"Right-o!" he yelled back; and racing across the green jumped the railings, and went laughing up to the tuck-shop.
"I say, Foster, let's have a big tea this afternoon. We had a supper for the A-K side on Saturday. Let's have the rest up to-day."
Gordon flushed with excitement at what lay before him. He wanted everyone else to laugh with him too. An enormous tea was ordered. Men from the outhouses came down, the tables were drawn up on the V. A green, and the afternoon went by in a whirl of happiness. They rolled out arm in arm for the prize-giving. For the last time Gordon saw the whole staff sitting on "their dais serene." He looked at the row of faces. There was Rogers puffed out with pride; Christy, pharisee and humbug, superbly satisfied with himself. Finnemore sat in the background, a pale grey shadow, that had been too weak to get to grips with life at all. Trundle nursed his chin, twittering in a haze of indecision. Ferrers was fidgeting about, impatient of delay. He, at any rate, was not being misled by outside things; if he was misled by anything, it was by the impulse of his own feverish temperament. He was the splendid rebel leader of forlorn hopes, the survival of those
"Lonely antagonists of destiny
That went down scornful before many spears."
There, again, was Macdonald, with the same benign smile that time could not change. As he looked at him, Gordon thought that he at least could not have been deceived, but had too kind, too wide a heart to disillusion the young. And, above all, sat Buller, a second Garibaldi, with a heart of gold, an indomitable energy, a splendid sincerity, the most loyal of Fernhurst's sons. And as Gordon looked his last at his old foe, he felt that "the Bull" was so essentially big, so strong, so noble of heart, that it hardly mattered what he worshipped. There hung round him no false trapping of the trickster; sincerity was the keynote of his life. Gordon would search in vain, perhaps, for a brighter lodestar. As two vessels that have journeyed a little way together down a river, on taking their different courses at the ocean mouth, signal one another "good luck," so Gordon from the depth of his heart wished "the Bull" farewell and Godspeed.
At last the form lists were read out. A titter rewarded Gordon's position of facile ultimus. The cups were distributed. Gordon went up for the batting cups, his own individual one, and the challenge one that went to the House. Foster went up for the Senior cricket; it was a veritable School House triumph. The Chief made his usual good-bye speech, kindly, hopeful, encouraging. The head of the school shouted "Three cheers for the masters!"—the gates swept open, the cloisters were filled with hurrying feet.
The last hours passed all too swiftly. In a far corner of the gallery Gordon sat with Morgan, listening to his last school concert. Opposite the choir in their white shirts, and brushed-back hair, sang the school songs inseparable from the end of the school year. There was the summer song, the "Godspeed to those that go," the poignant Valete:
"We shall watch you here in our peaceful cloister,
Faring onward, some to renown, to fortune,
Some to failure—none if your hearts are loyal—
None to dishonour."
To Gordon every word brought back with it a flood of memories. He could see himself, the small boy, reading those verses for the first time before he went to Fernhurst, ignorant of what lay before him. How soon he had changed his fresh innocency! How soon his bright gold had grown dim! Then he saw himself this time last year, listening to those words with an unbounded confidence, certain that he at least would never achieve failure. Visions in the twilight! And what was the dawn to bring?
The Latin Carmen began. The school stood on their seats and howled it out. Then came Auld Lang Syne. They clasped hands, swaying in chorus. The echoes of God Save the King shook the timbered ceiling, someone was shouting "Three cheers for the visitors!"; the school surged towards the door; Gordon found his feet on the small stone stairway. He looked back once at the warm lights; the honour-boards that would never bear his name; the choir still in their places; the visitors putting on their coats and wraps. Then the stream moved on; the picture faded out; and from the courts came the noise of motors crunching on the gravel.