d
Phil Western's daily life at home.

Within the house all was dull and sombre. Scarcely a laugh or a smile
brightened his existence. Stern and full of earnestness, his adoptive
parents gave themselves up to their work, the religious education of the
parishioners and the careful bringing-up of their son. Outside there
was a landscape teeming with life and movement; a town of some size in
the hollow below, its streets filled with country folk who had come in
to attend the market, and across the haze caused by the smoke rising
lazily from the chimneys, a huge vista of green trees and fields, broken
here and there by a wide silvery streak which marked the course of the
river, twisting and twining, now hidden by the foliage, and again
running through the open fields, flashing in the brilliant sun, and
bearing upon its smooth surface a host of tiny boats filled with
townspeople out for an afternoon's enjoyment.

A hundred yards or more beyond the outskirts of Riddington was a large,
red-brick building, almost smothered in creeper, and bearing in its
centre a tall tower from the four sides of which the face of a clock
looked out. It was Riddington High School, and the hands of the clock
were pointing close to the hour of four. A moment later there was a
loud "whirr", and then the first stroke of the hour, followed almost
instantly by a hubbub in the building below. Hundreds of shrill voices
seemed to have been let loose, and after them the owners; for from all
sides of the school lads appeared, rushing out in mad haste, some
hatless, others jamming their hats upon their heads, and all in the same
condition of desperate hurry. A minute later they had streamed across
the playground and were racing towards the river, to a spot where an old
waterman stood guard over some dozen boats. Charging down the hill the
mob of excited lads swept the old man aside, laughed merrily at his
expostulations, and in a twinkling were aboard and shoving off from the
river-bank.

But not all the scholars of Riddington High School had joined in the
excited rush. A tall, big-boned lad of some fifteen years, with hair
which was almost red in colour, and a boyish, open face, strode from one
of the doors accompanied by two others. Flinging his hat jauntily upon
his head, Phil Western, for it was none other than he, walked across the
asphalt which formed the playground of the school, and, putting his two
forefingers in his mouth, produced a l