. From Dan to Beersheba there was but one
opinion. Buller had not been playing the game. The authorities were
against them. The House would have to cling together to protect its
rights. They could not have Buller trampling on them, dictating terms.
He had begun the contest; they would be prepared for him next time. An
aura of antagonism overhung the grey studies. Members of Buller's house
were dealt with in the sweeping delineation of "the swine across the
road." For the rest of the term, every time Princeford passed the School
House on his way to the common room, a whistle blew from the dark
recesses of the studies, and some voice shouted: "No try; off-side!"
"The Bull" himself was looked on with a general suspicion. The
inevitable had happened. "The Bull" in his attempt to sacrifice the
individual to the community had forgotten that the community is at the
mercy of the individual. The world is composed of a number of
individuals round whom parties and nations cling. "The Bull" had made an
attack on the individual, and the community that Gordon represented took
up his attitude of defiance, strengthening his resolve not to give way,
to keep the House independent of the tyranny that drew five outhouses
together as one. The House was not to be coerced. Its members would be
free to think, to do, to speak as they thought best. From that moment
Gordon took the interests of the House and not Fernhurst as the standard
by which to judge all his thoughts and actions.

And so it happened that just at this moment, when the House was bubbling
over with suppressed wrath, a chance was given them of showing their
independence and defiance.

CHAPTER VII: REBELLION

On the Wednesday after the Games Committee's activities in the library,
Ferrers banged into Betteridge's study, his arms laden with books. There
was a Stoics meeting on the next Saturday, and the card drawn up at the
beginning of the term announced that there would be a reading of _Arms
and the Man_, by Bernard Shaw. But Ferrers, who was now president, never
took any notice of the programme, which he invariably altered a day or
two before the meeting. This imposed a considerable strain on those who
had to get up fresh parts and prepare different speeches at a second's
notice. But as the alterations were nearly always an improvement no one
minded.

"Sorry, Betteridge--had to change Stoics' thing. Just picked up
this--_Younger Generation_, by Stanley Houghton--orde