Hugh Walpole

“ Thompson paused, looked out of the window, walked up and down the room a little, then said:
“I make it a rule always to believe what any boy tells me. I’ve never found you untruthful, Cole. I don’t say that you’re not telling the truth now, but I know what your boys’ code is. You mustn’t sneak about another boy whatever happens. That’s a code that has something to be said for it. It happens to have nothing to be said for it just now. You’re young, and I don’t expect you realise what this means. It involves many people beside themselves—their fathers and mothers and every one in this school. ”

“ It’s all settled.”
“Oh!” gasped Jeremy.
“It’s to be next Sunday. You’re right about not coming. You’re too young.” Raikes sounded very old indeed as he said this. “You swear you won’t tell a living soul?”
“Of course I won’t.”
“You’ll swear by God Almighty?”
“I swear by God Almighty.”
“Never to breathe a word to any boy, master or animal?”
“Never to breathe a word to any boy, master or animal.”
“You’re a good sort, Stocky. Somehow, one can trust you—and one can’t most of them. They’ll be on to you after we’re gone, you know!” ”

“ We all know how adventures, aspirations, longings that seem quite reasonable and attainable in the evening light are absurdly impossible in the morning cold. Jeremy next morning, as he ran round the football ground, felt that he could not have heard Stokesley aright. It was the kind of story that the dormitory tale-teller retailed before people dropped off to sleep. ”

“ We cannot lead completely selfish lives—God does not mean us to do so. Our school is our friend. We belong to it, and we must be proud of it.”
He stepped back. The school sergeant came forward and whispered something to Stokesley. Stokesley himself undid his braces. His trousers fell down over his ankles. He bent forward over the table, hiding his face with his hands. Jeremy could not look. He felt sick; he wanted to cry. He heard the sound of the descending birch. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—would it never end?—eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. ”

“ He stopped in the path.
“By gum!” he said.
“What is it?” asked Riley. “Been stung by a bee?”
“No; just thought of something.”
“You do look queer!”
“It’s nothing.” He moved on. It seemed impossible that the woods should stay just as they were, unmoved by this great event, hanging like old coloured tapestry with their thin dead leaves between the black poles of trees. Unmoved! No one knew. No one but himself.
The great moment came. When in chapel, looking across to the other side, he saw that their places were empty. ”

“ He had been for two terms in the Lower Fourth, and now was near the top of it, and inevitably at the end of this term would be moved out of it. Malcolm, his form master, liked him, being himself a footballer of no mean size. It was not, therefore, until the end of the first fortnight that Jeremy discovered that something very serious was going forward between his two dormitory companions, something in which he was not asked to share. They whispered together continually, and the whispering took the form of Stokesley persuading Pug over and over again. “Oh, come on, Pug. Don’t spoil sport.” ”

“ Boys are extraordinarily susceptible to atmosphere. During the cricket term young Cole had been of no account at all; quite a decent kid, but no use at cricket. But before the autumn term was a week old he was spoken of as the probable scrum half that year, kid though he was. Stokesley was in the first fifteen as a forward, but his place was a little uncertain, and Pug Raikes was nowhere near the first fifteen at all and cared nothing for football.
It happened, therefore, that Jeremy was soon taken into the confidences of the two older boys, and very exciting confidences they were. ”

“ Thompson went up to London. The rumours that sprang to life were marvellous. Stokesley had been seen at a theatre in London, and had been chased all the way down the Strand by an enormous crowd. Raikes had struck a policeman, and been put in a cell. They had been to Buckingham Palace, and interviewed Her Majesty. They had started on a slaver for the South Seas. They had taken up jobs as waiters in a London restaurant. ...
To Jeremy these days were torture. In the first place he was dazzled by their splendour. Why had he been such a fool as to refuse to go with them? One might die to-morrow. ”

“ They were a little condescending, of course, and the first night Stokesley addressed him thus:
“Look here, young Stocky, it’s jolly lucky for you being in with us. None of your cheek, and if you snore you know what you’ll get. You don’t walk in your sleep, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” said Jeremy.
“Well, if you do, you’ll have the surprise of your life. Won’t he, Pug?”
“Rather,” said Raikes.
“And remember you’re playing footer this term for the honour of this dorm. If you play badly you’ll get it like anything in here afterwards.” ”

“ It’s so dull. You must feel that yourself, Stocky, even with your beastly football. Nothing ever happens, and it’s ages before we go to Rugby. You’d much better come too. Of course, you’re a bit young, but they’ll probably want a cabin-boy on the ship; and then we’ll be in the South Seas, where you bathe all the time, and can shy at cokernuts, and there are heaps and heaps of monkeys, and you shoot tigers, and——”
He paused for breath.
A cabin-boy! Had it not been one of his earliest dreams? ”

“ It will be a Sunday—probably next Sunday. We’re allowed off all the afternoon, and there’s a train at Saroby Junction that goes to London at four o’clock. We’ll be in London by seven.”
“If they catch you,” said Jeremy slowly, “there’ll be the most awful row.”
“Of course,” said Stokesley contemptuously. “But they won’t. How can they? We’ll be in London by Call-Over; and we’ll move to different hotels, and as soon as we think they’re on to us we’ll be off to Southampton. There are boats go every day.”
It was plain that Raikes was caught more and more deeply as Stokesley developed the plan. ”

“ You may be doing a very serious thing that will affect many people’s lives if you don’t tell me what you know. Do you realise that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, then, did they say nothing at all about going away?” ”