CHAPTER XXXI
SEDLEIGH
The train, which had been stopping everywhere for the last half-hour,pulled up again, and Mike, seeing the name of the station, got up,opened the door, and hurled a Gladstone bag out on to the platform inan emphatic and vindictive manner. Then he got out himself and lookedabout him.
"For the school, sir?" inquired the solitary porter, bustling up, asif he hoped by sheer energy to deceive the traveller into thinkingthat Sedleigh station was staffed by a great army of porters.
Mike nodded. A sombre nod. The nod Napoleon might have given ifsomebody had met him in 1812, and said, "So you're back from Moscow,eh?" Mike was feeling thoroughly jaundiced. The future seemed whollygloomy. And, so far from attempting to make the best of things, he hadset himself deliberately to look on the dark side. He thought, forinstance, that he had never seen a more repulsive porter, or one moreobviously incompetent than the man who had attached himself with afirm grasp to the handle of the bag as he strode off in the directionof the luggage-van. He disliked his voice, his appearance, and thecolour of his hair. Also the boots he wore. He hated the station, andthe man who took his ticket.
"Young gents at the school, sir," said the porter, perceiving fromMike's _distrait_ air that the boy was a stranger to the place,"goes up in the 'bus mostly. It's waiting here, sir. Hi, George!"
"I'll walk, thanks," said Mike frigidly.
"It's a goodish step, sir."
"Here you are."
"Thank you, sir. I'll send up your luggage by the 'bus, sir. Which'ouse was it you was going to?"
"Outwood's."
"Right, sir. It's straight on up this road to the school. You can'tmiss it, sir."
"Worse luck," said Mike.
He walked off up the road, sorrier for himself than ever. It was suchabsolutely rotten luck. About now, instead of being on his way to aplace where they probably ran a diabolo team instead of a cricketeleven, and played hunt-the-slipper in winter, he would be on thepoint of arriving at Wrykyn. And as captain of cricket, at that. Whichwas the bitter part of it. He had never been in command. For the lasttwo seasons he had been the star man, going in first, and heading theaverages easily at the end of the season; and the three captains underwhom he had played during his career as a Wrykynian, Burgess, Enderby,and Henfrey had always been sportsmen to him. But it was not the samething. He had meant to do such a lot for Wrykyn cricket this term. Hehad had an entirely new system of coaching in his mind. Now it mightnever be used. He had handed it on in a letter to Strachan, who wouldbe captain in his place; but probably Strachan would have some schemeof his own. There is nobody who could not edit a paper in the idealway; and there is nobody who has not a theory of his own aboutcricket-coaching at school.
Wrykyn, too, would be weak this year, now that he was no longer there.Strachan was a good, free bat on his day, and, if he survived a fewovers, might make a century in an hour, but he was not to be dependedupon. There was no doubt that Mike's sudden withdrawal meant thatWrykyn would have a bad time that season. And it had been such awretched athletic year for the school. The football fifteen had beenhopeless, and had lost both the Ripton matches, the return by oversixty points. Sheen's victory in the light-weights at Aldershot hadbeen their one success. And now, on top of all this, the captain ofcricket was removed during the Easter holidays. Mike's heart bled forWrykyn, and he found himself loathing Sedleigh and all its works witha great loathing.
The only thing he could find in its favour was the fact that it wasset in a very pretty country. Of a different type from the Wrykyncountry, but almost as good. For three miles Mike made his way throughwoods and past fields. Once he crossed a river. It was soon after thisthat he caught sight, from the top of a hill, of a group of buildingsthat wore an unmistakably school-like look.
This must be Sedleigh.
Ten minutes' walk brought him to the school gates, and a baker's boydirected him to Mr. Outwood's.
There were three houses in a row, separated from the school buildingsby a cricket-field. Outwood's was the middle one of these.
Mike went to the front door, and knocked. At Wrykyn he had alwayscharged in at the beginning of term at the boys' entrance, but thisformal reporting of himself at Sedleigh suited his mood.
He inquired for Mr. Outwood, and was shown into a room lined withbooks. Presently the door opened, and the house-master appeared.
There was something pleasant and homely about Mr. Outwood. Inappearance he reminded Mike of Smee in "Peter Pan." He had the sameeyebrows and pince-nez and the same motherly look.
"Jackson?" he said mildly.
"Yes, sir."
"I am very glad to see you, very glad indeed. Perhaps you would like acup of tea after your journey. I think you might like a cup of tea.You come from Crofton, in Shropshire, I understand, Jackson, nearBrindleford? It is a part of the country which I have always wished tovisit. I daresay you have frequently seen the Cluniac Priory of St.Ambrose at Brindleford?"
Mike, who would not have recognised a Cluniac Priory if you had handedhim one on a tray, said he had not.
"Dear me! You have missed an opportunity which I should have been gladto have. I am preparing a book on Ruined Abbeys and Priories ofEngland, and it has always been my wish to see the Cluniac Priory ofSt. Ambrose. A deeply interesting relic of the sixteenth century.Bishop Geoffrey, 1133-40----"
"Shall I go across to the boys' part, sir?"
"What? Yes. Oh, yes. Quite so. And perhaps you would like a cup of teaafter your journey? No? Quite so. Quite so. You should make a point ofvisiting the remains of the Cluniac Priory in the summer holidays,Jackson. You will find the matron in her room. In many respects it isunique. The northern altar is in a state of really wonderfulpreservation. It consists of a solid block of masonry five feet longand two and a half wide, with chamfered plinth, standing quite freefrom the apse wall. It will well repay a visit. Good-bye for thepresent, Jackson, good-bye."
Mike wandered across to the other side of the house, his gloom visiblydeepened. All alone in a strange school, where they probably playedhopscotch, with a house-master who offered one cups of tea after one'sjourney and talked about chamfered plinths and apses. It was a littlehard.
He strayed about, finding his bearings, and finally came to a roomwhich he took to be the equivalent of the senior day-room at a Wrykynhouse. Everywhere else he had found nothing but emptiness. Evidentlyhe had come by an earlier train than was usual. But this room wasoccupied.
A very long, thin youth, with a solemn face and immaculate clothes,was leaning against the mantelpiece. As Mike entered, he fumbled inhis top left waistcoat pocket, produced an eyeglass attached to acord, and fixed it in his right eye. With the help of this aid tovision he inspected Mike in silence for a while, then, having flickedan invisible speck of dust from the left sleeve of his coat, he spoke.
"Hullo," he said.
He spoke in a tired voice.
"Hullo," said Mike.
"Take a seat," said the immaculate one. "If you don't mind dirtyingyour bags, that's to say. Personally, I don't see any prospect of eversitting down in this place. It looks to me as if they meant to usethese chairs as mustard-and-cress beds. A Nursery Garden in the Home.That sort of idea. My name," he added pensively, "is Smith. What'syours?"
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