Mike

“Right, sir.  It’s straight on up this road to the school.  You can’t miss it, sir.”

“Worse luck,” said Mike.

He walked off up the road, sorrier for himself than ever.  It was such absolutely rotten luck.  About now, instead of being on his way to a place where they probably ran a diabolo team instead of a cricket eleven, and played hunt-the-slipper in winter, he would be on the point of arriving at Wrykyn.  And as captain of cricket, at that.  Which was the bitter part of it.  He had never been in command.  For the last two seasons he had been the star man, going in first, and heading the averages easily at the end of the season; and the three captains under whom he had played during his career as a Wrykynian, Burgess, Enderby, and Henfrey had always been sportsmen to him.  But it was not the same thing.  He had meant to do such a lot for Wrykyn cricket this term.  He had had an entirely new system of coaching in his mind.  Now it might never be used.  He had handed it on in a letter to Strachan, who would be captain in his place; but probably Strachan would have some scheme of his own.  There is nobody who could not edit a paper in the ideal way; and there is nobody who has not a theory of his own about cricket-coaching at school.

Wrykyn, too, would be weak this year, now that he was no longer there.  Strachan was a good, free bat on his day, and, if he survived a few overs, might make a century in an hour, but he was not to be depended upon.  There was no doubt that Mike’s sudden withdrawal meant that Wrykyn would have a bad time that season.  And it had been such a wretched athletic year for the school.  The football fifteen had been hopeless, and had lost both the Ripton matches, the return by over sixty points.  Sheen’s victory in the light-weights at Aldershot had been their one success.  And now, on top of all this, the captain of cricket was removed during the Easter holidays.  Mike’s heart bled for Wrykyn, and he found himself loathing Sedleigh and all its works with a great loathing.

The only thing he could find in its favour was the fact that it was set in a very pretty country.  Of a different type from the Wrykyn country, but almost as good.  For three miles Mike made his way through woods and past fields.  Once he crossed a river.  It was soon after this that he caught sight, from the top of a hill, of a group of buildings that wore an unmistakably school-like look.

This must be Sedleigh.

Ten minutes’ walk brought him to the school gates, and a baker’s boy directed him to Mr. Outwood’s.

There were three houses in a row, separated from the school buildings by a cricket-field.  Outwood’s was the middle one of these.

Mike went to the front door, and knocked.  At Wrykyn he had always charged in at the beginning of term at the boys’ entrance, but this formal reporting of himself at Sedleigh suited his mood.

He inquired for Mr. Outwood, and was shown into a room lined with books.  Presently the door opened, and the house-master appeared.

There was something pleasant and homely about Mr. Outwood.  In appearance he reminded Mike of Smee in “Peter Pan.”  He had the same eyebrows and pince-nez and the same motherly look.

“Jackson?” he said mildly.

“Yes, sir.”

“I am very glad to see you, very glad indeed.  Perhaps you would like a cup of tea after your journey.  I think you might like a cup of tea.  You come from Crofton, in Shropshire, I understand, Jackson, near Brindleford?  It is a part of the country which I have always wished to visit.  I daresay you have frequently seen the Cluniac Priory of St. Ambrose at Brindleford?”

Mike, who would not have recognised a Cluniac Priory if you had handed him one on a tray, said he had not.

“Dear me!  You have missed an opportunity which I should have been glad to have.  I am preparing a book on Ruined Abbeys and Priories of England, and it has always been my wish to see the Cluniac Priory of St. Ambrose.  A deeply interesting relic of the sixteenth century.  Bishop Geoffrey, 1133-40——­”

“Shall I go across to the boys’ part, sir?”

“What?  Yes.  Oh, yes.  Quite so.  And perhaps you would like a cup of tea after your journey?  No?  Quite so.  Quite so.  You should make a point of visiting the remains of the Cluniac Priory in the summer holidays, Jackson.  You will find the matron in her room.  In many respects it is unique.  The northern altar is in a state of really wonderful preservation.  It consists of a solid block of masonry five feet long and two and a half wide, with chamfered plinth, standing quite free from the apse wall.  It will well repay a visit.  Good-bye for the present, Jackson, good-bye.”

Mike wandered across to the other side of the house, his gloom visibly deepened.  All alone in a strange school, where they probably played hopscotch, with a house-master who offered one cups of tea after one’s journey and talked about chamfered plinths and apses.  It was a little hard.