On the day after his arrival Peter, after midday dinner, standing desolately in the playground and feeling certain that he ought to be playing football somewhere but completely ignorant as to the place where lists commonly hung, saw another new boy and hailed him. This boy he had noticed before—he was shapeless of body, with big, round, good-tempered eyes, and he moved more slowly than any one whom Peter had ever seen. Nothing stirred him; he did not mind it when his ears were pulled or his arms twisted, but only said slowly, “Oh, drop it!” To this wonderful boy Peter made approach.
“Can you tell me where the lists are for football? I ought to have been playing yesterday only I didn't know where to look.”
The slow boy smiled. “I'm going to look myself,” he said, “come on.”
And then two things happened. First sauntering down the playground there came a boy whom Peter had noticed on that first morning in school—some one very little older than Peter and not very much bigger, but with a grace, a dignity, an air that was very wonderful indeed. He was a dark boy with his hair carelessly tossed over his forehead; he was very clean and he had beautiful hands. To Peter's rough and clumsy figure he seemed everything that a boy should be, and, in his mind, he had called him “Steerforth.” As this boy approached there suddenly burst into view a discordant crowd with some one in their midst. They were shouting and laughing, and Peter could hear that some one was crying. The crowd separated and formed a ring and danced shouting round a very small and chubby boy who was standing crying quite desperately, with his head buried in his arm. Every now and then the infant was knocked by one boy in the ring into another boy's arms, and so was tossed from side to side.
The hopeless sound of the chubby one's crying caused Peter suddenly to go red hot somewhere inside his chest, and like a bullet from a gun he was into the middle of the circle. “You beasts! You beasts,” he sobbed hysterically. He began to hit wildly, with his head down, at any one near him, and very soon there was a glorious mêlée. The crowd roared with laughter as they flung the two small boys against one another, then suddenly one of the circle got a wild blow in the eye from Peter's fist and went staggering back, another was kicked in the shins, a third was badly winded. Peter had lost all sense of place or time, of reason or sanity; he was wild with excitement, and the pent-up emotions of the last five days found magnificent overwhelming freedom. He did not know whether he were hit or no, once he was down and in an instant up again—once a face was close to his and he drove hard at the mouth—but he was small and his arms and legs were short. Indeed it would have gone badly with him had there not been heard, in all the roar of battle, the mystic whisper “Binns,” and in an instant, as the snow flies before the sun, so had that gallant crowd disappeared. Only the small cause of the disturbance and Peter remained. The tall form of a master passed slowly down the playground, but it appeared that he had seen nothing, and he did not speak. The small boy was gazing at Peter with wide-opened eyes, large in a white face on which were many tear stains. Peter, who was conscious now that blood was pouring from a cut in his cheek, that one of his teeth was missing and that one of his eyes was fast closing, was about to speak to him when he was aware that his “Steerforth” had sprung from nowhere and was advancing gracefully to meet him. Peter's heart beat very fast.
The boy smiled at him and held out his hand.
“I say, shake hands. You've got pluck—my eye! I never saw such a rag!”
Peter shook hands and was speechless.
“What's your name?”
“Westcott.”
“Mine's Cardillac. It isn't spelt as it's spoken, you know. C-a-r-d-i-l-l-a-c. I'm in White's—what do you say to places next each other at table?”
“Rather.” Peter's face was crimson. “Thanks most awfully.” He stammered in his eagerness.
“Right you are—see you after chapel.” The boy moved away.
Peter said something to the infant whom he had delivered, and was considering where he might most unobtrusively wash when he was once more conscious of some one at his elbow. It was the slow boy who was smiling at him.
“I say, you're a sight. You'd better wash, you know.”
“Yes, I was just thinking of that only I didn't quite know where to go.”
“Come with me—I'll get round Mother Gill all right. She likes me. You've got some cheek. Prester and Banks Mi, and all sorts of fellows were in that crowd. You landed Prester nicely.” He chuckled. “What's your name?”
“Westcott.”
“Mine's Galleon.”
“Galleon?” Peter's eyes shone. “I say, you didn't ever have a housekeeper called Mrs. Trussit?”
“Trussit? Yes, rather, of course I remember, when I was awfully small.”
“Why, she's ours now! Then it must be your father who writes books!”
“Yes, rather. He's most awfully famous!”
Peter stopped still, his mouth open with excitement.
Of all the amazing things! What doesn't life give you if you trust it!
II
But before it became a question of individuals there is the place to be considered. This Dawson's of twenty years ago does not exist now nor, let us pray the Fates, are there others like it. It is not only with bitterness that a boy whom Dawson's had formed would look back on it but also with a dim, confused wonder that he had escaped with a straight soul and a straight body from that Place. There were many, very many indeed, who did not escape, and it would indeed have been better for them all had they died before they were old enough to test its hospitality. If any of those into whose hands this story of Peter may fall were, by the design of God, themselves trained by the place of which I speak, they will understand that all were not as fortunate as Peter—and for those others there should be sympathy. …
To Peter indeed it all came very slowly because he had known so little before. He had not been a week in the place before there were very many things that he was told—there were other things that he saw for himself.
There is, for instance, at the end of the third week, the incident of Ferris, the Captain of the School. He was as a God in Peter's eyes, he was greater, more wonderful than Stephen, than any one in the world. His word was law. …
One late afternoon Peter cleaned plates for him in his study, and Ferris watched him. Ferris was kind and talked about many things out of his great wisdom, and then he asked Peter whether he would always like to be his fag, and Peter, delighted, said “Yes.”
Then Ferris smiled and spoke, dropping his voice. Three weeks earlier Peter would not have understood, but now he understood quite well and he went very white and broke from the room, leaving the plates where they were—and Cheeseman became Ferris' fag—
This was all very puzzling and perplexing to Peter.
But after that first evening when he had hidden his head in the greatcoat and cried, he had shown no sign of fear and he soon found that, on that side of Life, things became easy. He was speedily left alone, and indeed
