Chapter Five.
Saint Werner’s.
“So soon the boy a youth, the youth a man,
Eager to run the race his fathers ran.”
Rogers’ Human Life.
The last day at Harton came; the last chapel-service in that fair school fabric; the last sermon, “Arise, let us go hence;” the last look at the churchyard and the fourth-form room; the last “Speecher,” and delivering up of the monitor’s keys; the last farewells to Mr Carden and the other masters, and the Doctor, and their schoolfellows and fags; and then with swelling hearts Julian and Lillyston got into the special train, thronged with its laughing and noisy passengers, and during the twenty minutes which were occupied by their transit to London, were filled with the melancholy thought that the days of boyhood were over for ever.
“Good-bye, Frank,” said Julian—“To-morrow, to fresh fields and pastures new.”
“Good-bye, Julian. We must meet next at Saint Werner’s.”
“Mind you write meanwhile.”
“All right. You shall hear in a week. Good-bye.” And Lillyston nodded from the cab window his last farewell to Julian Home, the Harton boy.