The New Boy
I
When I left home to go to boarding-school for the first time I didnot cry like the little boys in the story-books, though I had neverbeen away from home before except to spend holidays with relatives.This was not due to any extraordinary self-control on my part, for Iwas always ready to shed tears on the most trivial occasion. But as afact I had other things to think about, and did not in the leastrealise the significance of my journey. I had lots of new clothes andmore money in my pocket than I had ever had before, and in theguard's van at the back of the train there was a large box that I hadpacked myself with jam and potted meat and cake. In this, as in othermatters, I had been aided by the expert advice of a brother who washimself at a school in the North, and it was perhaps natural that inthe comfortable security of the holidays he should have given me analmost lyrical account of the joys of life at a boarding-school.Moreover, my existence as a day-boy in London had been so unhappy;that I was prepared to welcome any change, so at most I felt only avague unease as to the future.
After I had glanced at my papers, I sat back and stared at my eldestbrother, who had been told off to see me safely to school. At thattime I did not like him because he seemed to me unduly insistent onhis rights and I could not help wondering at the tactlessness of thegrown-up people in choosing him as my travelling companion. With anyone else this journey might have been a joyous affair but there wereincidents between us that neither of us would forget, so that Icould find nothing better than an awkward politeness with which tomeet his strained amiability. He feigned an intense interest in hismagazine while I looked out of window, with one finger in mywaistcoat pocket, scratching the comfortable milled edges of mymoney. When I saw little farm-houses, forgotten in the green dimplesof the Kentish hills, I thought that it would be nice to live therewith a room full of story-books, away from the discomforts anddifficulties of life. Like a cat, I wanted to dream somewhere whereI would not be trodden on, somewhere where I would be neglected byfriends and foes alike. This was my normal desire, but side by sidewith my craving for peace I was aware of a new and interestingemotion that suggested the possibility of a life even moreagreeable. The excitement of packing my box with provender like asailor who was going on a long voyage, the unwonted thrill of havinga large sum of money concealed about my person, and above all theimaginative yarns of my elder brother, had fired me with the thoughtof adventure. His stories had been filled with an utter contempt forlessons and a superb defiance of the authorities, and had rangedfrom desperate rabbit-shooting parties on the Yorkshire Wolds toillicit feasts of Eccles cakes and tinned lobster in moonlitdormitories. I thought that it would be pleasant to experience thisromantic kind of life before settling down for good with my dreams.
The train wandered on and my eldest brother and I looked at eachother constrainedly. He had already asked me twice whether I had myticket, and I realised that he could not think of any other neutralremark that fitted the occasion. It occurred to me to say that thetrain was slow, but I remembered with a glow of anger how he had oncerubbed a strawberry in my face because I had taken the liberty ofoffering it to one of his friends, and I held my peace. I had prayedfor his death every night for three weeks after that, and though hewas still alive the knowledge of my unconfessed and unrepentedwickedness prevented me from being more than conveniently polite, hethought I was a cheeky little toad and I thought he was a bully, sowe looked at each other and did not speak. We were both glad,therefore, when the train pulled up at the station that bore the nameof my new school.
My first emotion was a keen regret that my parents had not sent meto a place where the sun shone. As we sat in the little omnibusthat carried us from the station to the town, with my preciousboxes safely stored on the roof, we passed between grey fieldswhose featureless expanses melted changelessly into the grey skyoverhead. The prospect alarmed me, for it seemed to me that thiswas not a likely world for adventures; nor was I reassured by thesight of the town, whose one long street of low, old-fashionedhouses struck me as being mean and sordid. I was conscious thatthe place had an unpleasant smell, and I was already driven tothinking of my pocket-money and my play-box--agreeable thoughtswhich I had made up my mind in the train to reserve carefully forpossible hours of unhappiness. But the low roof of the omnibus waslike a limit to my imagination, and my body was troubled by thedispleasing contact of the velvet cushions. I was still wonderingwhy this made my wrists ache, when the omnibus lurched from thecobbles on to a gravel drive, and I saw the school buildingstowering all about me like the walls of a prison. I jumped out andstretched my legs while the driver climbed down to collect thefares. He looked at me without a jot of interest, and I knew thathe must have driven a great many boys from the station to theschool in the course of his life.
A man appeared in shirt-sleeves of grey flannel and wheeled my boxesaway on a little truck, and after a while a master came down andshowed us, in a perfunctory manner, over the more presentablequarters of the school. My brother was anxious to get away, becausehe had not been emancipated long enough to find the atmosphere ofdormitories and class-rooms agreeable. I was naturally interested,in my new environment, but the presence of the master constrainedme, and I was afraid to speak in front of this unknown man whom itwas my lot to obey, so we were all relieved when our hurriedinspection was over. He told me that I was at liberty to do what Ipleased till seven o'clock, so I went for a walk through the townwith my brother.
The day was drawing to a chill grey close, and the town was filledwith a clammy mist tainted with the odour of sewage, due, Iafterwards discovered, to the popular abuse of the little streamthat gave the place its name. Even my brother could not entirelyescape the melancholy influence of the hour and the place, and hewas glad to take me into a baker's shop and have tea. By now theillusion of adventure that had reconciled me to leaving home was ina desperate state, and I drank my tea and consumed my cakes withoutenjoyment. If life was always going to be the same--if in fleeingone misfortune I had merely brought on myself the pain of becomingaccustomed to another--I felt sure that my meagre stoicism would notsuffice to carry me through with credit. I had failed once, I wouldfail again. I looked forward with a sinking heart to a tearful anduncomfortable future.
There was only a very poor train service, so my brother had plenty oftime to walk back to the station, and it was settled that I should gopart of the way with him. As we walked along the white road, thatstretched between uniform hedgerows of a shadowy greyness, I saw thathe had something on his mind. In this hour of my trial I was willingto forget the past for the sake of talking for a few minutes withsome human being whom I knew, but he returned only vague answers tomy eager questions. At last he stopped in the middle of the road, andsaid I had better turn back. I would liked to have walked fartherwith him, but I was above all things anxious to keep up appearances,so I said goodbye in as composed a voice as I could find. My brotherhesitated for a minute; then with a timid glance at heaven he put hishand in his pocket, pulled out half a crown which he gave me, andwalked rapidly away. I saw in a flash that for him, too, it had beenan important moment; he had tipped his first schoolboy, andhenceforth he was beyond all question grown up.
I did not like him, but I watched him disappear in the dusk with adesolate heart. At that moment he stood for a great many things thatseemed valuable to me, and I would have given much to have beenwalking by his side with my face towards home and my back turned tothe grey and unsavoury town to which I had to bear my despondentloneliness. Nevertheless I stepped out staunchly enough, in orderthat my mind should take courage from the example of my body. Ithought strenuously of my brother's stories, of my play-box packedfor a voyage, of the money in my pocket increased now by my eldestbrother's unexpected generosity; and by dint of these violent mentalexercises I had reduced my mind to a comfortable stupor by the time Ireached the school gates. There I was overcome by shyness, andalthough I saw lights in the form-rooms and heard the voices of boys,I stood awkw
ardly in the playground, not knowing where I ought to go.The mist in the air surrounded the lights with a halo, and mynostrils were filled with the acrid smell of burning leaves.
I had stood there a quarter of an hour perhaps, when a boy came upand spoke to me, and the sound of his voice gave me a shock. I thinkit was the first time in my life a boy had spoken kindly to me. Heasked me my name, and told me that it would be supper-time in fiveminutes, so that I could go and sit in the dining-hall and wait."You'll be all right, you know," he said, as he passed on; "they'renot a bad lot of chaps." The revulsion nearly brought on acatastrophe, for the tears rose to my eyes and I gazed after him witha swimming head. I had prepared myself to receive blows and insultswith a calm brow, but I had no armour with which to oppose the nobleweapons of sympathy and good fellowship. They overcame the stubbornhatred with which I was accustomed to meet life, and left medefenceless. I felt as if I had been face to face with the hero of adream.
As I sat at supper before a long table decorated with plates ofbread-and-butter and cheese I saw my friend sitting at the other endof the room, so I asked the boy next to me to tell me his name. "Oh,"he said, looking curiously at my blushes, "you mean old mother F----.He's pious, you know; reads the Bible and funks at games and allthat."
There are some things which no self-respecting schoolboy can affordto forgive. I had made up my mind that it was not pleasant to be anIshmael, that as far as possible I would try to be an ordinary boy atmy new school. My experiences in London had taught me caution, and Iwas anxious not to compromise my position at the outset by making anunpopular friend. So I nodded my head sagely in reply, and looked atmy new-discovered hero with an air of profound contempt.
II
The days that followed were not so uncomfortable as my first greyimpression of the place had led me to expect. I proved to my ownintense astonishment to be rather good at lessons, so that I got onwell with the masters, and the boys were kind enough in theircareless way. I had plenty of pocket-money, and though I did notshine at Association football, for in London I had only watched thebig boys playing Rugby, I was not afraid of being knocked about,which was all that was expected of a new boy. Most of myembarrassments were due to the sensitiveness that made me dislikeasking questions--a weakness that was always placing me in falsepositions. But my efforts to make myself agreeable to the boys werenot unsuccessful, and while I looked in vain for anything like theromantic adventures of which my brother had spoken, I sometimes foundmyself almost enjoying my new life.
And then, as the children say in the streets of London, I wokeup, and discovered that I was desperately home-sick. Partly nodoubt this was due to a natural reaction, but there were othermore obvious causes. For one thing my lavish hospitality hadexhausted my pocket-money in the first three weeks, and I wasashamed to write home for more so soon. This speedy end to myapparent wealth certainly made it easier for the boys to findout that I was not one of themselves, and they began to look atme askance and leave me out of their conversations. I was madeto feel once more that I had been born under a malignant starthat did not allow me to speak or act as they did. I had nottheir common sense, their blunt cheerfulness, their completelack of sensibility, and while they resented my queerness theycould not know how anxious I was to be an ordinary boy. When Isaw that they mistrusted me I was too proud to accept the crumbsof their society like poor mother F----, and I withdrew myself intoa solitude that gave me far too much time in which to examine myemotions. I found out all the remote corners of the school inwhich it was possible to be alone, and when the other boys wentfor walks in the fields, I stayed in the churchyard close to theschool, disturbing the sheep in their meditations among thetomb-stones, and thinking what a long time it would be before Iwas old enough to die.
Now that the first freshness of my new environment had worn off, Iwas able to see my life as a series of grey pictures that repeatedthemselves day by day. In my mind these pictures were marked offfrom each other by a sound of bells. I woke in the morning in a bedthat was like all the other beds, and lay on my back listening tothe soft noises of sleep that filled the air with rumours of healthyboys. The bell would ring and the dormitory would break into anuproar, splashing of water, dropping of hair-brushes and shouts oflaughter, for these super-boys could laugh before breakfast. Then weall trooped downstairs and I forced myself to drink bad coffee in aroom that smelt of herrings. The next bell called us to chapel, andat intervals during the morning other bells called us from one classto another. Dinner was the one square meal we had during the day,and as it was always very good, and there was nothing morbid aboutmy appetite, I looked forward to it with interest. After dinner weplayed football. I liked the game well enough, but the atmosphere ofmud and forlorn grey fields made me shudder, and as I kept goal Ispent my leisure moments in hardening my aeesthetic impressions. Inever see the word football today without recalling the curioussensation caused by the mud drying on my bare knees. After footballwere other classes, classes in which it was sometimes very hard tokeep awake, for the school was old, and the badly ventilatedclass-rooms were stuffy after the fresh air. Then the bell summonedus to evening chapel and tea--a meal which we were allowed toimprove with sardines and eggs and jam, if we had money to buy themor a hamper from home. After tea we had about two hours to ourselvesand then came preparation, and supper and bed. Everything washeralded by a bell, and now and again even in the midst of lessonsI would hear the church-bell tolling for a funeral.
I think my hatred of bells dated back to my early childhood, when thevillage church, having only three bells, played the first bar of"Three Blind Mice" a million times every Sunday evening, till I couldhave cried for monotony and the vexation of the thwarted tune. But atschool I had to pay the penalty for my prejudice every hour of theday. Especially I suffered at night during preparation, when theyrang the curfew on the church bells at intolerable length, for thesewere tranquil hours to which I looked forward eagerly. We preparedour lessons for the morrow in the Great Hall, and I would spread mybooks out on the desk and let my legs dangle from the form in aspirit of contentment for the troubled day happily past. Over my headthe gas stars burned quietly, and all about me I heard the restrainedbreathing of comrades, like a noise of fluttering moths. And then,suddenly, the first stroke of the curfew would snarl through the air,filling the roof with nasal echoes, and troubling the quietude of mymind with insistent vibrations. I derived small satisfaction fromcursing William the Conqueror, who, the history book told me, wasresponsible for this ingenious tyranny. The long pauses between thestrokes held me in a state of strained expectancy until I wanted tohowl. I would look about me for sympathy and see the boys at theirlessons, and the master on duty reading quietly at his table. Thecurfew rang every night, and they did not notice it at all.
The only bell I liked to hear was the last bell that called us to ourbrief supper and to bed, for once the light was out and my body wasbetween the sheets I was free to do what I would, free to think or todream or to cry. There was no real difference between being in bed atschool or anywhere else; and sometimes I would fill the shadows ofthe dormitory with the familiar furniture of my little bedroom athome, and pretend that I was happy. But as a rule I came to bedbrimming over with the day's tears, and I would pull the bedclothesover my head so that the other boys should not know that I washomesick, and cry until I was sticky with tears and perspiration.
The discipline at school did not make us good boys, but it made uscivilised; it taught us to conceal our crimes. And as home-sicknesswas justly regarded as a crime of ingratitude to the authorities andto society in general, I had to restrain my physical weakness duringthe day, and the reaction from this restraint made my tears at nightalmost a luxury. My longing for home was founded on trifles, but itwas not the less passionate. I hated this life spent in walking onbare boards, and the blank walls and polished forms of the schoolappeared to me to be sordid. When now and again I went into one ofthe master's studies and felt a carpet under my feet
, and saw apleasant litter of pipes and novels lying on the table, it seemed tome that I was in a holy place, and I looked at the hearthrug, thewallpaper, and the upholstered chairs with a kind of desolate lovefor things that were nice to see and touch. I suppose that if we hadbeen in a workhouse, a prison, or a lunatic asylum, our aeestheticenvironment would have been very much the same as it was at school;and afterwards when I went with the cricket and football teams toother grammar schools they all gave me the same impression of cleanugliness. It is not surprising that few boys emerge from their schoollife with that feeling for colour and form which is common to nearlyall children.
There was something very unpleasant to me in the fact that we allwashed with the same kind of soap, drank out of the same kind of cup,and in general did the same things at the same time. The schooltimetable robbed life of all those accidental variations that make itinteresting. Our meals, our games, even our hours of freedom seemedonly like subtle lessons. We had to eat at a certain hour whether wewere hungry or not, we had to play at a certain hour when perhaps wewanted to sit still and be quiet. The whole school discipline tendedto the formation of habits at the expense of our reasoning faculties.Yet the astonishing thing to me was that the boys themselves set upstandards of conduct that still further narrowed the possibilities ofour life. It was bad form to read too much, to write home except onSundays, to work outside the appointed hours, to talk to the day-boys,to cultivate social relationships with the masters, to be Cambridgein the boat-race, and in fine to hold any opinion or follow anypursuit that was not approved by the majority. It was only by hidingmyself away in corners that I could enjoy any liberty of spirit, andthough my thoughts were often cheerless when I remembered therelative freedom of home life, I preferred to linger with them ratherthan to weary myself in breaking the little laws of a society forwhich I was in no way fitted.
These were black days, rendered blacker by my morbid fear of thephysical weakness that made me liable to cry at any moment, sometimeseven without in the least knowing why. I was often on the brink ofdisaster, but my fear of the boys' ridicule prevented me frompublicly disgracing myself. Once the headmaster called a boy intohis study, and he came out afterwards with red eyelids and a puffedface. When they heard that his mother had died suddenly in India, allthe boys thought that these manifestations of sorrow were verycreditable, and in the best of taste, especially as he did not letanybody see him crying. For my part I looked at him with a kind ofenvy, this boy who could flaunt his woe where he would. I, too, hadmy unassuageable sorrow for the home that was dead to me thoseforlorn days; but I could only express it among the tombs in thechurchyard, or at night, muffled between the blankets, when thesilent dormitory seemed to listen with suspicious ears.
III
A consoling scrap of wisdom which unfortunately children do not findwritten large in their copybooks is that sorrow is as transitory ashappiness. Although my childhood was strewn with the memorial wreathsof dead miseries, I always had a morbid sense that my presentdiscomforts were immortal. So I had quite made up my mind that Iwould continue to be unhappy at school, when the intervention of twobeings whom I had thought utterly remote from me, gave me a newphilosophy and reconciled me to life. The first was a master, whofound me grieving in one of my oubliettes and took me into his studyand tried to draw me out. Kindness always made me ineloquent, andas I sat in his big basket chair and sniffed the delightful odour ofhis pipe, I expressed myself chiefly in woe-begone monosyllables andhiccoughs. Nevertheless he seemed to understand me very well, andthough he did not say much, I felt by the way in which he puffed outgreat, generous clouds of smoke, that he sympathised with me. He toldme to come and see him twice a week, and that I was at liberty toread any of his books, and in general gave me a sense that I wasunfortunate rather than criminal. This did me good, because a largepart of my unhappiness was due to the fact that constant suppressionby majorities had robbed me of my self-respect. It is better for aboy to be conceited than to be ashamed of his own nature, and toshudder when he sees his face reflected in a glass.
My second benefactor was nominally a boy, though in reality he wasnearly as old as the master, and was leaving at the end of the termto go up to Oxford. He took me by the shoulder one evening in thedusk, and walked me round and round the big clump of rhododendronsthat stood in the drive in front of the school. I did not understandhalf he said, but to my great astonishment I heard him confessingthat he had always been unhappy at school, although at the end hewas captain in lessons, in games, in everything. I was, of course,highly flattered that this giant should speak to me as an equal, andadmit me to his confidences. But I was even more delighted with theencouraging light he threw on school life. "You're only here for alittle spell, you know; you'll be surprised how short it is. Anddon't be miserable just because you're different. I'm different; it'sa jolly good thing to be different." I was not used, to people whotook this wide view of circumstance, and his voice in the shadowssounded like some one speaking in a story-book. Yet although hismonologue gave me an entirely new conception of life, no more of itlingers in my mind, save his last reflective criticism. "All thesame, I don't see why you should always have dirty nails." He neverconfided in me again, and I would have died rather than have remindedhim of his kindly indiscretion; but when he passed me in theplayground he seemed to look at me with a kind of reticent interest,and it occurred to me that after all my queerness might not be such abad thing, might even be something to be proud of.
The value of this discovery to me can hardly be exaggerated. Hithertoin my relationships with the boys I had fought nothing but losingbattles, for I had taken it for granted that they were right and Iwas wrong. But now that I had hit on the astonishing theory that theindividual has the right to think for himself, I saw quite clearlythat most of their standards of conduct sprang from their sheep-likestupidity. They moved in flocks because they had not the courage tochoose a line for themselves. The material result of this new theoryof life was to make me enormously conceited, and I moved among mycomrades with a mysterious confidence, and gave myself the airs of aByron in knickerbockers. My unpopularity increased by leaps andbounds, but so did my moral courage, and I accepted the belatedefforts of my school-fellows to knock the intelligence out of me asso many tributes to the force of my individuality. I no longer criedin my bed at night, but lay awake enraptured at the profundity of mythoughts. After years of unquestioning humility I enjoyed a prolongeddebauch of intellectual pride, and I marvelled at the little boy ofyesterday who had wept because he could not be an imbecile. It wasthe apotheosis of the ugly duckling, and I saw my swan's plumagereflected in the placid faces of the boys around me, as in the vacantwaters of a pool. As yet I did not dream of a moulting season, stillless that a day would come when I should envy the ducks theirdomestic ease and the unthinking tranquillity of their lives. Alittle boy may be excused for not realising that Hans Andersen'sstory is only the prelude to a sadder story that he had not the heartto write.
My new freedom of spirit gave me courage to re-examine the emotionaland aeesthetic values of my environment. I could not persuade myselfthat I liked the sound of bells, and the greyness of the country inwinter-time still revolted me, as though I had not yet forgotten thecheerful reds and greens and blues of the picture-books that filledmy mind as a child with dreams of a delightful world. But now that Iwas wise enough to make the best of my unboyish emotionalism, I beganto take pleasure in certain phases of school-life. Though I wasdevoid of any recognisable religious sense I liked the wide words inthe Psalms that we read at night in the school chapel. This was notdue to any precocious recognition of their poetry, but to the factthat their intense imagery conjured up all sorts of precious visionsin my mind, I could see the hart panting after the water-brooks, inthe valleys of Exmoor, where I had once spent an enchanted holiday. Icould see the men going down to the sea in ships, and the stormywaves, and the staggering, fearful mariners, for I had witnessed agreat tempest off Flamborough Head. Even su
ch vague phrases as "thehills" gave me an intense joy. I could see them so clearly, thosehills, chalky hills covered with wild pansies, and with an all-bluesky overhead, like the lid of a chocolate-box. I liked, too, theservices in the old church on Sunday nights, when the lights werelowered for the sermon, and I would put my hands over my ears andhear the voice of the preacher like the drone of a distant bee. Afterchurch the choral society used to practise in the Great Hall, and asI walked round the school buildings, snatches of their singing wouldbeat against my face like sudden gusts of wind. When I listened atthe doors of my form-room I heard the boys talking about footballmatches, or indulging their tireless passion for unimaginativepersonalities; I would stand on the mat outside wondering whether Iwould be allowed to read if I went in.
I looked forward to Tuesday night, which was my bath-night,almost as much as to Sunday. The school sanitary arrangementswere primitive, and all the water had to be fetched in pails,and I used to like to see the man tipping the hot water into thebath and flinging his great body back to avoid the steam thatmade his grey flannel shirt-sleeves cling to his hairy arms.Most of the boys added a lot of cold water, but I liked to boilmyself because the subsequent languor was so pleasant. Thematron would bring our own bath towels warm from the fire, and Iwould press mine against my face because it smelt of childhoodand of home. I always thought my body looked pretty after areally hot bath; its rosiness enabled me to forgive myself forbeing fat.
One very strong impression was connected with the only master in theschool whom I did not like. He was a German, and as is the case withothers of his nationality, a spray of saliva flew from his lips whenhe was angry, and seeing this, I would edge away from him in alarm.Perhaps it was on this account that he treated me with systematicunfairness and set himself the unnecessary task of making meridiculous in the eyes of the other boys. One night I was wanderingin the playground and heard him playing the violin in his study. Mytaste in music was barbarian; I liked comic songs, which I used tosing to myself in a lugubrious voice, and in London the plaintiveclamour of the street-organs had helped to make my sorrowsrhythmical. But now, perhaps for the first time, I became aware ofthe illimitable melancholy that lies at the heart of all greatmusic. It seemed to me that the German master, the man whom I hated,had shut himself up alone in his study, and was crying aloud. I knewthat if he was unhappy, it must be because he too was an Ishmael, apersonality, one of the different ones. A great sympathy woke withinme, and I peeped through the window and saw him playing with hisface all shiny with perspiration and a silk handkerchief tuckedunder his chin. I would have liked to have knocked at his door andtold him that I knew all about these things, but I was afraid thathe would think me cheeky and splutter in my face.
The next day in his class, I looked at him hopefully, in the lightof my new understanding, but it did not seem to make any difference.He only told me to get on with my work.
The term drew to a close, and most of the boys in my form-roomticked off the days on lists, in which the Sundays were written inred ink to show that they did not really count. As time went on theygrew more and more boisterous, and wherever I went I heard themtelling one another how they were going to spend their holidays. Itwas surprising to me that these boys who were so ordinary duringterm-time should lead such adventurous lives in the holidays, and Ifelt a little envious of their good fortune. They talked of visitingthe theatre and foreign travel in a matter-of-fact way that made methink that perhaps after all my home-life was incomplete. I hadnever been out of England, and my dramatic knowledge was limited topantomimes, for which these enthusiastic students of musical comedyexpressed a large contempt. Some of them were allowed to shoot withreal guns in the holidays, which reminded me of the worst excessesof my brother in Yorkshire. Examining my own life, I had often cometo the conclusion that adventures did not exist outside books. Butthe boys shook this comforting theory with their boastfulprophecies, and I thought once more that perhaps it was mymisfortune that they did not happen to me. I began to fear that Iwould find the holidays tame.
There were other considerations that made me look forward to the endof the term with misgiving. Since it had been made plain to me that Iwas a remarkable boy, I had rather enjoyed my life at school. I hadconceived myself as strutting with a measured dignity before abackground of the other boys--a background that moved and did notchange, like a wind-swept tapestry; but I was quite sure that I wouldnot be allowed to give myself airs at home. It seemed to me that ayoungest brother's portion of freedom would compare but poorly withthe measure of intellectual liberty that I had secured for myself atschool. My brothers were all very well in their way, but I would beexpected to take my place in the background and do what I was told. Ishould miss my sense of being superior to my environment, and myintensely emotional Sundays would no longer divide time into weeks.The more I thought of it, the more I realised that I did not want togo home.
On the last night of the term, when the dormitory had at lengthbecome quiet, I considered the whole case dispassionately in my bed.The labour of packing my play-box and writing labels for my luggagehad given me a momentary thrill, but for the rest I had moved amongmy insurgent comrades with a chilled heart. I knew now that I wastoo greedy of life, that I always thought of the pleasant side ofthings when they were no longer within my grasp; but at the I sametime my discontent was not wholly unreasonable. I had learnt moreof myself in three months than I had in all my life before, and frombeing a nervous, hysterical boy I had arrived at a completeunderstanding of my emotions, which I studied with an almost adultcalmness of mind. I knew that in returning to the society of myhealthy, boyish brothers, I was going back to a kind of life forwhich I was no longer fitted. I had changed, but I had the sense tosee that it was a change that would not appeal to them, and that inconsequence I would have another and harder battle to fight before Iwas allowed to go my own way.
I saw further still. I saw that after a month at home I wouldnot want to come back to school, and that I should have toendure another period of despondency. I saw that my whole schoollife would be punctuated by these violent uprootings, that thealternation of term-time and holidays would make it impossiblefor me to change life into a comfortable habit, and that even tothe end of my school-days it would be necessary for me topreserve my new-found courage.
As I lay thinking in the dark I was proud of the clarity of mymind, and glad that I had at last outwitted the tears that had mademy childhood so unhappy. I heard, the boys breathing softly aroundme--those wonderful boys who could sleep even when they wereexcited--and I felt that I was getting the better of them in thinkingwhile they slept. I remembered the prefect who had told me that wewere there only for a spell, but I did not speculate as to whatwould follow afterwards. All that I had to do was to watch myselfceaselessly, and be able to explain to myself everything that I feltI and did. In that way I should always be strong I enough to guardmy weaknesses from the eyes of the jealous world in which I moved.
The church bells chimed the hour, and I turned over and went tosleep.
The Ghost Ship Page 4
