Of the interview with the headmaster, so square of jowl and brow and yet so kindly, Ishmael remembered little in after years; for it became blurred by all he grew to know of "Old Tring" during the long though intermittent association of school. Old Tring rang a bell, after a gruff sentence of welcome, and, apparently as glad as Ishmael for an excuse to part, told him he should be shown round by one Killigrew. Old Tring added that he, Ishmael Ruan, would be sure to like Killigrew. Ishmael doubted this; somehow, waiting there in that still room, whose tranquillity seemed so much of its essence as to be more than a mere absence of noise, waiting and gazing at the strip of sunlit High Street that seemed lambent by contrast with the dimness within, Ishmael conceived a dislike to Killigrew. The name sounded brisk, brutal even; Ishmael was unaware that it was the fact that he had been told he would like Killigrew which awaked his antagonism. Unconsciously he resented that this old man should take advantage of knowing more of books to think that therefore he knew what he, Ishmael, would and would not like.
They all three waited; the Parson ran a finger along the lines of calf-bound books, then paused, Old Tring at his elbow. Ishmael was forgotten, isolated in himself, and, without warning, in the irrational way of such phases, he was overwhelmed by one of those strange periods in which, though actually but a second or so, time seems to hold its breath and the consciousness, muffled by some overwhelming dimness, is arrested and stands alone, on a pin-point of eternity, without past or future. It seemed to him that nothing would ever move again in the dim room, where for this fraction of a second everything was motionless except the dust motes that danced in the beam slanting through the low window, wreathing this way and that like steam within the strip of brightness, but ceasing to be visible at the edge as sharply as though they ceased to exist—as though an impalpable line ruled in the air would not allow the twisting coils to pass beyond, even when the pattern demanded it. Ishmael stared at this aerial path of living light, his mind hypnotised by it, and the remainder of the room by its contrasting density seemed to fall away from him; out of a great distance came the Parson's voice saying, "So you've got a first edition of the Antiquities…." Followed the soft rubbing sound of one smooth book being drawn out from between its companions, then the crisper noise of large pages being turned.
The moment, which had seemed so intensely the present to Ishmael that during it he had thought it could never cease to be, reeled and sank into the past, leaving him with the feeling that time was once more in motion, like a vast clock whose pendulum has stopped for one beat, only to resume its swing again. At once it became possible that everything should go on, the idea of the incursion of the boy Killigrew ceased to be wildly chimerical, and with this acceptance of it Killigrew himself was in the room.
The vibrant path was no longer bright to the shutting-off of all else, material and mental; the Parson looked up from his first edition; Old Tring's hand, advancing, came into the strip of light, and seemed to spring to life, swelled to huge dimensions, became of a glowing whiteness. Killigrew, red-headed, freckled, standing with an air of surly self-protection, suddenly raised his light lashes to give the sweetest smile Ishmael had ever seen. Always, even in moments of irritation, it was to remain with him as illuminative of Killigrew—that peculiar radiant smile which carried him so softly, if not triumphantly, through life. It would have been a disgusting smile if it had been calculated, even self-conscious; as it was, it made of Killigrew a creature subtly apart, though for no deeper reason.
Old Tring said: "Killigrew, this is Ruan, who has come from Bolerium, or, as you would vulgarly term it, Land's End. Take him and show him the school, but bring him back to have tea with his guardian." The two boys went out and as he was shutting the door Ishmael, who had the woodland hearing of a little animal, caught some low-toned words of the Parson's: "… makings of a fine spirit. I assure you, Tring …" That was himself, Ishmael Ruan, whom they were speaking of. "A fine spirit …"; the phrase pricked his imagination—he swelled to it. He glanced at Killigrew, who was whistling in rosy unconsciousness of proximity to any spirit at all, and suddenly felt enormously relieved that the other boy had not heard, aware, by the new angle to which he was already responding, that Killigrew would have been disgusted rather than impressed. Once in the courtyard, the freemasonry of young things released from the pressure of grown-ups drew their eyes together. Unconsciously Ishmael thrust his hands into the trouser pockets of his new serge suit, in imitation of Killigrew, whose swagger was really a thing inimitable. Something stirred in Ishmael which had hitherto been unknown to him; it was not love, which in greater or lesser degree he already knew—for he was an affectionate boy in his inarticulate way—it was not merely an impulse for friendship; that would have been no alien thing. It was the beginning of that relationship which only masculine creatures ever really know, a relationship which is intimate without ever making inroads on privacy; full of pleasure in companionship without any feeling of a blank when apart; where love cannot be said to exist, and yet of which, if the irrevocableness of death remove one of the two, there remains to the other a void that is felt recurrently for the rest of his life whenever anything arises which that other person alone could have felt and appreciated in quite the same way. It was no David and Jonathan friendship which grew between Ishmael and Killigrew such as may sometimes be found among boys, but it was an intimacy that, in its aloof way, was to add something to the pattern of their lives that neither would have found without it.
In after years, if Ishmael had examined into the thing, which he never did, he would have seen that it was because, widely different as their two natures were, each had a side that corresponded. For everyone has a part of him, nearly always the larger, which is in relation with the general run of the world, and also a part which is out of key with it. Neither is more real than the other, though one is always bigger and more insistent than the other, and in the relative proportions lies every possibility. It was those parts of them which were out of key with the ordinary acceptances that were attuned in Ishmael and Killigrew, though neither was as yet aware they had such aspects, far less in what measure. On that first afternoon and for several days afterwards they were merely unthinkingly aware of a blind tolerance for each other that rose more nearly to a warm respect over the matter of Killigrew's badger.
This attractive though violent animal lurked in a hutch artfully concealed between the roof and the rafters at the far end of the dormitory where Killigrew slept. A trap door gave admission to the dim three-cornered place where heads had to be bowed for fear of the beams and voices and footsteps tuned down as low as possible lest someone in authority should overhear. For the badger was contraband, or so its owner, for greater glory, chose to assume, though as a matter of fact it was more than likely had permission been asked to keep the beast it would have been accorded, for St. Renny had its reputation as the great naturalists' school to keep up. Half the glamour surrounding the savage pet would have vanished, however, and the secret was jealously guarded, the badger himself, by his unconquerable stench, being the only person likely to give it away. Luckily the hutch was not directly over the dormitory, but right at the angle of the roof, where a low window, kept always open by Killigrew, allowed the worst of the smell to be wafted away. The increasing size of the badger and its consequent fierceness were likely to make its ultimate retention impossible; even now, a mere ball of striped fluff, it bit savagely whenever it was handled.
Badgers, which are often erroneously supposed to be nearly extinct in England, swarm over Cornwall, so that Killigrew's specimen did not enjoy any special distinction as a rarity, save in its capacity as a "pet." They are, however, very difficult to catch, being strong and cunning and armed with terrific teeth and claws, and Killigrew was passionately attached to his unyielding prisoner, not so much for its own sake as for what it represented for him—outlawry, romance, the touch of the wild which glorified life. Not on the first day was Ishmael accounted worthy, or even safe, as a repository for this secret, but when Killigrew did show it him, Ishmael rose in importance through his intimate knowledge of badgers and their ways.
"Wouldn't He let you keep it if He knew?" asked Ishmael, when, finger and thumb round its neck and another finger firmly gripping under a forepaw, he had held and admired the spitting animal.
"Rather not. We're not allowed to keep anything, though they make us sweat across the moor what they call 'observing the animal creation in its own haunts.' They like one to grind over beastesses and butterflies and suchlike."