let Verney's bullfinch
+escape. I think, on the whole, I'd as lief wait on myself."
+
+Early in June it became plain that unless the unforeseen occurred,
+Harrow would have a strong Eleven, and that Desmond would be a member of
+it. John and Fluff were playing in the Sixth Form game; but John had no
+chance of his Flannels, although he had improved in batting and bowling,
+thanks to Warde's indefatigable coaching. Scaife hardly ever spoke to
+John now, but occasionally he came into No. 7 to talk to Desmond. Upon
+these rare occasions John would generally find an excuse for leaving the
+room. Always, when he returned, Desmond seemed to be restless and
+perplexed. His admiration for Scaife had waxed rather than waned.
+Indeed, John himself, detesting Scaife--for it had come to that--fearing
+him on Desmond's account, admired him notwithstanding: captivated by
+his amazing grace, good looks, and audacity. His recklessness held even
+the "Bloods" spellbound. A coach ran through Harrow in the afternoons of
+that season. Scaife made a bet that he would drive this coach from one
+end of the High Street to the other, under the very nose of Authority.
+The rules of the school set forth rigorously that no boy is to drive in
+or on any vehicle whatever. Only the Cycle Corps are allowed to use
+bicycles. Scaife's bet, you may be sure, excited extraordinary interest.
+He won it easily, disguised as the coachman--a make-up clever enough to
+deceive even those who were in the secret. His friends knew that he kept
+two polo-ponies at Wembley. One afternoon he dared to play in a match
+against the Nondescripts. Warde's daughter, just out of the schoolroom,
+happened to be present, and she rubbed her lovely eyes when she saw
+Scaife careering over the field. Scaife laughed when he saw her; but
+before she left the ground a note had reached her.
+
+ "DEAR MISS WARDE,
+
+"I am sure that you have too much sporting blood in your veins to tell
+your father that you have seen me playing polo.
+
+                              "Yours very sincerely,
+                                            "REGINALD SCAIFE."
+
+To run such risks seemed to John madness; to Desmond it indicated
+genius.
+
+"There never was such a fellow," said Caesar to John.
+
+When Caesar spoke in that tone John knew that Scaife had but to hold up a
+finger, and that Caesar would come to him even as a bird drops into the
+jaws of a snake. Caesar was strong, but the Demon was stronger.
+
+After the Zingari Match, Desmond got his Flannels. He was cheered at six
+Bill. Everybody liked him; everybody was proud of him, proud of his
+father, proud of the long line of Desmonds, all distinguished,
+good-looking, and with charming manners. The School roared its
+satisfaction. John stood a little back, by the cloisters. Caesar ran past
+him, down the steps and into the street, hat in hand, blushing like a
+girl. John felt a lump in his throat. He thrilled because glory shone
+about his friend; but the poignant reflection came, that Caesar was
+running swiftly, out of the Yard and out of his own life. And before
+lock-up he saw, what he had seen in fancy a thousand times, Caesar
+arm-in-arm with Scaife and the Captain of the Eleven, Caesar in his new
+straw,[33] looking happier than John had ever seen him, Caesar, the
+"Blood," rolling triumphantly down the High Street, the envied of all
+beholders, the hero of the hour.
+
+John called himself a selfish beast, because he had wished for one
+terrible moment, wished with heart and soul, that Caesar was unpopular
+and obscure.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[31] The place of execution.
+
+[32] "Finding" is the privilege, accorded to the Sixth Form, of having
+breakfast and tea served in their own rooms instead of in Hall.
+
+[33] The black-and-white straw hat only worn by members of the School
+Cricket Eleven.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_Self-questioning_
+
+    "Friend, of my infinite dreams
+      Little enough endures;
+    Little howe'er it seems,
+      It is yours, all yours.
+    Fame hath a fleeting breath,
+      Hope may be frail or fond;
+    But Love shall be Love till death,
+      And perhaps beyond."
+
+
+Until the Metropolitan Railway joined Harrow to Baker Street, the Hill
+stood in the midst of genuine and unspoilt country, separated by five
+miles of grass from the nearest point of the metropolis, and encompassed
+by isolated dwellings, ranging in rank and scale from villas to country
+houses.[34] Most of the latter have fallen victims to the speculative
+builder, and have been cut up into alleys of brick and stucco. But one
+or two still remain among their hayfields and rhododendrons.
+
+John Verney had an eager curiosity, not common in schoolboys, to know
+something about the countryside in which he dwelt. As a Lower Boy,
+whenever released from "Compulsory" and House-games, he used to wander
+with alert eyes and ears up and down the green lanes of Roxeth and
+Harrow Weald, enjoying fresh glimpses of the far-seen Spire, making
+friends with cottagers, picking up traditions of an older and more
+lawless[35] epoch, and, with these, an ever-increasing love and loyalty
+to Harrow. So Byron had wandered a hundred years before.
+
+These solitary rambles, however, were regarded with disfavour by
+schoolfellows who lacked John's imaginative temperament. The
+Caterpillar, for instance, protested, "Did I see you hobnobbing with a
+chaw the other day? I thought so; and you looked like a confounded
+bughunter." The Duffer's notions of topography were bounded by the
+cricket-ground on the one side of the Hill, and the footer-fields on the
+other; and his traditions held nothing much more romantic than A. J.
+Webbe's scores at Lord's. Fluff, as has been said, was too far removed
+from John to make him more than an occasional companion. And so, for
+several terms, John, for the most part, walked alone. By the time
+Desmond joined him, he had gleaned a knowledge which fascinated a friend
+of like sensibility and imagination. Together they revisited the old and
+explored the new. One never-to-be-forgotten day the boys discovered a
+deserted house of some pretensions about a mile from the Hill. Its
+grounds, covering several acres, were enclosed by a high oak paling,
+within which stood a thick belt of trees, effectually concealing what
+lay beyond. Grim iron gates, always locked, frowned upon the wayfarer;
+but John, flattening an inquisitive nose against the ironwork, could
+discern a carriage-drive overgrown with grass and weeds, and at the end
+of it a white stone portico. After this the place became to both boys a
+sort of Enchanted Castle. A dozen times they peered through the gates.
+No one went in or out of the grass-grown drive. The gatekeeper's lodge
+was uninhabited; there were no adjacent cottages where information might
+be sought. The boys called it "The Haunted House," and peopled it with
+ghosts; gorgeous bucks of the Regency, languishing beauties such as
+Lawrence painted, fiery politicians, duellists, mysterious black-a-vised
+foreigners. John connected it in fancy with the days when the gorgeous
+Duke of Chandos (who had Handel for his chapel-organist and was a
+Governor of Harrow and guardian of Lord Rodney) kept court at Cannons.
+He told Caesar anecdotes of Dr. Parr, with his preposterous wig, his
+clouds of tobacco, his sesquipedalian quotations, coming down from
+Stanmore; and also of the great Lord Abercorn, another Governor of the
+school, who used to go out shooting in the blue riband of the Garter,
+and who entertained Pitt and Sir Walter Scott at Bentley Priory.
+
+"What a lot you know!" said Caesar. "And you have a memory like my
+father's. I'm beginning to think, Jonathan, that you'll be a swell like
+him some day--in the Cabinet, perhaps."
+
+"Ah," said John, with shining eyes.
+
+"I hope I shall live to see it," Desmond added, with feeling.
+
+"Thanks, old chap. A crust or a triumph shared with a pal tastes twice
+as good."
+
+One soft afternoon in spring, after four Bill, Desmond and John were
+approaching the iron gates of the Haunted House. They had not taken this
+particular walk since the day when Desmond got his Flannels. During the
+winter term, Scaife and Desmond became members of the Football Eleven.
+During this term Scaife won the hundred yards and quarter-mile; Desmond
+won the half-mile and mile. In a word, they had done, from the athletic
+point of view, nearly all that could be done. A glorious victory at
+Lord's seemed assured. Scaife, Captain and epitome of the brains and
+muscles of the Eleven, had grown into a powerful man, with the mind, the
+tastes, the passions of manhood. Desmond, on the other hand, while
+nearly as tall (and much handsomer in John's eyes), still retained the
+look of youth. Indeed, he looked younger than John, although a year his
+senior; and John knew himself to be the elder and wiser, knew that
+Desmond leaned upon him whenever a crutch was wanted.
+
+The chief difficulty which besets a school friendship between two boys
+is that of being alone together. In Form, in the playing-fields, in the
+boarding-house, life is public. Even in the most secluded lane, a Harrow
+boy is not secure against the unwelcome salutations of heated athletes
+who have been taking a cross-country run, or leaping over, or into, the
+Pinner brook. To John the need of sanctuary had become pressing.
+
+Upon this blessed spring afternoon--ever afterwards recalled with
+special affection--a retreat was suddenly provided. As the boys jumped
+over the last stile into the lane which led to the Haunted House,
+Desmond exclaimed--
+
+"By Jove, the gates are open!"
+
+Then they saw that a man, a sort of caretaker, was in the act of
+shutting them.
+
+"May we go in?" John asked civilly.
+
+The man hesitated, eyeing the boys. Desmond's smile melted him, as it
+would have melted a mummy.
+
+"There's nothing to see," he said.
+
+Then, in answer to a few eager questions, he told the story of the
+Haunted House; haunted, indeed, by the ghosts of what might have been. A
+city magnate owned the place. He had bought it because he wished to
+educate his only son at Harrow as a "Home-Boarder," or day-boy. A few
+weeks before the boy should have joined the school, he fell ill with
+diphtheria, and died. The mother, who nursed him, caught the disease and
+died also. The father, left alone, turned his back upon a place he
+loathed, resolving to hold it till building-values increased, but never
+to set eyes on it again. The caretaker and his wife occupied a couple of
+rooms in the house.
+
+The boys glanced at the house, a common-place mansion, and began to
+explore the gardens. To their delight they found in the shrubberies, now
+a wilderness of laurel and rhododendron, a tower--what our forefathers
+called a "Gazebo," and their neighbours a "Folly." The top of it
+commanded a wide, unbroken view--
+
+    "Of all the lowland western lea,
+      The Uxbridge flats and meadows,
+    To where the Ruislip waters see
+      The Oxhey lights and shadows."
+
+"There's the Spire," said John.
+
+The man, who had joined them, nodded. "Yes," said he, "and my mistress
+and her boy are buried underneath it. She wanted him to be there--at the
+school, I mean--and there he is."
+
+"We're very much obliged to you," said Desmond. He slipped a shilling
+into the man's hand, and added, "May we stay here for a bit? and perhaps
+we might come again--eh?"
+
+"Thank you, sir," the man replied, touching his hat. "Come whenever you
+like, sir. The gates ain't really locked. I'll show you the trick of
+opening 'em when you come down."
+
+He descended the steep flight of steps after the boys had thanked him.
+
+"Sad story," said John, staring at the distant Spire.
+
+Desmond hesitated. At times he revealed (to John alone) a curious
+melancholy.
+
+"Sad," he repeated. "I don't know about that. Sad for the father, of
+course, but perhaps the son is well out of it. Don't look so amazed,
+Jonathan. Most fellows seem to make awful muddles of their lives. You
+won't, of course. I see you on pinnacles, but I----" He broke off with a
+mirthless laugh.
+
+John waited. The air about them was soft and moist after a recent
+shower. The south-west wind stirred the pulses. Earth was once more
+tumid, about to bring forth. Already the hedges were green under the
+brown; bulbs were pushing delicate spears through the sweet-smelling
+soil; the buds upon a clump of fine beeches had begun to open. In this
+solitude, alone with teeming nature, John tried to interpret his
+friend's mood; but the spirit of melancholy eluded him, as if it were a
+will-o'-the-wisp dancing over an impassable marsh. Suddenly, there came
+to him, as there had come to the quicker imagination of his friend, the
+overpowering mystery of Spring, the sense of inevitable change, the
+impossibility of arresting it. At the moment all things seemed
+unsubstantial. Even the familiar Spire, powdered with gold by the
+slanting rays of the sun, appeared thinly transparent against the rosy
+mists behind it. The Hill, the solid Hill, rose out of the valley, a
+lavender-coloured shade upon the horizon.
+
+"He came here," continued Desmond, dreamily--John guessed that he was
+speaking of the father--"a rich, prosperous man. I dare say he worked
+like a slave in the city. And he wanted peace and quiet after the Stock
+Exchange. Who wouldn't? And he planted out these gardens, thinking that
+every plant would grow up and thrive, and his son with them. And then
+the boy died; and the wife followed; and the enchanted castle became a
+place of horror; and now it is a wilderness. Haunted? I should think it
+was--haunted! I wish we'd never set foot in it. There's a curse on it."
+
+"Let's go," said John.
+
+"Too late. We'll stay now, and we'll come again, every Sunday. Wild and
+desolate as things look, they will be lovely when we get back in summer.
+Don't talk. I'm going to light a pipe."
+
+Through the circling cloud of tobacco-smoke John stared at the face
+which had illumined nearly every hour of his school-life. Its peculiar
+vividness always amazed John, the vitality of it, and yet the perfect
+delicacy. Scaife's handsome features were full of vitality also, but
+coarseness underlay their bold lines and peered out of the keen,
+flashing eyes. When the Caterpillar left Harrow he had said to John--
+
+"Good-bye, Jonathan. Awful rot your going to such a hole as Oxford! One
+has had quite enough schooling after five years here. It's settled I'm
+going into the Guards. My father tells me that old Scaife tried to get
+the Demon down on the Duke's list. But we don't fancy the Scaife brand."
+
+Often and often John wondered whether Desmond saw the brand as plainly
+as the Caterpillar and he did. Sometimes he felt almost sure that a
+word, a look, a gesture betraying the bounder, had revolted Desmond;
+but a few hours later the bounder bounded into favour again, captivating
+eye and heart by some brilliant feat. And then his brains! He was so
+diabolically clever. John could always recall his face as he lay back in
+the chair in No. 15, sick, bruised, befuddled, and yet even in that
+moment of extreme prostration able to "play the game," as he put it, to
+defeat house-master and doctor by sheer strength of will and intellect.
+It was Scaife who had persuaded Desmond to smoke.... Caesar's voice broke
+in upon these meditations.
+
+"I say--what are you frowning about?"
+
+John, very red, replied nervously, "Now that you're in the Sixth, you
+ought to chuck smoking."
+
+"What rot!" said Caesar. "And here, in this tower, where one couldn't
+possibly be nailed----"
+
+"That's it," said John. "It's just because you can't possibly be nailed
+that it seems to me not quite square."
+
+Caesar burst out laughing. "Jonathan, you _are_ a rum 'un. Anyway--here
+goes!"
+
+As he spoke he flung the pipe into the bushes below.
+
+"Thanks," said John, quietly.
+
+"We'll come here again. I like this old tower."
+
+"You won't come here without me?"
+
+"Oh, ho! I'm not to let the Demon into our paradise--eh? What a jealous
+old bird you are! Well, I like you to be jealous." And he laughed again.
+
+"I am jealous," said John, slowly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The School broke up on the following Tuesday, and Desmond went home with
+John.
+
+This happened to be the first time that the friends had spent Easter
+together. John wondered whether Caesar would take the Sacrament with his
+mother and him. He and Caesar had been confirmed side by side in the
+Chapel at Harrow. He felt sure that Desmond would not refuse if he were
+asked. On Easter Eve, Mrs. Verney said, in her quiet, persuasive
+voice--
+
+"You will join us to-morrow morning, Harry?"
+
+Desmond flushed, and said, "Yes."
+
+Not remembering his own mother, who had died when he was a child, he
+often told John that he felt like a son to Mrs. Verney. Upon Easter
+morning, the three met in the hall, and Desmond asked for a Prayer-book.
+
+"I've lost mine," he murmured.
+
+That afternoon, when they were alone upon the splendid moor above
+Stoneycross, Desmond said suddenly--
+
+"Religion means a lot to you, Jonathan, doesn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But you never talk about it."
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I don't know how to begin."
+
+"There's such sickening hypocrisy in this world."
+
+John nodded.
+
+"But your religion is a help to you, eh? Keeps you straight?"
+
+John nodded again. Then Desmond said with an air of finality--
+
+"I wish I'd some of your faith. I want it badly."
+
+"If you want it badly, you will get it."
+
+A long silence succeeded. Then Desmond exclaimed--
+
+"Hullo! By Jove, there's a fox, a splendid fellow! He's come up here
+amongst the rabbits for a Sunday dinner. Gone awa-a-a-ay!"
+
+He put his hand to his mouth and halloaed. A minute later he was talking
+of hunting. Religion was not mentioned till they were approaching the
+house for tea. On the threshold, Desmond said with a nervous laugh--
+
+"I'd like your mother to give me a Prayer-book--a small one, nothing
+expensive."
+
+During the following week they hunted with foxhounds or staghounds every
+day, except Wednesday. In the New Forest the Easter hunting is unique.
+Tremendous fellows come down from the shires--masters of famous packs,
+thrusters, keen to see May foxes killed. And the Forest entertains them
+handsomely, you may be sure. Big hampers are unpacked under the oaks
+which may have been saplings when William Rufus ruled in England; there
+are dinners, and, of course, a hunt-ball in the ancient village of
+Lyndhurst. But as each pleasant day passed, John told himself that the
+end was drawing near. This was almost the last holidays Caesar and he
+would spend together; and, afterwards, would this friendship, so
+romantic a passion with one at least of them--would it wither away, or
+would it endure to the end?
+
+At the end of a fortnight, Desmond returned to Eaton Square. Upon the
+eve of departure, Mrs. Verney gave him a small Prayer-book.
+
+"I have written something in it," she said; "but don't open it now."
+
+He looked at the fly-leaf as the train rolled out of Lyndhurst Station.
+Upon it, in Mrs. Verney's delicate handwriting, were a few lines. First
+his name and the date. Below, a text--"Unto whomsoever much is given, of
+him shall be much required." And, below that again, a verse--
+
+    "Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
+    As if Thy blessings had spare days:
+    But such a heart whose pulse may be--
+          Thy praise."
+
+Desmond stared at the graceful writing long after the train had passed
+Totton. "Am I ungrateful?" he asked himself. "Not to them," he muttered;
+"surely not to them." He recalled what Warde had said about ingratitude
+being the unpardonable sin. Ah! it was loathsome, ingratitude! And much
+had been given to him. How much? For the first time he made, so to
+speak, an inventory of what he had received--his innumerable blessings.
+_What had he given in return?_ And now the fine handwriting seemed
+blurred; he saw it through tears which he ought to have shed. "Oh, my
+God," he murmured, "am I ungrateful?" The question bit deeper into his
+mind, sinking from there into his soul.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the School reassembled, a curious incident occurred. John happened
+to be going up the fine flight of steps that leads to the Old Schools.
+He was carrying some books and papers. Scaife, running down the steps,
+charged into him. By great good fortune, no damage was done except to a
+nicely-bound Sophocles. John, however, felt assured that Scaife had
+deliberately intended to knock him down, seized, possibly, by an ecstasy
+of blind rage not uncommon with him. Scaife smiled derisively, and
+said--
+
+"A thousand apologies, Verney."
+
+"_One_ is enough," John replied, "if it is sincere."
+
+They eyed each other steadily. John read a furious challenge in Scaife's
+bold eyes--more, a menace, the threatening frown of power thwarted.
+Scaife seemed to expand, to fill the horizon, to blot out the glad
+sunshine. Once again the curious certainty gripped the younger that
+Scaife was indeed the personification of evil, the more malefic because
+it stalked abroad masked. For Scaife had outlived his reputation as a
+breaker of the law. Since that terrible experience in the Fourth Form
+Room, he had paid tithe of mint and cummin. As a Sixth Form boy he
+upheld authority, laughing the while in his sleeve. He knew, of course,
+that one mistake, one slip, would be fatal. And he prided himself on not
+making mistakes. He gambled, but not with boys; he drank, not with boys;
+he denied his body nothing it craved; but he never forgot that expulsion
+from Harrow meant the loss of a commission in a smart cavalry regiment.
+When it was intimated to him that the Guards did not want his father's
+son, he laughed bitterly, and swore to himself that he would show the
+stuck-up snobs what a soldier they had turned away. A soldier he fully
+intended to be--a dashing cavalry leader, if the Fates were kind. His
+luck would stand by him; if not--why--what was life without luck? He had
+never been a reader, but he read now the lives of soldiers. Murat,
+Uxbridge, Cardigan, Hodson, were his heroes. Talking of their
+achievements, he inflamed his own mind and Desmond's.
+
+The pleasant summer days passed. May melted into June. And each Sunday
+John and Desmond walked to the Haunted House, ascended the tower, and
+talked. Scaife was leaving at the end of the summer. Desmond was staying
+on for the winter term; then John would have him entirely to himself.
+This thought illumined dark hours, when he saw his friend whirled away
+by Scaife, transported, as it were, by the irresistible power of the man
+of action. That nothing should be wanting to that trebly-fortunate
+youth, he had helped to win the Public Schools' Racquets Championship.
+The Manor was now the crack house--cock-house at racquets and football,
+certain to be cock-house at cricket. And Scaife got most of the credit,
+not Warde, who smiled more than ever, and talked continually of Balliol
+Scholarships. He never bragged of victories past.
+
+Meantime, John was devoting all energies to the competition for the
+Prize Essay. The Head Master had propounded as theme: "The History and
+Influence of Parliamentary Oratory." Bit by bit, John read or declaimed
+it to Desmond. Then, according to custom, Desmond copied it out for his
+friend. Signed "_Spero Infestis_," with a sealed envelope containing
+John's name inside and the motto outside, the MS. was placed in the Head
+Master's letter-box. John, cooling rapidly after the fever of
+composition, condemned his stuff as hopelessly bad; Caesar went about
+telling everybody that Jonathan would win easily, "with a bit to spare."
+John did win, but that proved to be the least part of his triumph. The
+Essay had to be declaimed upon Speech Day. Once more John experienced
+the pangs that had twisted him at the concert, long ago, when he had
+sung to the Nation's hero. And as before, he began weakly. Then, the
+fire seizing him, self-consciousness was exorcised by feeling, and
+forgetful of the hundreds of faces about him, he burst into genuine
+oratory. Thrilled himself, he thrilled others. His voice faltered
+again, but with an emotion that found an echo in the hearts of his
+audience; his hand shook, feeling the pulse of old and young in front of
+him. Dominated, swept away by his theme, he dominated others. When he
+finished, in the silence that preceded the roar of applause, he knew
+that he had triumphed, for he saw Desmond's glowing countenance, radiant
+with pleasure, transfigured by amazement and admiration. Next day a
+great newspaper hailed the Harrow boy as one destined to delight and to
+lead, perhaps, an all-conquering party in the House of Commons. And yet,
+warmed to the core by this praise, John counted it as nothing compared
+with his mother's smile and Desmond's fervent grip.
+
+Fortune, however, comes to no man--or boy--with both hands full.
+Immediately after Speech Day, John's bubble of pride and happiness was
+pricked by Scaife. Midsummer madness seized the Demon. One may conceive
+that the innate recklessness of his nature, suppressed by an iron will,
+and smouldering throughout many months, burst at last into flame.
+Desmond told John that the Demon had spent a riotous night in town. He
+had slipped out of the Manor after prayers, had driven up to a certain
+club in Regent Street, returned in time for first school, fresh as
+paint--so Desmond said--and then, not content with such an achievement,
+must needs brag of it to Desmond.
+
+"And if he's nailed, Eton wins," concluded Desmond. "I've told you,
+because together we must put a stop to such larks."
+
+John slightly raised his thick eyebrows. It was curious that Caesar
+always chose to ignore the hatred which he must have known to exist
+between his two friends. Or did he fatuously believe that, because John
+exercised an influence over himself, the same influence would or could
+be exercised over Scaife?
+
+"We?" said John.
+
+"I've tried and failed. But together, I say----"
+
+"I shan't interfere, Caesar."
+
+"Jonathan, you must."
+
+"It would be a fool's errand."
+
+"We three have gone up the School together. You have never been fair to
+Scaife. I tell you he's sound at core. Why, after he was swished----"
+
+Desmond told John what had passed; John shook his head. He could
+understand better than any one else why Scaife had broken down.
+
+"He has splendid ambitions," pursued Desmond. "He's going to be a great
+soldier, you see. He thinks of nothing else. You never have liked him,
+but because of that I thought you would do what you could."
+
+The disappointment and chagrin in his voice shook John's resolution.
+
+"To please you, I'll try."
+
+And accordingly the absurd experiment was made. Afterwards, John asked
+himself a thousand times why he had not foreseen the inevitable result.
+But the explanation is almost too simple to be recorded: he wished to
+convince a friend that he would attempt anything to prove his
+friendship.
+
+That night they went together to Scaife's room. The second-best room in
+the Manor, situated upon the first floor, it overlooked the back of the
+garden, where there was a tangled thicket of laurustinus and
+rhododendron. Scaife had spent much money in making this room as
+comfortable as possible. It had the appearance of a man's room, and
+presented all the characteristics of the man who lived in it. Everything
+connected with Scaife's triumphal march through the School was
+preserved. On the walls were his caps, fezes, and cups. You could hardly
+see the paper for the framed photographs of Scaife and his fellow
+"bloods." Scaife as cricketer, Scaife as football-player, Scaife as
+racquet-player and athlete, stared boldly and triumphantly at you. He
+had a fine desk covered with massive silver ornaments. Upon this, as
+upon everything else in the room, was the hall-mark of the successful
+man of business. The papers, the pens and pencils, the filed bills and
+letters, the books of reference, spoke eloquently of a mind that used
+order as a means to a definite end. All his books were well bound. His
+boots were on trees. His racquets were in their press. Had you opened
+his chest of drawers, you would have found his clothes in perfect
+condition. Obviously, to an observant eye, the owner of this room gave
+his mind to details, because he realized that on details hang great and
+successful enterprises.
+
+Scaife stared at John, but welcomed him civilly enough. Cricket, of
+course, explained this unexpected visit. As Desmond blurted out what was
+in his mind, Scaife frowned; then he laughed unpleasantly.
+
+"And so I told Jonathan," concluded Desmond.
+
+"So you told Jonathan," repeated Scaife. "Are you in the habit of
+telling Jonathan,"--the derisive inflection as he pronounced the name
+warned John at least that he had much better have stayed away--"things
+which concern others and which don't concern him?"
+
+"If you're going to take it like that----"
+
+"Keep cool, Caesar. I'll admit that you mean well. I should like to hear
+what Verney has to say."
+
+At that John spoke--haltingly. Fluent speech upon any subject very dear
+to him had always been difficult. He could talk glibly enough about
+ordinary topics; his sense of humour, his retentive memory, made him
+welcome even in the critical society of Eaton Square, but you know him
+as a creature of unplumbed reserves. The matter in hand was so vital
+that he could not touch it with firm hands or voice. He spoke at his
+worst, and he knew it; concluding an incoherent and slightly
+inarticulate recital of the reasons which ought to keep Scaife in his
+house at night with a lame "Two heads ought to prevail against one."
+
+Scaife showed his fine teeth. "You think that? Your head and Caesar's
+against mine?"
+
+The challenge revealed itself in the derisive, sneering tone.
+
+John shrugged his shoulders and rose. "I have blundered; I am sorry."
+
+"Hold hard," said Scaife. He read censure upon Desmond's ingenuous
+countenance. Then his temper whipped him to a furious resentment against
+John, as an enemy who had turned the tables with good breeding; who had
+gained, indeed, a victory against odds. Scaife drew in his breath; his
+brows met in a frown. "You have not blundered; and you are not sorry,"
+he said deliberately. "I'm not a fool, Verney; but perhaps I have
+underrated your ability. You're as clever as they make 'em. You knew
+well enough that you were the last person in the world to lead me in a
+string; you knew that, I say, and yet you come here to pose as the
+righteous youth, doing his duty--eh?--against odds, and accepting credit
+for the same from Caesar. Why, it's plain to me as the nose upon your
+face that in your heart you would like me to be sacked."
+
+Desmond interrupted. "You are mad, Demon. Take that back; take it back!"
+
+"Ask him," said Scaife. "He hates me, and common decency ought to have
+kept him out of this room. But he's not a liar. Ask him. Put it your own
+way. Soften it, make pap of it, if you like, but get an answer."
+
+"Jonathan, it is not true, is it? You don't like Scaife; but you would
+be sorry, very sorry, to see him--sacked."
+
+"I'm glad you've not funked it," said Scaife. "You've put it squarely.
+Let him answer it as squarely."
+
+John was white to the lips, white and trembling; despicable in his own
+eyes, how much more despicable, therefore, in the eyes of his friend,
+whose passionate faith in him was about to be scorched and shrivelled.
+
+Scaife began to laugh.
+
+"For God's sake, don't laugh!" said Desmond. "Jonathan, I know you are
+too proud to defend yourself against such an abominable charge."
+
+"He's not a liar," said Scaife.
+
+"It's true," said John, in a strangled voice.
+
+"You have wished that he might be sacked?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+John met Desmond's indignant eyes with an expression which the other was
+too impetuous, too inexperienced to interpret. Into that look of
+passionate reproach he flung all that must be left unsaid, all that
+Scaife could read as easily as if it were scored in letters of flame.
+Because, in his modesty and humility, he had ever reckoned that Scaife
+would prevail against himself--because, with unerring instinct, he had
+apprehended, as few boys could apprehend, the issues involved, he had
+desired, fervently desired, that Scaife should be swept from Caesar's
+path. But this he could not plead as an excuse to his friend; and Scaife
+had known that, and had used his knowledge with fiendish success. John
+lowered his eyes and walked from the room.
+
+When he met Desmond again, nothing was said on either side. John told
+himself that he would speak, if Desmond spoke first. But evidently
+Desmond had determined already the nature of their future relations.
+They no longer shared No. 7, John being in the Upper Sixth with a room
+to himself, but they still "found" together. To separate would mean a
+public scandal from which each shrank in horror. No; let them meet at
+meals as before till the end of the term. Indeed, so little change was
+made in their previous intercourse, that John began to hope that Caesar
+would walk with him as usual upon the following Sunday. And if he
+did--if he did, John felt that he would speak. On the top of the tower,
+looking towards the Spire, alone with his friend, exalted above the
+thorns and brambles of the wilderness, words would come to him.
+
+But on the following Sunday Desmond walked with Scaife.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[34] Of these, the Park, now a boarding-house, was a characteristic
+specimen. It belonged to Lord Northwick, Lord of the Manor of Harrow.
+
+[35] In the thirties Harrow boys played "Jack o' Lantern," or nocturnal
+Hare and Hounds. They used to attend Kingsbury Races and Pinner Fair.
+Lord Alexander Russell, when he was a boy at the Grove, kept a pack of
+beagles at the foot of the Hill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+_"Lord's"_
+
+    "There we sat in the circle vast,
+      Hard by the tents, from noon,
+    And looked as the day went slowly past
+      And the runs came all too soon;
+    And never, I think, in the years gone by,
+      Since cricketer first went in,
+    Did the dying so refuse to die,
+      Or the winning so hardly win."
+
+
+"My dear Jonathan, I'm delighted to see you. You know my father, I
+think?" It was the Caterpillar that spoke.
+
+John shook hands with Colonel Egerton.
+
+The three were standing in the Members' Enclosure at Lord's. The
+Caterpillar, gorgeous in frock-coat, with three corn-flowers[36] in the
+lapel of it, was about as great a buck as his sire, quite as
+conspicuous, and, seemingly, as cool. It happened to be a blazing hot
+day, but heat seldom affected Colonel Egerton.
+
+"By Jove," he said to John, "I'm told it's a certainty this year, and
+I've come early, too early for me, to see a glorious victory. There's
+civil war raging on the top of the Trent coach, I give you my word."
+
+"We've won the toss," said John.
+
+"Ah, there's Charles Desmond, an early bird, too."
+
+He bustled away, leaving John and the Caterpillar together. The great
+ground in front of them was being cleared. One could see, through the
+few people scattered here and there, the wickets pitched in the middle
+of that vast expanse of lawn, and the umpires in their long white coats.
+Upon the top of the steps, in the middle of the pavilion, the Eton
+captain was collecting his Eleven. The Duffer, who had got his Flannels
+at the last moment, came up and joined John and the Caterpillar.
+
+"The Manor's well to the front," said the Caterpillar. "By Jove! I never
+thought to see Fluff in the Eleven."
+
+"Fluff came on tremendously this term," the Duffer replied.
+
+"Of course the Kinlochs are a cricketing family."
+
+"Good joke the brothers playing against each other," said John.
+
+"Warde," the Duffer nodded in the direction of Warde, who was talking
+with Charles Desmond and Colonel Egerton, "has worked like a slave. He
+made a cricketer out of Fluff and a scholar out of Jonathan. He's so mad
+keen to see us win, that he's given me the jumps."
+
+"You must keep cool," the Caterpillar murmured. "I've just come from the
+Trent coach. Fluff has it from the brother who is playing that the Eton
+bowling is weak. But Strathpeffer, the eldest son, tells me the batsmen
+are stronger than last year. He seemed anxious to bet; so we have a
+fiver about it. They're taking the field."
+
+The Eton Eleven walked towards the wicket, loudly cheered. Caesar came up
+in his pads, carrying his bat and gloves. He shook hands with the
+Caterpillar, and said, with a groan, that he had to take the first ball.
+
+"Keep cool," said the Caterpillar. "The bowling's weak; I have it from
+Cosmo Kinloch. They're in a precious funk."
+
+"So am I," said the Duffer.
+
+"But you're a bowler," said Desmond. "If I get out first ball, I shall
+cut my throat."
+
+But Caesar looked alert, cool, and neither under- nor over-confident.
+
+"You'll cut the ball, not your throat," said the Duffer. Cutting was
+Caesar's strong point.
+
+The Caterpillar nodded, and spoke oracularly--
+
+"My governor says he never shoots at a snipe without muttering to
+himself, 'Snipe on toast.' It steadies his nerves. When you see the
+ball leave the bowler's hand, you say to yourself, 'Eton on toast.'"
+
+"Your own, Caterpillar?"
+
+"My own," said the Caterpillar, modestly. "I don't often make a joke,
+but that's mine. Pass it on."
+
+The other Harrovian about to go in beckoned to Desmond.
+
+"Caesar won't be bowled first ball," said the Caterpillar. "He's the sort
+that rises to an emergency. Can't we find a seat?"
+
+They sat down and watched the Eton captain placing his field. Desmond
+and his companion were walking slowly towards the wickets amid Harrow
+cheers. The cheering was lukewarm as yet. It would have fire enough in
+it presently. The Caterpillar pointed out some of the swells.
+
+"That's old Lyburn. Hasn't missed a match since '64. Was brought here
+once with a broken leg! Carried in a litter, by Jove! That fellow with
+the long, white beard is Lord Fawley. He made 78 _not out_ in the days
+of Charlemagne."
+
+"It was in '53," said the Duffer, who never joked on really serious
+subjects; "and he made 68, not 78. He's pulling his beard. I believe
+he's as nervous as I am."
+
+Presently the innumerable voices about them were hushed; all eyes turned
+in one direction. Desmond was about to take the first ball. It was
+delivered moderately fast, with a slight break. Desmond played forward.
+
+"Well played, sir! Well pla-a-ayed!"
+
+The shout rumbled round the huge circle. The beginning and the end of a
+great match are always thrilling. The second and third balls were played
+like the first. John could hear Mr. Desmond saying to Warde, "He has
+Hugo's style and way of standing--eh?" And Warde replied, "Yes; but he's
+a finer batsman. Ah-h-h!"
+
+The first real cheer burst like a bomb. Desmond had cut the sixth ball
+to the boundary.
+
+Over! The new bowler was a tall, thin boy with flaxen hair.
+
+"That's Cosmo Kinloch, Fluff's brother," said John. "I wonder they can't
+do better than that. Even I knocked him all over the shop at White
+Ladies last summer."
+
+"He's come on, they tell me," said the Caterpillar. "Good Lord, he
+nearly had him first ball."
+
+Fluff's brother bowled slows of a good length, with an awkward break
+from the off to the leg.
+
+"Teasers," said the Caterpillar, critically. "Hullo! No, my young
+friend, that may do well enough in Shropshire, not here."
+
+A ball breaking sharply from the off had struck the batsman's pad; he
+had stepped in front of his wicket to cut it. Country umpires are often
+beguiled by bowlers into giving wrong decisions in such cases; not so
+your London expert. Cosmo Kinloch appealed--in vain.
+
+"He'll send a short one down now," said John. "You see."
+
+And, sure enough, a long hop came to the off, curling inwards after it
+pitched. The Eton captain had nearly all his men on the off side. The
+Harrovian pulled the ball right round to the boundary.
+
+"Well hit!"
+
+"Well pulled!"
+
+"Two 4's; that's a good beginning," said the Duffer.
+
+A couple of singles followed, and then the first "10" went up amid
+cheers.
+
+"Here's my governor," said the Duffer. "He was three years in the Eleven
+and Captain his last term."
+
+"You've told us that a thousand times," said the Caterpillar.
+
+The Rev. Septimus Duff greeted the boys warmly. His eyes sparkled out of
+a cheery, bearded face. Look at him well. An Harrovian of the Harrovians
+this. His grandfathers on the maternal and paternal side had been
+friends at Harrow in Byron's time. The Rev. Septimus wore rather a
+shabby coat and a terrible hat, but the consummate Caterpillar, who
+respected pedigrees, regarded him with pride and veneration. He came up
+from his obscure West Country vicarage to town just once a year--to see
+the match. If you asked him, he would tell you quite simply that he
+would sooner see the match and his old friends than go to Palestine; and
+the Rev. Septimus had yearned to visit Palestine ever since he left
+Cambridge; and it is not likely that this great wish will ever be
+gratified. He is the father of three sons, but the Duffer is the first
+to get into the Eleven. Charles Desmond joins them. At the moment,
+Charles Desmond is supposed to be one of the most harried men in the
+Empire. Times are troublous. A war-cloud, as large as Kruger's hand, has
+just risen in the South, and is spreading itself over the whole world.
+But to-day the great Minister has left the cares of office in Downing
+Street. He hails the Rev. Septimus with a genial laugh and a hearty
+grasp of the hand.
+
+"Ah, Sep, upon your word of honour, now--would you sooner be here to see
+the Duffer take half a dozen wickets, or be down in Somerset, Bishop of
+Bath and Wells?"
+
+"When _you_ offer me the bishopric," replied the Rev. Septimus, with a
+twinkle, "I'll answer that question, my dear Charles, and not before."
+
+"You old humbug! You're so puffed up with sinful pride that you've stuck
+your topper on to your head the wrong way about."
+
+"Bless my soul," said the Duffer's father, "so I have."
+
+"That topper of the governor's," the Duffer remarked solemnly, "has seen
+twenty-five matches at least."
+
+John looked at no hats; his eyes were on the pitch. Another round of
+cheers proclaimed that "20" had gone up. Both boys are batting steadily;
+no more boundary hits; a snick here, a snack there--and then--merciful
+Heavens!--Caesar has cut a curling ball "bang" into short slip's hands.
+
+Short slip--wretched youth--muffs it! Derisive remarks from Rev.
+Septimus.
+
+"Well caught! Well held! Tha-a-nks!"
+
+The Caterpillar would pronounce this sort of chaff bad form in a
+contemporary. He removes his hat.
+
+"By Jove!" says he. "It's very warm."
+
+Caesar times the next ball beautifully. It glides past point and under
+the ropes.
+
+Early as it is, the ground seems to be packed with people. Glorious
+weather has allured everybody. Stand after stand is filled up. The
+colour becomes kaleidoscopic. The Rev. Septimus, during the brief
+interval of an over, allows his eyes to stray round the huge circle.
+Upon the ground are the youth, the beauty, the rank and fashion of the
+kingdom, and, best of all, his old friends. The Rev. Septimus has a
+weakness, being, of course, human to the finger-tips. He calls himself a
+_laudator temporis acti_. In his day, the match was less of a function.
+The boys sat round upon the grass; behind them were the carriages and
+coaches--you could drive on to the ground then!--and here and there,
+only here and there, a tent or a small stand. _Consule Planco_--the
+parson loves a Latin tag--the match was an immense picnic for Harrovians
+and Etonians. And, my word, you ought to have heard the chaff when an
+unlucky fielder put the ball on the floor. Or, when a batsman interposed
+a pad where a bat ought to have been. Or, if a player was bowled first
+ball. Or, if he swaggered as he walked, the cynosure of all eyes, from
+the pavilion to the pitch. Upon this subject the Rev. Septimus will
+preach a longer (and a more interesting) sermon than any you will hear
+from his pulpit in Blackford-Orcas Church.
+
+Loud cheers put an end to the parson's reminiscences. Desmond's
+companion has been clean bowled for a useful fifteen runs. He walks
+towards the pavilion slowly. Then, as he hears the Harrow cheers, he
+blushes like a nymph of sixteen, for he counts himself a failure. Last
+year he made a "duck" in his first innings, and five in the second. No
+cheers then. This is his first taste of the honey mortals call success.
+He has faced the great world, and captured its applause.
+
+"When does Scaife go in?" the Rev. Septimus asks.
+
+"Second wicket down."
+
+More cheers as the second man in strolls down the steps. A careful cove,
+so the Duffer tells his father--one who will try to break the back of
+the bowling.
+
+"They're taking off Fluff's brother," the Caterpillar observes.
+
+A thick-set young man holds the ball. He makes some slight alteration in
+the field. The wicket-keeper stands back; the slips and point retreat a
+few yards. The ball that took the first wicket was the last of an over.
+Desmond has to receive the attack of the new bowler.
+
+The thick-set Etonian, having arranged the off side to his satisfaction,
+prepares to take a long run. He holds the ball in the left hand, runs
+sideways at great speed, changes the ball from the left hand to the
+right at the last moment, and seems to hurl both it and himself at the
+batsman.
+
+"Greased lightning!" says John.
+
+A dry summer had made the pitch rather fiery. The ball, short-pitched,
+whizzes just over Caesar's head. A second and a third seem to graze his
+cap. Murmurs are heard. Is the Eton bowler trying to kill or maim his
+antagonist? Is he deliberately endeavouring to establish a paralysing
+"funk"?
+
+But the fourth ball is a "fizzer"--the right length, a bailer,
+terrifically fast, but just off the wicket. Desmond snicks it between
+short slip and third man; it goes to the boundary.
+
+"That's what Caesar likes," says the Duffer. "He can cut behind the
+wicket till the cows come home."
+
+"Cut--and come again," says the Caterpillar.
+
+The fifth ball is played forward for a risky single. The Rev. Septimus
+forgets that times have changed. And if they have, what of it? He
+hasn't. His deep, vibrant voice rolls across the lawn right up to the
+batsman--
+
+"Steady there! Steady!"
+
+And now the new-comer has to take the last ball of the over--his first.
+Alas and alack! The sixth ball is dead on to the middle stump. The
+Harrovian plays forward. Man alive, you ought to have played back to
+that! The ball grazes the top edge of the bat's blade and flies straight
+into the welcoming hands of the wicket-keeper.
+
+Two wickets for 33.
+
+Breathless suspense, broken by tumultuous cheers as Scaife strides on to
+the ground. His bat is under his arm; he is drawing on his gloves.
+Thousands of men and as many women are staring at his splendid face and
+figure.
+
+"What a mover!" murmurs the Rev. Septimus.
+
+Scaife strides on. Upon his face is the expression John knows so well
+and fears so much--the consciousness of power, the stern determination
+to be first, to shatter previous records. John can predict--and does so
+with absolute certainty--what will happen. For six overs the Demon will
+treat every ball--good, bad, and indifferent--with the most
+distinguished consideration. And then, when his "eye" is in, he will
+give the Etonians such leather-hunting as they never had before.
+
+After a long stand made by Scaife and Desmond, Caesar is caught at
+cover-point, but Scaife remains. It is a Colossus batting, not a Harrow
+boy. The balls come down the pitch; the Demon's shoulders and chest
+widen; the great knotted arms go up--crash! First singles; then twos;
+then threes; and then boundary after boundary. To John--and to how many
+others?--Scaife has been transformed into a tremendous human machine,
+inexorably cutting and slicing, pulling and driving--the embodied symbol
+of force, ruthlessly applied, indefatigable, omnipotent.
+
+The Eton captain, hopeful against odds, puts on a cunning and cool
+dealer in "lobs." Fluff is in, playing steadily, holding up his wicket,
+letting the giant make the runs. The Etonian delivers his first ball.
+Scaife leaves the crease. Fluff sees the ball slowly spinning--harmless
+enough till it pitches, and then deadly as a writhing serpent. Scaife
+will not let it pitch. The ball curves slightly from the leg to the off.
+Scaife is facing the pavilion----
+
+A stupendous roar bursts from the crowd. The ball, hit with terrific
+force, sails away over the green sward, over the ropes, over the heads
+of the spectators, and slap on to the top of the pavilion.
+
+Only four; but one of the finest swipes ever seen at Lord's. Shade of
+Mynn, come forth from the tomb to applaud that mighty stroke!
+
+But the dealer in lobs knows that the man who leaves his citadel, leaves
+it, sooner or later, not to return. In the hope that Scaife, intoxicated
+with triumph, will run out again, he pitches the next lob too much up--a
+half-volley. Scaife smiles.
+
+John's prediction has been fulfilled. A record has been established.
+Never before in an Eton and Harrow match have two balls been hit over
+the ropes in succession. The crowds have lost their self-possession.
+Men, women, and children are becoming delirious. The Rev. Septimus
+throws his ancient topper into the air; the Caterpillar splits a
+brand-new pair of delicate grey gloves. Upon the tops of the coaches,
+mothers, sisters, aunts, and cousins are cheering like Fourth-Form boys.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Harrow first innings closed with 289 runs, Scaife carrying out his
+bat for an almost flawless 126. Desmond made 72; Fluff was in for
+twenty-seven minutes--a great performance for him--and was caught in the
+slips after compiling a useful 17.
+
+But the remarkable feature of the innings was the short time in which so
+many runs were made--exactly three hours. The elevens went in to lunch,
+as the crowd poured over the ground, laughing and chattering. This is a
+delightful hour to the Rev. Septimus. He will walk to the wickets, and
+wait there for his innumerable friends. It will be, "Hullo, Sep!" "By
+Jove, here's dear old Sep!" "Sep, you unfriendly beast, why do you never
+come to see us?" "Sep, when are you going to send that awful tile of
+yours to the British Museum?" And so on.
+
+Twenty men, at least--some of them with names known wherever the Union
+Jack waves--will ask the Rev. Sep to lunch with them; but the Rev. Sep
+will say, as he has said these thirty years, that he doesn't come to
+Lord's to "gorge." A sandwich presently, and a glass of "fizz," if you
+please; but time is precious. A tall bishop strolls up--one of the
+pillars of the Church, an eloquent preacher, and an autocrat in his
+diocese. Most people regard him with awe. The Rev. Sep greets him with a
+scandalous slap on the back, and addresses him, the apostolic one,
+as--Lamper.[37] And the Lord Bishop of Dudley says, like the others--
+
+"Hullo, Sep! We used to think you a slogger, but you never came anywhere
+near that smite of Scaife's."
+
+"I thought his smite was coming too near me," says the Rev. Sep, with a
+shrewd glance at the pavilion. "Lamper, old chap, I _am_ glad to see
+your 'phiz' again."
+
+And so they stroll off together, mighty prelate and humble country
+parson, once again happy Harrow boys.
+
+And now, before Eton goes in, we must climb on to the Trent coach. Fluff
+and his brother Cosmo, the Eton bowler, are lunching in other company,
+but we shall find Colonel Egerton and the Caterpillar and Warde; so the
+Hill slightly outnumbers the Plain, as the duke puts it. Next to the
+duchess sits Mrs. Verney. The duke is torn nearly in two between his
+desire that Fluff should make runs and that Cosmo, the Etonian, should
+take wickets. His Eton sons regard him as a traitor, a "rat," and
+Colonel Egerton gravely offers him the corn-flowers out of his coat.
+
+"You can laugh," the duke says seriously, "but when I see what Harrow
+has done for Esme, I'm almost sorry"--he looks at his youngest son
+(nearly, but not quite, as delicate-looking as Fluff used to be)--"I'm
+almost sorry that I didn't send Alastair there also."
+
+Alastair smiles contemptuously. "If you had," he says, "I should have
+never spoken to you again. Esme is a forgiving chap, but you've wrecked
+his life. At least, that's my opinion."
+
+After luncheon, the crowd on the lawn thickens. The ladies want to see
+the pitch, and, shall we add, to display their wonderful frocks. The
+enclosure at Ascot on Cup Day is not so gay and pretty a scene as this.
+The Caterpillar, sly dog, has secured Iris Warde, and looks uncommonly
+pleased with himself and his companion; a smart pair, but smart pairs
+are common as gooseberries. It is the year of picture hats and
+Gainsborough dresses.
+
+"England at its best," says Miss Iris.
+
+"And in its best," the Caterpillar replies solemnly.
+
+Iris Warde is as keen as her father's daughter ought to be. She tells
+the Caterpillar that when she was a small girl with only threepence a
+week pocket-money, she used to save a penny a week for twelve weeks
+preceding the match, so as to be able to put a shilling into the plate
+on Sunday _if Harrow won_.
+
+"And I dare say you'll marry an Etonian and wear light blue after all,"
+growls the Caterpillar.
+
+"Never!" says Miss Iris.
+
+Now, amongst the black coats in the pavilion you see a white figure or
+two. The Elevens have finished lunch, and are mixing with the crowd.
+Scaife is talking with a famous Old Carthusian, one of the finest living
+exponents of cricket, sometime an "International" at football, and a
+D.S.O. The great man is very cordial, for he sees in Scaife an
+All-England player. Scaife listens, smiling. Obviously, he is impatient
+to begin again. As soon as possible he collects his men, and leads them
+into the field. One can hear the policemen saying in loud, firm voices,
+"Pass along, please; pass along!" As if by magic the crowds on the lawn
+melt away. In a few minutes the Etonians come out of the pavilion. The
+sun shines upon their pale-blue caps and sashes, and upon faces slightly
+pale also, but not yet blue. For Eton has a strong batting team, and
+Scaife and Desmond have proved that it is a batsman's wicket.
+
+And now the connoisseurs, the really great players, settle themselves
+down comfortably to watch Scaife field. That, to them, is the great
+attraction, apart from the contest between the rival schools. Some of
+these Olympians have been heard to say that Scaife's innings against
+weak bowling was no very meritorious performance, although the two
+"swipes," they admit, were parlous knocks. Still, Public School cricket
+is kindergarten cricket, and if you've not been at Eton or Harrow, and
+if you loathe a fashionable crowd, and if you think first-class fielding
+is worth coming to Lord's to see, why, then, my dear fellow, look at
+Scaife!
+
+Scaife stands at cover-point. If you put up your binoculars, you will
+see that he is almost on his toes. His heels are not touching the
+ground. And he bends slightly, not quite as low as a sprinter, but so
+low that he can start with amazing speed. For two overs not a ball worth
+fielding rolls his way. Ah! that will be punished. A long hop comes down
+the pitch. The Etonian squares his shoulders. His eye, to be sure, is on
+the ball, but in his mind's eye is the boundary; in his ear the first
+burst of applause. Bat meets ball with a smack which echoes from the
+Tennis Court to the stands across the ground. Now watch Scaife! He
+dashes at top speed for the only point where his hands may intercept
+that hard-hit ball. And, by Heaven! he stops it, and flicks it up to the
+wicket-keeper, who whips off the bails.
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Not out!"
+
+"Well fielded; well fielded, sir!"
+
+"A very close squeak," says the Caterpillar. "They won't steal many runs
+from the Demon."
+
+"Sometimes," says Iris Warde, "I really think that he _is_ a demon."
+
+The Caterpillar nods. "You're more than half right, Miss Warde."
+
+Presently, the first wicket falls; then the second soon after. And the
+score is under twenty. The Rev. Septimus is beaming; the Bishop seated
+beside him looks as if he were about to pronounce a benediction; Charles
+Desmond is scintillating with wit and good humour. Visions of a single
+innings victory engross the minds of these three. They are in the front
+row of the pavilion, and they mean to see every ball of the game.
+
+But soon it becomes evident that a determined stand is being made. Runs
+come slowly, but they come; the score creeps up--thirty, forty, fifty.
+Fluff goes on to bowl. On his day Fluff is tricky, but this, apparently,
+is not his day. The runs come more quickly. The Rev. Septimus removes
+his hat, wipes his forehead, and replaces his hat. It is on the back of
+his head, but he is unaware of that. The Bishop appears now as if he
+were reading a new commination--to wit, "Cursed is he that smiteth his
+neighbour; cursed is he that bowleth half volleys." The Minister is
+frowning; things may look black in South Africa, but they're looking
+blacker in St. John's Wood.
+
+One hundred runs for two wickets.
+
+The Eton cheers are becoming exasperating. A few seats away Warde is
+twiddling his thumbs and biting his lips. Old Lord Fawley has slipped
+into the pavilion for a brandy and soda.
+
+At last!
+
+Scaife takes off Fluff and puts on a fast bowler, changing his own place
+in the field to short slip. The ball, a first ball and very fast,
+puzzles the batsman, accustomed to slows. He mistimes it; it grazes the
+edge of his bat, and whizzes off far to the right of Scaife, but the
+Demon has it. Somehow or other, ask of the spirits of the air--not of
+the writer--somehow his wonderful right hand has met and held the ball.
+
+"Well caught, sir; well caught!"
+
+"That boy ought to be knighted on the spot," says Charles Desmond. Then
+the three generously applaud the retiring batsman. He has played a
+brilliant innings, and restored the confidence of all Etonians.
+
+The Eton captain descends the steps; a veteran this, not a dashing
+player, but sure, patient, and full of grit. He asks the umpire to give
+him middle and leg; then he notes the positions of the field.
+
+"Whew-w-w-w!"
+
+"D----n it!" ejaculates Charles Desmond. Bishop and parson regard him
+with gratitude. There are times when an honest oath becomes expedient.
+The Eton captain has cut the first ball into Fluff's hands, and Fluff
+has dropped it! Alastair Kinloch, from the top of the Trent coach,
+screams out, "Jolly well muffed!" The great Minister silently thanks
+Heaven that point is the Duke's son and not his.
+
+And, of course, the Eton captain never gives another chance till he is
+dismissed with half a century to his credit. Meantime five more wickets
+have fallen. Seven down for 191! Eton leaves the field with a score of
+226 against Harrow's 289. Harrow goes in without delay, and one wicket
+is taken for 13 runs before the stumps are drawn. Charles Desmond looks
+at the sky.
+
+"Looks like rain to-night," he says anxiously.
+
+And so ends Friday's play.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The morrow dawned grey, obscured by mist rising from ground soaked by
+two hours' heavy rain. You may be sure that all our friends were early
+at Lord's, and that the pitch was examined by thousands of anxious eyes.
+The Eton fast bowler was seen to smile. Upon a similar wicket had he not
+done the famous hat-trick only three weeks before? The rain, however,
+was over, and soon the sun would drive away the filmy mists. No man
+alive could foretell what condition the pitch would be in after a few
+hours of blazing sunshine. The Rev. Septimus told Charles Desmond that
+he considered the situation to be critical, and, although he had read
+the morning paper, he was not alluding even indirectly to South African
+affairs. Charles Desmond said that, other things being equal, the Hill
+would triumph; but he admitted that other things were very far from
+equal. It looked as if Harrow would have to bat upon a treacherous
+wicket, and Eton on a sound one.
+
+At half-past ten punctually the men were in the field. Scaife issued
+last instructions. "Block the bowling; don't try to score till you see
+what tricks the ground will play. A minute saved now may mean a quarter
+of an hour to us later." Caesar nodded cheerfully. The fact that the luck
+had changed stimulated every fibre of his being. And he said that he
+felt in his bones that this was going to be a famous match, like that of
+'85--something never to be forgotten.
+
+Charles Desmond spoke few words while his son was batting. It was a
+tradition among the Desmonds that they rose superior to emergency. The
+Minister wondered whether his Harry would rise or fall. The fast bowler
+delivered the first ball. It bumped horribly. The Rev. Septimus
+shuddered and closed his eyes. Caesar got well over it. The third ball
+was cut for three. The fourth whizzed down--a wide. The fast bowler
+dipped the ball into the sawdust.
+
+"It isn't all jam for him," whispered the Rev. Septimus.
+
+"Well bowled--well bowled!"
+
+Alas! the middle stump was knocked clean out of the ground. Caesar's
+partner, a steady, careful player, had been bowled by his first ball.
+
+Two wickets for 17.
+
+The crowd were expecting the hero, but Fluff was walking towards the
+wickets, wondering whether he should reach them alive. Never had his
+heart beat as at this moment. Scaife had come up to him as soon as he
+had examined the pitch.
+
+"Fluff, I am putting you in early because you are a fellow I can trust.
+My first and last word is, hit at nothing that isn't wide of the wicket.
+The ground will probably improve fast."
+
+Fluff nodded. A hive of bees seemed to have lodged in his head, and an
+active automatic hammer in his heart; but he didn't dare tell the Demon
+that funk, abject funk, possessed him, body and soul.
+
+The second bowler began his first over. He bowled slows. Desmond played
+the six balls back along the ground. A maiden over.
+
+And then that thick-set, muscular beast, for so Fluff regarded him,
+stared fixedly at Fluff's middle stump. Fluff glanced round. The
+wicket-keeper had a grim smile on his lips, for his billet was no easy
+one. Cosmo Kinloch at short slip looked as if it were a foregone
+conclusion that Fluff would put the ball into his hands. Then Fluff
+faced the bowler. Now for it!
+
+The first ball was half a foot off the wicket, but Fluff let it go by.
+The second came true enough. Fluff blocked it. The third flew past
+Fluff's leg, but he just snicked it. Desmond started to run, and then
+stopped, holding up his hand. Cheers rippled round the ring for the
+first hit to the boundary. That was a bit of sheer luck, Fluff
+reflected.
+
+After this both boys played steadily for some ten minutes. Then, very
+slowly, Caesar began to score. He had made about fifteen when he drove a
+ball hard to the on, Fluff backing up. Desmond, watching the travelling
+ball, called to him to run. It seemed to Desmond almost certain that the
+ball would go to the boundary. Too late he realized that it had been
+magnificently fielded. Desmond strained every nerve, but his bat had not
+reached the crease when the bails flew to right and left.
+
+Out! And run out!
+
+Three wickets for 41!
+
+A quarter of an hour later Fluff was bowled with a yorker. He had made
+eleven runs, and kept up his wicket during a crisis. Harrow cheered him
+loudly.
+
+And then came the terrible moment of the morning. Scaife went in when
+Fluff's wicket fell. The ground had improved, but it was still
+treacherous. The fast bowler sent down a straight one. It shot under
+Scaife's bat and spread-eagled his stumps.
+
+The wicket-keeper knows what the Harrow captain said, but it does not
+bear repeating. Every eye was on his scowling, furious face as he
+returned to the pavilion; and the Rev. Septimus scowled also, because he
+had always maintained that any Harrovian could accept defeat like a
+gentleman. Upon the other side of the ground the Caterpillar was saying
+to his father. "I always said he was hairy at the heel."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was admitted afterwards that the Duffer's performance was the one
+really bright spot in Harrow's second innings. Being a bowler, he went
+in last but one. It happened that Fluff's brother was in possession of
+the ball. It will never be known why the Duffer chose to treat Cosmo
+Kinloch's balk with utter scorn and contempt. The Duffer was tall,
+strong, and a terrific slogger. Nobody expected him to make a run, but
+he made twenty in one over--all boundary hits. When he left the wicket
+he had added thirty-eight to the score, and wouldn't have changed places
+with an emperor. The Rev. Septimus followed him into the room where the
+players change.
+
+"My dear boy," he said, "I've never been able to give you a gold watch,
+but you must take mine; here it is, and--and God bless you!"
+
+But the Duffer swore stoutly that he preferred his own Waterbury.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Eton went in to make 211 runs in four hours, upon a wicket almost as
+sound as it had been upon the Friday. Scaife put the Duffer on to bowl.
+The Demon had belief in luck.
+
+"It's your day, Duffer," he said. "Pitch 'em up."
+
+The Duffer, to his sire's exuberant satisfaction, "pitched 'em up" so
+successfully that he took four wickets for 33. Four out of five! The
+other bowlers, however, being not so successful, Eton accumulated a
+hundred runs. The captains had agreed to draw stumps at 7.30. To win,
+therefore, the Plain must make another hundred in two hours; and three
+of their crack batsmen were out.
+
+After tea an amazing change took place in the temper of the spectators.
+Conviction seized them that the finish was likely to be close and
+thrilling; that the one thing worth undivided attention was taking place
+in the middle of the ground. As the minutes passed, a curious silence
+fell upon the crowd, broken only by the cheers of the rival schools. The
+boys, old and young alike, were watching every ball, every stroke. The
+Eton captain was still in, playing steadily, not brilliantly; the Harrow
+bowling was getting slack.
+
+In the pavilion, the Rev. Septimus, Warde, and Charles Desmond were
+sitting together. Not far from them was Scaife's father, a big, burly
+man with a square head and heavy, strongly-marked features. He had never
+been a cricketer, but this game gripped him. He sat next to a
+world-famous financier of the great house of Neuchatel, whose sons had
+been sent to the Hill. Run after run, run after run was added to the
+score. Scaife's father turned to Neuchatel.
+
+"I'd write a cheque for ten thousand pounds," he said, "if we could
+win."
+
+Lionel Neuchatel nodded. "Yes," he muttered; "I have not felt so excited
+since Sir Bevis won the Derby."
+
+In the deep field Desmond was standing, miserable because he had nothing
+to do. No balls came his way; for the Eton captain had made up his mind
+to win this match with singles and twos. Very carefully he placed his
+balls between the fielders; very carefully his partner followed his
+chief's example. No stealing of runs, no scoring off straight balls, no
+gallery play--till victory was assured.
+
+Poor Lord Fawley retired at this point into an inner room, pulling
+savagely at his white beard. Old Lyburn, who had been sitting beside
+him, gurgling and gasping, staggered after him. The Rev. Septimus kept
+wiping his forehead.
+
+"I can't stand this much longer," said Warde, in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"Well hit, sir! Well hit!"
+
+The Eton cheering became frantic. After nearly an hour's pawky,
+uninteresting play, the Eton captain suddenly changed his tactics. His
+"eye" was in; now or never let him score. A half-volley came down from
+the pavilion end--a half-volley and off the wicket. The Etonian put all
+the strength and power he had suppressed so manfully into a tremendous
+swipe, and hit the ball clean over the ropes.
+
+"Do you want to double that bet?" said Strathpeffer to the Caterpillar.
+They were standing on the top of the Trent coach.
+
+"No, thanks."
+
+"Give you two to one, Egerton?"
+
+"Done--in fivers."
+
+The unhappy bowler sent down another half-volley. Once more the Etonian
+smote, and smote hard; but this ball was not quite the same as the
+first, although it appeared identical. The ball soared up and up. Would
+it fall over the ropes? Thousands of eyes watched its flight. Desmond
+started to run. Golconda to a sixpence on the fall! It is falling,
+falling, falling.
+
+"He'll never get there in time," says Charles Desmond.
+
+"Yes he will," Warde answers savagely.
+
+"He has!" screamed the Rev. Septimus. "He--_has_!"
+
+Pandemonium broke loose. Grey-headed men threw their hats into the air;
+M.P.'s danced; lovely women shrieked; every Harrovian on the ground
+howled. For Caesar held the ball fast in his lean, brown hands.
+
+The Eton captain walks slowly towards the pavilion. He had to pass Caesar
+on his way, and passing him he pauses.
+
+"That was a glorious catch," he says, with the smile of a gallant
+gentleman.
+
+And as Harrow, as cordially as Eton, cheers the retiring chieftain, the
+Caterpillar whispers to Mrs. Verney--
+
+"Did you see that? Did you see him stop to congratulate Caesar?"
+
+"Yes," says Mrs. Verney.
+
+"I hope Scaife saw it too," the Caterpillar replies coolly. "That Eton
+captain is cut out of whole cloth; no shoddy there, by Jove!"
+
+And Desmond. How does Desmond feel? It is futile to ask him, because he
+could not tell you, if he tried. But we can answer the question. If the
+country that he wishes to serve crowns him with all the honours bestowed
+upon a favoured son, never, _never_ will Caesar Desmond know again a
+moment of such exquisite, unadulterated joy as this.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Six wickets down and 39 runs to get in less than half an hour!
+
+Every ball now, every stroke, is a matter for cheers, derisive or
+otherwise. The Rev. Septimus need not prate of golden days gone by. Boys
+at heart never change. And the atmosphere is so charged with electricity
+that a spark sets the firmament ablaze.
+
+_Seven wickets for 192._
+
+_Eight wickets for 197._
+
+Signs of demoralization show themselves on both sides. The bowling has
+become deplorably feeble, the batting even more so. Four more singles
+are recorded. Only ten runs remain to be made, with two wickets to fall.
+
+And twelve minutes to play!
+
+Scaife puts on the Duffer again. The lips of the Rev. Sep are seen to
+move inaudibly. Is he praying, or cursing, because three singles are
+scored off his son's first three balls?
+
+"Well bowled--well bowled!"
+
+A ball of fair length, easy enough to play under all ordinary
+circumstances, but a "teaser" when tremendous issues are at stake, has
+defeated one of the Etonians. The last man runs towards the pitch
+through a perfect hurricane of howls. Warde rises.
+
+"I can't stand it," he says, and his voice shakes oddly. "You fellows
+will find me behind the Pavvy after the match."
+
+"I'd go with you," says the Rev. Septimus, in a choked tone, "but if I
+tried to walk I should tumble down."
+
+Charles Desmond says nothing. But, pray note the expression so
+faithfully recorded in _Punch_--the compressed lips, the stern, frowning
+brows, the protruded jaw. The famous debater sees all fights to a
+finish, and fights himself till he drops.
+
+_Seven runs to make, one wicket to fall, and five minutes to play!!!_
+
+Evidently the last man in has received strenuous instructions from his
+chief. The bowling has degenerated into that of anaemic girls--and two
+whacks to the boundary mean--Victory. The new-comer is the square,
+thick-set fast bowler, the worst bat in the Eleven, but a fellow of
+determination, a slogger and a run-getter against village teams.
+
+He obeys instructions to the letter. The Duffer's fifth ball goes to the
+boundary.
+
+Three runs to make and two and a half minutes to play!
+
+The Duffer sends down the last ball. The Rev. Septimus covers his eyes.
+O wretched Duffer! O thou whose knees are as wax, and whose arms are as
+chop-sticks in the hands of a Griffin! O egregious Duff! O degenerate
+son of a noble sire, dost thou dare at such a moment as this to attack
+thine enemy with a--long hop?
+
+The square, thick-set bowler shows his teeth as the ball pitches short.
+Then he smites and runs. Runs, because he has smitten so hard that no
+hand, surely, can stop the whirling sphere. Runs--ay--and so does the
+Demon at cover point. This is the Demon's amazing conjuring-trick--what
+else can you call it? And he has practised it so often, that he reckons
+failure to be almost impossible. To those watching he seems to spring
+like a tiger at the ball. By Heaven! he has stopped it--he's snapped it
+up! But if he despatches it to the wicket-keeper, it will arrive too
+late. The other Etonian is already within a couple of yards of the
+crease. Scaife does not hesitate. He aims at the bowler's wicket towards
+which the burly one is running as fast as legs a thought too short can
+carry him.
+
+He aims and shies--instantaneously. He shatters the wicket.
+
+"How's that?"
+
+The appeal comes from every part of the ground.
+
+And then, clearly and unmistakably, the umpire's fiat is spoken--
+
+"Out!"
+
+The Rev. Sep rises and rushes off, upsetting chairs, treading on toes,
+bent only upon being the first to tell Warde that Harrow has won.
+
+"_Io! Io! Io!_"
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[36] The blue of the Harrow colours.
+
+[37] Lamper, _i.e._ Lamp-post.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+_"If I perish, I perish"_
+
+    "Since we deserved the name of friends,
+      And thine effect so lives in me,
+      A part of mine may live in thee
+    And move thee on to noble ends."
+
+
+The cheering at Bill upon the following Tuesday must be recorded,
+inasmuch as it has, indirectly, bearing upon our story. It will be
+guessed that the enthusiasm, the uproar, the tumultuous excitement were
+even greater than on a similar occasion some fifteen years before. But,
+to his amazement, Desmond, not Scaife, was made the particular hero of
+the hour. Scaife's display of temper festered in the hearts of boys who
+can forgive anything sooner than low breeding. The Hill had seen the
+Etonian stop to speak his cheery word of congratulation to Caesar, and
+not the Caterpillar alone, but urchins of thirteen had made comparisons.
+
+Scaife, however, could not complain of his reception upon that memorable
+Tuesday afternoon; the cheering must have been heard a mile away. But
+Desmond was acclaimed differently. The cheers were no louder--that was
+impossible--but afterwards, when the excitement had simmered down, Caesar
+became the object of a special demonstration by the Monitors and Sixth
+Form. Nearly every boy of note in the Upper School insisted upon shaking
+his hand or patting him on the back. Scaife came up with the others, but
+he left the Yard almost immediately and retired to his room. He had won
+the great match; Desmond had saved it; and the School apprehended the
+subtle difference. More, Scaife knew that John had gone up to Desmond
+with outstretched hands after the match at Lord's. He could hear John's
+eager voice, see the flame of admiration in his eyes, as he said, "Oh,
+Caesar, I am glad it was you who made that catch!" And with those
+generous words, with that warm clasp of the hand, Scaife had seen the
+barrier which he had built between the friends dissolve like ice in the
+dog-days.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The attention of the Manor was now fixed upon the house matches. It
+seemed probable that with four members of the School Eleven in the team,
+the ancient house must prove invincible. But to John's surprise, as this
+delightful probability ripened into conviction, Warde betrayed unwonted
+anxiety and even irritability. Miss Iris confided to Desmond, who paid
+her much court, that she couldn't imagine what was the matter with papa.
+And mamma, it transpired (from the same source), really feared that the
+strain at Lord's had been too much, that her indefatigable husband was
+about to break down. Finally, John made up his mind to ask a question.
+He was second in command; he had a right to ask the chief if anything
+were seriously amiss. Accordingly, he waited upon Warde after prayers.
+
+But when he put his question, and expressed, modestly enough, his
+anxiety and desire to help if he could, Warde bit his lips. Then he
+burst out violently--
+
+"I am miserable, Verney."
+
+John said nothing. His tutor rose and began to pace up and down the
+study; then, halting, facing John, he spoke quickly, with restless
+gestures indicating volcanic disturbance.
+
+"I'm between the devil and the deep sea," he said, "as many a better man
+has been before me. I thought I'd wiped out the grosser evils in the
+Manor, but I haven't--I haven't. Do you know that a fellow in this
+house, perhaps two of 'em, but one at any rate, is getting out at night
+and going up to town? You needn't answer, Verney. If you do know it, you
+are powerless to prevent it, or it wouldn't occur."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+"I can only guess who it is. I am not certain. And to make certain, I
+must play the spy, creep and crawl, do what I loathe to do--suspect the
+innocent together with the guilty. It's almost breaking my heart."
+
+"I can understand that, sir, after what you have done for us."
+
+Warde smiled grimly. "I don't think you do quite understand," he said
+slowly. "At this moment I am tempted, tempted as I never have been
+tempted, to let things slide, to shut both eyes and ears, till this term
+is over. Next term"--he laughed harshly--"I shan't stand in such an
+awkward place. The deep sea will always be near me, but the devil--the
+devil will be elsewhere."
+
+John nodded. His serious face expressed neither approval nor disapproval
+to the man keenly watching it. Afterwards Warde remembered this
+impassivity.
+
+"If I do not act"--Warde's voice trembled--"I am damned as a traitor in
+my own eyes."
+
+John had never doubted that his house-master would act. As for creeping
+and crawling, can peaks be scaled without creeping and crawling?
+Never----
+
+"You are not to speak a word of warning," Warde continued vehemently.
+"If you know what I don't know yet, still you cannot speak to me,
+because the sinner in this case is a Sixth-Form boy. You cannot speak to
+me; and you will not speak to him, on your honour?"
+
+There was interrogation in the last sentence. John replied almost
+inaudibly--
+
+"I shall not speak--on my honour!"
+
+"It is hard, hard indeed, that I should have to foul my own nest, but it
+must be so. Good night."
+
+John went back to his room, calm without, terribly agitated within. What
+ruthless spirit had driven him to Warde's study? Yes; at last,
+inexorably, discovery, disgrace, the ineffaceable brand of expulsion,
+impended over the head of his enemy, to whom he was pledged to utter no
+word of warning. Like Warde, he did not know absolutely, but he guessed
+that Scaife had spent another riotous night in town since the match. He
+had read it in the eyes glittering with excitement, in the derisive
+smile of conscious power, in the magnetic audacity of Scaife's glance.
+And then he remembered Lawrence's parting words--
+
+"It will be a fight to a finish, and, mark me, Warde will win!"
+
+Two wretched days and nights passed. More than once John spurred himself
+to the point of going to Warde and saying, "Think what you like of me, I
+am going to warn the boy I loathe that you are at his heels." Still,
+always at the last moment he did not go. Some power seemed to restrain
+him. But when he tried to analyse his feelings, he confessed himself
+muddled. He had obtained, nay, invited, Warde's confidence; and he dared
+not abuse it. It was a time of anguish. He was unable to concentrate his
+mind upon work or play, deprived of sleep, haunted by the conviction
+that if Desmond knew all, he would turn from him for ever. Then, at the
+most difficult moment of his life, the way of escape was opened.
+
+Since the match, John and Caesar had resumed the former unrestrained and
+continual intimacy and intercourse. John was in and out of Desmond's
+room, Desmond was in and out of John's room, at all hours. They "found"
+together, of course, but it is not, fortunately, at meals that boys or
+men discuss the things nearest to their hearts. But at night, just
+before lights were turned out, or just after, when an Olympian is
+privileged to work a little longer by the light of the useful "tolly,"
+Caesar and Jonathan would talk freely of past, present, and future. It
+was during these much-valued minutes, or on Sunday afternoons, that John
+would read to his friend the essays or verses which always fired
+Desmond's admiration and enthusiasm. To John's intellectual activities
+Caesar played, so to speak, gallery; even as John upon many an afternoon
+had sat stewing in the covered racquet-court, applauding Desmond's
+service into the corner, or his hot returns just above the line. At
+home, in the holidays, the boys had always met upon the same plane. Of
+the two, John was the better rider and shot. Both were members of the
+Philathletic Club[38] of Harrow, and the fact that Desmond was
+incomparably his superior as an athlete was counterbalanced by John's
+fine intellectual attainments. If John, at times, wished that he could
+cut behind the wicket in Caesar's faultless style, Desmond, on the other
+hand, spoke enviously of the Medal, or the Essay, or some other of
+John's successes. John spoke often and well in the Debating Society,
+getting up his subjects with intelligence and care. So it was
+give-and-take between them, and this adjusted the balance of their
+friendship, and without this no friendship can be pronounced perfect.
+
+None the less, free and delightful as this resumption of the old
+intimacy had been, John knew Caesar too well not to perceive that between
+them lay an unmentionable five weeks, during which something had
+occurred. From signs only too well interpreted before, John guessed that
+Caesar was once more in debt to the Demon. And finally, Caesar confessed
+that he had been betting, that he had won, following Scaife's advice,
+and then had lost. The loss was greater than the gain, and the
+difference, some five and twenty pounds, had been sent to Scaife's
+bookmaker by Scaife. As before, Scaife ridiculed the possibility of such
+a debt causing his pal any uneasiness, but it chafed Desmond consumedly.
+
+Upon the Saturday of the semi-final house match, in which the Manor had
+won a great victory by an innings and twenty-three runs, John went to
+Desmond's room after prayers. He noticed at once that his friend was
+unusually excited. John, however, attributed this to Caesar's big score.
+Success always inflamed Caesar, just as it seemed to tranquillize John.
+John began to talk, but he noticed that Caesar was abstracted, answered
+in monosyllables, and twice looked at his watch.
+
+"Have you an appointment, Caesar?"
+
+"No. What were you saying, Jonathan?"
+
+"You look rather queer to-night."
+
+"Do I?" He laughed nervously.
+
+"You're not bothering over that debt?"
+
+This time Caesar laughed naturally.
+
+"Rather not. Why, that debt----" He stopped.
+
+"Is it paid?" said John.
+
+"It will be. Don't worry!"
+
+But John looked worried. He perceived that Caesar's finely-formed hands
+were trembling, whenever they were still.
+
+"Harry," said he--he never called Desmond Harry except when they were at
+home--"Harry, what's wrong?"
+
+"Why, nothing--nothing, that is, which amounts to anything."
+
+"Harry, you are the worst liar in England. Something is wrong. Can't you
+tell me? You must. I'm hanged if I leave you till you do tell me."
+
+He looked steadily at Desmond. In his clear grey eyes were tiny, dancing
+flecks of golden brown, which Desmond had seen once or twice
+before,--which came whenever John was profoundly moved. The dancing
+flecks transformed themselves in Desmond's fancy into sprites, the airy
+creatures of John's will, imposing John's wishes and commands.
+
+"Scaife said I might tell you, if I liked."
+
+"Scaife?" John drew in his breath. "Then Scaife wanted you to tell me; I
+am sure of that." He felt his way by the dim light of smouldering
+suspicion. If Scaife wanted John to know anything, it was because such
+knowledge must prove pain, not pleasure. John did not say this. Then,
+very abruptly, Desmond continued. "You swear that what I'm about to tell
+you will be regarded as sacred?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is a matter which concerns Scaife and me, not you. You won't
+interfere?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I'm going to London."
+
+"_What?_"
+
+"Don't look at me like that, you silly old ass! It's not--not what you
+think," he laughed nervously. "I have bet Scaife twenty-five pounds, the
+amount of my debt in fact, that the bill-of-fare of to-night's supper at
+the Carlton Hotel will be handed to him after Chapel to-morrow morning.
+I bike up to town, and bike back. If I don't go this Saturday, I have
+one more chance before the term is over. That's all."
+
+"That's all," repeated John, stupefied.
+
+"If you can show me an easier way to make a 'pony,' I'll be obliged to
+you."
+
+"Scaife egged you on to this piece of folly?"
+
+"No, he didn't."
+
+"You may as well make a clean breast of it."
+
+Bit by bit John extracted the facts. Behind them, of course, stood
+Scaife, loving evil for evil's sake, planting evil, gleaning evil,
+deliberately setting about the devil's work. Desmond, it appeared, had
+persuaded Scaife not to go to town till the Lord's match was over. Since
+the match Scaife had spent two nights in London, whetting an inordinate
+appetite for forbidden fruit; exciting in Desmond also, not an appetite
+for the fruit itself, but for the mad excitement of a perilous
+adventure. Then, when the thoughtless "I'd like a lark of that sort" had
+been spoken, came the derisive answer, "You haven't the nerve for it."
+And then again the subtle leading of an ardent and self-willed nature
+into the morass, Scaife pretending to dissuade a friend, entreating him
+to consider the risk, urging him to go to bed, as if he were a
+headstrong child. And finally Desmond's challenge, "Bet you I have the
+nerve," and its acceptance, protestingly, by the other, and permission
+given that John should be told.
+
+"And it's to-night?"
+
+"I mean to have that bill-of-fare. Do you think I'd back out now?"
+
+In his mind's eye, our poor John was gazing down a long lane with no
+turning at the end of it. Could he make his friend believe that Scaife
+had brought this thing to pass from no other motive than wishing to hurt
+mortally an enemy by the hand of a friend? No, never would such an
+ingenuous youth as Caesar accept, or even listen to, such an abominable
+explanation.
+
+"Good night," said John.
+
+"I see you're rather sick with me, Jonathan. Remember, you made me
+speak. To-morrow morning we'll have a good laugh over it. We'll walk to
+the Haunted House, and I'll tell my tale. I shall be on my way in less
+than an hour."
+
+John went back to his room. The necessity for silence and thought had
+become imperative. What could he do? It was certain that Warde was
+waiting and watching. He had inexhaustible patience. Desmond, not the
+Demon, would be caught and expelled. John returned to Desmond's room.
+
+"You've told me so much," he said; "tell me a little more. How are you
+going to do it?"
+
+"To do what?"
+
+"Get out of the house? Get a bike--and all that?"
+
+"Easy. Lovell went out that way, and others. You jump from the sill of
+the first landing window into the horse-chestnut. One must be able to
+jump, of course; but I can jump. Then you shin down the tree, nip
+through the shrubbery, and over the locked wicket-gate."
+
+"Yes," John said slowly, "over the gate."
+
+"I borrowed a bike from one of the Cycle Corps, and have ridden it in
+the garden, in a bush to the right of the gate."
+
+John nodded.
+
+"It's moonlight after ten; I shall enjoy the ride immensely."
+
+"You will try to get back into the house at night?"
+
+"Too dangerous. Lovell did it; but the Demon marches in boldly just
+before Chapel. He may have slipped out on half a dozen errands as soon
+as the door is opened in the morning. I shall sleep under a stack. It's
+a lovely night. Now, old Jonathan, I hope you're satisfied that I'm not
+either the fool or the sinner you took me to be."
+
+"Look here, Harry. If I appeal to you in the name of our friendship; if
+I ask you for my sake and for my mother's sake not to do this thing----"
+
+"Jonathan, I must go. Don't make it harder than it is."
+
+"Then it _is_ hard?"
+
+"I won't whine about that. I courted this adventure, and, by Jove! I'm
+going to see it through. The odds are a hundred to one against my being
+nailed."
+
+"All right; I'll say no more. Good night."
+
+"Good night, old Jonathan."
+
+John went back to his room, waited three minutes, and then, in despair,
+made up his mind to seek Scaife. He felt certain that the Demon's
+extraordinary luck was about to stand between him and expulsion. Desmond
+would be caught red-handed, but not he. John ground his teeth with rage
+at the thought. He found Scaife alone--at work on cricketing accounts.
+
+"Hullo, Verney!"
+
+"Caesar tells me that he is going up to London to-night."
+
+"Oh, he told you that, did he?"
+
+"Yes; you wished him to tell me?"
+
+"Perhaps." Scaife laughed louder.
+
+"You want to prove to me," said John slowly, "that you are the
+stronger?"
+
+"Perhaps." Scaife laughed.
+
+"Well, if I surrender, if I admit that you are the stronger, that you
+have defeated me, won't that be enough?"
+
+"Eh? I don't quite take you."
+
+"You are the stronger." John's voice was very miserable. "I have tried
+to dissuade him, as you knew I should try, and I have failed. Isn't that
+enough? You have your triumph. But now be generous. Turn round and use
+your strength the other way. Make him give up this folly. You don't want
+to see your own pal--sacked?"
+
+"Precious little chance of that!"
+
+"There is the chance."
+
+Scaife hesitated. Did some worthier impulse stir within him? Who can
+tell? His keen eye softened, and then hardened again.
+
+"No," he said quickly. "If I agree to what you propose, it is, after
+all, you who triumph, not I. And I doubt if I could stop him now, even
+if I tried." He laughed again, for the third time, savagely. "You are
+hoist with your own petard, Verney. You wanted to see me sacked; and now
+that there is a chance in a thousand that Caesar will be sacked, you
+squirm. I swore to get my knife into you, and, by God, I've done it."
+
+John went out, very pale. He passed through into the private side, and
+tapped at Warde's study door. Mrs. Warde's voice bade him enter. She
+looked at John's face. Afterwards she testified that he looked
+singularly cool and self-possessed.
+
+"I wish to see Mr. Warde," he said.
+
+"He's dining at the Head Master's."
+
+"Will he be in soon?"
+
+"I--er--don't know. Perhaps not. I wouldn't wait for him, Verney, if I
+were you."
+
+"Thank you," said John. "Good night."
+
+He went back to his room. In Mrs. Warde's eyes he had read--what?
+Excitement? Apprehension? Suddenly, conviction came to him that this
+dinner at the Head Master's was a blind. Why, during that very
+afternoon, Warde had mentioned casually to Scaife that he was dining
+out. He had deliberately informed the Demon that the coast was clear.
+And at this moment, probably, Warde lay concealed near the chestnut
+tree, waiting, watching, about to pounce upon the--wrong man!
+
+The temptation to cry "_Cave!_" tore at his vitals. Till this moment the
+tyranny of honour had never oppressed John. Having resolved to tell
+Warde that he meant to break his word, it may seem inexplicable that he
+shouldn't go a step further and break his word without warning the
+house-master. Upon such nice points of conscience hang issues of
+world-wide importance. To John, at any rate, the difference between the
+two paths out of a tangled wood was greater than it might appear to some
+of us. Warde had trusted him implicitly: could he bring himself to
+violate Warde's confidence without giving the man notice?
+
+However, what he might have done under pressure must remain a matter of
+surmise. At this moment a third path became visible. And down it John
+rushed, without consideration as to where it might lead. The one thing
+plain at this crisis was the certainty that he had discovered a plan of
+action which would save two things he valued supremely--his friendship
+for Caesar and his word of honour.
+
+Here we are to liberty to speculate what John would have done had he
+considered dispassionately the consequences of an action to be
+accomplished at once or not at all. But he had not time to consider
+anything except the fact that action would put to rout some very
+tormenting thoughts.
+
+He crumpled his bed, disarranged his room, and put on a cap and a thin
+overcoat, as all lights in the boys' side of the Manor were
+extinguished. Then he stole out of his room, and crept to the window at
+the end of the passage. A moment later, he had squeezed through it, and
+was standing upon the sill outside, gazing fearfully at the void
+beneath, and the distance between the sill and the branch in front of
+him. Afterwards, he confessed that this moment was the most difficult.
+He was an active boy, but he had never jumped such a chasm. If he
+missed the bough----
+
+To hesitate meant shameful retreat. John felt the sweat break upon him;
+craven fear clutched his heart-strings, and set them a-jangling.
+
+He jumped.
+
+The ease with which he caught the branch was such a physical relief that
+he almost forgot his errand. He slid quietly down the tree, pausing as
+he reached the bottom of it. The moon was just rising above the horizon,
+but under the trees the darkness was Stygian. John pushed quietly
+through the shrubberies, treading as lightly as possible. Every moment
+he expected to see the flash of a lantern, to hear Warde's voice, to
+feel an arresting hand upon the shoulder. It was quite impossible to
+guess with any reasonable accuracy what part of the garden Warde had
+selected for a hiding-place. Very soon he reached the edge of the
+shrubbery, and gazed keenly into the moonlit, park-like meadow below
+him. Peer as he might, he could see no trace of Warde. A dozen trees
+might conceal him. Perhaps with the omniscience of the house-master, he
+had divined that the wicket-gate was the ultimate place of egress.
+Perhaps the wicket had been used for a similar purpose when Warde
+himself was a boy at the Manor. It was vital to John's plan that Warde
+should see him without recognizing him, and give chase. The chase would
+end in capture at some point as reasonably far from the Manor as
+possible. Warde might ask for explanations, but none would be
+forthcoming till the morrow. Meantime, the coast would be clear for
+Desmond. John, in fine, was playing the part of a pilot-engine.
+
+But where was Warde?
+
+The question answered itself within a minute, and after a fashion
+absolutely unforeseen. As John was crossing from the shrubbery to the
+wicket he looked back. To his horror, he saw lights in the boys' side,
+light in the window of Scaife's room. Instantly John divined what had
+come to pass, and cursed himself for a fool. Warde, from some coign of
+vantage, had seen a boy leave his house. Why should he try to arrest the
+boy? why should he risk the humiliation of running after him, and,
+perhaps, failing to capture him? No, no; men forty were not likely to
+work in that boyish fashion. Warde had adopted an infinitely better
+plan. Assured that a boy had left the house, he had nothing to do but
+walk round the rooms and find out which one was absent. He had begun
+with Scaife. Next to Scaife was the room belonging to the Head of the
+House; then came John's room, and then Caesar's. Long before Warde
+reached Caesar's room, Caesar would have heard him. Caesar, at any rate,
+was saved. John crept back under cover of the shrubberies. He saw the
+light flicker out of Scaife's window, and shine more steadily in the
+next room. The window of this room was open, and John could hear the
+voice of Warde and the Head of the House. John waited. And then the
+light shone in Desmond's room. John crouched against the wall,
+trembling. If Caesar had not heard the voices, if he were fully dressed,
+if---- Suddenly he caught Warde's reassuring words: "Ah, Desmond, sorry
+to disturb you. Good night."
+
+John waited. Very soon Scaife would come to Desmond's room. Ah! Just so.
+The night was so still that he could hear quite plainly the boys'
+muffled voices.
+
+"What's up?"
+
+"Warde is going his rounds. Perhaps he smells a rat."
+
+And then whispers! John strained his ears. Only a word or two more
+reached him. "Verney---- D----d interfering sneak! Let's see!" It was
+Scaife who was speaking.
+
+John heard his own door opened and shut. Scaife, then, had discovered
+his absence, and naturally leaped to the conclusion that he had warned
+Warde. Let him think so! The boys were still whispering together. "Not
+to-night," Scaife said decisively. "No, no," Desmond replied.
+
+John wondered what remained to be done. Warde, of course, would satisfy
+himself that no boy in his house was missing except John, before he
+pronounced him the absentee. Poor Warde! This would be a hard knock for
+him. John's thoughts were jostling each other freely, when he recalled
+Desmond's words: "I have one more chance before the term is over." He
+had wished to clear the way for his friend, not to block it. Then he
+remembered the terms of the bet, and laughed.
+
+He ran back to the wicket, found the bicycle, lit the lamp, and hoisted
+the machine over the gate. Then he laughed again. After all, this
+escaping from bondage, this midnight adventure beneath the impending
+sword of expulsion, thrilled him to the marrow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When John returned on Sunday to the Manor, shortly after the doors were
+unlocked in the morning, he found Dumbleton awaiting him. Dumber's face
+expressed such amazement and consternation that John nearly laughed in
+spite of himself.
+
+"It's all hup, sir," said the butler. Only in moments of intense
+excitement did Dumber misplace or leave out the aspirate. "You're to
+come with me at once to Mr. Warde's study."
+
+John followed the butler into the familiar room. Warde was not down yet,
+but evidently Dumber had instructions not to leave the prisoner. John
+stared at the writing-desk. Then he turned to Dumbleton, and said
+carelessly--
+
+"This means the sack, eh, Dumber?"
+
+"Yes, sir. 'Ow could you do it, sir? Such a well-be'aved gentleman,
+too!"
+
+"Thank you, Dumber." John took an envelope from the desk, and wrote
+Scaife's name upon it.
+
+"Dumber, please give Mr. Scaife this--with my compliments. It is, as you
+see, a bill of fare."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+John placed the card into the envelope and handed both to Dumbleton.
+
+"With my compliments!"
+
+"Certainly, sir."
+
+"And _after_ Chapel."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+A moment later Warde came in. Dumbleton went out immediately with a
+sorrowful, backward glance at John. The good fellow looked terribly
+bewildered. For John's face, John's deportment, had amazed him. John was
+quite unaware of it, but he looked astonishingly well. Excitement had
+flushed his cheek and lent a sparkle to his grey eyes. He had enjoyed
+his ride to town and back; he had slept soundly under the lee of a
+haystack; and he had washed his face and hands in the horse-trough at
+the foot of Sudbury Hill. And the certainty that Desmond was safe, that
+in the end he, John, had triumphed over Scaife, filled his soul with
+joy. Warde, on the other hand, looked wretched; he had passed a
+sleepless night; he was pale, haggard, gaunt.
+
+"What have you to say, Verney?"
+
+"Nothing, sir."
+
+"Nothing." Warde clenched his hands, and burst into speech, letting all
+that he had suffered and suppressed escape in tumultuous words and
+gestures. "Nothing. You dare to stand there and say--nothing. That you
+should have done this thing! Why, it's incredible! And I who trusted
+you. And you listened to me with a face like brass, laughing in your
+sleeve, no doubt, at the fool who betrayed himself. And you came here,
+so my wife tells me, to see if I was out of the way, if the coast was
+clear. And you were cool as a cucumber. Oh, you hypocrite, you damnable
+hypocrite! I have to see you now, but never again will I look willingly
+upon your face, never! Well, this wretched business must be ended. You
+got out of my house last night. You heard I was dining with the Head
+Master. I returned early, and I saw you jump from the passage window.
+You don't deny that you went up to London, I suppose?"
+
+"No, sir; I don't deny it."
+
+At the moment John, quite unconsciously, looked as if he were glorying
+in what he had done. Warde could have struck his clean, clear face,
+unblushingly meeting his furious glance. In disgust, he turned his back
+and walked to the window. John felt rather than saw that his tutor was
+profoundly moved. When he turned, two tears were trickling down his
+cheeks. The sight of them nearly undid John. When Warde spoke again, his
+voice was choked by his emotion.
+
+"Verney," he said, "I spoke just now in an unrestrained manner, because
+you--you"--his voice trembled--"have shaken my faith in all I hold most
+dear. I say to you--I say to you that I believed in you as I believe in
+my wife. Even now I feel that somehow there is a mistake--that you are
+not what you confess yourself to be--a brazen-faced humbug. You have
+worked as I have worked for this House, and in one moment you undo that
+work. Have you paused to think, what effect this will have upon the
+others?"
+
+"Not yet, sir."
+
+John looked respectfully sympathetic. Poor Warde! This was rough indeed
+upon him.
+
+Suddenly the door was flung open, and Desmond burst into the room, with
+a complete disregard of the customary proprieties, and rushed up to
+Warde.
+
+"Sir," he said vehemently, "Verney did this to save--_me_!"
+
+Warde saw the slow smile break upon John's face. And, seeing it, he came
+as near hysterical laughter as a man of his character and temperament
+can come. He perceived that John, for some amazing reason, had played
+the scape-goat; that, in fact, he was innocent--not a humbug, not a
+hypocrite, not a brazen-faced sinner. And the relief was so stupendous
+that the tutor flung himself back into a chair, gasping. Desmond spoke
+quietly.
+
+"I was going to town, sir. For the first time, I swear. And only to win
+a bet, and for the excitement of jumping out of a window. John tried to
+dissuade me. When he exhausted every argument, he went himself."
+
+"The Lord be praised!" said Warde. He had divined everything; but he let
+Desmond tell the story in detail. Scaife's name was left out of the
+narrative.
+
+Then Warde said slowly, "I shall not refer this business to the Head
+Master; I shall deal with it myself. For your own sake, Desmond, for the
+sake of your father, and, above all else, for the sake of this House, I
+shall do no more than ask you to promise that, for the rest of your time
+at Harrow, you will endeavour to atone for what has been."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All boys worth their salt are creatures of reserves; let us respect
+them. It is easy to surmise what passed between the friends--the
+gratitude, the self-reproach, the humiliation on one side; the sympathy,
+the encouragement and shy, restrained affection on the other. A
+bitter-sweet moment for John this, revealing, without disguise, the
+weakness of Desmond's character, but illuminating the triumph over
+Scaife, the all-powerful. John had been inhuman if this knowledge had
+not been as spikenard to him.
+
+Chapel over, the boys came pouring back into the house. In a minute the
+fags would be hurrying up with the tea and the jam-pots, asking for
+orders; in a minute Scaife would rush in with questions hot upon his
+lips. John chuckled to himself as he heard Scaife's step.
+
+"Hullo, Caesar! Why did you cut Chapel? And----"
+
+John saw that the Carlton supper-card was in his hand. He chuckled
+again.
+
+"Dumber has just given me--_this_. Did you go, after all?" he asked
+Caesar. They had not met since Warde's visit of the night before.
+
+"I didn't go," said Caesar.
+
+"Dumber gave it to me, with Verney's compliments."
+
+"You've lost your bet," said John.
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Jonathan went to town instead of me," said Desmond. "We thought he was
+with Warde--he wasn't. This morning, early, I found out that he hadn't
+slept in his bed. I saw him come back, and I saw Dumber waiting for him.
+When Dumber came out of Warde's room, he told me that Jonathan had been
+up to town, and was going to be--sacked."
+
+He blurted out the rest of the story, to which Scaife listened
+attentively. When Desmond finished, there was a pause.
+
+"You're devilish clever," said Scaife to John.
+
+"I shall pay up the pony," said Desmond.
+
+"No, you won't," said Scaife. "As for the money, I never cared a hang
+about that. I'm glad--and you ought to know it--that you've won the bet.
+All the same, Verney isn't entitled to all the glory that you give him."
+
+"He is, he is--and more, too."
+
+Scaife laughed. John felt rather uncomfortable. Always Scaife exhibited
+his amazing resource at unexpected moments.
+
+"Never mind," Scaife continued, "I won't burst the pretty bubble. And I
+admit, remember, Verney's cleverness."
+
+He was turning to go, but Desmond clutched his sleeve. When he spoke his
+fair face was scarlet.
+
+"You sneer at the wrong man and at the wrong time," he said angrily,
+"and you talk as though I was a fool. Well, I am a fool, perhaps, and I
+blow bubbles. Prick this one, if you can. I challenge you to do it."
+
+Scaife shrugged his shoulders. "It's so obvious," he said coolly, "that
+your kind friend ran no risks other than a sprained ankle or a cold."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"He was certain that you would come forward. He forced your hand. There
+was never the smallest chance of his being sacked, and he knew it."
+
+"Yes," said John, calmly, "I knew it."
+
+"Just so," said Scaife. He went out whistling.
+
+Desmond had time to whisper to John before the fags called them to
+breakfast in John's room--
+
+"I say, Jonathan, I'm glad you knew that I wouldn't fail you. As the
+Demon says, you are clever; you are a sight cleverer than he is."
+
+John shook his head. "I'm slow," he said. "As a matter of fact, the
+thought that you would come to the rescue never occurred to me till I
+was biking back from town."
+
+"Anyway, you saved me from being sacked, and as long as I live I----"
+
+"Come on to breakfast," said John.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[38] The Philathletic Club deals primarily with all matters which
+concern Harrow games; it is also a social club. Distinguished athletes,
+monitors, and so forth, are eligible for membership. The Head of the
+School is _ex-Officio_ President.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+_Good Night_
+
+    "Good night! Sleep, and so may ever
+      Lights half seen across a murky lea,
+    Child of hope, and courage, and endeavour,
+      Gleam a voiceless benison on thee!
+        Youth be bearer
+          Soon of hardihood;
+        Life be fairer,
+          Loyaller to good;
+    Till the far lamps vanish into light,
+    Rest in the dreamtime. Good night! Good night!"
+
+
+The last Saturday of the summer term saw the Manor cock-house at
+cricket: almost a foregone conclusion, and therefore not particularly
+interesting to outsiders. During the morning Scaife gave his farewell
+"brekker"[39] at the Creameries; a banquet of the Olympians to which
+John received an invitation. He accepted because Desmond made a point of
+his so doing; but he was quite aware that beneath the veneer of the
+Demon's genial smile lay implacable hatred and resentment. The breakfast
+in itself struck John as ostentatious. Scaife's father sent quails, _a
+la Lucullus_, and other delicacies. Throughout the meal the talk was of
+the coming war. At that time most of the Conservative papers pooh-poohed
+the possibility of an appeal to arms, but Scaife's father, admittedly a
+great authority on South African affairs, had told his son a fight was
+inevitable. More, he and his friends were already preparing to raise a
+regiment of mounted infantry. At breakfast Scaife announced this piece
+of news, and added that in the event of hostilities he would join this
+regiment, and not try to pass into Sandhurst. And he added that any of
+his friends who were present, and over eighteen years of age, were
+cordially invited to send in their names, and that he personally would
+do all that was possible to secure them billets. The words were hardly
+out of his mouth, when Caesar Desmond was on his feet, with an eager--
+
+"Put me down, Demon; put me down first!"
+
+And then Scaife glanced at John, as he answered--
+
+"Right you are, Caesar, and if things go well with us, I fancy that we
+shall get our commissions in regular regiments soon enough. The governor
+had had a hint to that effect. Let's drink success to 'Scaife's Horse.'"
+
+The toast was drunk with enthusiasm.
+
+During the holidays, John saw nothing of Desmond, although they wrote to
+each other once a week. John was reading hard with an eye to a possible
+scholarship at Oxford; Desmond was playing cricket with Scaife. Later,
+Desmond went to the Scaife moor in Scotland. John noted that his
+friend's letters were full of two things only: sport, and the
+ever-increasing probability of war. At the end of August John Verney,
+the explorer, returning to Verney Boscobel after an absence of nearly
+four years, began to write his now famous book on the Far East. Then
+John learned from his mother that his uncle had borne all the charges of
+his education. When he thanked him, the uncle said warmly--
+
+"You have more than repaid me, my dear boy; not another word, please,
+about that. Warde tells me they expect great things of you at Oxford."
+
+Uncle and nephew were alone, after dinner. John had noticed that the
+hardships endured in Manchuria and Thibet had left scars upon the
+traveller. His hair was white, he looked an old man; one whose
+wanderings in wild places must perforce come soon to an end.
+
+"Uncle," said John, "I want to chuck Oxford."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"I should like to go into the Army."
+
+"Bless my soul!"
+
+The explorer eyed his nephew with wrinkled brow. John gave reasons; we
+can guess what they were. The prospect of war had set all ardent souls
+afire.
+
+"I must think this over, my boy," the uncle replied presently. "I must
+sleep on it. Have you told your mother?"
+
+"No; I counted upon you to persuade her."
+
+"Um. Now tell me about Lord's! Ah! I'm sorry I missed that match."
+
+Next day, his uncle said nothing of what lay next to John's heart, but
+the pair rode together over the estate. During that ride it became plain
+to the young man that his uncle had no intention of settling down. Once
+or twice, in the driest, most matter-of-fact tone, the elder spoke as if
+his heir were likely to inherit soon. Finally, John blurted out a
+protest--
+
+"But, uncle, you are a strong man. Why do you talk as if--as if----" the
+boy couldn't finish the phrase.
+
+"Tut, tut," said the uncle. "I know what I know"; and he fell into
+silence.
+
+Not till the evening, after Mrs. Verney had gone to bed, did the man of
+many wanderings speak freely.
+
+"John," said he, quietly, "I have a story to tell you. Years ago, your
+father and I fell in love with the same girl. She married the better
+man." He paused to fill a pipe: John saw that his uncle's fingers
+trembled slightly; but his voice was cool, measured, almost monotonous.
+"I made my first expedition to Patagonia. When I came back you were just
+born; and I asked that I might be your godfather. I went to Africa after
+the christening. And six years later your father died. I think he had
+the purest and most unselfish love of the poor and helpless that I have
+ever known. He wore away his life in the service of the outcast and
+forlorn. And before he died, he expressed a wish that you should work as
+he did, for others, but not in precisely the same way. He knew, none
+better, the limitations imposed upon a parson. He prayed that you might
+labour in a field larger than one parish. And I promised him that I
+would do what I could when the time came. It has come--to-night. In my
+opinion, in Warde's opinion, in your dear mother's opinion, Parliament
+is the place for you. You will be sufficiently well off. Take all Oxford
+can give you, and then try for the House of Commons. Charles Desmond
+will make you one of his Private Secretaries. I have spoken to him. You
+have a great career before you."
+
+"But if war breaks out, uncle----"
+
+"War _will_ break out. Don't misunderstand me! If you are wanted out
+there, and the thing is going to be very serious, if you are wanted, you
+must go; but decidedly you are not wanted yet. And you are an only son;
+all your mother has. John, you must think of her, and you will think of
+her, I know."
+
+The conviction in his quiet voice communicated itself to his nephew.
+There was a pause of nearly a minute; and then John answered, in a voice
+curiously like his uncle's--
+
+"All right."
+
+Verney senior held out his hand. "I knew you would say that," he
+murmured.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the 18th of September, when John returned to the Hill, the country
+had just learned that the proposals of the Imperial Government to accept
+the note of August 19th (provided it were not encumbered by conditions
+which would nullify the intention to give substantial representation to
+the Uitlanders) had not been accepted. That this meant war, none, least
+of all a schoolboy, doubted. Desmond could talk of nothing else. He told
+John that his father had promised to let him leave Harrow before the end
+of the term, if war were declared. The Demon, so John was informed, had
+made already preparations. He was taking out his three polo ponies, and
+had hopes of being appointed Galloper to a certain General. Scaife's
+Horse was being organized, but in any case would not take the field
+before several months had elapsed; the Demon intended to be on the spot
+when the first shot was fired.
+
+To all this gunpowder-talk John listened with envious ears and a curious
+sinking of the heart. He had looked forward to having Desmond to
+himself; and lo! his friend was seven thousand miles away--on the veldt,
+not on the Hill.
+
+"You are not keen," said Desmond.
+
+On the day of the Goose Match, Saturday, September 30th, Scaife came
+down to Harrow to take leave of his friends. Already, John noted an
+extraordinary difference in his manner and appearance. He treated John
+to a slightly patronizing smile, called him Jonathan, asked if he could
+be of service to him, and posed most successfully as a sort of sucking
+Alexander.
+
+That he absorbed Desmond's eyes and mind was indisputable. Everything
+outside South Africa, and in particular the Hill and all things thereon,
+dwindled into insignificance. Scaife made Desmond a present of the very
+best maps obtainable, and nailed them on the wall above the mantelpiece,
+pulling down a fine engraving which John had given to Desmond about a
+year before. Desmond uttered no protest. The engraving was bundled out
+of sight behind a sofa.
+
+And after Scaife's departure, Desmond talked of him continually, and
+always with enthusiasm. Warde added a note or two to the chorus.
+
+"This is an opportunity for Scaife," he told John. "He may distinguish
+himself very greatly, and the discipline of the camp will transmute the
+bad metal into gold. War is an alchemist."
+
+Upon the 11th of October war was declared.
+
+After that, Desmond became as one possessed. He went about saying that
+he pitied his father profoundly because he was a civilian and a
+non-combatant. Warde wrote to Charles Desmond: "If you mean to send
+Harry out, send him at once. He's fretting himself to fiddle-strings,
+doing no work, and causing others to do no work also."
+
+Sir William Symons' victory and death followed, and then the mortifying
+retreat of General Yule. Upon the 30th day of the month eight hundred
+and fifty officers and men were isolated and captured. Who does not
+remember the wave of passionate incredulity that swept across the
+kingdom when the evil tidings flashed over-seas? But Buller and his
+staff were on the _Dunottar Castle_, and all Harrovians believed
+devoutly that within a month of landing the Commander-in-Chief would
+drive the invaders back and conquer the Transvaal.
+
+Day after day, Desmond importuned his father. The "fun" would be over,
+he pointed out, before he got there--and so on. At last word came. A
+billet had been obtained. Desmond received a long envelope from the War
+Office. He showed it to all his friends, old and young. Duff
+junior--Caesar's fag--became so excited that he asked Warde for
+permission to enlist as a drummer-boy. The School cheered Caesar at four
+Bill.
+
+And then came the parting.
+
+Caesar was to join the Headquarters' Staff as soon as possible. He spent
+the last hours with John, but his mind, naturally enough, was
+concentrated upon his kit. He chattered endlessly of saddlery,
+revolvers, sleeping bags, and Zeiss glasses. John packed his
+portmanteau. And on the morrow the friends parted at the station without
+a word beyond--
+
+"Good-bye, old Jonathan. Wish you were coming."
+
+"Good-bye, Caesar. Good luck!"
+
+And then the shrill whistle, the inexorable rolling of the wheels, the
+bright, eager face leaning far out of the window, the waved
+handkerchief, the last words: "So long!" and John's reply, "So long!"
+
+John saw the face fade; the wheels of the vanishing train seemed to have
+rolled over his heart; the scream of the engine was the scream of
+anguish from himself. He left the station and ran to the Tower. There,
+after the first indescribable moments, some kindly spirit touched him.
+He became whole. But he had ceased to be a boy. Alone upon the tower he
+prayed for his friend, prayed fervently that it might be well with him,
+now and for ever--Amen.
+
+When he returned to the Manor, however, peace seemed to forsake him. The
+horrible gap, ever-widening, between himself and Desmond might, indeed,
+be bridged by prayer, but not by the shouts of boys and the turmoil of a
+Public School.
+
+During the rest of the term he worked furiously. Desmond was now on the
+high seas, whither John followed him at night and on Sundays. Warde,
+guessing, perhaps, what was passing in John's heart, talked much of
+Desmond, always hopefully. From Warde, John learned that Charles Desmond
+had tried to dissuade his favourite son from becoming a soldier.
+
+"He wanted him to go into Parliament," said Warde.
+
+John nodded.
+
+"It was a disappointment. Yes; a great disappointment. Harry would have
+made a debater. Yes; yes; a nimble wit, an engaging manner, and the gift
+of the gab. And the father would have had him under his own eye."
+
+"But he wanted to go to South Africa from the beginning."
+
+"You wanted to go," said Warde; "your uncle told me so. It was a greater
+thing for you, John, to stand aside."
+
+And then John put a question. "Do you think that Harry ought to have
+stood aside too?"
+
+Warde, however, unwilling to commit himself, spoke of Harry's ardour and
+patriotism. But at the end he let fall a straw which indicated the true
+current of his thoughts--
+
+"Mr. Desmond is very lonely."
+
+John swooped on this.
+
+"Then you think, you _do_ think, that Harry should have stayed behind?"
+
+"Perhaps. One hesitates to accuse the boy of anything more than
+thoughtlessness."
+
+"If he wished to serve his country," began John, warmly.
+
+Warde smiled. "Yes, yes," he assented. "Let us believe that, John; but
+there has been too much cheap excitement."
+
+Dark days followed. Who will ever forget Stormberg and Magersfontein? A
+pall seemed to hang over the kingdom. Ladysmith remained in the grip of
+the invader; the Boers were not yet driven out of Natal. Meantime Caesar
+had reached Sir Redvers Buller. A letter to his father, describing the
+few incidents of the voyage out, and his arrival in South Africa, was
+sent on to John and received by him on the 1st of February. "John will
+understand," said Caesar, in a postscript, "that I have little time for
+writing." But John did not understand. He wrote regularly to Desmond; no
+answer came in return.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the end of the Christmas holidays John returned to Harrow. He was now
+Head of his House, and very nearly Head of the School. The weeks went by
+slowly. Soon, he and a few others would travel to Oxford for their
+examination; there would be the strenuous excitement of competition, and
+the final announcement of success or failure. To all this John told
+himself that he was lukewarm. Nothing seemed to matter since he had lost
+sight of Caesar's face, since the train whirled his friend out of his
+life. But he worked hard, so hard that the Head Master bade him beware
+of a breakdown.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hour of triumph came. John had gratified his own and Warde's
+ambition; he was a Scholar of Christ Church. And this well-earned
+success seemed to draw something in his heart. The congratulations, the
+warm hand-clasps, the generous joy of schoolfellows not as fortunate,
+restored his moral circulation. A whole holiday was granted in honour of
+his success at Oxford. He told himself that now he would take things
+easy and enjoy himself. The clouds in South Africa were lifting,
+everybody said the glorious end was in sight. And so far Desmond had
+escaped wounds and sickness. He had received a commission in
+Beauregard's Irregular Horse; in the five days' action about Spion Kop
+he behaved with conspicuous gallantry. Scaife, having obtained his
+billet of Galloper, was with a General under Lord Methuen.
+
+On the last Monday but one in the term, John was entering the Manor just
+before lock-up, when a Sixth Form boy from another house passed him,
+running.
+
+"Have you heard about poor Scaife?" he called out.
+
+"No--what?"
+
+"Warde will tell you; he knows." The boy ran on, not wishing to be late.
+
+John ran, too, with his heart thumping against his side. He felt
+certain, from the expression upon the boy's face, that Scaife was dead.
+And John recalled with intense bitterness and humiliation moments in
+past years when he had wished that Scaife would die. Charles Desmond had
+told him only three weeks before that his Harry hoped to join the smart
+cavalry regiment in which a commission had been promised to Scaife. At
+that moment John was sensible of an inordinate desire for anything that
+might come between this wish and its fulfilment. And now, Scaife might
+be lying dead.
+
+He found Warde in his study staring at a telegram. He looked up as John
+entered, and in silence handed him the message.
+
+    "_Demon dead. Died gloriously._"
+
+The telegram came from an Harrovian, an old Manorite at the War Office.
+
+John sat down, stunned by the news; Warde regarded him gravely. John met
+his glance and could not interpret it. Presently, Warde said nervously--
+
+"Why did the fellow write 'Demon' instead of 'Scaife'? I don't like
+that." He looked sharply at John, who did not understand. Then he added,
+"I've wired for confirmation. There may be a--mistake."
+
+"What mistake?" said John. Warde's manner confused him, frightened him.
+"What mistake, sir?"
+
+Warde, twisting the paper, answered miserably--
+
+"There has been an action, but not in Scaife's part of Africa.
+Beauregard's Horse were engaged and suffered severely. And would any one
+say 'Demon' in such a serious context?"
+
+"Oh, my God!" said John, pale and trembling. At last he understood. Add
+two letters to "Demon" and you have "Desmond." How easily such a mistake
+could be made!--"Desmond," ill-written, handed to an old Manorite to
+copy and despatch.
+
+"It's Scaife--it's Scaife," John cried.
+
+Warde said nothing, staring at the thin slip of paper as if he were
+trying to wrest from it its secret.
+
+"Everybody called him 'Demon,'" said John.
+
+"Still, one ought to be prepared."
+
+For many hideous minutes they sat there, silent, waiting for the second
+telegram. Dumbleton brought it in, and lingered, anxiously expectant;
+but Warde dismissed him with a gesture. As the door closed, Warde stood
+up.
+
+"If our fears are well founded," he said solemnly, "may God give you
+strength, John Verney, to bear the blow."
+
+Then he tore open the envelope and read the truth--
+
+    "_Henry Desmond killed in action._"
+
+"No," said John, fiercely. "It is Scaife, Scaife!"
+
+Warde shook his head, holding John's hand tight between his sinewy
+fingers. John's face appalled him. He had known, he had guessed, the
+strength of John's feeling for Desmond, but, he had not known the
+strength of John's hatred of Scaife. And Desmond had been taken--and
+Scaife left. The irony of it tore the soul.
+
+"Don't speak," commanded Warde.
+
+John closed his lips with instinctive obedience. When he opened them
+again his face had softened; the words fell upon the silence with a
+heartrending inflection of misery.
+
+"And now I shall never know--I shall never know."
+
+He broke down piteously. Warde let the first passion of grief spend
+itself; then he asked John to explain. The good fellow saw that if John
+could give his trouble words it would be lightened enormously. He
+divined what had been suppressed.
+
+"What is it that you will never know, John?"
+
+At that John spoke, laying bare his heart. He gave details of the
+never-ending struggle between Scaife and himself for the soul of his
+friend; gave them with a clearness of expression which proved beyond all
+else how his thoughts had crystallized in his mind. Warde listened,
+holding John's hand, gripping it with sympathy and affection. The
+romance of this friendship stirred him profoundly; the romance of the
+struggle for good and evil; a struggle of which the issues remained
+still in doubt; a romance which Death had cruelly left unfinished--this
+had poignant significance for the house-master.
+
+"I shall never know now," John repeated, in conclusion.
+
+"But you have faith in your friend."
+
+"He never wrote to me," said John.
+
+At last it was out, the thorn in his side which had tormented him.
+
+"If he had written," John continued, "if only he had written once. When
+we parted it was good-bye--just that, nothing more; but I thought he
+would write, and that everything would be cleared up. And now, silence."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The week wore itself away. A few details were forthcoming: enough to
+prove that a glorious deed had been done at the cost of a gallant life.
+England was thrilled because the hero happened to be the son of a
+popular Minister. The name of Desmond rang through the Empire. John
+bought every paper and devoured the meagre lines which left so much
+between them. It seemed that a certain position had to be taken--a small
+hill. For the hundredth time in this campaign too few men were detailed
+for the task. The reek of that awful slaughter on Spion Kop was still
+strong in men's nostrils. Beauregard and his soldiers halted at the foot
+of the hill, halted in the teeth of a storm of bullets. Then the word
+was given to attack. But the fire from invisible foes simply
+exterminated the leading files. The moment came when those behind
+wavered and recoiled. And then Desmond darted forward--alone, cheering
+on his fellows. They were all afoot. The men rallied and followed. But
+they could not overtake the gallant figure pressing on in front. He
+ran--so the Special Correspondent reported--as if he were racing for a
+goal. The men staggered after him, aflame with his ardour. They reached
+the top, captured the guns, drove down the enemy, and returned to the
+highest point to find their leader--shot through the heart, and dead,
+and smiling at death. Of all the men who passed through that blizzard of
+bullets he was the youngest by two years.
+
+Warde told John that the Head Master would preach upon the last Sunday
+evening of the term, with special reference to Harry Desmond. Could John
+bear it? John nodded. Since the first breakdown in Warde's study, his
+heart seemed to have turned to ice. His religious sense, hitherto strong
+and vital, failed him entirely. He abandoned prayer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Evensong was over in Harrow Chapel. The Head Master, stately in surplice
+and scarlet hood, entered the pulpit, and, in his clear, calm tones,
+announced his text, taken from the 17th verse of the First Chapter of
+the Book of Ruth--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and
+me."
+
+The subject of the sermon was "Friendship:" the heart's blood of a
+Public School: Friendship with its delights, its perils, its peculiar
+graces and benedictions.
+
+"To-night," concluded the preacher, amid the breathless silence of the
+congregation, "this thought of Friendship has for us a special
+solemnity. It is consecrated by the memory of one whom we have just
+lost. You, who are leaving the school, have been the friends and
+contemporaries of Henry Julius Desmond; his features are fresh in your
+memories, and will remain fresh as long as you live.
+
+    "Tall, eager, a face to remember,
+      A flush that could change as the day;
+    A spirit that knew not December,
+      That brightened the sunshine of May."
+
+"Those lines, as you know, were written of another Harrovian, who died
+here on this Hill. Henry Desmond died on another hill, and died so
+gloriously that the shadow of our loss, dark as it seemed to us at
+first, is already melting in the radiance of his gain. To die young,
+clean, ardent; to die swiftly, in perfect health; to die saving others
+from death, or worse--disgrace--to die scaling heights; to die and to
+carry with you into the fuller, ampler life beyond, untainted hopes and
+aspirations, unembittered memories, all the freshness and gladness of
+May--is not that cause for joy rather than sorrow? I say--yes. Henry
+Desmond is one stage ahead of us upon a journey which we all must take,
+and I entreat you to consider that, if we have faith in a future life,
+we must believe also that we carry hence not only the record of our
+acts, whether good or evil, but the memory of them; and that memory,
+undimmed by falsehood or self-deception, will create for us Heaven or
+Hell. I do not say--God forbid!--that you should desire death because
+you are still young, and, comparatively speaking, unspotted from the
+world; but I say I would sooner see any of you struck down in the flower
+of his youth than living on to lose, long before death comes, all that
+makes life worth the living. Better death, a thousand times, than
+gradual decay of mind and spirit; better death than faithlessness,
+indifference, and uncleanness. To you who are leaving Harrow, poised for
+flight into the great world of which this school is the microcosm, I
+commend the memory of Henry Desmond. It stands in our records for all we
+venerate and strive for: loyalty, honour, purity, strenuousness,
+faithfulness in friendship. When temptation assails you, think of that
+gallant boy running swiftly uphill, leaving craven fear behind, and
+drawing with him the others who, led by him to the heights, made victory
+possible. You cannot all be leaders, but you can follow leaders; only
+see to it that they lead you, as Henry Desmond led the men of
+Beauregard's Horse, onward and upward."
+
+The preacher ended, and then followed the familiar hymn, always sung
+upon the last Sunday evening of the term:--
+
+    "Let Thy father-hand be shielding
+      All who here shall meet no more;
+    May their seed-time past be yielding
+      Year by year a richer store;
+            Those returning,
+      Make more faithful than before."
+
+The last blessing was pronounced, and with glistening eyes the boys
+streamed out of Chapel; some of them for the last time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon the next Tuesday, John travelled down into the New Forest. April
+was abroad in Hampshire; the larches already were bright green against
+the Scotch firs; the beech buds were bursting; only the oaks retained
+their drab winter's-livery.
+
+During the few days preceding Easter Sunday, John rode or walked to
+every part of the forest which he had visited in company with his dead
+friend. At Beaulieu, standing in the ruins of the Abbey, he could hear
+Desmond's delightful laugh as he recited the misadventures of Hordle
+John; at Stoneycross he sat upon the bank overlooking the moor, whence
+they had seen the fox steal into the woods about Rufus's Stone; at the
+Bell tavern at Brook they had lunched; at Hinton Admiral they had
+played cricket.
+
+To his mother's and his uncle's silent sympathy John responded but
+churlishly. His friend had departed without a word, without a sign; that
+ate into John's heart and consumed it. For the first time since he had
+been confirmed, he refused to receive the Sacrament. He went to church
+as a matter of form; but he dared not approach the altar in his present
+rebellious mood.
+
+Again and again he accused himself of having yielded to a craven fear of
+offending Desmond by speech too plain. Always he had been so terribly
+afraid of losing his friend; and now he had lost him indeed. This
+poignancy of grief may be accounted for in part by the previous
+long-continued strain of overwork. And it is ever the habit of those who
+do much to think that they might have done more.
+
+At the beginning of May, John came back to the Hill, for his last term.
+Out of the future rose the "dreaming spires" of Oxford; beyond them,
+vague and shadowy, the great Clock-tower of Westminster, keeping watch
+and ward over the destinies of our Empire.
+
+In a long letter from Charles Desmond, the Minister had spoken of the
+secretaryship to be kept warm for him, of the pleasure and solace the
+writer would take in seeing his son's best friend in the place where
+that son might have stood.
+
+His best friend? Was that true?
+
+The question tormented John. Because Caesar had been so much to him, he
+desired, more passionately than he had desired anything in his life, the
+assurance that he had been something--not everything, only something--to
+Caesar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day, about the middle of the month, John had been playing cricket,
+the game of all games which brought Caesar most vividly to his mind.
+Then, just before six Bill, he strolled up the Hill and into the Vaughan
+Library, where so many relics dear to Harrovians are enshrined. Sitting
+in the splendid window which faces distant Hampstead, John told himself
+that he must put aside the miseries and perplexities of the past month.
+Had he been loyal to his friend's memory? Would not a more ardent faith
+have burned away doubt?
+
+John gazed across the familiar fields to the huge city on the horizon.
+Soon night would fall, darkness would encompass all things. And then,
+out of the mirk, would shine the lamps of London.
+
+Warde's voice put his thoughts to instant flight. Some intuition told
+John that something had happened. Warde said quietly--
+
+"A letter has come for you in Harry Desmond's handwriting."
+
+John, unable to speak, stretched out his hand.
+
+"Take it," said Warde, "to some quiet spot where you cannot be
+disturbed."
+
+John nodded.
+
+"I have seen how it was with you," Warde continued, with deep emotion,
+"and you have had my acute sympathy, the more acute, perhaps, because
+long ago a friend went out of my life without a sign." Warde paused.
+"Now, unless my whole experience is at fault, you hold in your hand what
+you want--and what you deserve."
+
+Warde left the library; John put the letter into his pocket. Where
+should he go? One place beckoned him. Upon the tower, looking towards
+the Hill, he would read the last letter of his friend.
+
+Within half an hour he was passing through the iron gates. He had not
+visited the garden since that forlorn winter's afternoon, when he came
+here, alone, after bidding Desmond good-bye. He could recall the
+desolation of the scene: bleak Winter dripping tears upon the tomb of
+Summer. With what disgust he had perceived the decaying masses of
+vegetation, the sodden turf, the soot upon the bare trunks of the trees.
+He had rushed away, fancying that he heard Desmond's voice, "There is a
+curse on the place."
+
+Now, May had touched what had seemed dead and hideous, and, lo! a
+miracle. The hawthorns shone white against the brilliant green of the
+laurels; the horse-chestnuts had--to use a fanciful expression of
+Caesar's--"lit their lamps." Out of the waving grass glimmered and
+sparkled a thousand wild flowers. John heard the glad _Fruehlingslied_ of
+bees and birds. Then, opening his lungs, he inhaled the life-renewing
+odours of earth renascent; opening his heart he felt a spiritual essence
+pervading every fibre of his being. Once more the chilled sap in his
+veins flowed generously. It was well with him and well with his friend.
+This conviction possessed him, remember, before he opened the letter.
+
+He ascended the tower, and broke the seal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I have been meaning to write to you, dear old chap, ever since we
+parted; but, somehow, I couldn't bring myself to tackle it in earnest
+till to-night. To-morrow, we have a thundering big job ahead of us; the
+last job, perhaps, for me. Old Jonathan, you have been the best friend a
+man ever had, the only one I love as much as my own brothers--_and even
+more_. It was from knowing you that I came to see what good-for-nothing
+fools some fellows are. You were always so unselfish and _straight!_ and
+you made me feel that I was the contrary, and that you knew it, and that
+I should lose your friendship if I didn't improve a bit. So, if we don't
+meet again in this jolly old world, it may be a little comfort to you to
+remember that what you have done for a very worthless pal was not thrown
+away.
+
+"Good night, Jonathan. I'm going to turn in; we shall be astir before
+daybreak. Over the veldt the stars are shining. It's so light, that I
+can just make out the hill upon which, I hope, our flag will be waving
+within a few hours. The sight of this hill brings back our Hill. If I
+shut my eyes, I can see it plainly, as we used to see it from the
+tower, with the Spire rising out of the heart of the old school. I have
+the absurd conviction strong in me that, to-morrow, I shall get up the
+hill here faster and easier than the other fellows because you and I
+have so often run up our Hill together--God bless it--and you! Good
+night."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[39] Brekker, _i.e._ breakfast.
+
+
+
+
+ PRINTED AND BOUND IN ENGLAND BY
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