There was some subdued laughter.
Lovelace turned round to the wicket-keeper and said: "Strange as it may seem, I am the worst member of this rotten side, and I am playing for my place. This is the way to keep your place at Fernhurst."
The final achievement was a successful appeal against the light.
The next day it rained in torrents.
"Jolly rotten luck," said Lovelace, "and I was certain for a bat for making my fifty, too."
"Do you think so?" said Tester. "You know, they don't play to a finish in England. You are thinking of Australian rules."
Commemoration came and went, with its tea-parties, parasols, calf-bound books, sermons and cricket match. The term drew to its close.
"This is the best term I have ever had," said Gordon. "By Jove, we have had some good days."
Yet, of all things, that which remained clearest in his memory was one day early in the term, when he and Lovelace were recovering from chicken-pox. The school had gone for a field day to Salisbury, and they were left behind with Archie Fletcher, who had been ragging Jenks, and had been kept back for punishment, and a quantity of small fry. No work was done. In the morning they all had to go into the big schoolroom and hear Claremont read Lycidas and parts of Comus.
Claremont read remarkably well, and Gordon, in an atmosphere of genial tolerance and good humour, was able to get a clearer insight into the real soul of the pedant of the Lower Fifth. For, shorn of his trappings, Claremont was "a dear old fellow." Among books he had found the lasting friendship and consolation that among his colleagues he had sought in vain. And as he read Comus, in many ways the most truly poetical poem in the English language, Gordon realised how sensitively Claremont's heart was wrought upon by every breath of beauty.