spoke first. But evidently
Desmond had determined already the nature of their future relations.
They no longer shared No. 7, John being in the Upper Sixth with a room
to himself, but they still "found" together. To separate would mean a
public scandal from which each shrank in horror. No; let them meet at
meals as before till the end of the term. Indeed, so little change was
made in their previous intercourse, that John began to hope that Caesar
would walk with him as usual upon the following Sunday. And if he
did--if he did, John felt that he would speak. On the top of the tower,
looking towards the Spire, alone with his friend, exalted above the
thorns and brambles of the wilderness, words would come to him.

But on the following Sunday Desmond walked with Scaife.

FOOTNOTES:

[34] Of these, the Park, now a boarding-house, was a characteristic
specimen. It belonged to Lord Northwick, Lord of the Manor of Harrow.

[35] In the thirties Harrow boys played "Jack o' Lantern," or nocturnal
Hare and Hounds. They used to attend Kingsbury Races and Pinner Fair.
Lord Alexander Russell, when he was a boy at the Grove, kept a pack of
beagles at the foot of the Hill.

CHAPTER XII

_"Lord's"_

"There we sat in the circle vast,
Hard by the tents, from noon,
And looked as the day went slowly past
And the runs came all too soon;
And never, I think, in the years gone by,
Since cricketer first went in,
Did the dying so refuse to die,
Or the winning so hardly win."

"My dear Jonathan, I'm delighted to see you. You know my father, I
think?" It was the Caterpillar that spoke.

John shook hands with Colonel Egerton.

The three were standing in the Members' Enclosure at Lord's. The
Caterpillar, gorgeous in frock-coat, with three corn-flowers[36] in the
lapel of it, was about as great a buck as his sire, quite as
conspicuous, and, seemingly, as cool. It happened to be a blazing hot
day, but heat seldom affected Colonel Egerton.

"By Jove," he said to John, "I'm told it's a certainty this year, and
I've come early, too early for me, to see a glorious victory. There's
civil war raging on the top of the Trent coach, I give you my word."

"We've won the toss," said John.

"Ah, there's Charles Desmond, an early bird, too."

He bustled away, leaving John and the Caterpillar together. The great
ground in front of them was being cleared. One could see, through the
few people scat