One afternoon I received a summons from my Uncle Henry Ponsonby to go and see him at Windsor. I found him, not at Norman Tower, but in a room somewhere in the Castle, and he told me that the Queen had just received the news of the result of the Prince Consort’s prize. She was the first to get this news; the news was that I was first and had got the prize. I at once sent a telegram to my mother and to Chérie, and walked back to Eton, drunk with triumph and delight to tell my tutor.
The news was not published for some days, and I told nobody, I think, except my tutor and Dunglass. But it came out at last, and was published in the Times and on the board at Eton. My father and mother came down to see me, and my father gave me his own watch: a Breguet, the Demidoff Breguet. It was then settled that I was not to go back to Eton, but to go to Germany to learn German and prepare for the Diplomatic Service competitive examination.
Dunglass went on messing with Hugo and myself until I left Eton. We had three or four fags and they bored us, and we could never find things for them to do. Dunglass developed into a fine Eton football player, and got his House Colours and then his Field Colours. He was a new boy the same half as I was, and our alliance lasted unbroken through my Eton life. One half we learnt bird-stuffing together, and when our mess funds used to run short Dunglass used to say: “I’ve marked off an uncle,” and one of his many uncles used to come down and tip us. Our mess was a lively one, and when there was a whole holiday on Friday, which necessitated Friday’s work being done on Thursday, an arrangement which used to be called doing Friday’s business, we used to sing in a loud chorus a song, the words of which were:
“Why not to morrow?
Why not to-morrow?
Why, because to-morrow is to-day!”
The greatest excitements of Eton life were, I always thought, the House football matches for the House Cup. There was the Eton and Harrow match, of course, but while I was at Eton these matches were unexciting and Eton never won, and Dunglass and I agreed that there were few things we enjoyed more than driving away from Lord’s. Nothing surpassed the excitement of the House matches. One year, I think it was the year before I left, we were supposed to have a small chance of getting beyond first ties, but our House played so well together that they got into the ante-final. They then drew Cornish’s, who had a strong side of powerfully built boys. An epic match followed. Durnford’s played as if inspired; they got three rouges to nil, but failed to convert them into goals, and the game was almost over. Then, in the last five minutes of the game, Cornish’s scored a rouge, and being far the heavier team converted it into a goal, and won the match. Never was there a more exciting match.
During my last year my chief friends in the House, besides Dunglass, were Leslie Hamilton, who went into the Coldstream Guards and was killed in the war, and Crum; and outside the House, Gerald Cornish. He, too, killed in the war.
Arthur Benson was my greatest friend among the masters, and I used constantly to have tea with him, and have long talks about books and every other sort of thing. My last half I was up to Mr. Luxmoore, who was to be a lifelong friend.
The last days of my last half were like a dream. I was hardly conscious of the reality of things, and I did not yet fully realise that my Eton life was coming to an end. There was no more work to do. The battle for the Prince Consort’s prize had been fought and won. It was, as Eton triumphs go, a small triumph—small indeed compared with such glories as surround those who get the Newcastle, stroke the Eight, or play in the Field, or at Lord’s in the Eleven; but such as it was, it gave me as much joy and triumph as my being could hold, and nothing in after life could ever touch the rapture of the moment when I knew I had got it.