CHAPTER VIII: THE DAWNING OF MANY DREAMS
The Three Cock came and went, bringing with it House caps for Lovelace, Collins and Fletcher, but it caused little stir. Everyone had foreseen the result, and without Hazelton (ill with mumps) the House stood little chance of keeping the score under fifty. Hostilities were declared closed for the time being. The four weeks of training for the sports came on, and Gordon's Sixth Form privileges were restored. For a short time the hold of athleticism was weakened, and as it weakened, the hold of literature became more firm.
"House Caps" were always allowed a fairly slack time after the Three Cock, and Gordon made the best of his. While the last traces of winter were disappearing, and the evenings began to draw out into long, lingering sunsets, he voyaged on into the unknown waters of poetry. Keats and Shelley, names which had once meant nothing to him, now became his living prophets. He felt his own life coloured by their interpretations. During the days of his quest for power, when the scent of battle had led him on, he had found inspiration only in those whose moods coincided with his own. But now that the contest was over and strife was merged into a temporary lull, there came a check in the fiery search for achievements. He found pleasure in the gentler but far more beautiful melodies of Keats. Byron and Swinburne had beaten so loudly on their drums, and blown so forcibly on the clarion that his ears had been deafened. But in the peaceful afterglow of satisfied desire he asked for soft and quiet music.
During this time he saw a great deal of Ferrers. Together they discussed all the questions that to them seemed most vital. The Public School system came in for a great deal of abuse.
"A lot wants altering," Ferrers said. "Boys come here fresh from preparatory schools. If they are clever and get into higher forms, they are put among bigger boys, and they get their outlook coloured by them. They get wrong impressions shoved into their heads, cease to think at all, lose all sense of honesty and morality. Then the school that has made them like this finds out what they are, and sends them away."
"By Jove, that's just what Jeffries said."
"Jeffries—who is Jeffries? I don't know him."
"He was a splendid fellow; but, like most other people, he followed the crowd, then got caught and had to go."
"That is it; always the same. Usually the least bad are sacked, too; never heard of a real rake getting sent away; the rakes are far too clever. Cleverness is what counts, counts all through life. A man is expelled only because he is not clever enough to avoid being caught, and then the school thinks it's saving the others by sending him away. And it does no good. The big wrong 'un stays on, only the weak one goes. Human nature is a thing that has got to be dealt with carefully, not in the half-hearted way it is here."