Edward Ashley Walrond Clarke

“ It was late in the afternoon of a desolate and cold January day when Jaspar Tristram arrived at Scarisbrick on his way to Dr. Tower’s school as a new boy. The journey had been long; at every stage that he had left behind his heart had sunk more and more, and now, as the fly began heavily to lumber off, he leant out of the window, still, if he might, to keep the station to the last in view as the one remaining link by which he could fancy himself yet bound to home. ”

“ Whatever there might be before him, he must bear it as best he could; and the fly, as it imperturbably rolled on, seemed to be the instrument of some mysterious force against which it was useless to fight. ”

“ As for the rest, they were already most of them in bed; but five or six, including Orr, were looking on and applauding Els who, mounted upon his bed, was apparently trying to see how high by jumping he could send his nightshirt fluttering above his head.
‘I back you won’t do that, Dick!’ he cried to his friend, as, breathless, fora moment he paused. And then Jaspar after a last hesitation—for once he had taken it off he would never again be able to say of anything: ‘This was put on at home!’—pulled his jersey over his head. ”

“ By now, however, Jaspar had begun to have a dim s suspicion that he was being made fun of, and he was thus still considering within himself what answer he had better make to this second inquiry, which seemed still more extraordinary and unintelligible than the first, when Orr broke in with:
‘Oh, come along, Els, do! I’ll give you a ride!’ and hitching him up on his back, he ran lightly off, followed by the rest, whooping and shouting, just, so Jaspar thought, like a lot of savages. ”

“ How ever could they laugh and talk as they were doing? And how, above all, could they find such an appetite for those stodgy blocks of bread and scrape? He supposed—though it was hard to realise—that he would by and by be one of them, and feeling towards some new chap as doubtless they were then doing towards him; but he was sure that no one ever would see him helping with anything like the heartiness which they displayed to clear of their contents those high-piled dishes they were pushing about the clothless table, up and down and from side to side. But he thought he would like a little tea ”

“ Yet, anxious though he was to impress his new master with the extent of his attainments, he was even more so to gain his good-will, whose power over him was to be so great, and whom at any rate he would have given much to have made well-disposed towards him, so that he might have had at least one person in that all-strange world of whom he could have thought as a friend ”