There was indeed progress to report. The Fourth Standard being carried by assault, his brain had now to wrestle in the large schoolroom with dogged enemies of youth.
By the help of an assistant master, whose stock of enthusiasm had not been quite exhausted by lads of the Nutler brand, Bobbie showed excellent fight, and if it sometimes happened that he was worsted, the defeats were but temporary. Winter came, and with it football matches. An eminent three-quarter (who was also a trombone) having retired from the team during the off season in order to take up duties at Kneller Hall, Bobbie, in games with private schools, found himself selected for the position. The drill-sergeant took interest in the lad, and on the boarded-over swimming-bath, instructed him carefully at five o’clock each evening in the art of vaulting. All this helped to make a solid youth of Robert Lancaster, and he found himself wishful for manhood.
The Sister at the infirmary beyond the western gates, having to take a month’s holiday, a friend of hers came to act as substitute, and this friend proving to be Sister Margaret, Bobbie found an additional incentive for correct behaviour because Sister Margaret, when going down at any time the broad gravelled road between the cottages, always selected him for one of her cheerful bows, causing Bobbie’s cap to fly off in acknowledgment and making him flush with gratification. Sister Margaret told him that Myddleton West had gone to Ireland for one of the daily journals, and together they read his letters in that journal. It seemed clear that Sister Margaret continued to have no objection to talking about Myddleton West, for she made the boy describe several times over the morning when he had called at his rooms in Fetter Lane; at each repetition Bobbie managed to find (or to invent) some additional incident that made the young woman’s bright eyes become brighter with interest. When the regular Sister returned, Sister Margaret had to leave, and Bobbie walked with her to the station to carry her portmanteau, giving much good advice on the way with view of doing a good turn for his friend. Apparently his arguments made some impression on Sister Margaret, for when, as the train went off, he shouted, “Give my kind respects to him, Miss, when you write. And tell him he ain’t forgotten,” it looked as though the young woman’s bright eyes became suddenly wet.
The seasons passed. The fourteenth birthday came so near that it was quite possible to reckon the interval by number of days. For some months Robert Lancaster had been a half-timer; he desired now to say good-bye definitely to school, and to go into the workshops, because this would be a conspicuous milestone marking his journey. The Coastguard and the Coastguard’s daughter, and the long Customs’ officer came to see him on one of the later days, and he showed them with pride the tailor’s shop, the bootmaker’s shop, the carpenter’s shop, and the engineer’s shop, and Coastguard and himself (whilst the tall daughter went with the representative of her Majesty’s Customs to take tea at the hotel opposite the gates) talked over questions of trades, and their various advantages. They weighed them separately; when the young couple returned, Coastguard with a look of wisdom that judges of Appeal try to assume and cannot, delivered his decision. Bobbie, interested in this, saw the long Customs’ officer snatch a kiss from Coastguard’s daughter with no feeling of jealousy, and, indeed, with diversion.
“Nothing like helping yourself,” remarked Bobbie, amused.
“Do give over, John,” said Coastguard’s daughter reprovingly. “You never know when to stop.”
“These youngsters,” said Bobbie to Coastguard paternally, “they will carry on, won’t they? Same now as it was in our young day.”
“Dang the boy’s eyes,” said Coastguard, “if he don’t notice everything.”
“It makes anyone,” said Bobbie, “when you see a couple young enough to know better a kissin’ each other.”
“You’re supposed not to notice such things at your age,” said the angel reprovingly.