our youth always appear to us much greater than those of
any successive era. In future years Gordon was to see other captains of
football, other captains of cricket, but with the exception of the
tremendous Lovelace, Meredith towered above them all. He was at that
moment the very great god of Gordon's soul. He seemed to be all that
Gordon wished to be, brilliant and successful. Surely the fates had
showered on him all their gifts.

On the last Monday there was a huge feed in the games study. Over twenty
people were crowded in. Armour was there, Mansell, Gordon, Simonds,
Foster, Ferguson, everyone except Clarke. There was no one who was not
sorry to lose Meredith; his achievements so dazzled them that they could
see nothing beyond them. They were proud to have such a man in the
house. It was all sheer happiness.

Somehow on the last day the following notice appeared on the House
board:--

In Memoriam
MALEVUS SCHOLARUM
In hadibus requiescat
Quod non sine ignominia militavit

No one knew who was responsible for it. Clarke looked at it for a second
and turned away with a face that expressed no emotion.

By the Sixth Form green Simonds was shouting across to Meredith:

"Best of luck, old fellow, and mind you come down for the House
supper...."

On the way down to the station Archie Fletcher burst out:

"Well, thank God, that swine Clarke's gone. He absolutely mucked up the
House." Gordon agreed.

"If we had a few more men like Meredith now!" Rather a change had come
over the boy who a year before had been shocked at the swearing in the
bathroom. "When one is in Rome...."

BOOK II: THE TANGLED SKEIN

"Et je m'en vais
Au vent mauvais
Qui m'emporte
Deca dela
Pareil a la
Feuille morte."

PAUL VERLAINE.

CHAPTER I: QUANTUM MUTATUS

If Gordon were given the opportunity of living any single year over
again, exactly as he had lived it before, he would in all probability
have chosen his second year at Fernhurst. He had then put safely out of
sight behind him the doubts and anxieties of the junior; he had not yet
reached any of the responsibilities of the senior. It was essentially a
time of light-hearted laughter, of "rags," of careless happiness. Every
day dawned without a trace of trouble imminent; every night closed with
a feed in Mansell's big study, while the gramophone strummed out
rag-time choruses. And yet these three terms were very crit