They were close friends, these two, and had been so ever since Norman as a boy of eight had fallen in love with Pamela as a baby of two. It's a nice sort of boy who loves children, and Norman had been a very attractive small boy, high-spirited, energetic and mischievous, but never a source of anxiety with his mischievousness, as his cousin Hugo had been. Hugo was a year older than Norman, and always eager to make his seniority felt. In those early days Norman had paid visits from the little house in Hampstead where his parents then lived, to Hayslope Hall, and greatly enjoyed the ample life of the country house, with ponies to ride, the river to fish, later on rabbits and birds to shoot, and all the blissful freedom of the woods and fields. But Hugo, his constant companion in holiday activities, had spoilt a good deal of the pleasure of them. At first Norman had given way and been bullied. It seemed as if Hugo were unable to enjoy himself without being unpleasant. He was bigger and stronger than Norman, and had all the advantage of being on his own ground. In earlier visits, when both children had been under the eye of nurses and governess, there had been frequent quarrels, but Hugo had been forced more or less to behave himself. But during that month of Christmas holidays, when Hugo had come home from his first term at school, he had turned Norman's excitement and pleasure into a dragging unhappiness, which increased so much that he came to count the days before the end of his visit as eagerly as he had counted those which had brought him to it.
Hugo, as a schoolboy, tyrannized over him, and yet he wanted him for his games, and hardly ever left him in peace. There was another boy, a year older than Hugo—Fred Comfrey, son of the Rector of Hayslope—who was constantly with them. He took his line from Hugo, and helped in the bullying. Poor little Norman used to cry himself to sleep every night, but it was his pride never to let his tormentors see how much they hurt him. His uncle and aunt were kind to him. It would sometimes come over him with a sense of bewilderment how little they knew of his real feelings; for everything seemed to be right when the boys were with them. No doubt they thought he was enjoying himself to the full, having everything that a boy could want to make him happy.
It was at this time that he came to adore little Pamela, whose bright prattle and pretty, loving ways with him soothed his sore heart. But it was only now and then that he could forget himself, playing with her. The other boys were brutally scornful of his taste for the companionship of a baby.
He did not go to Hayslope again until a year later. By that time he was a schoolboy himself. He had thought a good deal about his cousin Hugo, and about Fred Comfrey, in the interval, and come to the conclusion, assisted by an intimate friend of his own age to whom he had disclosed the matter, that he had been a bally ass to be put down by them.
He had entered the republic of his school with unhappy anticipations of the life he would lead there, with forty tyrants to domineer over him instead of two. If it had not been for his experience with Hugo and Fred, he would have escaped months of anticipatory dread. But his fears proved groundless. This was a very good school for small boys, with a headmaster whose outstanding aim was to make friends of them all and to keep them happy. He was helped by his wife, who loved children and had none of her own. The forty boys were her family, and outside school hours they used the whole house as if it were their home. Under this happy rule there were no awkward fences for a little boy new to school life to surmount. He was welcomed as a member of the family, and one who was expected to do it credit. Everything was done to bring out whatever originality of character he had in him. The elder boys, taking their tone from the headmaster, his wife and assistants, were kind and protective. The only objection to the system was that a new boy of self-assertive habits occasionally made himself something of a nuisance. But the standards and ideals of school life soon told on all but the incorrigibles; the headmaster knew when and how to exercise severity on the rare occasions on which it was required; and if a boy had not submitted himself to the tone of the school by the end of his first year his parents were asked to remove him. That sometimes made trouble for the headmaster, but he was content to put up with that now and then for the sake of his beloved school.
Norman, after a pause of bewilderment, expanded under this treatment. He was gay and bright and bubbling over with life; he was quick with his work and had an aptitude for the pursuits that are valued among boys. He was made much of from the first, but his native modesty prevented his being spoilt.
It was this agreeable modesty of his that had led him to knuckle under to Hugo and Fred the year before, and they had taken advantage of it. He went down to Hayslope with his father and mother for Christmas with the determination to knuckle under in nothing, and rather enjoyed, though with some tremors, the prospect of making it quite plain where he stood, and where he intended to stand for the future. He had learnt to box a little at school, and thought it might come in useful. He didn't suppose that he was capable of taking on Hugo and Fred together, but if it should be necessary he was not averse from trying.
To his immense surprise, however, Hugo greeted him affably, and seemed to have forgotten the disagreeables of the previous visit. They played together with no more than the normal amount of friction between small boys, and settled their differences as they arose without coming anywhere near to blows.
Then Fred Comfrey, who had spent Christmas away from home, came on the scene. Now was the time for the three of them to take stock of one another. So far, Norman had been content to make friends with an apparently much improved Hugo, without bothering himself about whether he would have liked him if he had seen him in contact with other boys. In the give and take of school life a boy finds his level very quickly. He is known through and through, and sized up with an accuracy seldom at fault, though the rule by which he is measured is more rigid than any that is applied in after life. Outside, the rule is somewhat relaxed. Boys not acceptable to their fellows may find themselves liked by older people, and show themselves in an altogether different light. The ordinary courtesies of life, disregarded at school, have some sway. There is the softening influence of feminine and family society. A truce is called, and allowances unconsciously made. So it was with Hugo and Norman, who were not made to run together, but managed to find some community of interest in the pursuits of holiday time.
But with the advent of the third party new adjustments had to be made. There was a pause of observation, and then the struggle began.