in arm, or lounge on the seats lazy and
contented. Gordon loved to sit in the pavilion balcony watching the
white forms change across between the overs, the red ball bounce along
the grass, the wicket-keeper whip off the bails, the umpire's finger go
up. The whole tableau was so unreal, so idealistic. Then the school
would come down after lunch with rugs and cushions, and would clamour
outside the tuck-shop for ices and ginger beer. Gordon could hardly
connect his present existence with the past two years of doubts,
uncertainties, wild excitements, hurry, bustle--never a second's peace.

One of his most perfect days was the Radley match. After a long journey,
at the very end of the day they passed through Oxford, and Gordon caught
one fleeting glimpse of those wonderful "dreaming spires," rising golden
in the dying sun. As the team walked up from Abingdon to the college,
Tester, who had at last got into the side, came up and took Gordon's
arm.

"You know, when I saw Oxford lying out there so peaceful and calm, I
thought I had at last reached the end of searching. This was my first
view of Oxford; by passing the certificate I didn't need to go up for
smalls. Thank God, I am going up there next term. I think I shall forget
all my old misgivings in so completely peaceful an atmosphere. I can't
shake off the Public School ideas yet; I am all adrift; still, I think
it will be all right there."

Gordon wondered indeed how anyone could fail to find all their dreams
realised in so secluded, so monastic a Utopia.

The next two days were supremely happy. Gordon, Lovelace and Foster were
put into the same house; and they spent half the night ragging in their
old light-hearted fashion. The match resembled most of the other
performances of that year's Eleven. The whole side was out for eighty.
Gordon hit two fours and was then leg before; Lovelace, with laborious
efforts and much use of his pads, made twenty-three and five leg byes.
But it was a sorry performance, and Radley put up over two hundred.
Fernhurst went in again; and that day Gordon and Lovelace were sent in
first.

It was an amazing performance. Gordon's cricket was, in honest fact, one
of the biggest frauds that had ever been inflicted on an opposing side.
He had three shots--a cut, a slash shot past cover, and a drive that
landed the ball anywhere from mid-wicket to over short-slip. People used
to say that he tried each of these shots in rotation. That perhaps wa