The bending of a twig

Thomas Marsh was the last man who should have been a poet. The clear-cut face and large lustrous eyes that betray the bard were not for him. He showed his calling only by a certain fatuity of speech, by a bold, if not rash, taste in ties, and by a vagueness which, especially in the presence of a bore, amounted almost to ignorance of his surroundings. Apart from this, one would never have suspected that Thomas Marsh was a poet. Some critics said that he was not.

Mrs. Marsh, too, although deeply sentimental, was not that airy creature, clad in floating scarves from Liberty, who buzzes round the poet's workroom in the pages of Romance. She was plump, good-natured domestic, sternly practical in dress, and had never stepped across the threshold of the Stage Society.

The parents must explain the son. Lycidas Marsh (his father chose the Christian name), embarrassed by his mother's aimless adulation, had been left by his father to make his own way; and, being naturally weak, had not progressed much in the task. Mr. Marsh had not thought fit to send him to a private school: he liked to see the boy about. Often, after watching him capering upon the flower beds, he would go in and write an ode to Youth. At other times he would go in and fetch a cane.

Lycidas grew to the age of twelve, with a profound ignorance of the world, a suspicion of his father's inconsistency, and an intense belief in all the nice things that his mother said about him. He imagined that there must be other boys of his own age --- indeed, he sometimes saw them, while walking staidly with his mother --- but it was obvious to him that he was of a superior quality to these foolish creatures who ran about with shrieks, or leapt over each other's bent backs. From what his mother said, he was clearly fated to do great things. Now and then, with something of his father's vagueness, he wondered when the first great thing was due.

He was busy with this speculation on the afternoon of his thirteenth birthday, and The Lives of the Poets, his father's birthday gift, had fallen from his sleepy fingers. From across the room the voices of his parents drifted to his ears. He suddenly realized that they were discussing him. His interest quickened.

"No, not Art," his father was saying. "No son of mine shall take up Art. Art is thankless ---and the result? Mine, after all, Adeline, has been a useless life."

Self-depreciation was a form of vanity with Thomas Marsh. It seldom failed to draw a compliment.

"Useless! Oh, my dear!" cried his wife, as one who is shocked.

"Yes, my dear: but action, not thought, is life. I often think I should thank any one as a benefactor, who would burn all my poetry, and make me dig. I am resolved that Lycidas ---

"Hush," whispered Mrs. Marsh, after a quick glance; "he is listening."

Lycidas had indeed been listening, raptly, fervently, as one who hears a revelation. He had often been puzzled by his father's moroseness; had wondered why one day he was fondled, and another caned, all for the single act of sporting among the geraniums. At times his father had seemed almost prostrate, when he opened small green envelopes, with cuttings from newspapers in them. He had wondered, dumbly.

Now he knew the truth. His father wanted only one small thing. A small thing! His father! Could he hesitate? His father only wished his poems burnt. What simpler? He would thank as a benefactor any one who would burn his poems, and make him dig. Lycidas was not sure that he could make him dig: but burn his poems? Yes! Perhaps this was the first " great thing''of his life. Certainly it was not nothing, to benefit his father! Not every boy could do it.

He waited patiently until his parents had gone down to dinner; then, nerved by his grand purpose, he walked boldly into that forbidden place, the poet's sanctum. A fire was crackling merrily, as befits March in Yorkshire, and the great table was strewn with heaps of paper, some loose, some in ordered piles. Everything was ready for the sacrifice, and Lycidas strode up to the victims. Two especially large bundles drew his gaze. These seemed finished poems: the others were mere single pages, scattered notes. It was these that weighed upon his father's mind, these that made him beat his son unjustly for playing prettily upon the flower beds. He would burn them.

On the top of one was written, "ENGLAND, LAND OF FOAM, ARISE: A Patriotic Cry, by Thomas Marsh"; on the other was, "THE YEAR HATH MANY DAYS: An Epic Cycle."

Of this last, Lycidas bunched the topmost sheets, marked IANUARIUS, in his hand, and cast them on the blazing fire. As the flame died down, before the furnace could grow black again, he threw another month upon it, varied at intervals by parts of the Patriotic Cry.

The scene was rather picturesque. Lycidas was slimly made, and in the fire-glow his pale, excited face showed clear above the suit of black velvet, which it was his doom to wear. From behind, his figure made a graceful silhouette against the fire-light, and as he stooped to scatter further sheets upon the leaping flames, he seemed like some youthful spirit from the Past, caught in an evil incantation.

This aesthetic side, however, failed to strike the Poet, who, attracted by the smell of burning, stood within the doorway, as the last of the Year's Many Days went flaring up the chimney. In this moment of stress, his words, his actions, were not of the poet. He dashed at Lycidas, and shook him unromantically.

"What have you done, you little idiot ?" he cried.

What is it, Thomas? said his wife, as she ran up. "Remember, it's his birthday!"

"Is that a reason, Adeline, why he should burn England, Land of Foam and all the Year? Oh, Adeline, Adeline," he cried, releasing Lycidas, "this is a bitter moment --- the labour of long years . . . my ladder to Fame . . . and the only copy!" He put his head between his hands.

Lycidas was puzzled. His father seemed to have forgotten.

"You know, father," he began, "you --- you said you'd thank any one who --- so I burnt them. Now --- now you can dig."

Suddenly his father turned upon him, strangely excited.

"Either you're the silliest litt--- Oh, I can't talk to you now. Go up to your room, this instant, sir."

Mrs. Marsh moved forward. "Thomas, it's his birthday."

"Birthday or not, up he goes. Go at once, sir; do you hear me? Don't let me speak to you again. Unless your mother persuades me, I shall come and see you, when you're undressed."

Certainly, Lycidas thought, his father had a strange way of thanking benefactors: why he seemed quite angry! Perhaps he had not burnt the proper poems.

As he slowly climbed upstairs, ruminating once more upon a poet's inconsistency, his parents were discussing him below.

"He meant well, Thomas," Mrs. Marsh kept saying. "He overheard your words. The boy is a good boy."

"The boy's a fool, Adeline."

"He is your son," was the unfortunate reply, explained hastily by the adding of, "you shouldn't speak of him like that."

"I deserve it, I deserve it," said the poet, after a short silence. "I am too poetical to be a father. I haven't educated him --- merely let him grow. He's got no sense at all, believes everything he hears. The boy's a fool, Adeline, and it's our fault. He should have been packed off to school, long ago: he'd pick up sense there."

"School, Thomas!" cried Mrs. Marsh, as one might mention death.

"School, Adeline. I was at school, eight years in all, and they turned me out sensible. Yes, Adeline," he added, with a new geniality, soothed by reminiscence, "that was before I met you! It was Oxford that made me a poet. School left me practical, and, as I said to-day, Lycidas shall do something; he shall not dream. I've dreamed. And yet, Adeline,---  it's been a pleasant dream."

He fell into a peaceful retrospect, which presently found fruit in words. "Yes, perhaps after all, I would not grudge Lycidas to Art, if I thought he would be as happy as I've been, and would be an artist. But he won't, my dear, he won't. To burn my poems . . . . ."

"It was a poet's notion, though," said his wife, innocently.

"A poet's notion, to burn my poetry. Why ---"

She broke in upon his anger. "No, no, dear! You misunderstand me. It was a vandal's work, dear; but to burn them was a poet's idea. Many men would have torn them up --- I mean, dear, if they'd had to destroy them. It was a lovely sight. I should have liked a photo of it."

"Lycidas will never make a poet, dear. In any case, he must go to school: we can have him here no longer."

"If you're resolved, Thomas, and he must really go, there is a school in Long Lane, down the road."

"Bah!" cried the author of England, Land of Foam, Arise, in his best jingoistic strain. "Lycidas is a British boy; he shall go to a British school."

"Surely, Thomas, any school in Yorkshire would be a British school?''

"My dear, I do not mean a village school: I mean one of the great British Public Schools. There, Lycidas will have to look after himself, --- no coming home to cry to you; he'll learn self-reliance there."

"You mean Eton or Harrow, dear?" She still spoke in bated tones of horror.

"I mean any of the Public Schools --- Eton and Harrow are two. Splendid traditions -- but too near London, Adeline. Ahem, let me see, then there's --- well, where's an almanack? We shall find them all in there. There were seven, I believe, in the Public Schools Act --- and some good new ones since. But I believe in traditions."

Mr. Marsh, during these remarks, was running through the pages of the almanack. His wife watched him, in misery.

"Oh, I could never let Lycidas go --- never," she cried: then, fearing that he might not have heard, "no, never!"

Certainly, he took no notice, as he turned the leaves. Ah, here: yes, here it is. Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Shrewsbury, Charterhouse, Rugby and Westminster. Lycidas shall go to one of those."

For some minutes he stood, book in hand, thinking almost aloud. Mrs. Marsh, from time to time, caught various names, sign-posts of the great man's thoughts: and she never ceased from crying, plaintively, "Oh, I could never let him go."

"All in a hole, all --- like the 'Varsities --- down in a hole," said Thomas Marsh, with startling suddenness and doubtful accuracy: and then fell back to silence. "Yes, my dear," he began, presently, "if Harrow is too near London, Lycidas must go to a low-lying school."

"He would die, Thomas, he would die. Low ground, and nobody to tie flannel round the dear! Oh, I could never let him go. It would be murder, Thomas."

Silence once again for several instants: then, as before, the poet suddenly broke into speech.

"Shrewsbury!" he cried, "Shrewsbury!" so loudly as to startle her. "I forgot, my dear. Shrewsbury's no longer in a hole: it's moved. It's on a hill, towering above town and river. Hill? Why Harrow's is a mole-heap by it. Adeline, you're right. Shrewsbury is the place for Lycidas. He shall not be in the valley."

"But ---" began his wife, burning with protests against Lycidas going at all.

He solemnly held up a hand. "No buts, dear. You shall have your way. Lycidas shall have a hill. He will enjoy all the traditions of an old school, but all the advantages of a new building. Along with his practical training, he will gain a poet's soul. Fair sights and scenes shall lead him up, and he shall build the temple of his Self by the cool freshness of the Severn's streams.Thomas Marsh gazed raptly into space.

"Seven streams!" his wife broke in. "Oh, damp and horrid! Thomas, could not Lycidas ---"

"Enough, Adeline. Leave the rest to me, and do not worry. It's all very fitting, that one named Lycidas should be by 'Sabrina fair, under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,' --- so pregnant with memories of Milton. I will enter his name. Do not worry me further with it, Adeline. Let it be enough to have gained your point."

With these last words he closed the door. An ignorant observer would never have guessed, from Mrs. Marsh's attitude, that she had gained her point. She sat, in seeming misery, for several minutes; then arose and tiptoed quietly to her son's room. Arrived there, she gave no explanation of her conduct, but smothered Lycidas under such a storm of tears and kisses, that he grew embarrassed, and after much thought could only interpret them as pent-up gratitude for the burning of England, Land of Foam, Arise.

When, some months later, he learnt the truth, and was told to work for his entrance examination, his emotions were indefinite. Chief among them, however, was a feeling that the larger life would give greater scope for the display of his cleverness; and though he would miss the admiration of his mother, he might find recompense in that of, possibly, three hundred boys. Home life, he had decided since the bonfire episode, gave little chance for performance of heroic actions. On the whole, he welcomed the change.

Fate seemed eager to witness the comedy, for a vacancy offered itself almost immediately:

Lycidas might be a Salopian in the winter term, if he could pass the entrance test.

He was a little disappointed by the attitude of his fellow-candidates at this function. They seemed almost to ignore him. They appeared, however, to be much struck by his nice black velvet suit, bought by his mother specially for this occasion. They did not ask his name: they called him, when they spoke at all, Lord Fauntleroy. They mouthed it with great pomp. Lycidas was entertained by their mistake: but it was something that they should take him for a nobleman.

On the whole, if he had an uneasy suspicion that he had filled a humble part during those days, he reflected that he had had little chance to show his gifts, except in the examination. Before he left the Schools, his future house-master took him round to the examiner, and was practically assured that he had passed.

When official notice came, his mother was delighted. In her pride at this, she almost buried all her fears. Almost, yet not quite: for though she was far from blind to her son's merits, she also saw that he was not quite like other boys. He was, of course, better; but would the others realize the fact? Would they be jealous? She woke at night and lay worrying her mother's heart, remembering that Lycidas had never come in touch with any one of his own age.

As week drew into month, she cast about, wondering how she might prepare him. All the boys of thirteen years were away at school. Perhaps in the summer holidays Lycidas, who had hitherto refused, might be induced to meet them.

Meanwhile, a stray advertisement of A Realistic Tale of Public School Existence shook a brilliant idea into her brain. She would give Lycidas the experience of master-minds. Fearing delay, she hurried on her hat and cloaks Twenty minutes found her in the sole bookshop of the little country town of Nofield.

"I want," she said to the young man at the counter, "the cheapest edition --- sixpenny, if possible --- of all the standard school books you possess."

"Classics, mam, or Mathematics?" The shop-man had a reputation for intelligence.

"No, no! Tom Brown --- Eric --- anything of that sort."

"Oh, yes, mam. I quite understand. We have both those at four-three. Kipling's Stalky and Co., from the Library, very slightly soiled, one shilling."

"Is that realistic?" asked Mrs. Marsh.

"Most rousing, mam," answered the shopman, who had never read it. "There is also a new book, mam, very highly recommended-of Harrow life --- The Hill." (Things are new for years in Nofield.)

He called it The Ill; but Mrs. Marsh divined.

"What price is that?"

"That we can do, mam, at four-and-sixpence, cash."

Mrs. Marsh reflected: it was a lot of money. Still the book was up-to-date; and Shrewsbury, too, was on a hill. Perhaps that gave the two establishments more in common. She resolved to let him "do it" at four-and-sixpence, cash. She left the shop, hugging the four volumes.

The road that leads to the poet's rural home is thinly scattered with small shops, displaying, mainly, bright-hued bull's-eyes and other sweet-meats of a by-gone age. One of these had, in its old paned window, on this morning, certain penny booklets largely devoted to the doings of one Deadwood Dick. But among these Mrs. Marsh's eye caught a cover whereon a schoolmaster, in cap and gown, was being laid low by a massive pink pig, driven between his portly legs by a mischievous pupil of his school. This cover was inscribed, Jack Joker, or A Real Good Time: A Rollicking Tale of Real Life, Mystery, and Fun at School. She felt that she must have this book: it said "Real Life." Nothing but maternal love could have borne her through the portals of the shop, whence a mingled scent of boiled sweets, onions, and tallow candles struck her nostrils. But that great love will conquer anything: she boldly entered.

A rakish-looking boy, of perhaps fifteen years, was sitting, half upon the counter, half upon a side of bacon. As she entered, he raised his eyes from one of the Deadwood Dick romances, and without getting up or even removing his cap, remarkably impatiently, "Well, mum?"

"I want Jack Joker," answered Mrs. Marsh, with a vast shame.

"Well, 'e ain't 'ere." After which reply, the lank youth entered once more into communion with the enterprising Dick.

She stood, horror-struck and wondering what to say. Presently, the boy looked up again, as if surprised to find her there. "E ain't 'ere, mum, no kid. Only me and my old muvver's 'ere."

"Boy," said Mrs. Marsh, majestically, "you misunderstand me. I want A Real Good Time."

"Ye can't get it 'ere, mum," the lad answered sympathetically and with a new respect. "I don't know no Jack Joker, and I'm bound to stay 'ere an' mind the shop."

Mrs. Marsh's very aigrette uprose in wrath and dignity. For her son's sake, however, she would not give in.

"Unless you want me to call your mother," she said with a violence strange to her, "you'll give me that school story from the window, and say no more, boy."

"Ow!" remarked the boy, as he unhooked the booklet, and handed it, unwrapped, across the counter. She hid its lurid face rapidly behind the blameless Eric, and stepped haughtily --- out with a cautious glance --- into the street.

"And it is among such creatures," she said, paying an unwitting tribute to the Board School, "that my poor, tender Lycidas must go!"

It was a proud, a happy moment for Lycidas when his mother gave him the collection of school stories. Hitherto his reading had been mainly confined to books bearing the mystic impress, S.P.C.K., and though he had no idea of the meaning of these letters, he had begun to suspect that the books themselves were somewhat monotonous as to their moral. He skimmed rapidly through the five new volumes and decided to begin upon Stalky and Co. A tempting passage caught his eye, and in the next moment his decision was fixed by the reflection that if his mother read that passage, she might think the book too exciting for his tender years. (Lycidas already owned the elements of male scorn for female prejudice.) Of Eric he was painfully suspicious; it seemed to have a well-known ring. He turned it over and about, searching for the meaningless initials. Then he put it by, and set himself to read of Stalky.

The impression made on Lycidas Marsh by this most strenuous of stories can only be compared with that made on Keats when he first looked into Chapman's Homer. He felt "like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken." It was, indeed, more wonderful than this. The very world had changed its hue; by the magic of a printed page he found his whole views of school existence altered. The language, the behaviour, of the boys was all so different from what he had pictured His ideal portrait of school life had been built, laboriously, bit by bit, from his former reading He had imagined himself supreme among his fellows by the mere force of moral endeavour and of Christian patience, never countenancing wrong, and always with a ready word of encouragement for those to whom virtue came less easily. But now he saw that his supremacy (and it is to be noted, that of this he felt no doubt whatever) must be based on a more active policy. Would he be equal to it?

He read on with a growing, yet delicious, fear. In four short weeks he would find himself in the very midst of this, of the reality of what he read! How to thank his mother enough for having bought Stalky and Co.? It taught him such a lot of things.

He had never suspected, for example, that boys would talk like this. They used words, phrases, which he had never heard, at the meaning of which he could but guess. What was a "pestiferous stinkadore"? He had never heard his father, probably the cleverest of men, allude to it; yet Stalky knew! In his mother's highest moments of delight and pride in him, she had never cried, "Come to my arms, my beamish. boy. Oh, frabjous day! Calloo, callay !" He still remembered his father's elation one day, when he had waved a long strip of crackling paper before them at breakfast, and cried, "This is indeed a proud moment for me, Adeline. The fruits of my Muse!" but he had not spun upon his heel, and cried, "Fids! fids! Oh, fids! I gloat. Hear me gloat!" No, the ways of parents were clearly other than the ways of Public School boys. How lucky that he had found out in time!

The strangeness of these last ways was more and more borne in upon him. He had been taught at home that smoking, slang, and spitting were three vices. True, his father indulged in the first, which, if it was a vice, bewildered him; but he had never known him guilty of the others. Yet Stalky and his friends indulged in all, and as Lycidas read, his admiration looming large for these young boys who practically ruled the school, he saw that all their ways were right. He must practise these accomplishments. Smoking, in particular, seemed most desirable. Did not the head master smoke cigars in the prefect's room? Did not the chaplain smoke a friendly pipe in Stalky's study?

It has been said, probably, that every human is at heart a brute. As Lycidas, the gentle, lamblike Lycidas, read the pleasing tale of The Moral Reformers, the animal instinct doubtless surged over him. He was for all purposes a savage: the lust of cruelty sent the blood drumming round his temples. He read of how Stalky and Co. trapped the bullies, of how they gagged them and gave the younger the varied tortures of head-knuckles; brush-drill, the key, cork-screws, and rocking to sleep; of how they singed and shaved the elder, beating him playfully with a stump upon the instep --- and elsewhere, until at the end the two could not stand for several minutes (all with the sanction of the chaplain); and as he read, he tingled pleasantly. His foot beat up and down, he had much ado not to shout, "Go it, Stalky!" Thus and thus would he treat his enemies at school! It was a new Lycidas that the genius of a writer, helped --- the pedant would insert --- by atavism, had created.

Suddenly, a ghastly fear struck in on him. This was magnificent, but --- would he be the beater or the beaten? Might it not be that a second Stalky would arise and do the same to him? What of the years while he was small and physically weak? Must he endure the torture of the gag and corkscrews? Moved by a thoughtless impulse of his older self, he asked his mother.

It was the end.

Mrs. Marsh glanced at the chapter, shut the book, and locked it in her writing-desk.

"Forget everything that you have read there, my boy," she said, "I am sure it is untrue. School can not" (she spoke strongly, to convince herself) --- " can not be so horrible, so rough, so brutal. I consider that these boys are most ungentlemanly in their behaviour. Forget all about them, dear, and start on Eric. I know that is pretty."

Lycidas started on the pretty Eric, but did not forget the brutal Stalky. He had never before realized that beside the supremacy of goodness and of intellect might stand the supremacy of' muscle. Did it not even stand above it? Yes, if he were to do great things, he must be as Stalky. Must and would! He would smoke, spit, poach, and swear; he would excel in shirking games, in cheeking masters; he would pawn other boys' Sunday trousers and gift watches; he would taunt a rival house with stinking; he would surpass the trio, yes their very leader, in their actual exploits! He would be a second, but a greater Stalky!

For days these wild ambitions ran riot in his brain, and he made slow advance in Eric. But gradually the calm phrases of the author did their soothing work: Lycidas began to see that Stalky; his late hero, was in effect no better than the baser boys in Eric. He began to wonder how he had ever imagined himself to be a Stalky in the making. His whole life, he saw, had been fitting him for the rôle of Eric. As he read the story with growing interest, he insensibly fancied himself as its chief figure, or sometimes as his great friend, Russell.

It was the encounters of this last with the school bully (this personage was obviously a fixture in every school) that first roused his enthusiasm. Poor Eric, to be called "a bumptious young owl," and to be given a "smart slap" for his "conceit in laughing" when the bully had been caned! Lycidas wondered, would he too be called these awful names and suffer this indignity? No! He would be like Russell. He would come up and say, fiercely, "Shame! What a fellow you are, Barker"

Or if it should be his fate to be the bullied Eric, he would imitate that worthy by turning upon his tormentor with insulting words.

What a flow of effective abuse Eric had owned! Blackguard --- hulking, stupid, cowardly, bully --- despicable bully --- intolerable brute. Lycidas underlined all those words with a blue pencil: he would certainly remember them. He almost hankered to be bullied.

But it would be even more charming to be Russell, Russell who came up and called the big boy a confounded bully, and threatened never to speak to him again; who remained undaunted even when called "puppy," and dealt the bully a swinging blow on the face.

Yes, Russell was the best one to be. He would model himself upon him, too, in his hatred of cribbing. With him he would say, "I don't deign to crib. It isn't fair." But apparently he must not help the masters by calling their attention to the cribbing of others: that seemed to be sneaking, and a shocking fault. He must shield his fellows. But what if he got six cuts with a cane for it, and "for some weeks there were dark weals visible across his palm, which rendered the use of his hands painful"? Why, Eric seemed sufficiently rewarded when a schoolfellow said, "Poor Williams, how very plucky of you not to cry." It was no small thing to be a martyr.

As he read on, he became increasingly sure that he was made to be Russell and not Eric. Eric fell away into amazing vices, whilst Russell always tried to keep him straight.

It came as a terrific shock, to find that Russell died before the book had reached its middle. He died happily, pathetically, beautifully --- but --- well, was it worth it? "Whom the gods love, die young," he saw at the top of a page, as he toyed meditatively with the volume. Then wasn't it better to be hated by the gods?

Did he really care to be Russell, any longer; that was what he asked himself. Would he rather be the vicious Eric, and keep alive? Was it worth one's while to keep free from cribbing and the other sins, if one was to be cut off by the sea and drowned? . . .

Still, after all, there was no sea at Shrewsbury!

Yet Eric seemed to drag, now that Russell was no more. There was no one who said such lovely things, no one who quoted the poets so appropriately, no one half so pious!

When Eric's innocent young brother died, Lycidas was strengthened in his theory. The two really pious boys had passed away: even apart from the page-title, "Whom the gods love, die young," he could not doubt the meaning. The vicious twelve-year-old Wildney who drank brandy and "black bottles of wine," who smoked pipes and cigars, who led the "Anti-Muffs," showed no symptoms of dying. Even Eric, who was half-and-half, survived. Yes, he would be a second Wildney, not a second Russell!

And suddenly all his theories went hurtling down in ruin.

He realized, in an awful moment, that the author had meant Wildney for an evil influence, that the moral of the book was all against him. Ghastly thought! What had been meant to shock had entertained! Was he, then, beyond all hope already?

Lycidas, already staggered by the recognition of his error, was left gaping at the death of Eric. Eric the once virtuous, driven into a corner by the fruits of sin, had run away to sea, had suffered hardships, had come home to die in forgiveness, comfort, penitence, and peace. Lycidas found great tears rolling down his cheeks.

But what did it all mean? He liked the first bit best, he did not understand this end. Russell and Eric's brother had died young, because the gods loved them. He quite saw that. But why had Eric died?

Was it because the gods did not hate him enough? Would he have lived, if he had been more wicked? Had he died as soon as he repented?

The boy's gropings after moral truth are far more poignant than the philosophic quibblings of the full-grown man; Lycidas was genuinely puzzled. In his bewilderment, he turned once more to his mother.

"Why do all the boys die, Mum?" he asked. "Boys don't often die at school, do they?"

"No, dearest, very seldom," answered the mother, with who shall say what vague fears gnawing at her heart.

"Then why did these three die?" persisted Lycidas. He was still not much more than a baby, for all his thirteen years.

Mrs. Marsh hesitated. "It's a long time since I read the book, dear: I don't quite remember. But it surely must say? You've only just finished it, so you ought to know!"

Lycidas kept silent for a minute, then his difficulty blurted itself out. "Mum, dear, was it --- was it because they were too good?"

"Too good!" In her anxiety she dropped the flowers which she was arranging. "Why, whoever gave you that ridiculous idea?"

"I --- I got it from Eric, Mum. None of the Anti-Muffs died, did they? So I thought only the good, and the half-good ones like Eric, died."

Mrs. Marsh came to her son's side and laid a hand lovingly upon his head. "My dearest boy," she said, "goodness and badness don't affect death: only, the good are happy after death, and the wicked not. But you mustn't worry about such things. Boys shouldn't think too much about death."

"Then why," asked Lycidas, "do men write books for boys about it?"

His elder employed the ruse adopted by countless elders in the face of Youth's unanswerable enigmas: she evaded the real issue. "Try to forget it, darling boy: God send that your school-days will have nothing to do with death. Read something more cheerful. Why, you've not begun Tom Brown yet: that's the prettiest of all."

Lycidas was puzzled. He was to forget Stalky's friends, because they were brutal: he was to forget Eric's, because they died. Why would he have to forget Tom Brown's?

The worst of it was --- and he felt wicked in confessing it --- he knew that he would not forget. He might forget the deaths, because they seemed dull but he would certainly not forget Stalky's habits or Russell's piety. Both were stored up: he was not quite certain which should be his model. Time would show. Meanwhile, he might learn still more of school life, were that possible, by reading Tom Brown.

When he had finished it, he concluded that there was literally no more for him to learn. He had been strengthened in sundry theories, as, for instance, the prevalence of drinking ("cocktail" was a word quite new to him), and of bullying. He was, by now, beyond surprise that Tom should distinguish himself, on his first day, at football, and that he should better, at fighting, a man larger than himself: these things seemed to him merely normal. He was confirmed in one very pleasant discovery, which as he read Eric had come to him as a surprise. From his father's remarks, as well as from his own small experience, he had always imagined that the talk of boys, who had not been so much with grown-ups as himself, was trivial in the extreme, and Stalky had only served to strengthen this opinion. But in Eric he had been charmed with the gentle conversation of the boys, aptly illustrated by occasional quotations from the poets, and had even --- on the omne ignotum principle --- delighted in their use of Greek. And now he found Tom and his friends talking soberly on many points. Indeed, there was one discussion on Naaman and compromise which, read as he might, he could not understand. This was upsetting: could it be that the conversation of these boys would be above him? In order to be safe, Lycidas committed the whole argument to memory. They should at least not find him at a loss, if in the dormitories the talk should turn on Naaman and compromise!

But for the rest, he skimmed as quickly as he could through Tom Brown, which seemed so often to get strangely like the Vicar's sermons or the books with S.P.C.K. upon their backs. Besides, he had his eye upon Jack Joker, which seemed a far better book. Was it not A Rollicking Tale of Real Life, Mystery, and Fun at School? That certainly did not apply to this Tom Brown.

But here disappointment lay in wait again. Lycidas enjoyed with growing relish the opening chapters, in which Jack arrived (having in the train assaulted the head master by smashing in his hat), straightway defeated the inevitable school bully, and was elected "cock of the school." His interest grew, when it became clear that mystery (as promised on the cover) loomed large at Bircham College. Why did the head master tremble when the window creaked; why shiver, when Jack Joker mentioned "Whitechapel"? These were problems to be solved. It soon began to be obvious that Mons. Froggi, the French master, was also something of a villain. Why, otherwise, did he crawl by night to the old ruined mill? Why, otherwise, was the Duke of Dalborth's son missing, next morning, from the Lower School?

This was a new light on masters. Lycidas, his former reading, had been left doubtful whether the masters stood to boys as sworn foes or as sentimental friends. It had never occurred to him that they should be criminals: even Stalky had not charged Mr. Prout with murder. But did it not look as though Mons. Froggi were a villain? Might it not be so at Shrewsbury?

Slow to learn wisdom, quick to utter questions, he went to his mother, with the old result --- Jack Joker vanished into the locked writing-desk.

Mrs. Marsh, simple soul, was deeply worried. She had glanced at the end, and had assured herself that not only was Mons. Froggi an insensate Nihilist, but the head master himself was no one less than Jack the Ripper.

Utter scepticism was her first emotion. Then she glanced at the cover, where flamed the words, "A Rollicking Tale of Real Life." Could it be? If it had been, might it not be yet again? Surely it could not be. Yet --- well, what harm in making certain?

She sat down, and wrote to a cousin, who had had long experience of Public Schools as boy and master.

Mrs. Marsh did not show this letter to her husband, nor did she consult him in her difficulty: she had noticed that he was always opposed to her doing anything --- unless she had not done it. She hid her trouble, and waited for her cousin's answer. Dick was something of a humorist, and this is how it ran :-

The letter comforted her somewhat, though she could not but observe that cousin Dick had not ventured to assert the utter impossibility of such villainy: he had only declared it to be quite improbable. Still that must serve. She told Lycidas to forget all about the Nihilistic Frenchman and the murderous head master: he had better start The Hill. About the bruises she said nothing, but brooded on them in her mother's mind. Her gentle Lycidas! O, why were other boys such brutes?

Lycidas, foiled of Jack Joker, had in fact embarked already on The Hill, and had made there one glorious discovery. This was of the manner in which boys really talked. He had not been quite satisfied with Tom Brown's dialogue on compromise, because he had not understood it; and his mother had turned him against the vulgar raciness of "Stalky-talk." Now he met with the reality, he felt this, he was how they spoke at Shrewsbury, --- calm, dignified English, like his father's, but with a few strange words thrown in. He made a list of all these strange words, putting their meaning (as explained in thoughtful footnotes) by them, thus:-

Tosh = bath. Bill = roll-call. Teek = mathematics.

These and many others he put down.

If he used them frequently enough, they would not take him for a new boy up at Shrewsbury For this list he was grateful to The Hill.

There were parts, however, that he did not understand What was he to make, he wondered, of the passage where John and Desmond stood, the author owned, "opposite the Music Schools," and yet "for the moment they stood alone, ten thousand leagues from Harrow, alone in those sublimated spaces where soul meets soul unfettered by flesh"? And later they were said to be "in the shadow of the Spire." What could it all mean? Lycidas puzzled long, before he left it, feeling vaguely uncomfortable. Perhaps he would know, when he was a Salopian. It might be something that they did at school.

He dared not ask his mother. He was afraid she would take away the book, and tell him to forget it.

There were more bits like that, and others quite different but equally beyond comprehension: for the age of thirteen knows not snobbery.

But on the whole, so far as he grasped its meaning, The Hill added strength to his formed theories Once again the hero distinguished himself early at football: once again defied the masters: once again there was drink and gambling galore: once again crime --- in the shape of forgery: and this bartering of school colours, "caps," --- surely that was far from right? School must be a wicked place.

On the whole, Lycidas was now certain that he had mastered all its puzzling details. There were some points on which the books had differed: but all agreed in one thing, the instantaneous success of the hero. He of The Hill, besides his fame at football, had passed direct into the highest form he could, the Lower Remove, and --- most dazzling glory! --- had on the first day spoken twice with the Head of the House. Lycidas was confident of his success.

With Youth's optimism, he never dreamt that he could possibly be cast for any rôle but that of hero.

During her son's course of reading, Mrs. Marsh had been busily buying his outfit in accordance with a printed list, which showed, to her regret, that black velvet suits were not considered expedient at Shrewsbury. Still, she had too much respect for authority to go beyond the blue or black serge, with ties to match, laid down by the statute, but like a true mother she enclosed a Jaeger waistcoat, a pair of goloshes, a red flannel belt, and sundry other articles neither specified nor forbidden by the printed formula., These, later, the matron hastily suppressed

Mother and son had only just finished, each the appointed task, when. the day for separation came. Both had been too busy to indulge overmuch in that mournful anticipation which is the chief misery of parting, and the poet was frankly surprised when Mrs. Marsh remarked at bed-time' on the night before ---.

"To-morrow our darling Lycidas leaves us, Thomas."

"Why, dear, dear! To be sure he does," he answered. "I must see that I have some ready money. If my memory serves me, the tip was the most important element in the good-bye. Ah, how it all comes back! Good-night, my dear."

But next morning, when the luggage was being put upon the village cab, he waxed far more poetical, standing with one hand upon his son's shoulder, the other fingering a sovereign.

"Good-bye, my boy," he said. "You are setting forth upon the first, easiest, stage of Life's pilgrimage. You are about to enter that garden of the golden apples, which we all lament as lost through our whole life. You are, indeed, to be envied, Lycidas. The years that are to come will be the happiest that you will ever know. The luggage is mounted now; so go, and luck be with you. Never forget to prove worthy of the training that your dear mother has given you. Good-bye."

Lycidas, truth to tell, did not feel that he was to be envied to any great degree. He was, indeed, choking down a lump that rose in his throat. Still, his father's words hypnotized him, as it were: he had always been a great admirer of his way of talking. What with listening to his gorgeous phrases, and what with keeping an expectant eye upon the hand that jingled in a trouser-pocket, he managed to restrain his tears.

But when his mother stooped to kiss him, and all her fine advice fell from her as she stuttered, "God bless you, my own darling boy, and keep you safe," --- then the gates of his eyes were opened. He clung to her, kissing and hugging her, as though calling Nature to witness that he could not leave her; and then clutching the sovereign and her five shillings in a fevered hand, walked to the door, an unsteady, pathetic figure, through a blinding mist of tears. He flung himself into a corner of the cab, ashamed of his emotion, and did not dare even to look out and wave his hand, for fear of breaking down.

Yes, even in this moment, the most mournful that his life had so far brought him, he did not forget his models and the fortitude with which they had left their parents. He must not prove unworthy. Even if he could not rival the high-spirited Jack Joker, who had bonneted his head master in the railway carriage, he must at least present a tearless face to the porter who would open the cab door. Slowly, as his thoughts drifted, he grew calmer; he realized that he was clutching infinite wealth in his hand, and proudly put it in his purse; and by the time that the cab stopped at the station, he had begun to feel the excitement of a journey.

Once and again, as the hours drew on, his thoughts flew back to his parents and his eyes brimmed with tears, but always, by a scarcely conscious effort of will, he forced himself to think of objects round him, of his great exploits-to-be, of anything except that with which his mind was full. Truly, the sorrows of Youth are bound up with trifles, but they call for no less heroism in their bearing than the larger cares of Age.

He could not fail to notice, as the journey drew near to its end, that more and more boys joined the train, often with a final wave from parents, who brought a lump up in his throat: and once, at a station where there was a change, he saw labels bearing "Shrewsbury" upon a pile of boxes. Close by it, laughing and chattering, stood five huge men, and Lycidas felt his courage sink. Were such giants really to be his fellows? He had never fully realized, despite Stalky and Co., that some of the boys would be far bigger than himself. I think this first moment did much to rob Lycidas of some cherished fancies.

He did not dare to approach these most imposing people. He felt that Eric and the others would probably have done it. No doubt it was the proper thing to do, but --- well, he dare not. This, incidentally, goes to show that instinct often forms a safer guide than theory. He waited until all the boys had filtered into various carriages, with much noise and scrimmaging: then, very lonely, he climbed quietly into one that held only two old women and a sleepy parson.

"Shrewsbury! Shrews-bury!"

The cry woke him from a rather mournful reverie, and he hurried out, with a glance of envy at the two old women and now snoring parson, who could go on to a comfortable home, where everybody knew them.

On the platform everything was rush and bustle. "That's mine!" "Here --- the playbox, there!" "On a hansom." "Oh, do buck up !" "All right, you go on and bag a hansom." The station resounded with such cries and with greetings of old friends, casual enough --- a shrug of the shoulders, a wink, or "Hullo, Jones!" ---but understood. A few others hovered, like Lycidas, alone upon the fringe, hardly daring to enter the scrimmage, not represented even by a porter. Long after the train had puffed out, as if to cut the final link with home, there was a large crowd of struggling, shouting school-boys. But at last the platform began to empty, and Lycidas got a porter to retrieve his painfully new boxes from the few that remained. The next thing was a cab, and this called for further patience. Finally, after many frustrated attempts, the porter caught a hansom as it dashed back for a second load.

"Which house, sir?" asked the cabman.

"Mr. Alton's house," answered Lycidas, with a new sense of pride.

He was on the last stage of his journey.

As he leant wearily back upon the cushions, his feelings were not very painful. Perhaps he was too tired to feel much, but also the eternal spirit of adventure was stirring in another of its devotees: Lycidas Marsh was burning to embark on his new, fuller life. It was only that, at the start, his courage failed him.

"Fourpence 'apenny," said the old man at the toll-bridge, and as he counted the change slowly into Lycidas' palm, he added surlily, "'Ad pleasant 'olidays, young gen'lman?"

Lycidas felt pride surge up in his temples.

"Oh---er---very, thank you," he stuttered.

The man had not known him for a new boy. Was there after all, then, no great difference? His heart was infinitely lighter, as the cab drew up at the side-entrance of Alton's House.

Dusk was closing in round the great, red, ivy-covered building, but the light that blazed through the windows lining the approach gave the dark pile a cheery look.

"'Ave to report yourself to Mr. Alton," said the man who took his luggage. Lycidas remembered the way and knocked timidly upon the door.

When he entered, Mr. Alton was speaking to another boy, but got up with a shorts nod of dismissal.

"Very well," he said. "Let things be better this term." He said this very sternly, but a keen observer would have gathered courage from a glance at his eyes, which failed to lend colour to his words. As he came towards Lycidas, the expression of his face changed from a somewhat mournful gentleness, as of uncomplaining resignation to the weakness of youth, into a pure smile of friendly welcome.

The boy closed the door, and could be heard dashing down the passage, with the mad haste of a puppy who has lived through the ordeal of a bath.

"Oh, here's Marsh," said Mr. Alton, with a long-drawn pressure of the hand. "Well, I hope I shall never have to lecture him!"

"I hope not, sir," answered Lycidas, with a vague notion that he was cutting, in this first interview, a less heroic figure than certain of his models. John of The Hill had been called "a good sort" for defying his house master, this first evening.

"You will find," the master went on, "that you're in a study with two steady fellows. As you've never been to school, you must do what they tell you. And as to dormitory" (he took up a list of names), "I've put you in D dormitory, under Macrae, who will be my head of the house next year. I shall expect you to be that for me, before you leave: keep it before you. Ah, here's some one else. Come in! Never be a schoolmaster, Marsh!"

The knocks still sounded on the door, and between them, could be heard stifled laughs and a shuffling as of two boys scrimmaging for right of entry.

"Come in," cried the master, crescendo.

Lycidas glanced slightly round. A big boy entered, forcing a broad smile into a look of almost superhuman innocence.

"Ah, Hollins!" said Mr. Alton. Each arrival seemed, to judge from his tone, a vast surprise. "Very well, Marsh. D dormitory, and study number ten. Come to me, if you want anything."

As Lycidas went out, he stole a curious look at Hollins, who however seemed utterly oblivious of his existence. He was rather sorry to leave the house master's study: the frank, open face and kind voice of the old man had made appeal to him. He trusted Mr. Alton more than these great towering boys. Three were leaning or sitting on a book-case opposite the study door, waiting their turn, and as he passed they broke into a laugh which, without any ground, he thought had reference to himself. Somehow he mistrusted them.

He had not begun to doubt his ultimate triumph, but he did not forget the evil times passed by Eric and the others until they defeated the school bully. How could he tell which of these boys held that proud position?

With a rather heightened colour he made his way along the passage lined on either side with doors, until he saw the number ten, and on this door he knocked politely; then, after a few seconds, entered.

He found himself in a small square room, more like Mrs. Marsh's larder than anything that he had so far seen. A rapid glance showed him to be alone, and he explored the study further. Three desks, hacked with much carving, were fixed along one wall, and against the other stood a fragile table. Hot-water pipes ran under the barred window, and on the pink plaster wall were several Jap fans, a great number of nail-holes, and four pictures swinging at a dissipated angle. Lycidas could not honestly compare it, for luxury, with his mother's boudoir, but his heart warmed to it, because he knew one-third of it belonged to him: It was to be "his study."

But he wished its other tenants would arrive.

He opened his play-box, put a few photos and other treasures on the shelf of the desk furthest from the window (this seemed to him the best), and then sat down to think.

One thing puzzled him extremely. He had been especially struck and pleased by the kindly interest which older boys had taken in Tom Brown, and Eric. Tom, he remembered, had been asked, "You fellow, what's your name? Where do you come from? How old are you? Where do you board? What form are you in?" Everybody had asked that. It had been much the same with Eric, and at Harrow.

But here at Shrewsbury every one seemed to ignore him. Boys had passed him in the passage with at most a fleeting glance, and now the one or two who startled him half out of his wits by bursting in, without a knock or with an utter fusillade, would stare about and seeing only him, go out. Lycidas began to feel that he would welcome even Eric's bully. He was lonely.

But at last one of these noisy intruders showed no sign of retreat. It was a cheery-looking boy of perhaps fifteen, who smashed down his bag upon the table, and then turned to Lycidas.

"Are you in here? You're Marsh, then," he said, rapidly. "Has Kelly come?"

"I don't think so," answered Lycidas, with his eyes fixed on this new-corner, who seemed so enviably self-possessed. He had opened his bag and now moved towards Lycidas' desk.

"Good Lord!" he cried, staring at it. "Are those your things?"

"Yes." Lycidas was shocked at the exclamation, and. wondered why his photographs were not approved: he wished he had not shown them. But what's --- what's the matter with them?"

"Matter with them? I like your cheek. Is it cheek, or are you a little ass? Did you really imagine you were going to have the best desk in the study? Why ---",

"I'm very sorry --- I didn't know," stuttered Lycidas.

"Well, you'd better clear them off" --- the other spoke more pleasantly --- " and buck up about it. Kelly has next choice, and I expect he'll. take the window corner: then you'll get the middle one."

Lycidas "bucked up," and had just moved his belongings to the table, when Kelly arrived, He was rather lanky, rather pale, and wore spectacles, but he had a pleasant enough face.

"Hullo !" he cried as he entered, obviously directing the remark to the unnamed one: he threw a look at Lycidas, but said nothing. Kelly took possession of the window corner, and across Lycidas, kept up a conversation with his friend. The two talked mainly of the holidays, and in a moment Lycidas had gleaned the fact that the boy on his right was named McCormick. But much of what they said meant nothing to him, and neither seemed inclined to explain. He was not sorry when a bell rang and he followed them to prayers, and then after another bell up to the dormitories.

"D's along there;" said Kelly, at the stair-head. "Good-night."

Lycidas, in his humbler mood, was grateful for the attention and the guidance. He went along the passage and entered the room which had D painted on its door. Two or three boys were standing in a group by one of the beds, and glanced about at his entry as if expecting some-one, but seeing who it was, went on talking again. Lycidas wondered whether they were plotting to toss him in a blanket or to roast him. To his delight, he saw there was no fire. The roasting must be done elsewhere. Ah, yes, of course, Tom Brown had been roasted in the Hall, downstairs ---.

The only other occupant of the room was a small boy, with a round, lively face, and dark gleaming eyes, who sat hugging his knees on his bed and watched the scene with no symptom of anything except amusement. Lycidas thought that he remembered him at the entrance examination --- he was one of those stupid boys who had taken him for Lord Fauntleroy. Still, he was not sure. He sat upon the bed with "Marsh" written over it, and made slow pretence of unfastening his waistcoat.

Presently, the door opened, to admit a boy far more broadly formed than any as yet in the room. His pale, clean-lined features had a certain classic hardness about them. As he shut the door, the little group within broke up and each of those who had formed it walked to his own bed. This was obviously Macrae: he had monitor writ large upon him: and it was also clear that his dormitory had respect for him.

Macrae shook hands with all whom he had not seen in the studies, and when he came to Lycidas did not pass him by but held his hand for a moment, gazing into his eyes as if to guess what he could do for Alton's.

"You're one of our recruits," he said lightly: but Lycidas could answer nothing --- Macrae was so magnificent!

He noticed that no one showed any sign of undressing. All sat upon their beds, and there was a hum of conversation, mainly reminiscence of holidays well spent and otherwise. Lycidas did not like to undress too far, until the rest began: he sat on his bed and passed in review the four boys who, with the two newcomers, formed the full strength of D dormitory. He tried to decide who would be the bully? What of the stern, firm-jawed Macrae? Would he be the first to cast a slipper, when Lycidas knelt down to pray?

For on that point Lycidas was quite determined: he would pray. He had enjoyed nothing more in Tom Brown than the scene where the young boy knelt to pray; the boys stood in silent scorn till the bully threw a slipper at him; and then Tom came to the rescue. He would repeat the scene. In a Shrewsbury room, as in a Rugby, a slight pathetic form, clad in pure white, should fall upon its knees and brave the scornful jeers of all the room.

Lycidas had not thought about the fruits of his action, nor was he moved by any deep religious feeling. Had he been able to see into his motives, he would have found himself urged partly by custom but chiefly by the dramatic instinct: he must be in the centre of the tableau. But indeed he did not think, he merely waited, resolved so soon as the rest began, to undress quickly and then fall boldly on the hard boards by his bed.

And suddenly, while he waited, a bell sounded in the corridor outside, and without a word every boy in the room knelt down to pray. "Digging" is a universal habit at Shrewsbury School.

With a distinct sense of disappointment, which it would have needed an older head to analyze, Lycidas got off his bed arid followed suit.

"Digs" over, most of the boys stripped to their waists, and began to wash, splashing floor and trousers generously in the process. Lycidas made haste to do the same, trying to hide the shivers caused by the unwonted coldness of the water. He had scarcely restored himself to some semblance of warmth by vigorous friction with a rough towel, slipped on his nightshirt and hurried into bed, before another bell rang. He and the other new boy were the only two undressed.

"I say, buck up!" exclaimed the monitor.. "That's third bell."

Steps sounded in the passage, and presently the man-servant came in, followed by Mr. Alton.

Lycidas noticed that whilst the other boys made haste to undress properly, the second largest, who had the corner bed opposite Macrae's, merely pulled back the white coverlet, leapt upon his bed and, by long practice, neatly concealed his booted form, just as the master entered. The privileged Macrae did not even stoop to such guileful tactics. He stood by his bed,. half-dressed but undismayed, unterrified.

Mr. Alton's eyes swept round the beds. and then up to the windows. "Good-night," he cried and met a universal echo with a "Sir" tacked on.

"Call me at six-thirty, John," sang out the monitor. All men-servants are Johns at Shrews-bury, and many a proud Ferdinand has found himself docked to one poor syllable.

"Yes, sir," said the John, by the gas-bracket; and in one moment all was darkness.

On the first night of term a certain quietness, bred half of fatigue, hangs over even the most noisy spirits. There was a sleepy discussion for some minutes as to various boys' chances for their footer "firsts"; but gradually it lost what vitality it had, and soon Macrae said, "Well, I'm fagged: Good-night" --- a gentle hint that talking (forbidden by the letter of the law) must stop.

Lycidas lay, starting at every bed that creaked, land listening for moving forms. He was certain that once Macrae had got to sleep, some one would come and "turn his bed up," or do something similar. Perhaps they might even yet drag him, gagged, along the corridor and toss him there; Well, he would make a fight for it!

He lay and waited: but nothing happened. Surely there had never before been a new boy who had passed his first night without some one trying to ill-treat him?

He sat up and looked around. The moon shone clear through the long uncurtained windows, and every shape that it lit seemed fast asleep. Lycidas lay down again and waited.

And nothing happened.

At last, still waiting, he gave what sounded like a sigh, then a comfortable grunt, and sank off into that deep rest which niggard Nature grudges to all except its darling Youth.

Lycidas awoke to the hearty ringing of a bell, which sounded hollow in the boarded corridor.

Where was he?

For a moment he believed himself at home, and then --- the wide, pink walls --- the great airy room --- the huddled forms --- he remembered: he was at Shrewsbury

He rose on one elbow and looked at his watch, still new enough to be a toy. Seven o'clock! Must he get up, then? He gazed sleepily about him. Nobody seemed to have an idea of doing so! indeed no one seemed awake. Macrae, even, who had wished to be called at half-past six, was breathing heavily. Ought he to wake them? Would they all be late?

The atmosphere of sleep was seemingly infectious, for Lycidas awoke with no less of a start, when the next bell rang, exactly fifteen minutes later.

Surely he should get up now? One boy turned drowsily upon his side, fumbled beneath his pillow for a watch, gazed in an owlish manner at it, and then, as if well satisfied, lay down again. But others were apparently astir. Through the ventilator above the door came the patter of bare feet, a phrase or two and, puzzling background to it all, a constant sound of splashing water with intermittent cries of "Coming."

Whilst he wondered, Macrae bounded from his bed with a nerve-breaking suddenness, hurled off his pyjamas, jerked a towel over his shoulder, and with a long-drawn cry of "Co-o-oming!" dashed madly from the room.

Lycidas was more puzzled than ever. What was going on outside? Could it be a roll-call or --- what was the word? --- "Bill"?

He was still listening and guessing, when Macrae rushed in again, dripping as he ran, and making vain attempts to dry himself.

"You'd better get up, unless you're a quick-dresser," he cried to Lycidas. "Only twenty minutes to chapel, now. Wake the other man there," and he interrupted his nimble dressing to point towards the second new boy.

Lycidas woke him, then stood embarrassed, at a loss what he should do. The monitor, remembering his own first day, remarked, his head wrestling with a stiff-starched shirt, "You'd better buck up and get swilled; there'll be a ram there, once third bell goes. Round to the left: you'll hear the water --- No, no dressing-gown; just take your towel."

It was rather cold along the draughty passages, with only an all too insufficient towel as garment, and Lycidas felt no warmer as, waiting his turn at the "swills," he watched the exact nature of the process. About five and a half feet from the tiled floor a thick pipe jutted from the wall a foot and then gave a downward bend, to finish in a slit, from which water dashed with an enormous force. As each of the waiting boys came to his turn, he looped his towel over the swill rooms open door, and hurried under the cataract. Head first, then limbs, then body, were put under and scrubbed vigorously with his sponge, and then by a rapid turn he would gain the. full force of the water up and down his back-bone. Then spluttering and wringing moisture from his hair, he would call "Coming?" and the next, however far away, would bellow "Coming !"for the splash of the swill, as it is turned gradually on, is not the best part of the business. But on this first day, early rising was in fashion, and now that third bell threatened, there was little real need to call "Coming?" All were anxiously waiting to come.

All perhaps except Lycidas. Lycidas was not sure that the ceremony tempted him. He remembered nothing like this in all his books; and his father had remarked, "Ah, my boy, school now is not the thing it was in my day. No washing underneath the pump --- but hot baths, with a heated towel for drying! ---." Well, he hoped the swill was warm. Otherwise he would prefer the pump.

"Coming?" Some one nudged him: "It's your turn. Go on !" "Yes," he cried, timidly, threw his towel up on the door, and entered.

The swill was certainly not heated: Lycidas guessed that at once: and it came with some force upon one's head. He hurriedly drew back and put his arms beneath the stream. That was better. He was sure he must show his discomfort in his face. Thank goodness, he had his back turned! Back! One had to have it on one's back.

Lycidas did not have it on his back for long: indeed, a boy's first swill is commonly his briefest. It is among the acquired tastes, the swill; but once acquired, it yields to few for pleasantness.

He thought he heard a laugh or two, as he staggered to the side and shouted, tremulously, "Coming?" and his misery was increased by the discovery that his towel no longer hung upon the door. Was this the first act of the bully?

A second thought occurred. A somewhat larger towel hung in its place: perhaps one just used any towel. Without reasoning further than that he must dry somehow, he snatched the towel. A minute's rubbing, and a healthy glow, unknown to his warm baths at home, began to spread itself across his skin.

"Coming?" shouted the deep voice of his successor in the second swill-room.

Lycidas glanced up: it was the Head of the House, who had read the roll last night. He glanced at him in admiration, and suddenly this turned to pleasure. The Head of the House, after a side glance, walked straight towards him! Just as this great person had addressed John of the Hill, so he would now speak to him --- and so informally! He had not. even dried himself! He was coming, first, to make friends with the new boy!

At the opening note, the big boy's voice did not seem very pleasant. "Whose towel have you got?" he. asked roughly.

"Er --- I don't know."

"Well, it's mine! What the deuce do you mean by taking it?"

Lycidas was staggered. "I --- I thought one used anybody's."

"Well, one jolly well doesn't: so just remember it," said the Head of the House, snatching his towel angrily away. "And new scum ought to. use the other swill-room."

Lycidas could no longer complain of cold: he felt himself growing purple. Him to be addressed in this way! He was too upset to answer: and this must be set down as luck for him. "There's your towel, probably, behind the door," said somebody. Lycidas picked it up, and bolted for his dormitory: he hoped that none of the boys there had been present. He was consoled only by something that he heard whispered, as he took his towel. "Beastly rough luck on the kid: but so like Parker, isn't it?"

As he hurried back to D, the third bell rang out, longer, louder than the other two. He was met by endless flying figures.

"Ten minutes to Chapel, sir," said the John to Lycidas, as he went by.

So he must hurry! Lycidas left the house just as the chapel bell began, and walked at racing step, thinking himself desperately late. It seemed as though the bell would stop at every beat. He arrived far earlier than was ever likely to be the case again, and was put at the back of the chapel with other new boys, until their place in school should be determined. Gradually the pews filled up with boys of varying sleepiness and breathlessness, until at the first stroke of a quarter to eight from the school clock, after some scuffling, the door was shut. A few excluded Peris could be heard retreating.

It was a short, hurried, not exceedingly impressive service, and Lycidas was not of an age to notice much more than the largeness of the noble chapel. His attention was given mainly to the personal. This was the first time that he had seen the school assembled, and as he gazed along the rows of heads, gradually rising (with a few dense excrescences) from small to large, he was a trifle over-awed.

Perhaps in his curiosity he had craned about too much, for when he turned his head round to see what was there, he was met by the cold, glassy frown of four masters, who sat throned in a high seat close behind. They so obviously disapproved of him that he grew quite uncomfortable. He could feel their glances burning through his head. Lycidas did not like those four overseers. He must certainly gain a high place in the school, if only to get out of range: masters were rare among the upper rows of seats.

On such small things does Youth's ambition hinge!

He had begun to guess at the pew where he would sit, and had just decided that he could not see so far along the chapel; when he realized that the service was over. Lycidas was sorry; still, he felt quite ready for his breakfast. He had never known so short a service; it had not struck the hour yet.

Out the boys filed, row by row, and Lycidas knew some by sight. He frowned at Parker, smiled pleasantly at Kelly; but neither took the slightest notice. At last, all had gone except the new boys; and a master stepped down from the high back-seat.

"Follow me, please, all new boys," he said. Eight struck as they left the chapel.

The master led them, mainly silent and mutually suspicious, into the school building and up many steps to a large form-room. They were asked, politely, to take seats, and foolscap was set before them. To Lycidas this seemed strangely like the entrance examination; and a test of mathematics it turned out to be. Personally, he would much have preferred his breakfast. He took little interest in that hour's work. He just did enough to show that he had mastered mathematics, but he was glad when the clock struck; nine.

When he reached the open air, endless boys were scudding swiftly to the shop, in keen rivalry for rolls, twists, buns, and other indigestibles. Lycidas neither understood, nor took part in the scene; to him this haste seemed most unwise, particularly before breakfast. Mrs. Marsh had always told him that it was unwise even to stoop and lace his boots before taking sustenance. He went straight up to Alton's and followed the stream of boys into Hall.

The matron was standing before two steaming urns and more than forty pure white tea-cups, near the entrance, and beckoned to him as he entered.

"The new boys sit down at this end, Mr. Marsh," she said.

He went to where she had pointed, the lower end of the nearest long table, next the door. The new boy from P dormitory was there already, red with exertion, but triumphant in possession of two sticky buns. Lycidas sat down beside him.

"Why, you're Lord Fauntleroy, aren't you?" he said, looking up.

"You called me that," Lycidas answered, "but it's not really my name."

"Oh, our mistake!" said the other gaily, and cried to a boy opposite, "his name isn't really Fauntleroy!" Lycidas noticed that they both seemed tickled by their error.

"What's your name?" he asked his neighbour, to set him at his ease again.

"Russell."

"Russell!" he repeated, and stared until the other said, "Yes, Russell I suppose you've no objection, have you?"

"N---no! But it's --- you know that was the name of Eric's great friend."

Russell's bright eyes gleamed more brightly. "And is your name Eric, then?"

"No, my name's Lycidas; but perhaps we may be friends, like Eric and Russell."

"Lycidas!" Russell made no pretence of swallowing his laughter. "Oh, that's good! You're not such a fool as you look, are you? What is your name, really?"

Lycidas, in his reply, went far towards justifying this estimate of his intelligence. He realized that his name was regarded, for some reason, as a splendid joke, and that Christian names were not so much used by school-boys as his books had led him to suppose.

"Marsh," he answered, simply.

"I thought you were Fauntleroy, when I saw you upstairs last night," said Russell, "but I wasn't sure, and a chap can't be too careful not to speak first to men who've been here longer."

"Can't he?" Lycidas was groping for his etiquette.

Russell looked at him, as at a curious animal, for several moments; then as though something urged the question, asked, "What school do you come from?"

"I've not been to one. I came from home"

"Good lord, you will have a lot to learn!" Russell spoke with undiluted scorn.

"I've read all about it," answered Lycidas, with warmth.

Russell declined to argue on the value of imparted knowledge.

"What are you doing this afternoon?" he asked instead.

"I don't know."

" Well, get leave to come down Town. We'll go together. I'll show you the sort of things you'll want."

"Oh, thank you."

Lycidas envied this boy, who seemed to know his way about already, and was genuinely grateful for his help. How he wished, in that moment, that he had been to school before! He felt so helpless, so utterly ignorant, each moment, of what he ought to do, the next.

It would, however, be a mistake to lavish too much pity on him; he was by no means unhappy in these dlays. The life was too new, too full of surprises, to leave space for seasons of home-sickness. He trusted, at first, implicitly to Russell, who was too proud of his superior knowledge of life to be bored by his friend's ignorance.

Russell revelled in telling him all that he knew even several things that he did not. He piloted him to the main building for the two-hour "second-lesson," spent in probing further into new boys' knowledge, and afterwards he took him round and showed him the school site. Much of it Russell had not seen before, but with all he exhibited an acquaintance which amounted almost to fatigue. At lunch, the one meal where the house master attends and the boys' places at table are arranged by him, they found that their seats came together. Lycidas, for his part, was delighted. His mind fed with memories of the fine Idylls of Friendship which he had read, he saw in his familiarity with Russell a union that would last their lives. Much of what the other said he did not understand: and so his mother would have wished it.

Fate, in these first days, delighted to bring together this ill-assorted pair, the boy who knew much too little, and the boy who knew a little too much.

Russell, at least, did not fail in his promise as to showing him what he would want. To Lycidas his knowledge both of this and of the town seemed almost uncanny.

"There's one shop where everybody goes," he said. "It's in the Market Place, wherever that is. Did you ask the men in your study what they wanted you to get? Oh, well, anyhow you'll have to have a cup, and so forth, and some ornaments. Then if there's a kettle or something still wanted, so much the better --- it'll give you an excuse for leave to-morrow."

In such wise would he rattle on. Lycidas' share in the dialogue was more ingenuous. He babbled of his plans in all departments, not realizing that he could meet with rivalry in any, to the great delight of Russell. Time after time, his words betrayed some fatal misconception of school life; but Russell never gave a sign. Nor did he offer any hints on these big points.. That would have been spoiling sport; he found Lycidas amusing.

Only once did he correct him, and that because the issue threatened to involve himself.

Lycidas and he were wearing with great pride the School straw hat, a speckled black and white " creation" of a rather clerical, and totally unpleasing, aspect. As they came into the Market Place a town boy, moved by their pride perhaps, or possibly indulging in an invariable habit, cried, "Where did you get that hat?" The cry was taken up by his ragged company.

Lycidas remembered. Of course, there was always a risk of a fight with the Town! He glanced anxiously around. Six of them and not another Shrewsbury boy in sight!

Now at least he could show Russell that he knew what to do. He pulled him back against a pillar of the old Market House, and lifted up his voice ---.

"The School! The School!"

"Shut up!" cried Russell, angrily, while the town boys burst into shrieks of ribald merriment. As chance would have it, two big Salopians had come round the corner at the moment; they went by with raised eyebrows of scorn that went beyond amusement.

"Come on! "Russell said. "Let's get into the shop.. You've made a nice fool of us both."

He would hear no explanation and walked very rapidly until he got within the shop, outside which hung every possible kind of domestic article. Inside, it was the same. A dim half-light glinted on innumerable tin implements that were suspended overhead.

Small groups of boys stood here and there, busy furnishing their studies. So soon as he secured a salesman, Russell seemed to have no doubt of what he wanted. He bought a cup and saucer, plate, spoon, knife; a hammer, and assorted tacks; six Japanese fans and two framed prints of railway engines; together with a vase shaped liked a pine-apple, and a table-cloth in .red and blue. Lycidas did not see how he could possibly improve on the selection; but fired by. a desire to excel, he added to it a paper-basket and a lemon-squeezer. This put one and a penny on to a total cost of three and eightpence. Lycidas felt proud, but not a little dismayed, at paying over so much money.

Russell, it appeared, had other purchases to make, and with this object dived into a picturesque old street, which ran down a hill and boasted the strange name of Mardol. Suddenly he said, "This will do: you wait," and walked into a shop. Lycidas could see nothing in the window except papers and tobacco; Russell was probably looking for some local journal. When he came out, however, he held nothing in his hand.

"Couldn't you get it?" asked Lycidas.

"Oh, yes, I got it all right."

"But I don't see ---" He broke off abruptly. Why had he not guessed? Were not smoking and drinking the two most common vices? He had got used to them on paper: but now, in real life.

"Russell," he cried, "you haven't been --- you didn't go in to get tobacco?"

Russell laughed. "Tobacco? No! I went in to buy a sugar-stick."

Lycidas did not believe him: a sugar-stick would not go in his pocket. They walked for a little while in silence, and then Russell was the first to speak.

" You. know you're breaking rules, my virtuous Eric!"

"I! Indeed not!" The retort was worthy of the actual Eric.

"Aren't you, though? Didn't you hear Old Alton say we were to go nowhere except to that shop in the Market Place? Oh, by the way, if we're stopped, we've lost our way."

"No, I think I know it; it's straight up the hill."

Russell shrugged himself and laughed in a superior manner. It pleased Lycidas, however, to see that he was right, and he could not refrain from saying so, when they regained the High Street.

"There, you see! It was straight on."

Russell was moved to say, "Marsh, you're a wonder," and Lycidas was, pleased. He had begun to feel that Russell knew far more than he.

After that, they said little. Lycidas could not but be worried by the thought that, so soon, he had been trapped into wrong-doing. And he had set himself to be --- O irony --- a second Russell! Yet, after all, he was a boy before his parents made of him a prig, and deep down in him he felt that delight which comes to boys only as escort of a broken rule. His mingled feelings left him dumb.

They passed along the glorious avenue of limes in silence, and only when the School ferry set them down below the zig-zag path that climbs the hill, did Russell speak.

"We shall have to hump ourselves for call-over," he said.

"Don't they call it 'Bill'?" asked Lycidas in disappointment.

"I know I heard some of the men talk of 'call-over' to-day." (Boys are always men to boys.)

Lycidas felt like one who has lost an old friend, as they dashed up the hill. He had loved that word "bill." He wondered if "teek" and the others were as valueless, but did not care to humble himself by inquiring. He had learnt many things to-day.

There were other things to learn, ere bed-time came. Among these were the details of the art of brewing (a brew in English is a study-tea), together with his task as scavenger. There is no great survival of fagging at Shrewsbury, and Lycidas found his work to lie chiefly in the stirring of boiling milk and in the washing-up of tea-things. There are four studies which, by virtue of holding one or more monitors among their number, may claim this privilege; and when one of their occupants cries "Scavenger," the appointed new boy must rush wildly, at the risk of ghastly punishment. Lycidas found also that McCormick expected a like service of him; Kelly mildly washed up his own. He discovered too, that Shrewsbury is pronounced as though its "ew" were a long "o," and not as if bound up with "shrew." This was only a little of what Lycidas Marsh learnt that day.

In the evening, the whole passage echoed with the hammer's sound. All were proudly decking their studies with decorative treasures old and new. There are certain heirlooms which, escaping wreckage by a miracle beyond our ken, are handed down from year to year in various studies : but fans and pictures are imported yearly.

Number ten was busy with the rest. Kelly and McCormick showed far more geniality, though of a condescending sort, to Lycidas. Kelly, in particular, was almost friendly; the other seemed to treat Lycidas as a huge and rather tiresome jest. His Jap fans and railway engine pictures met, however, with entire approval, and he did not confess that Russell had advised them. His own purchases met, with quite a different reception.

"You don't mean to say," cried Kelly, "that you've bought a lemon-squeezer for the winter term? And who the devil wants a paper-basket?"

There were several odd articles that failed to fit the scheme of decoration, which was of alternate fans and pictures, hung to match; and with these it was decided to place Lycidas' purchases, to the end of sale by auction.

McCormick stood out in the passage, shouting, "Auction! Auc-tion! Number ten!"

Discipline is lax on the first night and any pretext for a row is welcome. Auctions are a favourite pretext. Doors were heard to slam, and almost immediately the study was filled with a number of boys ridiculously out of measure with its size. McCormick stood upon a table, and with many noisy interludes, sold each thing separately.

The waste-paper basket, to its owner's horror, went for twopence, and he bought the lemon-squeezer in at threepence.

After prayers at nine o'clock, Mr. Alton came round the studies, and showed great pretence of admiration. Twenty years had made him an adept at this.

By the time that the bed-bell rang, just before ten o'clock, Lycidas was frankly tired. So far, the novelty and excitement of everything had kept him alert, but now that Mr. Alton's coming had quelled the horse-play, he found. his eyelids heavy; and, once in bed, without giving a thought to "tossing" or to "turning up," he rolled on to his right side and with the buzz of conversation still around him, fell asleep.

Saturdays at school are always restful, but none more restful than the first of term. This is, indeed, the nearest that Shrewsbury gains to a whole holiday. Lycidas found to his delight that the clanging bells did not begin, that day, till eight-fifteen; but also found to his amazement that this blissful state of affairs was spoken of as a "long lie," and not a "frowst." Could things have changed since the Harrow book was written?

But he did not worry overmuch about these problems: he was content with the longer rest, by any name downstairs in the study, while waiting for the "reading of the order," which is the central fact of this first Saturday, he learnt one more lesson. He had been talking to Kelly, attempting to gain knowledge as to the system by which a new boy's form was fixed.

"I suppose all that 'teek' yesterday makes no difference?" he said, with proud emphasis on the idiom.

"Teek?" repeated Kelly, dully.

"All that mathematics we did."

"Oh! maths, yes. But wherever did you get that word?"

"From The Hill."

"The hill?" Kelly repeated this in tones of even greater horror. Could the young idiot be mad?

"The Harrow book, you know."

The other threw back his head and laughed. "Oh, so that's it. Have you got any other words from it?"

"Oh, lots, yes," came the guileless answer. "Tosh for wash: swat for work: whop for thrash : skew for --- for --- er, I forget: and --- and---."

"It doesn't matter," said Kelly, somewhat dryly, "in fact, I should forget them all. They may be all right at Harrow, but they won't wash here. You'll only get horribly ragged, if you use them."

"Thank you for telling me," said Lycidas humbly. Why had not Russell, who seemed to know everything, corrected him? He was grateful to Kelly. His heart warmed to this sad looking, gentle boy with the gold spectacles. Dare he ask a further favour?

"I wish --- would you mind telling me the Shrewsbury words?"

"Well, sap's work," began Kelly, and then broke off. "You'll find them out for yourself, and it's much better: you'd only go using them too much, or all wrong. That sort of thing's so beastly private-schooly." He took out his watch. "Hullo, it's about time to be going down."

Even as he spoke, a boy hammered on the door and burst in at the same moment. "Coming down, Kelly?"

"Right you are --- half a jiff!"

Lycidas had hoped that Kelly might have asked him to go down with him. Would he have, he wondered, if the other boy had not come in? Directly his friend came, Kelly had seemed to take no more notice of him. It was just as though he had been ashamed of talking to a new boy. Lycidas felt lonely. His thoughts turned to Russell, and he went into the passage. A silence was on the place, and though he knew Russell's study to be number three, he did not like to knock. Then the idea struck him that he might be late, and he hurried out.

Boys were strolling up and down the grass-lined centre path, but the largest group stood clustered on the stones that front the main entrance. All walked in couples or in larger bodies, and Lycidas, vaguely ashamed of being alone, dodged in and out until he reached the crowd. He was scarcely there when, to his vast relief, the great doors opened from within.

Every one surged forward, as at the theatre's early door, and with a mighty stamping the whole mob, Lycidas in its midst scarcely touching the floor with his feet, streamed through the hall and up the long stone stairs. Lycidas found himself in the large room, where he had worked the day before. Great lines of wooden benches stretched from end to end of this largest form-room, which boasts the name of Top Schools, or more briefly, Toppers. Masters stood here and there, and the same who had marshalled the new boys in chapel now beckoned Lycidas to a low seat near the entrance. There was a great clatter as the boys climbed over forms and desks to join their friends. The largest boys stood at the back or lounged, as though insufferably bored, on the deep window-seats. There was a slight attempt at applause, quelled by the masters, as the Head entered through a side door, clutching a great sheaf of papers, and stepped forward. A few of the more earnest-looking boys were obviously nervous.

The head master raised his papers, looked around the room, lowered them a little, and then: "There must be perfect silence while the lists are read out. The Upper Sixth," he said; and in a slow' monotone read the order of the form as fixed by the examination. As each boy heard his name, he answered, "Here, sir."

Lycidas was as yet only mildly interested: he was waiting for his name, and there was little chance that he should be so low as the sixth form --- he hoped he might be in the second. John, the Harrow boy, he recollected, had been in the Lower Remove, the highest form open to a new boy there. How he had thrilled when, as the head master ran up the school-list, John's name still had not appeared. Clearly, Shrewsbury agreed with Harrow in this: they read the lowest form out first. And when the Remove was reached, still no "Marsh" was read. He was beating even John!

He had noticed, dreamily, what big boys they were who had cried, "Here, sir," to names in the Sixth. What dunces they must be! And now, as the master reached the higher forms, he noticed that the voices grew more treble and their owners smaller. For one moment a ghastly fear crossed his mind that the list was being read the other way, the top forms first. And yet "The Sixth"! How could the sixth form be first? He put the thought behind him.

As the list ran down the fifth forms, and the Shells (what did this mean?), then through the Fourths, he grew into a very ferment of excitement. They were in the third forms now!

His blood throbbed round his temples: he could not hear anything. But suddenly the word "Marsh" struck upon his ears. Surely the head master had put extra emphasis upon it? Perhaps he was surprised to find a new boy so unusually high!

Lycidas swallowed a great lump in his dry throat, and forced himself to answer, "Here, sir!" The whole room seemed to leer at him, to fix him with innumerable eyes. He put his hand up to his face, and it was burning.

But mingled with his embarrassment was pride. He had not heard exactly; but he was, at the lowest, in the Third! How many forms were there above him? He tried to force himself to listen.

He suddenly realized that the speaker's voice had changed. He was no longer reading a list; he was giving out some notice. Lycidas was sure now, that no name had come after his, the extra emphasis had been no illusion. Either he was in the first form, or the third form was the highest, or else --- the third possibility he scarcely bore in mind; he was so certain that he would start high.

His brain was still rioting, when the head master ceased and the boys began going out by sections of the room. Some of those who passed glanced curiously at Lycidas.

This was probably the proudest moment of his life. He was hardly conscious of what went on around him: his thoughts were far away. How delighted they would be at home! He saw his whole career mapped out. His head was so light that it seemed almost to have left his body.

Suddenly the next boy nudged him, and with those around him he went out. Russell joined him on the staircase, but did not congratulate. Perhaps he was jealous!

"I didn't hear your name," said Lycidas, "where are you?"

"I'm in the same as you --- but higher. Never mind, though. My pater says lots of good men have begun bottom of the school --- he says it pays really, but I forget why. So buck up! You look so beastly tragic about it."

The blood had indeed rushed back from Lycidas' brain, and left him pasty white This was the first hard blow that life had given him, and it is a tribute to the innate reserve of boyhood that, untutored though he was by school conventions, his first impulse was of thankfulness that he had not betrayed his hideous mistake to Russell. He choked down the agony of that instant's change from pride to misery, and tried to smile. For possibly the last time in his school existence, he heralded the form-room as a welcome friend. The task of setting down the list of books which it appeared he bad to order, kept his mind employed; and later, as he fought for pens and paper (which is known as "penal" and is sold by "gats,") at the little stationery depot on the stairs, the few thoughts that came to him were of absolute thanksgiving that nobody except himself would ever know the error he had made. How could he have done it? Yet why call the head form the sixth? Why had no one ever warned him?

It was afterwards, when he found himself alone in number ten, that the bitterest thought came to him. He had always, unconsciously, seen himself as hero: he had been John, Russell, Eric, until Eric fell from the right path. He had followed their successes as his own, ignored their failures as no part of him. And now --- at the first step --- he had failed! John had started high, as high as possible, and Lycidas had set himself to do the same. Yet he had failed! He rested his hot head upon the soiled baize that covered his desk-top. A dark idea flashed over him.

Was he, after all, more suited to be Stalky?

He had just remembered that Tom Brown had started low, when Russell entered and suggested a "walk round."

In half-an-hour Lycidas had quite forgotten, and was laughing. Happy Youth!

There was so much to see, still; and Russell had so much to tell him about everybody, everything. He had no respect for persons.

"You've got such a funny, squeaky voice, I expect they'll make you Hall Crier," he told Lycidas.

The prophecy proved false. Shrewsbury houses boast four officers --- a Hall Constable, Library Scavenger, Postman, and Hall Crier. The last three are chosen from among the newer boys, and while there is no great competition for these posts, that of Constable is envied, not for its duties, which are trivial, but as a sign of popularity. This ballot, carried out with solemnity, is a matter of grave import. All watch anxiously, while the bigger boys undo the paper slips and read the name inside to the recorder: and at the end of this election, which comes last, the cheers are vigorous. For the rest, the tasks of tidying the Library and giving out the letters demand no special gifts, nor does the choosing of these officers call forth great enthusiasm. The Crier, on the other hand, is different. His task it is, when any announcement, whether of things found and lost or of House notices, has to be made, to stand upon a form at meal time and cry ---

"Oyez, Oyez, Oyez, this is to give notice that God save the King, and down with the Radicals!"

He is elected first, and will announce the results of the three later polls. Boyish sense of humour (to call it by no harsher name) demands that the Crier shall, if possible, be either a Radical or cursed with an impediment of speech. If foiled of both these creamy jests, the House must put up with somebody unpopular --- Crier is a post not envied.

It is recorded that, in ancient days, any hardy Radical who would not mouth the words was pelted with plates, slippers, spoons, till he recanted or retreated. Such scenes are of the past, and no boy now refuses. Political consciences, one fears, are more elastic now-a-days

Lycidas sat in terror, while the slips were being banded round. There was much consultation and much borrowing of pencils The ceremony is taken slowly, since it serves to pass an evening. It seemed to him that every one who spoke suggested Marsh.

This, however, cannot have been so, for when the result was announced, it proved to be an unpopular second-term boy who stuttered. He rose and bashfully hammered out the fact of his election. Lycidas, relieved that the omniscient Russell had been mistaken, did not pity him who had taken his place, nor look forward to the risks of next term's poll. He laughed gaily with the others.

Lycidas had no lack of food for thought that night. The excitement of the election, his first experience of the swimming bath, the novelty of the hour-and-a-half preparation (once more in Top Schools) --- all these had served to dull the memory of his disappointment. His thoughts were confused, but averagely cheerful, and he found himself less sleepy, listening to the conversation.

Macrae, it seemed, was in the House football eleven, and the talk came round once more to the absorbing topic of "Alton's" chances for the challenge cap. Somebody wondered whether any of the new fellows were any good, and it seemed to Macrae that a chance offered to find out as to two of them.

"Are you awake, Marsh?"

"Yes," answered Lycidas, a sinking at his heart. Of what ordeal would this be the opening?

"Well, are you any good at footer ?"

"I'm afraid not. My mother never allowed me to play."

There was a suspicion of a titter round the dormitory, and Macrae, who had a gentle heart for those weaker than himself, said, "Oh well, you'll soon pick it up," and rapidly turned to Russell with the same question.

"I was captain at my preparatory school," he answered, pride struggling with a fear of being charged with "lift."

"And at cricket too?" asked Macrae.

"Yes," answered Russell as though half ashamed.

"Good man! We must try you. I suppose you didn't play cricket either, Marsh?"

"No." Monosyllable, it cost Lycidas a struggle in its speaking.

"Well, I saw you could swim, this morning. You must pass the test, and then perhaps cox the house-boat in the summer. We all do something for the House in D." The House was Macrae's hobby.

Lycidas felt more than grateful to him. He had always admired Macrae as a marvellous and mighty person; but now he would do anything for him. Further, he felt that now he must do something for the House. Even Macrae, anxious to spare the new boy embarrassment, did not realize what large results might grow from his stray utterance. It is a habit with boys to under-estimate their influence.

Yet Lycidas, though full of good resolves for future energy, was also filled with present misery. Why had he been stopped from playing?

Certainly, he had despised games; he had been taught to do so; but he had had no idea how they were valued at a Public School. Could he ever be popular now? He was not even good at work! How he envied Russell, Russell who seemed able to do everything.

While he lay, casting his troubles to and fro, scarcely listening to the further course of the conversation, the door creaked and opened to admit white noiseless figures.

Now indeed his heart beat fast, now, at least, they had come in to toss him!

"Who is it?" asked Macrae.

"Only me, Hollins, and the Rabbit," came the answer. Macrae seemed to understand.

"Have you any songsters here?" asked Hollins; whose voice Lycidas recognized. Since his first view of him in the House Master's study, he had learnt that Hollins was a great man, captain of the House football and secretary to the School Eleven.

"We haven't tried them yet," Macrae answered. He always gave new boys a night or two in which to settle down: he would have liked to postpone the singing till a little later. But Hollins was a mighty man. "We'll experiment now. Can you sing, Marsh?"

Mrs. Marsh had cherished a great admiration for her son's singing. She had made him sing before the Vicar, who had said that it seemed a pity to strain a voice of such quality by church-choir use: otherwise he would have liked him.

"Yes, I can sing a lot," said Lycidas proudly. "We only want a little at first," Hollins interjected. "What song can you sing? Something funny."

Lycidas' songs were mainly religious. "I know 'Killaloe," he said.

"'M! All the newest songs!" Hollins spoke a little dryly. "Well, strike up!"

Lycidas began. It pleased him to have been asked to do something which he was able to do, and to do well. Perhaps his singing might atone for all the other things. He put all the soul that he possessed into the song. He sang it slowly, lingering upon the notes. He felt rather sad. How often he had sung it to his mother!

He finished the first verse, and was on the point of opening the second, when Hollins said hastily, "That's quite enough!"

"I know two verses more," said Lycidas.

"I dare say: but we won't have them. It's too beastly touching."

"Oh, rough luck," he beard Macrae whisper. The white figures had settled on the monitor's bed.

Lycidas had learnt the meaning of "rough luck," but did not see its force. Personally, he

was grateful to Hollins for the compliment; it was something to have touched any one so seemingly callous as he. But perhaps Macrae's sympathy had been for Hollins.

"You've another new kid, haven't you?" asked the speaker who had heralded himself as "me".

"Yes --- Russell. What can you sing, Russell?"

Oh, I can't sing," Russell answered in a tone of protest which bordered close on sulkiness.

"Rot! Of course, you can! Any thing does." Macrae spoke kindly, but firmness might be heard behind the softness.

"I've forgotten everything," Russell answered doggedly; and Lycidas could not help admiring him.

"Oh, no, you haven't. You're not so old as all that! Buck up. 'God save the King' will do; you must know that."

"I haven't sung for three years."

Russell spoke in lofty tones. Now at Shrewsbury, "lift" or "roll" (which Eric's bully would have termed "conceit ") is counted the least venial of vices. Macrae's tone changed suddenly.

"Look here, Russell, it's no good talking like that. I dare say you were no end of a swell at your last school, and I hope you will be, here, some day; but just at present you're a new kid, and it's a custom that every new kid sings or takes the consequences. So buck up, unless you want a swiping."

There was silence for some seconds, but no sound came from Russell.

"I say, this is beastly slow," cried Hollins. "I'm getting chilly here."

"Are you going to sing, Russell?" Macrae asked, firmly. "It's no good sulking --- just one verse of anything. Song or swiping?"

"I tell you I can't sing," Russell answered in a stubborn tone.

"Well, then just bring me my hair-brush off the washstand."

"Ah, ha! An execution," gloated Hollins.

Lycidas, whose heart was beating wildly with the tension of the scene, saw Russell cross the window, a dim silhouette, and fumble, a white figure, on the dark washstand, then cross once more to Macrae's bed.

Here! Nearer here! Bend over there," he heard the monitor say.

Then four sharp slaps "were borne upon the still night air."

To Lycidas, sore with jealousy of Russell, each was as a drop of soothing balm.

The fourth day found Lycidas with his faith in the school story book but little shaken. No doubt they had misled him once or twice --- there were naturally little differences between various schools, such as in the way of reading the new order --- but there were certain general principles that held of all. The criminal nature of the French master, he decided after careful watch, was probably not one; but he felt no doubt as to the football. So far as he remembered, in every book the hero had done famously in his first game. True, he had never played: but he could not remember that the others were recorded to be skilful players. He waited anxiously for his first game. Kelly told him that new boys often got a game on Saturday; but anyhow there would be one on Monday.

"There's dowling then," he added.

Lycidas longed to know what dowling was, but did not like to ask. He had learnt, indeed, that questions bored the other two, and McCormick, who, as a popular athlete, was seldom in the study, had swiped him during Sunday lock-ups for the practice.

"You're like a beastly kid," he had remarked, and perhaps because of that fact he had not hit him very hard.

Lycidas had not yet discovered that Kelly was a mild, unathletic, and proportionately unpopular, creature, who would not raise his hand against a fly; so though he longed to ask of "dowling," he restrained his tongue.

Now herein may be perceived a mild plea for the Classics, since a smattering of them might have led him to a guess. Shrewsbury, as fits an ancient school, is classic in its slang (are not the despised Day Boys called Skytes ---" Scythiians or "outcasts"?) and "dowling" is close to the Greek word for slave. And he who watches dowling may not doubt as to the derivation.

There are many rules about the Shrewsbury game, which centre largely round "off-side," but what strikes an observer is the disposition of the players. Any number from three hundred down (or up) can play a dowling, but it often happens that in reality some half-dozen punt the ball from end to end, while all the rest troop after it, like soldier-slaves round the great warriors of Ilium.

And dowling is compulsory. It is a two-fold slavery! But Lycidas Marsh knew no Greek; he had to wonder, until Monday.

It was with much curiosity that he went, after second lesson, into the great changing-room and began to change. He was astounded to find the room so full; boys seemed everywhere, trying to find their own or some one else's shirts, rummaging in piles of boots, or staggering about with one boot caught up in their flannel trousers. Lycidas had expected to find just a few; he thought eleven the number. At a guess he should say there were almost forty present, and Alton's strength is forty-five.

House dowling, he was yet to learn, is compulsory for all but "Firsts" or Monitors.

The ground itself, upon the other hand, looked small to him, and when the players all stood in their places, half the field seemed covered. He had gathered from his reading that the thing was to stop the ball and then kick it on, but if there were so many players, how should he get near it?

When, however, Hollins touched the ball, and every one converged upon him, Lycidas revised his notion. All the smaller boys formed into one great: surging mass, which trailed some way behind the ball (as kicked by the crack players), like an aimless comet. The ball buzzed to and fro, often high in the air. Lycidas no longer wondered how he should get near it. He wondered how he should avoid it.

Hollins seemingly suspected other players of sharing this last object, for he often cried, "Oh, do play up! You're simply running after it."

Half- time came, and Lycidas at least was warm.

He had not, he feared, so far covered himself with distinction. His nice new boots had, in fact, only touched the ball twice, for a moment.

What was he to do?

If he could not distinguish himself by his play, could he not at least get injured, like Tom Brown?

He suddenly changed his tactics, and made efforts to get in the path of the flying ball. At last he was rewarded : it left Hollins' foot, when Lycidas was three short yards in front.

Now for fame and glory! Now over his prostrate form, they should say, as of Tom, "Well, he is a' plucky youngster, and will make a player!"

But at the crucial instant, he flinched; he did not want to be hurt too much! He twisted swiftly round, and the ball caught him in no very bony portion of his back. Lycidas fell like a stone.

The effect of the accident rather disappointed him. It was not so much that the game went on --- perhaps some had not noticed --- but from those near he thought he heard a titter.

His mother had always told him that it was not kind to laugh at the sufferings of others.

Hollins cried "Play on!" and stooped to look at the victim's face.

"Get up, you silly little ass," he cried. "Don't rag!"

And Lycidas got up.

He was glad when dowling finished, and at the word every boy upon the field dashed off to get first turn at swilling. He could not fail to see that he had not been a success. Many of the boys laughed as they looked at him. He wished that he knew how to limp.

Above all, he thought poorly of the sport of dowling.

With football proper, it was different. The junior House games, played by boys of his own size and with eleven-a-side, made more appeal to him. He saw how Russell's neat play was admired, and he burned to rival him. The glamour of the game, too, began to cast its spell about him.

He said as much to Kelly, in the study. Kelly, quiet, friendless, did not disdain the company of the "new scum" one year his junior, and Lycidas confided to him his ambitions. He was anxious to get good at football.

"Jolly good thing to do," said Kelly.

Lycidas was encouraged. "I want to be as good as all of you."

"Oh, you'll soon be better than me --- every one who starts is better in a fortnight. I never should be good at games --- I don't care for them.

I'm fond of riding, you know, and fishing, but not footer and cricket, and that's all men care for here. You'll be popular if you're a tweak at games, Marsh. I never shall be. Every one calls me a sap, because I only play when I've got to. They think I work, when I'm not playing, but I don't. I read stories. I'm not a bit of a sap." Kelly spoke as though rebutting a vile accusation: to be a sap comes second in the list of Shrewsbury vices. Presently, staring at his desk, he began again as though not knowing how to stop.

"It's beastly rot sometimes. No one seems to want to know me, just because I'm no good at games, and Old Alton says I'll never have enough influence to be a monitor; all because I wear spectacles and am thought a sap. I'd give anything to be good at games, but it's no good. I can't be."

He stopped abruptly, and went very red. Why had he told that young ass Marsh all this which he had never breathed to any one? In two terms Marsh would be good at games and look down upon him, like the rest; probably would tell every one what he had said. In that moment, he felt utter scorn for Marsh; and for himself. Boys, at least, do not bore each other with unfoldings of their soul.

Lycidas, too, felt quite uneasy: though Kelly had raised a cover and something which he should not see, would come to him.

At last he remembered a phrase that he had heard used once of himself, and once, probably, of Hollins.

"Rough luck!" he said.

Lycidas could not delude himself into the belief that he was in any sense "cock of the school"; indeed, he was not even popular. McCormick tolerated him as one might tolerate a dog; Russell was scornfully friendly, but once his personal attractions were proved to accompany athletic prowess, went more and more with his seniors; and several small boys talked to Lycidas, but did not seem to like him much. Lastly there was Kelly, amiable enough; but for him Lycidas had never felt the same since that confession in the study. He was never quite comfortable with Kelly, now. One never knew when he would start like that again!

Now with this sense of loneliness was borne what novelty had kept at bay --- home-sickness. He began to feel that nobody here cared for him at all and he began to long for home. He made a calendar, and ticked the slow days off upon it until some jovial spirits, in search of a "rag," turned all his photographs with their backs to the wall and tore his calendar to pieces. Lycidas came in, very miserable, and found them so.

After this the illness grew upon him. He could not trust himself to open at the breakfast-table the precious letters with his mother's well-known writing on them; but would slip them in his pocket, gulp down his porridge, and hurry to his empty study to choke over them.

Twice, too, he broke down at something which reminded him. The first time, late for call-over and timorous of his first penal visit to the master, he opened Mr. Alton's door and was met with the smell of roses. The odour, unfamiliar at Shrewsbury, so familiar at home, brought back the image of his mother, and he burst into tears. Mr. Alton did not understand, read it as fear, forgave the offence, and tried to calm him by soothing talk before he let the next boy in.

The other incident took place before a less sympathetic audience. Lycidas, a treasured letter pressed within his pocket, was being ragged by Russell and other new boys on some trivial point. Already wretched, he had much ado to keep from crying; and when the servant leant across, smiling, and handed him his tea, the deed was done. Lycidas, with youth's latent sentimentality, reflected that she would not tease him; then, to complete the chain, that she was a woman, like his mother; and at that thought the tears refused to ebb.

Russell and his allies were delighted. They bombarded Lycidas with "Did'ums, then?" and such remarks, till he retreated. Next day, in the Psalms, Russell caught at some phrase about putting one's tears in a bottle, and shrieked it triumphantly at Lycidas for days to come. This, before an audience; but when alone, he was as nice to him as ever.

Lycidas, in fact, began to be a butt, and though he could not see the cause, had sense enough to realize the fact in part.

He puzzled long about it.

It seemed to him that he had done everything that Eric, Tom, or John had done, with altogether different results. Or was there something which he had omitted?

Of course there was! How stupid of him! He had not punished the school bully!

But here came the difficulty. Who was the school bully? He had been ragged by various people, and received two swipings; but he could not light on any one boy and definitely call him the school bully. How vague they were at Shrewsbury! Still, somebody must know; he would inquire.

Meantime, what to do with him when found? The first thing was to make a fight, or, even less risky, to kick the bully so hard that he would not care to fight. He seemed to remember John doing this. He unlocked his play box, and took out The Hill. He had kept his books to himself since the day when he had mentioned Eric to McCormick, to be met with scornful laughter. But he still had faith; he turned the pages till he reached the scene.

Yes, John had kicked the hulking "lubber," and Caesar, too, had defied the great boy twice his size. Yet how had it all ended? The "lubber" passed slowly out of the yard and out of these pages. He never persecuted John again. How simple it all seemed! But suddenly his eye caught an asterisk, and down below a note.

This annoyed Lycidas. What was the use of a story if you could not act upon it? If the thing was unlikely, why did the Vachell fellow make it happen? Lycidas ranged himself, unconsciously, with the critical opponents of footnotes to fiction.

Still he would risk it! In any case, so far as he saw, bullies never beat the new boys, when it came to fighting; and besides, just possibly, there might be no school bully. If so, he would get all the glory without any of the risk.

He waited till McCormick had a large brew in number ten. Hollins was there, and others of the sporting "tweaks": McCormick was no unimportant person, for all his youth, in Alton's --- he played often for the House in both the footer and the cricket. Lycidas, to his delight, was allowed to be present. He had been busy for an hour carrying chairs, borrowing cups, getting milk and doing sundry minor jobs; but this did not always mean that he should reap the fruits of labour. On this occasion, however, McCormick had let him stay, partly doubtless with a view to menial duties.

There were ten boys present, and nowhere save in a Shrewsbury study could so many people crowd into so small a space. On the desks, pipes, ventilator, on the window-sill aloft, boys perched, and the air was heavy with the savour of cocoa and mixed biscuits. The term was yet young, as terms go, and cake and cash still plentiful. Every one was absolutely happy. Nothing tastes so excellent in after-life as do the humblest things at study-brew.

There was little noise until the eating part was over; and this not only because youth's eating makes for silence, but because it would be a vile calamity, should premature songs bring Old Alton in to clear the study, before brewing finished. But when every one had done --- or rather when the buns were done --- McCormick sang out ---

"I say, Marsh, you might put some of the cups away, in case they're broken."

"Oh, is friend Marsh there?" asked Hollins, from his lowly play-box seat. He had not spoken to Lycidas since the incident at his first dowling. Marsh, emerging, blushed at the word "friend." So Hollins had forgiven him!

"Well, have you done any more great exploits since your footer gallery?" inquired the Captain.

Lycidas had no idea of what a gallery might be: he was not an adept in the slang of sport. He merely answered, "No, not yet."

"Oh, oh, not yet. Well, what's to be the next?" Had Hollins been born to the eighteenth century, "smoking" people would have been his chief delight.

Lycidas felt his blood quicken. The chance which he desired had made itself. He would show no hesitation, but go straight at the matter.

"Who is the school bully?" he asked, with a majestic air, as who should say, "Bring: him before me!"

"The school bully!" exclaimed McCormick, in contempt "Why, you little.

"S-sh!" said Hollins, with a wink which was lost to Lycidas. "Cormy doesn't know: he's too big to be bullied: but I've seen. And I'll tell you who it is: he's in this House. it's --- Hobbs. But why?"

Lycidas saw an amused smile, half hid, upon the faces of those around him. So they thought Hobbs was too big for him! They doubted of his valour! Well, they would see.

"I mean to fight him," he said, simply. It was as he thought. He could see that they politely wished to hide their doubt, but they could not. One by one, they began to smile, and the smile grew to laughter, long and loud. Only Hollins still looked serious.

"No, no, Marsh, you mustn't," he said, gravely. "Hobbs is very big, and he might hurt you."

"Where is the fighting ground?" asked Lycidas, doggedly. Tom Brown, he remembered, had been shown this ground on the first day.

Hollins seemed to hesitate whether he should tell him, and McCormick cried out, "I say, dry up, Holly!" Then to Lycidas, "Why, there's no ---

"McCormick knows nothing about it," interrupted Hollins. "He's too beastly good-natured: he never goes to fights. I'll tell you, though. You know the School wall, don't you?"

"Yes," said Lycidas, immensely keen.

"Well, it's just behind that, next to the new Stinks room. It's rather lucky for you, too: Hobbs always takes the poor little devils he wants to bully to that very spot, just after breakfast. We can't interfere, you know, though we 'cut' him, but if you'll give him a good licking, we'll all back you up. Won't we?" and everybody cried, "Oh, yes!" But Lycidas noted that some of them still smiled. Perhaps they had not realized the cowardice of bullies.

He was certainly surprised. He knew Hobbs by sight, and had never suspected the great flabby creature to be anything but harmless, nor had he observed that Hollins and the others "cut" him specially. Still, Hollins must be right. Besides, bullies always were great hulking lubbers.

Lycidas would have been a great deal more surprised had he seen Hollins, brewing over, go straight to the study of the hated Hobbs, or could he have heard the laughter which floated through the ventilator, laughter of Hollins mingled with the fat, good-humoured laugh of Hobbs.

This was one of the things that Lycidas Marsh failed to see or hear.

He set out, all alone, after breakfast the next morning, somewhat nervous, hut charged with a great resolve. There were twenty minutes yet to ten o'clock, and he took his second-lesson books with him. What would those minutes bring forth?

He walked quickly to the School wall, and then tried to determine which was the exact spot named by Hollins.

The School wall is a low, bending, stone erection, scarred with the amateur carvings, old and new, of countless boys, each of whom must perforce have won celebrity at games. On this well-loved wall, rescued from the old site when the Schools moved up the hill, there stands, for all to see, a record of those boys who soared to glory in this world of sport. The social philosopher might like to know how many of them rose to fame in the large outer world, where games are merely rest from the day's labour.

Lycidas certainly did not concern himself with such a thought. He passed behind the wall and looked around. This part of the site is favoured by the builder's art. The majestic baths, the humble carpentering shop, the even humbler Morris range, the fine new science building, the tiny pagoda-like dark room --- these all jostle side by side in true Republican broad-mindedness.

Hollins had said, "Between the wall and the new Stinks room." Lycidas knew that the science b