James Lawrence—or Jimmie, as he was always called—was a slender, dark-haired handsome youth. He had a frank countenance, an engaging smile, black hair, and beautiful dark eyes. He recovered his self-possession in a moment and looked Tony over critically, as he waited for the Doctor to finish speaking. “Very good, sir,” he said, at length. “Come along, Deering, and I’ll show you where you are to room.”
“You may think the old gentleman is in the clouds,” he said, as they turned into a long corridor leading from the Doctor’s study, “but we have to wake up early in the morning to fool him—not that we don’t, you know!—but he is keen enough to make it mighty interesting. Why I have got twenty-five distinct directions about you already. You are to sit next me at table, for instance, and poor old Teddy Lansing is transferred to Mr. Williams.”
“Will he mind?” asked Tony, a trifle anxiously.
“Well, you’ll find out if he does mind. Teddy’s a noisy brute. There! that’s the way into the schoolroom,” he interrupted himself to say, “you’ll wish you could forget it in a week or so. Take a tip, watch Kit Wilson and me; we’ll show you a trick or two. But you are so beastly new.... See that animated broomstick toddling along? That’s old Roylston, the Latin master; you’ll meet him too soon for your comfort; we won’t stop now, despite the Doctor’s instructions. Give him a wide berth, and don’t bluff him.”
By this time they had got outside the Old School on the terrace, with the wonderful outlook over bay and sea. Tony began to make some remark about the view.
“Oh, the view!” exclaimed Lawrence, “You’ll get used to that too. That’s Lovel’s Woods over yonder,” he said, pointing to a stretch of thickly-wooded hilly land by the Strathsey shore, “rather useful in the winter term. You’re in Standerland, eh? That’s that long crazy gray stone building over the quad. Lucky dog to get a room, say I. Bill Morris is the master—a decent sort; an old boy, strong therefore with the doctor. Thank heaven and the Head that you’re going to be under Bill. No, we aren’t going over there now. You’ll have to scamper over there to wash up before dinner. I’ve got a page of Cæsar to do before last period, so let’s toddle to the schoolroom. Bill’s in charge, and he’ll smooth things over. Wait for me after school and I’ll pilot you in to grub.”
They had brought up now at the entrance to the Schoolhouse, which was connected with the Old School by a cloister and formed the north side of a great quadrangle. To the west lay Standerland House and the Chapel, a pure Gothic structure with a beautiful tower and spire, and the Rectory, the Head Master’s residence, between. Eastward lay the Gymnasium and the Refectory or dining-hall, the latter on a line with the Old School. North of the Schoolhouse was another quadrangle, flanked by Standerland and the Gymnasium, with Montrose and Howard Houses on its northern side. Beyond that still lay the playing-fields. All this Jimmie barely had time to indicate, as the two boys ran up a wide flight of steps, traversed a broad corridor, and entered the schoolroom, where he introduced Tony to the master-in-charge.
Tony could never remember what was said by either of them; he felt as if the gaze of the hundred pair of eyes, belonging to the hundred boys bent over their desks, was burning into his back. There was a vague sort of comfort in the pleasant tones of Mr. Morris’s voice, and somehow he came back to consciousness a little later, and found himself seated at a desk, with a brand new copy of the Gallic Wars open before him, and his lips pronouncing over and over in a meaningless sort of way—“Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres....”
Thus Deering’s school days at Deal began.