Gordon listened to Tester's flow of words. He was furious. But when at last lights were put out and he lay back in bed and watched the stars steadfast in love and splendour, and the moon immutable, enigmatic, smiling quietly, he appreciated the truth of Tester's argument. A great battle was before him; he would have to go into it strong and prepared at every point. There must be no chink in his coat of mail.

Some day his hour would come; till then he had to wait in patience, and during the long vigil he would keep his shield clean of rust. He would have to think, to weigh his decisions, to keep before his eyes the goal towards which his ambition was set.



CHAPTER III: BROADENING OUTLOOK

Like a huge reel of thread the long winter term unrolled itself. November drifted by with its gusty winds that shrieked in the empty cloisters. December came with its dark mornings and steadily falling rains. The First Fifteen matches were over. Dulbridge and Tonford had both been beaten handsomely; Mansell had got his Firsts. The Colts drew at Limborne, and finished their season with an overwhelming victory over Weybridge. House games began again, and the Thirds and Two Cock became the only possible topics of conversation. During the first half of the term Hazelton, as was inevitable, had had to spend nearly all his time in First Fifteen puntabouts and upper ground games. The House had seen little of him. But now, with all the big matches over, and only the old Fernhurstians' match to come on the last Saturday of the term, he had time to devote all his energies to the training of house sides. If he had not talked so much he would have been one of the strong, silent Englishmen. For to all outward appearances he was taciturn, unimaginative, self-willed. But he had a very nasty tongue, and never hesitated to use it at the expense of his enemies. As a house captain he was a distinct success. He knew the game well, and was able to inspire a keenness that was not jingoistic. He also had the rare virtue of knowing where to stop. He never made sides play on till they were speechless with fatigue, as some over-enthusiastic house captains had been known to do. He was very popular with his sides.

Every evening before hall there congregated in Gordon's study all the old faces of his first year, with one or two new ones. Nowhere so easily as at a Public School does one find oneself drifting apart from an old acquaintance; not for any real reason, not for any quarrel, but merely because circumstances seem to will it so. But when the thought of House matches returned, the old lot came back together to fight their battles over again, and to dream of the silver cups glittering below the statue of Edward VI. They were all there: Hunter, who had seemed to pass almost out of Gordon's life since he had begun to play in the Fifteen; Mansell, who now spent much of his time with Hazelton; Betteridge, who was more often than not with Harding. No. 1 Study was very convenient. Roll was held just outside, and when the prefect's voice was heard calling the first name the door would be flung open, and still reclining in arm-chairs they shouted out the immemorial "sum." About five minutes before the hour of roll-call juniors from the day-room and the farther studies would begin to collect round the hot pipes in the passage, fearful of being late. Then in No. 1 Lovelace would wind up the gramophone, and the strains of When the Midnight Choo-choo leaves for Alabama broke out with deafening violence. The concert lasted till the first strokes of the hour had boomed out. Roll over, they all separated to their various studies. Lovelace took out his Sportsman and began to total up his winnings; Gordon either lay full length in the hammock, a new and much envied acquisition which was slung across from door to window, and read for the hundredth time the haunting melodies of Rococo, or else, as was more usual, wandered round the studies with the magnificent air of indifference that marked all members of the Sixth.

Then came prayers; after which Gordon and Davenport made for the seclusion of their double dormitory. Lights were out at nine-fifteen for the big upper dormitories, and till then they used to wander down the passage for the ostensible reason of getting hot water, but in reality to watch, with the superior air of Olympians, the life of lesser breeds. They imagined themselves great bloods during these few minutes after prayers. Sometimes when the House tutor was supposed to be out they would join in a game of football in the passage; but as they were caught once and each got a Georgic, this pastime lost its charm. Usually they lolled in the doorway with a perfect superiority, and talked of the old "rags" and discomfitures of two years back, for the benefit of admiring listeners.

"Do you remember when Mansell slept in that bed?" Gordon would say.

"No; I was not here that term," Davenport would reply; "but I sha'n't forget when the Chief found Betteridge's bed pitched on the floor, with Betteridge underneath and Lovelace sitting on top."

Was it possible, thought some small fry, that the great Mansell, who played for the Fifteen, had once actually slept in the same bed as he occupied now? Had Betteridge, who had only that night given half the day-room a hundred lines, once had his bed shipped on that very floor! It all seemed like a gigantic fairy story. And to think that Caruthers had seen these things!

But they were not long, these moments of the assumption of the godhead. Darkness soon fell on the long passage, and only whispered talking sounded faint and far away. Gordon and Davenport then went back to their room, and on evenings after a hard game they had a small supper. They had managed to discover a loose board, and the floor space caused by its removal served as a cupboard, a cupboard so damp and unhealthy that the most lenient sanitary inspector must infallibly have condemned it. Here, just before afternoon school, they secreted ginger beer bottles, a loaf of bread, butter, some tomatoes and a chunk of Gorgonzola cheese. In the morning they carried away the bottles in their pockets. It would have been much easier and much more comfortable to have had a meal in their study, but then it would have lacked the savour of romance. The rule forbidding the importation of food into the dormitories was very strict. At the end of the term, when both were going to leave that particular room, they nailed down the board, so that no other marauder should imitate them. They wished to be unique. But before they did so, they put in the mouldy cupboard a lemonade bottle and one of the blue Fernhurst roll-books for the Michaelmas Term, 1913. They underlined their names in it, and left it as a memento of a few happy evenings.

"I wonder," said Caruthers, "if years hence someone will pull up that board and find the book, and seeing our names will wonder who we were."

"Perhaps," said Davenport. "And, you know, they may try and find out something about us in back numbers of The Fernhurstian, or in the photographs of house sides. Do you think they will be able to find out anything about us?"

"I hope so; but how little we know even of the bloods of 1905, and as likely as not we sha'n't ever be bloods. It will be rather funny if some day of all the things we have done nothing remains but the blue roll-book."

"Funny?" said Davenport. "Rather pathetic, I should say."

At fifteen one is apt to be sentimental.

Perhaps some rude fingers have already torn up that board; perhaps even now some new generation of Fernhurstians is using it as a receptacle for tobacco, or cheese, or any other commodity contraband to the dormitories. But perhaps underneath a board in No. 1 double dormitory there still repose that identical lemonade bottle and the roll-book with its blue cover, now sadly faded and its leaves turned up with age, to serve as Gordon's epitaph, when all his other deeds have perished in oblivion.

* * * * *

There is perhaps nothing that has made so many friendships as a big row, or the prospect of one. We always feel in sympathy with people whose aims are identical with our own, and the principals in some big row or escapade cannot help being bound close together by common ties. A mutual danger has brought together many ill-assorted pairs, and among others it showed Gordon and Rudd that they had something in common with one another. Gordon had always looked upon Rudd as a guileless ass who was no good at games, did nothing for the House, and was only useful as the universal provider of cribs. But after the Pack Monday Fair incident Gordon saw that there was in Rudd a something which, if not exactly to be admired, came very near it. It was a daring thing to challenge anyone who was willing to come to the fair with him, and he had not shown the slightest wish to back out of his agreement. Gordon decided to make his better acquaintance, and in the process was brought face to face with another fresh character, a type that was to set before him different aims and standards. For Gordon was sharp enough to see more or less below the surface. Rudd was a new type to him. It was clear that he had some merits, especially pluck; and yet he was no good at games, and, what was more extraordinary, did not seem in the least worried about his failures. Gordon had always pitied those who could not scrape into the Thirds.

"Poor devils!" he used to say in the arrogance of his own self-satisfaction. "I expect they tried just as much as we did. And it must be pretty awful for them to realise that they are no real use at games at all."

He had never thought it possible that anyone with the slightest claims to respectability could be quite indifferent to athletic success. But Rudd was, after all, a presentable fellow, and yet he did not mind in the least.

It was all very strange.

Only by trying to see the points of view of others do we get any real idea of the trend of human thought. It is quite useless to start life with fixed standards, and try to bring everyone to realise their virtues. We must have some standard, it is true, or we should be as rudderless boats; but it is of paramount importance that our standards should be sufficiently elastic to include new movements; and not until we have tried and weighed in the balance, and considered and sifted the philosophies of others, should we attempt to form a philosophy for ourselves.

By nature Gordon was arrogant and self-satisfied; but by meeting types different from himself and in their company gaining glimpses of goals other than his own, his character was undoubtedly broadened, his horizon extended, and he managed to get things into better proportion.

For several people just at this time were influencing Gordon. But none more so than Ferrers. Ever since the Stoics debate Gordon had become a profound admirer of the new master, who had banged into the cloistered Fernhurst life, bubbling over with the ideas of the rising generation, intolerant of prejudice and tradition, clamorous for reform. It was a great sight to see him walking about the courts. He was nearly always dressed the same, in his blue woollen waistcoat, soft collar and serge suit. He never walked anywhere without at least two books under his arm. He was recognisable at once. If a stranger had glanced round the courts in break, and had been asked afterwards if any of the masters had attracted his attention, he might perhaps have mentioned "the Bull's" powerful roll; with a smile he might have remarked on the prelatical Rogers, stalking like Buckingham "half in heaven." There were six or seven he might have noticed, but there was only one person whom he must have seen, whom he could not possibly have failed to pick out immediately, and that was Ferrers. Personality was written on every feature of his face, every movement was typical of youthful vigour and action. His half-contemptuous swing suggested a complete scorn of everything known before 1912. He was the great god of Gordon's soul, greater even than Lovelace major had been, far greater than Meredith.

As he sat listening to Finnemore discussing artistic questions in form, he felt wildly impatient to hear Ferrer's opinion. Nothing seemed settled definitely until Ferrers had spoken, and only the Army and Matriculation classes had the tremendous advantages of doing English with him. Most of Ferrer's time was wasted in attempts to drive home mathematical theories into the dense brain of a lower school set.

As to his influence in the school there could be no two opinions. The bloods, of course, were too completely settled in their grooves of Philistinism and self-worship to feel the force of innovation. But even on a mild character like Foster's his effect was startling. Ferrer's great theory was: "Let boys take their own time. The adage that it does a boy good to do what he hates may be all right for the classics, but it is no good to try that game with literature. Find out what a boy likes. Encourage him, show you are in sympathy with his taste, and once in his confidence gradually lead him step by step to the real stuff. He will follow you, if you only make out you like what he likes. A boy hates the superior attitude of 'Oh, quite good in its way, of course.' A master must get to the boy's level; it is fatuous to try and drag the boy to his at once." And there is abundant proof to show that this plan was a success. When Ferrers first came, Foster, for example, read nothing but Kipling and Guy Boothby. During his last term Gordon found him absorbed in Vanity Fair and The Duchess of Malfi. It would be difficult to over-estimate the good Ferrers did at Fernhurst. From afar Gordon worshipped him. He learnt from Foster what Ferrers had read to his form and what he recommended them to read, and as soon as he could he borrowed or bought the book. The school book-shop about this time began to find in Gordon its most generous patron. At times Gordon would tell Foster to ask Ferrers questions that interested him. And the answers, usually a little vague and elastic, spurred Gordon on to fresh fields. His taste was beginning to grow, and football "shop" was no longer his only topic of conversation.



CHAPTER IV: THIRDS

There was only one thing that at all worried Gordon just now, and that was the behaviour of the Hazlitt brethren. Mention has already been made of this couple. During their first few terms they gave every promise of developing into the very worst types that banality and athletic success can produce, and these expectations had been abundantly fulfilled. The elder brother had his points, but they were few, the chief one being that he was fairly good at games, which, after all, is but a negative quality. But the younger, who was as useless as he was generally officious, was entirely devoid of any redeeming feature. His ways were the ways of a slum child playing in the gutter, and his sense of humour was limited to shouting rude remarks after other people, knocking off hats, and then running away. His language was foul enough to disgust even a Public School's taste. Gordon loathed him. One evening he and Lovelace discussed the child.

"Look here," said Gordon, "it's no good, this. That unutterable little tick Hazlitt knocked off my hat as I was looking at the notice-board to-day, and I am not going to stand it. By the time I had turned round he was half-way across the courts."

"The little swine! He is not fit to be in a decent school. If he can't get rid of the habits he learnt with street cads in the holidays of his own accord, he'll have to be kicked out of them. We will wait for him one day, and if we see him knock a School House straw off, my God, we will boot him to blazes!"

"Right you are. It won't be bullying. It will be treating a dirty beast in the only way he can understand."

About three days later, from their study window, they saw Hazlitt minor proceeding to the notice-board after lunch. They left their study and walked into the cloisters.

Hazlitt minor read the notices, discovered that, as he was posted on no game, he must of necessity take himself to the "pick-up," and then looked round. Davenham was conscientiously perusing a notice, although there was no likelihood of his own name appearing on any. (It is almost true to say that nobody looked at the board except the people about whom there are no notices to read.) There was an announcement four days old to the effect that C.J. Mansell had been presented with his First Fifteen colours. Davenham seemed to find it vastly interesting. Hazlitt stole up behind, and knocked his hat flying across the cloister. In a second Gordon and Lovelace were on him. They did not care in the very least what happened to Davenham. He played no part in their life. But a School House man had been "cheeked" by a filthy little outhouse swab. These aliens had to be taught their place.

"What do you mean by that, you awful tick?" shouted Lovelace. "Davenham, go and fetch a hockey stick from Tester's study."

Hazlitt let out with his feet and caught Gordon on the ankle, but the horrible hack he got in return quieted him.

Davenham appeared with a hockey stick.

Gordon managed to get Hazlitt's head between his knees, and Lovelace began to give that worthy a beating he was never likely to forget. In a few minutes he was blubbering for mercy. Fletcher passed by.

"Here you are, Archie," yelled Gordon; "come and have a shot at this swine Hazlitt; we are teaching him that he can't go about knocking off School House hats with impunity."

"Right you are, my lads."

By the time Archie had finished, Hazlitt had almost collapsed. Gordon let him go, and with a hefty boot sent him flying into the cloisters.

"I don't think we shall have any more of him for a bit," said Lovelace, with satisfaction.

"No; these outhouse lads want showing their place from time to time. The School House, after all, is the place. We are like Rome, the mother city; the other outhouses are merely provinces of ours. Jolly good of us to let them use our buildings at all. Come and change; we have done a good deed, my friends."

But the matter did not end there. That evening in Buller's dormitories Hazlitt told a story of how Caruthers had been bullying him for no reason, and hacking him till he could hardly sit down. He left out Lovelace's name, because Lovelace was popular with the Buller's crowd. News of this reached Felston, the second prefect. He fumed with rage, and sought Gregory, the Buller's house captain.

"Have you heard the latest? That swine Caruthers has been bullying Hazlitt. He drove him all round the cloisters, hitting him with a hockey stick."

"Good God, the swine! Did he really! My word, I'll lay him out in the Three Cock. You wait, that's all. When he plays in the Three Cock, I'll lay him out for dead in the first ten minutes."

In due course this story found its way to the Buller's day-room, where was great rejoicing. So Caruthers was going to be laid out, was he? How damned funny! Hazlitt's heart leapt within him. His evil little mind pictured Gordon being carried off the field, absolutely smashed up. He gloated.

Gordon laughed when he heard of it.

"Oh, well, at any rate I shall have my shot at them first in the Thirds and Two Cock."

He was secretly rather pleased to see that even his enemies had not the slightest doubt about his getting a place in the Three Cock. A House cap was just then his great ambition. But for all that he suffered considerable annoyance. Whenever he went up to the tuck-shop a voice from the Buller's doorway croaked: "Wait for the Three Cock!"

At first it was rather amusing. But soon it got distinctly tiresome. Deep in his heart he cursed the tick Hazlitt and the whole Buller crowd. A joke could be carried to an extreme. And it slowly dawned on him that, if he did play in the Three Cock, he was in for a remarkably thin time.

Almost the last words he heard as the eight-forty swept out of Fernhurst station on the last morning, with its waving hands and shoutings, was a shriek from the Buller's day-room: "Wait for the Three Cock!" Gordon laughed for a second, and then looked bored. The jest had ceased to have a shred of humour left upon it. It was naked and ought to be ashamed.

The Easter term opened in the conventional way with rain, slush and influenza. The fields were flooded, the country a lake; the bare branches dripped incessantly. But for all that the first round of the Thirds began on the first Saturday.

Buller's drew Rogers's. There was no doubt as to the result. It would be a walk-over for Buller's, though Burgoyne might get over the line once or twice.

There was a crowd in front of the pavilion.

"Well, do something, at any rate," said Gordon. "Don't let Buller's get above themselves. You keep them in order."

"Oh yes, we'll sit on them!" laughed Burgoyne. "By the way, I think it would be rather a good scheme to lay out Hazlitt minor, don't you?"

Never did any forward in any house match at Fernhurst take the field without the sworn intention of laying out some hated opponent. Nevertheless during the whole time Gordon was at school only one boy was hurt so badly that he had to leave the field. And that was an accident. He broke his collar-bone, falling over by the goal-posts. It had become almost a custom to state whom you were going to lay out before the match. The idea sounds brutal, but it never led to anything. Gordon knew this as well as anyone.

"Good man! And look here, if you do, I'll give you a bob."

"A bargain?"

"Of course."

"Right, my lad. We will have a good supper to-night in my study."

The match followed the ordinary course. Frenzied juniors rushed up and down the touch-line inarticulate with excitement; the bloods, strolling arm in arm, patronised the game mildly. Buller's won very easily. Hazlitt played quite decently and scored once. Burgoyne went supperless.

The second and third rounds were played; everywhere Buller's triumphed. No house was beaten by less than forty points. Not a try was scored against them. Christy's, who had lost by forty-four points to nil, had, as the least unsuccessful house, the doubtful honour of joining forces with Buller's to play the School House in the final.

The betting was fairly even. Buller's thought they would win; the House, as usual, was certain of victory. The school expected a level game, and on the whole wanted to see a School House win. Buller's had had too much success of late years; and envy was inevitably at work.

The selection of the combined outhouse side caused a lot of consideration. There was once an idea of playing Hazlitt minor, but much to the annoyance of the House this plan was, from the outhouse point of view, wisely dropped. And now Jack Whitaker—he was always known as Jack—enters the story.

Jack was a very decent sort of kid, much (in the School House estimation) above the standard of Buller's day-room. He was a little rowdy and ostentatious, but had the justification of being really good at something. He was a promising half-back, and his cricket was so good that there was talk of his getting a trial for the School Eleven. Gordon and he got on rather well. But he was very young; under fifteen, in fact, and very impetuous.

About a week before the Thirds "the Bull" was discussing the match in the dormitories. Jack was very full of words.

"I say, sir, isn't it awfully lucky for Hazlitt that he is not playing?"

"The Bull" was surprised. Only that evening he had been talking with Hazlitt, and telling him how sorry he was that there was no place for him in the side.

"Why, Jack? I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, well, you see, sir, all the School House fellows had sworn to lay him out!"

"You must not talk like that, Jack. It is not sporting. And it stirs up ill feeling in the school. You can't honestly believe that any gentleman would play a game in that spirit. You have no proof of what you say except mere rumour, I suppose. You mustn't talk like that."

"The Bull" was not at all pleased, and walked away to turn out the light. Whitaker saw he had gone too far and had said more than he meant to. But he couldn't stand the idea that "the Bull" should think he had been repeating merely idle chatter.

"But, sir, I know for certain that in the Christy's match the School House men were offering money to Christy's to lay Hazlitt out."

Buller stopped with his hand on the gas-tap.

"That is a very serious accusation, Jack. Are you telling me that any Fernhurst boys so lack sportsmanlike feeling as to bribe boys in other houses to lay out their rivals, so that it will be easier for them to win."

"Oh, sir, I don't think that they meant that."

"Well, you said it, at any rate."

The gas went out suddenly. "The Bull" strode out without saying good-night. In his study he turned over in his mind the extraordinary story he had heard. If what Jack had told him was the truth, Fernhurst football, which was to him, and to many others, the finest thing in the world, had become little better than league professionalism. Bribes were being offered for men to be laid out. He had never heard of such a thing. There was no one to remind him that the offering of bribes means little to a schoolboy, and the mere talk of "laying people out" still less. It is all a question of custom, of the sense in which phrases are used by the particular speakers who use them.

There are certain words which to-day are vulgar and disgusting, but which in the days of Shakespeare would have been used in any company without a blush. And this is so merely because time has given the words a different significance. Indeed, from the point of view of the average person, to leave schoolmasters out of the question, the idea of offering bribes to lay out athletes is revolting. And so it is. It is unsportsmanlike, unworthy of English traditions. But when Gordon offered Burgoyne a shilling to lay out Hazlitt, although he said it was a bargain, he meant nothing at all by his offer. He knew that Burgoyne, once he got on the field, could think of nothing but the game, and would forget all about Hazlitt and himself. Everyone offered bribes, but no one had been known to receive a penny of them. Still, Buller could not be expected to know this. He saw in the affair a menace to the future of Fernhurst sport. Jack's story might be only idle chatter, or it might have some foundation. At any rate he had got to go to the bottom, and sift out the truth for the good of Fernhurst.

After evening chapel on the Sunday before the match the Chief sent for Gordon; when Gordon arrived he found Harding, the head of the House, there too. The Chief looked worried. There was a row in prospect. Gordon racked his brain to think of anything that could possibly have been found out about him. Of course there were many old troubles that might have been raked up. He had always realised that the hand of the past would still be near the shoulder of the present. Yet, what had he been doing recently?

"Isn't Hazelton coming, Harding?" The Chief was speaking.

"Yes, sir; but I believe he is collecting chapel cards."

Hazelton too. Complications, forsooth. There was an awkward pause. Then Hazelton came in, quite at his ease.

"Sir, the chapel cards; and I believe you wanted to see me, sir?"

"Ah, yes, Hazelton; put the cards on my desk. Now, Caruthers, I want to ask you a question before the head and captain of the House that I hope you will answer truthfully. Did you offer a boy in Mr Christy's house money to 'lay out,' I believe that was the phrase, a boy in Mr Buller's house in the recent house match."

Gordon thought for a moment. Had he? It was quite likely he had; but he could not remember. Then the scene came back. The crowd in front of the pavilion. Burgoyne: Hazlitt in the offing.

"Yes, sir," he replied, after the instant's hesitation.

"You seem rather doubtful about it."

"Well, sir, I was trying to remember whether I had or not."

The Chief was nettled by such apparent callousness.

"You talk as if you were in the habit of offering such rewards. Are you?"

"Well, sir, it is the sort of thing any fellow might do."

"That is neither here nor there. I doubt the truth of your statement very much. But even if the school had become so generally demoralised as you suggest, that would not be any excuse for you. As a matter of fact, how much did you offer the boy?"

"A shilling, sir."

"Was that a genuine offer, now? If he had done what you wanted him to, would you have paid him?"

Gordon was now well out of his depth. Explanation seemed impossible. Had the offer been genuine? He supposed it had. If the tick had been laid out, Gordon would have been so delighted that he would have stood the whole of Christy's drinks all round.

"Yes, sir," he said quite cheerfully.

A smile that rose to Hazelton's lips was instantly suppressed.

"Ah! rather like hiring assassins in the cheap novelettes. What was your idea? Did you think Hazlitt would have been a help to the School side?"

"No, sir. I hardly think he would have been of much assistance to them."

The idea of Hazlitt being of any use to anyone was very amusing. Gordon always saw the funny side of everything. As a ghost, he would probably have found something cynically amusing in his own funeral.

"Then you did it merely out of spite, I suppose. Do you consider that the football field is a suitable opportunity for the paying-off of old scores?"

Now, suppose Gordon had poured out the story of how Felston had sworn to lay him out in the Three Cock, and how Hazlitt and others had flung the words "Three Cock" into his face for half a term, it would have been certainly an extenuation. But he realised that Hazelton was present. It would not be the proper thing, it would indeed be unpardonable cheek, for him to talk in the presence of the House captain as though his chances of playing in the Three Cock were to be taken for granted. It would be madness to imperil his chances on the football field, merely because he wanted an excuse for a silly little row.

And so he did not answer.

"Well, Caruthers, I sha'n't want you any more. Thank you for being so frank in the matter. As far as I can see, it is the only extenuating circumstance. Harding, Hazelton, one minute."

Gordon returned to the studies amused rather than disconcerted. He quite saw that the Chief, with his high ideals, would refuse to allow two blacks to make a white, even if that black were of the grey-black shade of which colour boys were allowed to get their school suits made, and which produced anything from light grey to dark brown. He understood and respected the Chief's point of view entirely. But with "the Bull" he was furious. No one but "the Bull" could have reported him; and, "the Bull" after all, was an old Fernhurstian. He knew the school customs, and unless his memory was decaying, must have remembered the wild way in which boys boast. He must have known it; but "for the sake of Fernhurst," Buller would say, "this leprosy has to be rooted out." Gordon began to wonder whether it was really a love of Fernhurst that was his standard for all actions, or simply a supreme egotism, which embraced alternately his own interest, his house's interest, and Fernhurst's interest, but never, under any circumstances, never the School House interest!

Hazelton thought much the same. At the Chief's request he made a characteristic speech to the House after prayers.

"Someone who imagines himself a sportsman, and who refuses to disclose his name, but whose identity we can only guess at, has been making some silly remarks about certain play and behaviour in the House. Of course that is all rot. But people have strange ideas, especially those in authority, and we have to be very careful. So for heaven's sake don't go shouting out that you are going to lay everyone out. It only means a row, and, after all, you can do it just as well without talking about it."

There was a roar of laughter; the old system survived.

Next morning in break Gordon passed Buller on his way to the tuck-shop. "The Bull" cut him dead.

The day after, the Chief having made up his mind on the matter, told Gordon that his Sixth Form privileges had been taken away.

Before a large crowd, in full view of Chief's study window, Gordon that afternoon burnt his straw hat with the Sixth form ribbon on it, and stood over the smouldering ashes proclaiming in tragic tones: "The glory has departed from Israel." His old passion for a theatrical piece of rodomontade was not yet subdued.

* * * * *

For a short time Gordon was rather worried about "l'affaire Hazlitt," as Tester called it. But he soon forgot it entirely in the excitement of the approaching match. Everyone talked about it; there was no other topic of conversation. The night before the match Lovelace could not sit still for a minute. He strode up and down the study murmuring to himself: "We can't lose; we can't; we can't!" Someone looked in to ask if he was going to prepare the Livy.

"Livy?" he gasped. "Who could do any work the night before a house match?"

The someone retired discomforted.

"You know it's absurd," Lovelace went on, "for a master to imagine anyone could do work when the house matches are on. The other day Claremont had me up and asked me why my work had been so bad lately. I told him that the house matches were so exciting that I could not concentrate my mind on anything else. He looked at me vacantly and said: 'Well, are they really? I don't know whom they excite; they don't excite me.'"

"Dear old poseur; he's keen enough on his own house," Gordon answered drowsily from the depths of the hammock, in which he had almost fallen asleep. He felt incapable of thought. For weeks he had looked forward to the match, and now it was so close he felt strangely languorous, tired in brain and body.

Rain fell steadily all night, and though it cleared off about break, the ground was already under water. It was a cold, gusty day.

By lunch the whole House was unbalanced. There was much loud laughter, then sudden silences; an atmosphere of restlessness lay over everyone. Very slowly the minutes dragged by. Gordon sat silent in a far corner of the pavilion. At last the whistle blew, the magenta and black jerseys trailed out on to the field. A cheer rose from the line.

The next hour passed in a whirl of white jerseys, gradually turned black with mud, of magenta forms dashing on to the School forwards, of wild, inarticulate black insects bawling on the touch-line. The pervading impression was mud. Everything was mud; he was mud, the ball was mud. Lovelace was indistinguishable. His own voice leading the scrum seemed strangely unreal. There was a vague feeling of disquiet when, early in the first half, he found himself standing under the posts, while the Buller's half placed the ball for Whitaker to convert. Nothing tangible; then the disquiet passed, the magenta jerseys swept forward, dirty white forms came up and went down before them. Morgan rolled over the line. A kick failed. Half-time came, Hazelton came on, and said a lot of things to him, which he answered unconsciously.

A whistle blew. Once more the magenta jerseys swept everything before them. There seemed no white jerseys at all. Numberless times he watched Lovelace taking the place kick. He thought he heard Mansell shrieking: "Heave it into them! Well done! Now you've got them!" Once he had a sensation of kicking the ball past the halves; he seemed clear, the full-back rushed up and fell in front of him, the ball stopped for a second, then rolled on. He heard someone coming up behind him; the line grew dimly white under his feet; he fell on the ball; there was a roar of cheering. The whistle went in short, sharp blasts. The game was over.

And then he realised that the House had won, that his hopes were satisfied, that the Buller crowd had been routed, that the cup would shimmer on the mantelpiece. A wave of wild exultation came over him. The House poured over the touch-line, yelling and shouting. It was all "a wonder and a wild desire."

Then came the glorious reaction, "the bright glory of after battle wine." The tea in the tuck-shop. They were out of training. Then the perfect laziness of lying full-length in his hammock, talking of the splendid victory. Then came the House tea. It was much like the Roman triumph. The whole House sat in their places ten minutes before six. Tablecloths were removed; everyone took down heavy books, boots, sticks. Then when the Abbey struck six, Lovelace led the side into hall, up to the dais, to the Sixth Form table. Everyone shouted, roared, beat the tables. Dust arose. It was very hard to breathe. The Chief came and made a speech. There was more shouting, more shrieking, more beating of tables.

At last hall came with its gift of real rest. Gordon lay in the hammock, Lovelace reposed with his feet on the table. Everyone came in to congratulate them. Hazelton invited them in second hall to supper in the games study; the gramophone played rag-time choruses. Gordon sang all of them. Everyone was gloriously, unutterably happy.

Meredith sent a wire: "Well done, House: now for the Two Cock."

In the dormitory Hazelton was talking over the match.

"By Jove, when that side is the Three Cock, we shall win by fifty points. Lord, I do envy you, Caruthers! You will see the day, and be in at the finish. I shall only shout from the touch-line." And he added: "My God, I shall shout, too."

There was nothing to mar the extreme joyousness of life. The world lay at Gordon's feet. He had only to stoop to pick it up.



CHAPTER V: DUAL PERSONALITY

The Two Cock was always played a fortnight after the Thirds, and during that fortnight the outhouses had to play off among themselves three preliminary rounds. For them it was a remarkably strenuous time. The two best outhouses sides had, in fact, to play four house matches in twelve days. But it was possible for the School House to take things easily for at least half a week. And these three days out of training meant a lot to Gordon and others, who would have to play not only in the Two Cock, but most probably in the Three Cock as well. It prevented staleness; and staleness was the great danger that all outhouse sides had to face.

The week after the Thirds was regarded as a fairly slack time before the strenuous week that culminated in the Two Cock. There would probably be only one game—on the Saturday; and that a short quarter-of-an-hour-each-way affair. It was usually a quite uneventful time. This term, however, an occurrence took place that had a big effect on the growth of Gordon's character.

Finnemore had caught influenza; the Chief had to go for a week to Oxford. The Sixth was at a loose end. Various masters took it in various subjects, or at least were supposed to. Most of the week was spent in the studies, as the master in charge forgot to turn up.

One afternoon, Ferrers was to take them in English. But Ferrers was engaged in writing an article on the "New Public School Boy" for The Cornhill Magazine, and wanted to be quiet. He sent the form to their studies to write an essay on a typical Ferrers subject: "Poetry is in the first instance the outpouring of a rebel." It had to be shown up by six o'clock.

Gordon revelled in it. During the long afternoon he poured out his fierce soul. His life was now a strange paradox. Half the time he thought of poetry, worshipping any sort of rebellion against the conventional standards of living. At other times he was like the ordinary Philistine, blindly worshipping games, never seeing that they led nowhere, and were as a blind alley. This afternoon Gordon forgot everything but Swinburne, Byron, Rossetti, and the poets of revolt. He stigmatised Wordsworth as a doddering old man, not knowing that his return to nature was the greatest revolution in English literature. In a text-book he saw Shelley described as a rebel. He got a copy of his works out of the library, but found little there resembling the work of his own favourite. However, he quoted a verse out of O World, O Life, O Time! and decided to search more deeply later on. The bulk of the essay was a glowing eulogy of The Hymn to Proserpine and Don Juan. It was very dogmatic, very absurd in parts, but it had the merit of enthusiasm, and, at any rate, showed a genuine appreciation of a certain class of literature.

Well satisfied, he made his way across to the Sixth Form room, and found Ferrers gazing at a pile of papers, as Hercules must have gazed at the Augean stables.

"Um," said Ferrers, "who are you?"

"Caruthers, sir. I have brought you the essay you set the Sixth."

"Right; let's have a look at it; hope it is better than the stuff I have just been reading."

"Yes, yes, um—ah," he murmured to himself, as he read on. There was clearly some hankering after style, some searching for an idea. Ferrers dearly wanted to smile at the attack on Wordsworth, and the comparison between Swinburne and Milton (whom Gordon had never read), all in favour of the Pre-Raphaelite. But he knew that it would be a fatal thing to do; it would seem superior; the master must come down to the boy's level. He read on to the end of the wild, sprawling peroration.

"Not bad stuff, Caruthers, not bad at all. Far and away better than anything I have so far struck. I must talk to you again about this; I am glad you love Byron; I do myself; people run him down—fools, that is. You stick to Byron, he is all right. And don't despise the rest too much. Have a shot at Keats and Shelley. They are not so powerful, but good all the same, very fine stuff.... Try The Pot of Basil. Must rush off now. Are you in training? No! Not yet. Right. Come up to tea to-morrow. Good-night."

And thus began a friendship that was the most permanent in Gordon's school career.

Every Friday he used to climb up the hill past Rogers's house, and step out down the white London road to Ferrers's cosy little home. Over a cup of tea he read an essay. Ferrers would lie back listening, and then discuss it with him. He sometimes blamed the actual expression of it, but he never found fault on questions of taste. He let Gordon browse at will in the fields of English literature; he suggested books he thought Gordon would like; he did not try to rush him on. There was heaps of time; he would let Gordon develop on his own lines.

From these evenings Gordon derived a pleasure that he found it hard to explain. He was thankful to get away from the footer talk, the inevitable intrigues, scandals, all in fact that went to form the daily curriculum. The world of ideas was far more attractive. Ferrers, although himself a quarter-mile Blue, looked upon games as a recreation, and upon school life as a mud-heap that had to be washed clean. Poetry, drama, the modern novel, these were what Ferrers loved; and Gordon was glad to find someone who thought like this. He felt uplifted after his talks with Ferrers, he walked back to the House buoyant, as it were on wings. Then as the school gates rose before him, and he heard the sound of a football bouncing in the court, the old routine caught him once more. He plunged into the old life with the same zest. He devised a new scheme for avoiding work, thought out an idea for teaching forwards to heel, laughed, discussed athletics and was well content. He tried to analyse his feelings, but could not. He was now two separate persons. At times he was the dreamer, the lover of art and poetry; at another the politician, the fighter who lived every minute of his life deeply to the full, with one fixed aim before him. Gordon wondered if this apparent paradox in himself was in any way an answer of the enigma that an artist's life so frequently was utterly different from the broad outlines of his work. Browning had talked of a man having "two soul-sides." Had he two soul-sides, one for the world, the other for art—and Ferrers? But then Browning had spoken contemptuously of the "one to face the world with." Surely games were as good as poetry? Or weren't they, after all? He felt an unanswerable doubt, and at such times of introspection he would stop trying to think and merely let himself be carried on in whatever course fortune chose to bear him. And so the Jekyll and Hyde business went on.



CHAPTER VI: THE GAMES COMMITTEE

In the mud and the rain the School House Two Cock team, coming up early from a puntabout, joined the crowd watching the last stages of the Buller's v. Claremont's house match, and cheered Claremont's to the echo. It was a remarkably fine game. When "no side" was called, the score was nine all. Extra time was played, and just before the close, amid great enthusiasm, a limping Claremont's forward fell over the line from the line out. None shouted louder than the School House contingent. Everyone had grown tired of the Buller's domination. They had been successful too long. For two years they had not lost a single house match. The Thirds had been their first reverse; but even then they had triumphed over all their outhouse opponents. This was the first occasion, since Gordon had been at Fernhurst, that the Buller's colours had been lowered by an outhouse side. It signified the breaking up of their rule. Gordon shouted like the Vengeance following the tumbrils. He roared loudly under "the Bull's" nose, stamped off the field to tea, without a thought of the effect that his demonstration might have had upon "the Bull" himself.

As it happened, to "the Bull" the incident meant a lot.

"What is the reason of it?" he said to Felston that evening. "How have I made these School House men, and especially Caruthers, hate me? They seem to delight in the defeat of my house. Of course, I can understand their wanting their house to beat mine, but why should they worry so much about Claremont's doing so? I can't understand it; and Caruthers will be leading the school scrum in two years. We must not have bad feeling between the houses. Honest rivalry is all right; but there seems so much spite about it all nowadays. It was not so when I was a boy, and it wasn't so three years ago. I don't understand."

A climax was reached in the Two Cock, a match rendered famous in Fernhurst history by the amazing refereeing of a new master named Princeford, who had come as a stop-gap for one term. The match was played in the mud and slush, and was entirely devoid of incident. The play rolled from one end of the ground to the other. Archie performed prodigies of valour; Gordon did some brilliant things; Collins was quite fierce; but good football was impossible under the circumstances. Early in the first half, amid tremendous cheering, Lovelace scored a fine try, by the touch-line. There was no doubt about it. The school lined up behind the posts. But Princeford would have none of it. He came up, fussing and important:

"No try, there. Knock on. Scrum!"

A gasp went up from both sides. Was the man blind?

"What is the fool talking about?" thundered Gordon.

Princeford was round in a second: "Who said that?"

Gordon stepped forward.

"Ah, I shall remember you."

The game continued; the outhouses amazed at such luck; the School House sullen and indignant. The play developed into a series of forward rushes resulting in nothing. It was an amazingly dull game to watch. From one of these rushes Gordon got clear; the full-back fell on the ball, Gordon took a huge kick at the ball. One had to kick hard on such a sticky ground. He missed the ball, and caught the back on the side of the head.

"Oh, damned sorry," he said.

It was quite unintentional, as would have been obvious to anyone who knew anything about the game. No one would be fool enough to kick the man, when by kicking the ball he might score a try. But Princeford was on Gordon like a shot. He began to lecture him before all the masters on unsportsmanlike play, and threatened to send him off the field. Gordon glowered at him. It was a combat of temperaments. The game resulted in a draw. No try was scored. It was a dull performance, occasionally relieved by individual brilliance. Everyone was disappointed.

Sullen and silent, the House side trooped up to tea. They had won the match, of that there was no doubt. And they had been done out of their victory.

The limit was reached when, muddy and cold, they found that the new boot-boy had forgotten to heat the boiler, and there was only cold water to wash in.

The changing-room was filled with the sound of oaths and curses.

But when the effects of Princeford's refereeing and the boot-boy's forgetfulness had worn off slightly, the House felt more content. After all, they had not been beaten. They had got the cup for half the year at any rate. Things might be worse. And when in hall that night Hazelton gave him his House cap, all Gordon's rage was overwhelmed by the feeling that his dearest object had been achieved. The boot-boy was forgiven; Princeford faded into the background of insignificance from which he had temporarily emerged.

But the matter did not end there: other fingers were itching to be in the pie. Christy and Rogers, walking up from the field together, came to the conclusion that that incorrigible nuisance Caruthers had disgraced Fernhurst football. Princeford was a master from Sedbury; he had only come for one term as a special concession, because his headmaster was a great friend of the Chief. What sort of an impression would he carry away of Fernhurst manners and sportsmanship, if Caruthers should be allowed to go unpunished, not only for playing a deliberately foul game, but also for using most foul language? And so these two, neither of whom knew anything about football, while both were immensely aware of their own importance, made their way to "the Bull's" study to pour out their grievances. "The Bull" was laid up with influenza, and had been prevented from watching the match. They found him lying on his sofa. For over an hour they elaborated the tale of Gordon's misconduct.

They pointed out that the object of house matches was to promote a keenness in school football, and to provide interest for those who were not good enough to get into the school team. The School House had for years during the Easter term isolated itself from the rest of the school. It had considered itself as apart, a school in itself. Such an attitude militated against esprit de corps; it made the house appear more important than the school. It led to bad feeling between houses. In Caruthers were developed all the worst faults of this system. His keenness for his house had so far drowned his affection for his school that he used any tactics to reach his end. He took defeat in an unsportsmanlike manner. This afternoon's play had made this clear. And what was worst of all was that Caruthers had a sufficient personality to attract others. "Moths are always attracted by the flame," said Rogers pompously. If Caruthers were dealt with effectively at once, this poisonous School House notion of its own importance would collapse. Was it going to be put an end to? That was the question they put to Mr Buller; and they took over an hour in putting it.

"The Bull" listened to all they had to say, and as soon as they began repeating themselves, and he realised they had given all the information they could, told them he had now to dress for dinner, but that he would consider the matter carefully and let them know his opinion later on. Like two obsequious courtiers before an Eastern monarch, Rogers and Christy bowed themselves out, inarticulate with advice and last words.

"The Bull" smiled. He was too big a man to be taken in by such obvious hypocrisy. These men amused him greatly, especially because they both thought he took them seriously. But, for all that, he saw that there was a good deal of truth in what they had said. He wished he had been at the game himself. It was so hard to form an estimate on the strength of partial onlookers. Princeford's refereeing might have been exasperating; but, damn it, even if it had, a sportsman should not make a fuss about it! It was all part of the game. But Caruthers did not treat a House match as a game, but as the real business of life. That was what rankled. Caruthers would laugh when he dropped a catch in a Colts match, or missed his collar on the upper; but in a House match his face would be set, his eyes wide and eager. Humour had for the moment ceased to exist, as far as he was concerned. He clearly preferred his house to his school. Was he stirring up any feeling between the outhouses and the School House? He remembered an occasion terms back when Gordon in a House game had shouted out: "Let the swine have it." Then, again, there was that affair of bribing Burgoyne to lay out one of his men. And then the incident this afternoon. Outwardly he was doing his very best to separate the interests of his house from those of the school, to split Fernhurst into two factions. But supposing, after all, these were merely outward signs, supposing Gordon's excessive keenness, coupled with the rash hotheadedness of youth, led him where his cooler judgment would have checked him. If that were so, and if strong measures were taken, might not his keenness change into a hatred of Fernhurst, might it not lead him to open antagonism with the rest of the school? Punishment might merely inflame and not crush him, while if his feelings were only the natural effervescence of youth, they would wear down in time, and then all would be well. Yet he realised that it is the things which show that count in this world, a man is judged not by what he is, but by what he appears to be. Everything pointed to the belief that Gordon was working against the interests of Fernhurst; whether he actually meant to do so or not was immaterial. He had to be dealt with as if it was deliberate. It might be hard on him, but it was not the interests of the individual, but of the community, that had to be considered.

"The Bull" sent for Akerman, the school captain, after chapel on Sunday morning.

"Akerman, I want to speak to you about Caruther's behaviour in the Two Cock yesterday afternoon. Of course, I did not see what happened, but from what I have heard I think measures ought to be taken. It is a serious matter. Light measures are no good. I know Caruthers; you have got to crush him, or he will laugh at you. I think what is required is a thrashing from the Games Committee. He is bound to be awed by the disapproval of a body representing Fernhurst football. I suppose now that the Games Committee wouldn't raise any objection? What about Hazelton?"

"Well, sir, Hazelton went to the matron last night, and they discovered he had got mumps. I just passed him on the way to the sanatorium."

"Um! That means there is no School House representative. There must be one. It would not do for it to appear a school thing, got up against a School House boy. It would only help to alienate the two parties still more. Let's see, who is the next senior man in the School House?"

"Pilcher, sir."

Pilcher was one of those people who, though quite efficient at everything—he was in the Upper Sixth—pass through the school without leaving any mark behind them. He was outside three-quarter, and was well worth his place in the side, but he was in no way a blood. He was never seen. He was always in his study. His was a blameless, uneventful career.

"He won't raise any objection, will he?"

"I shouldn't think so, sir."

Akerman had difficulty in not smiling.

"Very well, then, you had better call a meeting of the Games Committee this afternoon and talk over the matter. If anyone makes a fuss, say I agree with it; and I expect it will be all right."

There was no need, however, for any recourse to the oracle. The Games Committee consisted of the captains of each house. None of them cared the least what happened to Caruthers; he was nothing to them. Pilcher supposed it was all right. The grand remonstrance was passed.

On Monday at twelve-thirty Gordon was summoned by a fag to attend in the school library. The six members of the Games Committee sat around a circular table on which lay two canes. It all looked very impressive.

Akerman rose. He began to read a speech off a piece of school paper. Gordon had wondered why he had been so very energetic in taking down notes during the Chief's divinity lecture that morning. The speech went on. It was full of the inevitable platitudes about esprit de corps and a sportsmanlike spirit. Now and then Akerman stumbled, and had some difficulty in reading his own writing. If there had not hung over him the prospect of a very severe beating, Gordon would have enjoyed himself thoroughly. Akerman was so pricelessly absurd. The rest looked painfully self-conscious. Why could not Akerman have learnt his speech? It was so bad that he could not imagine anyone having any difficulty in making it up as he went along. Akerman was afraid of expressing an opinion. He prefaced every remark with "Mr Buller says." It gave a sense of security. The speech ended; everyone except Gordon was relieved.

"Bend over there."

The beating was not so horrible an ordeal as he had expected. In the same spirit in which the outhouse captains had raised no objection, merely because they did not care in the least what happened to Gordon, so now they did not take any particular trouble to hurt him. The ordeal was rather a fiasco.

A halting oration had led to an even tamer execution. As Gordon walked down the library steps he was painfully aware of having been the principal character in a scene of sustained bathos. The body that represented Fernhurst football had scarcely risen to the dignity of its trust.

* * * * *

And then a sudden wave of feeling swept over him; and he saw the horrible unfairness of the whole thing. It did not matter that Akerman had made himself utterly ludicrous, or that the rest of the Games Committee had been led to carry out a programme which they knew to be hypocritical. It was the spirit that mattered. And at the back of it all moved "the Bull" pulling the strings. In front of the School House porch, clearly, dispassionately, Gordon put his case.

"I know when I play football I get a bit excited; I know my feet fly all over the place. They did that ever since I was a baby. I know I sometimes lose my temper. But I have been like that always. I have played the same game in the Thirds, and in the Colts, my first term and yesterday. But nobody said anything then. Do you remember the Milton match? I went a bit far then: I was fearfully ashamed of myself afterwards; I thought my play had been a disgrace to the school. But did 'the Bull' think so? Good Lord, no. He gave the side a jaw, and said that they were a disgrace to the school, with the exception of me! I played hard and all that, while the rest slacked and funked! I was singled out for praise in the roughest game I have ever played. And now what happens? The House begins to win its matches; 'the Bull' sees his house losing cup after cup. He and Akerman and the other fools think something must be done. So they wait for an opportunity and then give me a Games Committee beating, to try and frighten the rest of the House. They talked about my unsportsmanlike play. They did not mind when I played rough against Milton. Oh dear, no! But when they find their own dirty shins being hacked, they sit up and shriek. And they wait till Hazelton stops out, too!"

Everyone agreed with him. From Dan to Beersheba there was but one opinion. Buller had not been playing the game. The authorities were against them. The House would have to cling together to protect its rights. They could not have Buller trampling on them, dictating terms. He had begun the contest; they would be prepared for him next time. An aura of antagonism overhung the grey studies. Members of Buller's house were dealt with in the sweeping delineation of "the swine across the road." For the rest of the term, every time Princeford passed the School House on his way to the common room, a whistle blew from the dark recesses of the studies, and some voice shouted: "No try; off-side!" "The Bull" himself was looked on with a general suspicion. The inevitable had happened. "The Bull" in his attempt to sacrifice the individual to the community had forgotten that the community is at the mercy of the individual. The world is composed of a number of individuals round whom parties and nations cling. "The Bull" had made an attack on the individual, and the community that Gordon represented took up his attitude of defiance, strengthening his resolve not to give way, to keep the House independent of the tyranny that drew five outhouses together as one. The House was not to be coerced. Its members would be free to think, to do, to speak as they thought best. From that moment Gordon took the interests of the House and not Fernhurst as the standard by which to judge all his thoughts and actions.

And so it happened that just at this moment, when the House was bubbling over with suppressed wrath, a chance was given them of showing their independence and defiance.



CHAPTER VII: REBELLION

On the Wednesday after the Games Committee's activities in the library, Ferrers banged into Betteridge's study, his arms laden with books. There was a Stoics meeting on the next Saturday, and the card drawn up at the beginning of the term announced that there would be a reading of Arms and the Man, by Bernard Shaw. But Ferrers, who was now president, never took any notice of the programme, which he invariably altered a day or two before the meeting. This imposed a considerable strain on those who had to get up fresh parts and prepare different speeches at a second's notice. But as the alterations were nearly always an improvement no one minded.

"Sorry, Betteridge—had to change Stoics' thing. Just picked up this—Younger Generation, by Stanley Houghton—ordered fifteen copies from Sidgwick & Jackson—good publishers. Do you know them? I've marked our parts—here they are—no more time. Good-night."

He was gone in a second. And the unfortunate secretary was left with the lot of distributing copies and drawing up fresh notices. It was just on lock-up, so there was no time to do anything till the next day. He settled himself down to read the play. In a very short while he was thoroughly engrossed; by the time he had reached the end of the first act he had no doubt that Saturday would witness the most successful meeting of the Stoics since the historic occasion when Macdonald and Rogers had been persuaded to speak on opposite sides on "Trade Unionism," and Rogers had been most gloriously routed.

Betteridge went in search of Tester and Gordon.

"Come up to my study and read a play Ferrers has got hold of for the Stoics. It's glorious stuff."

"All right," said Gordon. "I will go and fetch Rudd."

"For God's sake, don't bring that outsider."

"Oh, hell, why not? He is quite respectable; and, after all, he is one of the best of our regular readers."

"All right then: fetch him along."

Since their scandalous ramble Gordon had become more or less friends with Rudd, and had to a large extent helped to make his life more bearable.

The four sat silent, reading the play. There was occasionally a suppressed laugh: otherwise no one spoke at all.

In under an hour they had all finished.

"Jolly good," said Gordon. "I do like seeing this younger generation up against the rotten conventions of the mid-Victorian era."

"Deal gently with them," murmured Betteridge. "Their horsehair arm-chairs have stood the test of time very well."

"Too well: but their Puritan ideas are in the melting-pot now. Their day is over."

"You know I am not sure that the Stoics is the right audience for a play like this," said Tester.

"Good heavens, man," protested Gordon, "you don't think it would corrupt their morals, do you?"

"Of course not, you ass! I don't think they would understand it: that's all. They will laugh at it, and think it funny. But they won't really see what Houghton is driving at. They won't understand that he is trying to cut away the shackles of mature thought that are impeding the limbs of youth. The lads in the Remove will be frightfully amused; they will think the father an awful old fool, and the son the devil of a rip. They won't see that both of them are real characters, and that a hundred families to-day are working out their own little tragedy just on these very lines."

"But surely there are really no fathers quite so absurd as old Kennion. Does not Houghton exaggerate the type, as Dickens exaggerates all his types?"

"Oh no, he's real enough; I expect there are a good many like him living in Fernhurst now."

The truth of the last remark was brought home three days later.

On the Friday before the debate Ferrers got a bad attack of influenza. There would be no one to take the chair. Moved by an instinct of courtesy, Ferrers wrote to Christy a little note, enclosing the book, and asking him to preside.

On Saturday morning Christy went up to Betteridge in break.

"Ah, Betteridge, Mr Ferrers has asked me to take the chair at the Stoics. Well, I myself would not be present when such a play was read. It is aimed at the very roots of domestic morality. It might do very well in a small circle of Senior boys. But it would have a very serious effect on young boys who are not as mature as you or I are. None of my house will attend; and, from a conversation I had with Mr Rogers and Mr Claremont, I am fairly certain they will not allow their houses to go either. It would be really much better to wait until Mr Ferrers is well again before anything is done. It would be quite easy to postpone the meeting, I suppose."

"Oh yes, sir, of course."

Betteridge was not paying much attention: he was thinking hard. The bell for school rang.

"That will be all right then, Betteridge."

"Quite, thank you, sir."

Christy, bubbling with satisfaction, rushed off to tell the head of Buller's that the meeting had been postponed. Things were turning out well for him. He had obtained the beating of Caruthers, and now he had most distinctly scored off Ferrers. He did not stop to think that both these campaigns had been carried on behind his enemy's back.

But in his moment of triumph over Ferrers he did not pause to think whether he had also triumphed over the School House spirit of antagonism which he himself had stirred up.

During the half-hour between morning school and lunch, Betteridge, Tester and Gordon held a council of war.

"Of course, whatever we do," said Betteridge, "is bound to be in the nature of farce. Three houses, you see, won't turn up at all, Abercrombie's hardly ever sends anyone, and I don't mind betting that Christy gets round 'the Bull' somehow."

"Yes; but, confound it all," said Gordon, "are we going to be dictated to by these outhouse potentates? The Stoics is more a School House society than anything else; and, what's more, it is going to remain so. These outhouse men can come or go if they want to. It does not matter to us. Let us read this play with a School House cast, carry the thing through somehow, and show these fools like Christy what we think of them. Now is our chance of proving our independence."

"Won't there be a hell of a row, though?" said Betteridge reluctantly.

"What if there is, man?" said Gordon. "We can't help that. Somehow or other that play is going to be read. Let this evening be a symbol of the House's attitude. These houses have flung down the glove. They beat our forwards when we win matches, and they try and stop our meetings. Damn it, we'll pick up the glove!"

"Yes," shouted Gordon, "and fling it in their snivelling faces."

Betteridge drew up a huge notice of the meeting after hall and posted it on the school board. It ran as follows:

In spite of the fact that many of the usual readers will be prevented from attending the Second Meeting of the Stoics this term, the Society will read, at seven-thirty, in the School House Reading Room,

THE YOUNGER GENERATION

BY STANLEY HOUGHTON

Cast ....

(Signed) C.P. BETTERIDGE.

That evening was historic. Every member of the School House attended the meeting, the members of the day-room as well as those from the studies. The reading-room was packed. It was a record meeting. The reading was erratic. Parts were forced at the eleventh hour on reluctant and totally unsuitable persons. But somehow or other they got through it in the end; and that was all that mattered.

But still it was not without a little nervousness that the conspirators awaited developments. Christy saw the notice and fumed. Ferrers heard of it and laughed. Rogers rushed to the Chief palpitating with rage.

After lunch the Chief sent for Betteridge, and asked for a copy of The Younger Generation. There was an air of nervous anticipation pervading the studies. Just before tea the Chief sent for Betteridge again.

"A very interesting play. Very modern, of course, but extremely clever. Thank you so much for lending it me. I wish I had been at the reading. A record attendance, I hear. Well, ask me to come next time you get as good a play as that."

There was no reference to the outhouse boycott. The Chief was very tactful, and, moreover, he had enjoyed reading the play immensely. Besides, it would not have done any good if he had made a fuss, especially when he was entirely in sympathy with Betteridge.

In The Fernhurst School Magazine, which was edited by Betteridge, there appeared the following paragraph:—

"On Saturday, 5th March, before a record and appreciative audience, the Stoics read The Younger Generation, by Stanley Houghton. There was no one who failed to realise the extraordinary insight into the life of the day that made such a work possible. The enthusiasm and applause were highly significant, as showing what a keen interest the school is taking in all questions of social and domestic life. There were rather fewer representatives from the outhouses than usual, but this was as well, as there would have been little room for them."

The victory of Christy was not so very complete after all.

With this successful demonstration Gordon's excitement in House politics abated.



CHAPTER VIII: THE DAWNING OF MANY DREAMS

The Three Cock came and went, bringing with it House caps for Lovelace, Collins and Fletcher, but it caused little stir. Everyone had foreseen the result, and without Hazelton (ill with mumps) the House stood little chance of keeping the score under fifty. Hostilities were declared closed for the time being. The four weeks of training for the sports came on, and Gordon's Sixth Form privileges were restored. For a short time the hold of athleticism was weakened, and as it weakened, the hold of literature became more firm.

"House Caps" were always allowed a fairly slack time after the Three Cock, and Gordon made the best of his. While the last traces of winter were disappearing, and the evenings began to draw out into long, lingering sunsets, he voyaged on into the unknown waters of poetry. Keats and Shelley, names which had once meant nothing to him, now became his living prophets. He felt his own life coloured by their interpretations. During the days of his quest for power, when the scent of battle had led him on, he had found inspiration only in those whose moods coincided with his own. But now that the contest was over and strife was merged into a temporary lull, there came a check in the fiery search for achievements. He found pleasure in the gentler but far more beautiful melodies of Keats. Byron and Swinburne had beaten so loudly on their drums, and blown so forcibly on the clarion that his ears had been deafened. But in the peaceful afterglow of satisfied desire he asked for soft and quiet music.

During this time he saw a great deal of Ferrers. Together they discussed all the questions that to them seemed most vital. The Public School system came in for a great deal of abuse.

"A lot wants altering," Ferrers said. "Boys come here fresh from preparatory schools. If they are clever and get into higher forms, they are put among bigger boys, and they get their outlook coloured by them. They get wrong impressions shoved into their heads, cease to think at all, lose all sense of honesty and morality. Then the school that has made them like this finds out what they are, and sends them away."

"By Jove, that's just what Jeffries said."

"Jeffries—who is Jeffries? I don't know him."

"He was a splendid fellow; but, like most other people, he followed the crowd, then got caught and had to go."

"That is it; always the same. Usually the least bad are sacked, too; never heard of a real rake getting sent away; the rakes are far too clever. Cleverness is what counts, counts all through life. A man is expelled only because he is not clever enough to avoid being caught, and then the school thinks it's saving the others by sending him away. And it does no good. The big wrong 'un stays on, only the weak one goes. Human nature is a thing that has got to be dealt with carefully, not in the half-hearted way it is here."

Ferrers wrote a great deal about Public Schools to the various London papers. He was fast winning a name in the educational world. But he was always being asked to modify his statements. He raved against the weakness of the authorities.

"They don't want to know the truth," he said, "they are afraid to hear it. 'Tell us lies,' that's what they say. 'Lull us into a false security. A big bust-up is coming soon, but keep it off till after we are gone.' They know their house is built on sand, running out into the river. They want to barricade their own tiny houses for a little. I want to go and search for the big firm land, but they are too comfortable on their cushions and fine linen to dare to move. Oh, prophesy smooth things!"

Gordon listened intently to it all. Ferrers was his ideal. Often they would talk of books: of the modern novel; of Compton Mackenzie, in whom idealism and realism were one; of Rupert Brooke, the coming poet, who was to make men believe in the beauties of this earth, instead of hankering after an immaterial hereafter; of the Elizabethan drama, of Marlowe, Beaumont, Webster. They were very wonderful, those hours. Gordon felt that he had at last, after wandering far, come to his continuing city. Glancing back over his last two years, he used to laugh and say:

"I don't regret them; I was happy; and the only thing to regret is unhappiness. But I have outgrown them; they did not last. They were what Stephen Phillips would number among the 'over-beautiful, quick fading things.' They were good days, though. But I am happier now. I can see the future spreading out before me. Next winter Hunter will be captain, but I shall be second in the team and lead the forwards. It will be a year of preparation. Then will come my year of captaincy. All the things I wanted seem falling into my hands. 'Life is sweet, brother,' life is sweet!"

And, looking back, it seemed as if in the wild orgy of Pack Monday Fair he had finally burnt the old garments and put on the new. That day had been the funeral pyre of his old life; and, like Sardanapalus, it had died of its own free will. A glorious end; no anti-climax. But the future was still more glorious. When he watched the morning sun flicker white on the broad Eversham road from the station to the Abbey, the leaves breaking on the lindens, the dim lights waking in the chapel on Sunday, he saw how far he had outgrown his old self. Now he had begun to perceive what life's aim should be—the search for beauty. Tester had been right when he said that beauty was the only thing worth having, the one ideal time could not tarnish. And yet Tester was not satisfied. The hold of the world was too strong on him. He could see where others were going wrong, but he himself was all astray, at times morbidly wretched, at others hilarious with excitement. It was merely a question of temperament. Gordon saw stretching before him the fulfilment of his hopes. There was no niche for failure. His destiny would unroll smoothly like a great machine; he was at peace, in sympathy with a world of beautiful ideas and dreams. At times he would feel an unreasoning anger with the Public School system, but his rage soon cooled down. After all, it had left him at the last unscathed, and was in the future to bring many gifts. Others might be broken on the wheel; but he was still sufficiently an egoist, sufficiently self-centred to be indifferent to them. He had come through, with luck perhaps, but still he had come through. That was all that mattered. He had not read Matthew Arnold's Rugby Chapel. If he had, he might have recognised himself in the pilgrim who had saved only himself, while the world was full of others, like the Chief, who were "bringing their sheep in their hand." But probably even if he had read the poem at that time, he would have been too happy, too self-contented, too successful to realise its poignant truth. And it would not have been surprising. Youth is always intolerant and self-centred. It is only when we grow old, and see so "little done of all we so gaily set out to do," that we suddenly appreciate that, even if we have ourselves failed, yet if we can by our experience help someone else to succeed, our life will not be utterly vain. Altruism is the philosophy of middle age.

On a few, but very few, occasions Gordon was temporarily roused out of his secure atmosphere. One of these was on the last day of term, when a letter appeared in The Fernhurst School Magazine suggesting that the Three Cock should be changed into a Two Cock, since the School House had for the last few years proved itself so incapable of holding out against the strong outhouse combination of three houses against one. Much of what the writer said was true. The House numbered only about seventy, while each outhouse contained some forty boys, with perhaps six day boys attached to each. The House did not take in day boys, so that the House was always playing against a selection from double its number. A Two Cock would be far fairer. Nevertheless the House was furious.

"Confounded old ass," said Mansell. "I believe Claremont wrote it. Let him wait till next year and he will see his beastly blue shirts rolled in the mud."

"But it is such infernal swank," said Gordon. "We smashed them in the Thirds; to all intents and purposes we routed them in the Two Cock; the only thing the outhouses won was the Three Cock; and they are so bucked about that that they want to clinch a victory, get up and shout: 'Look at us, what devils of fine fellows we are! You can't touch us. Better take charity.' Unutterable conceit! Why, we won four times running about seven years ago. I have a good mind to go to Claremont and give it him straight. Betteridge, you absurd ass, why did you print this thing?"

"Well, you see, there were a few rather risky things in the paper, and I thought if I cut it out he might hack about the rest of the rag. And, besides, it will be an awful score when we win next year, as we are absolutely certain to. Can't you imagine the account: 'Last year some rather foolhardy persons doubted the ability of the School House to deal with a combined side of the best three outhouses, and they were rash enough to express their doubts in print. But this year, under the able captaincy of G.F. Hunter, with the forwards admirably led by G.R. Caruthers, the House gained a thoroughly deserved victory by fifteen points to three.' We shall crow then, my lads, sha'n't we?"

"Yes, it will be all right then," said Mansell. "My lord, I wish I was going to be here to play in it. My governor is a fool to make me leave and go to France."

Mansell was leaving at the end of the term.

"Well, all the same, it's a vile insult to the House," said Gordon. "Whether he meant it or not, it's an insult."

But his annoyance passed quickly. He was far too certain of the future to worry much about what anyone said. He was sure the House would win in the end. It was only a question of time. And when the prize-giving came, his anger gave way to pride. His place in form gave him little satisfaction, for he was easily bottom of the Sixth; but after the books had been given there came the turn of the House cups. Amid enormous cheers Lovelace went up for the Thirds cup; amid still louder cheers he and the outhouse captain stepped up together to receive the Two Cock cup. Then at tea Hazelton walked into hall carrying the two trophies to place on the mantelpiece, and the House burst forth in a roar of cheering. It was all sheer joy; and beyond the present glory shone the dawn of great triumphs to come. The House was just entering on its career of success. The day of Buller's was at an end. There only remained to them the remnants of their earlier glory. Where they had stood the House was about to stand. And in that hour of triumph Gordon himself would be the protagonist.

The short Easter holidays passed happily. Over the fresh grass of Hampstead Heath Gordon wandered alone on those April mornings, when the trees were breaking into a green splendour, when the long waters of the Welsh Harp lay out in the morning sun like a sheet of gold. Looking across from the firs he saw the spire of Harrow church cutting the red sky, and the long stretch of country in between rolling out into a panorama of loveliness. On the road to Parliament Hill he passed the spot where Shelley found a starving woman dying in the snow, and took her to Leigh Hunt's house to give her warmth. Near John Masefield's house was the garden where Keats had written his immortal Ode to a Nightingale. Hampstead was prodigal of associations, and they stirred the boy's imagination like a trumpet call.

Then followed the long summer term, with its drowsy afternoons, its white flannels, its long evening shadows creeping across the courts, its ices, its innumerable lemonades; everything conspired to make Gordon supremely happy. Scholastically he had at last achieved his great wish of specialising in history; a fine-sounding programme which actually implied that he would not need to do another stroke of work during his Fernhurst career. Specialising in history was an elastic activity, and might mean a few hours a week in which to read up political economy. It might mean what Prothero made it mean—seven hours in school a week, and the remainder pretending to read history in his study.