The Hill | Page 2

world-famous pioneer.
How good to think that John Verney was his uncle, blood of his blood,
his, his, his--for all time!
And, long ago, John, senior, had come to Harrow; had felt what John,
junior, felt to the core--the dull, grinding wrench of separation, the
sense, not yet to be analysed by a boy, of standing alone upon the edge
of a river, indeed, into which he must plunge headlong in a few minutes.
Well, Uncle John had taken his "header" with a stout heart--who dared
to doubt that? Surely he had not waited, shivering and hesitating, at the
jumping-off place.

The train was now out of sight. John slipped the uncle's tip into his
purse, and walked out of the station and on to the road beyond, the road
which led to the top of the Hill.
The Hill.
Presently, the boy reached some iron palings and a wicket-gate. His
uncle had pointed out this gate and the steep path beyond which led to
the top of the Hill, to the churchyard, to the Peachey tomb on which
Byron dreamed,[1] to the High Street--and to the Manor. It was
pleasant to remember that he was going to board at the Manor, with its
traditions, its triumphs, its record. In his uncle's day the Manor ranked
first among the boarding-houses. Not a doubt disturbed John's
conviction that it ranked first still.
The boy stared upward with a keen gaze. Had the mother seen her son
at that moment, she might have discerned a subtle likeness between
uncle and nephew, not the likeness of the flesh, but of the spirit.
September rains, followed by a day of warm sunshine, had lured from
the earth a soft haze which obscured the big fields at the foot of the Hill.
John could make out fences, poplars, elms, Scotch firs, and spectral
houses. But, above, everything was clear. The school-buildings, such as
he could see, stood out boldly against a cloudless sky, and above these
soared the spire of Harrow Church, pointing an inexorable finger
upwards.
Afterwards this spot became dear to John Verney, because here, where
mists were chill and blinding, he had been impelled to leave the broad
high-road and take a path which led into a shadowy future. In
obedience to an impulse stronger than himself he had taken the short
cut to what awaited him.
For a few minutes he stood outside the palings, trying to choke down
an abominable lump in his throat. This was not his first visit to Harrow.
At the end of the previous term, he had ascended the Hill to pass the
entrance examination. A master from his preparatory school
accompanied him, an Etonian, who had stared rather superciliously--so

John thought--at buildings less venerable than those which Henry VI.
raised near Windsor. John, who had perceptions, was elusively
conscious that his companion, too much of a gentleman to give his
thoughts words, might be contrasting a yeoman's work with a king's;
and when the Etonian, gazing across the plains below to where
Windsor lay, a soft shadow upon the horizon, said abruptly, "I wish
Eton had been built upon a hill," John replied effusively; "Oh, sir, it is
decent of you to say that." The examination, however, distracted his
attention from all things save the papers. To his delight he found these
easy, and, as soon as he left the examination-room, he was popped into
a cab and taken back to town. Coming down the flight of steps, he had
seen a few boys hurrying up or down the road. At these the Etonian
cocked a twinkling eye.
"Queer kit you Harrow boys wear," he said.
John, inordinately grateful at this recognition of himself as an
Harrovian, forgave the gibe. It had struck him, also, that the shallow
straw hat, the swallow-tail coat, did look queer, but he regarded them
reverently as the uniform of a crack corps.
To-day, standing by the iron palings, John reviewed the events of the
last hour. The view was blurred by unshed tears. His uncle and he had
driven together to the Manor. Here, the explorer had exercised his
peculiar personal magnetism upon the house-master, a tall, burly man
of truculent aspect and speech. John realized proudly that his uncle was
the bigger of the two, and that the giant acknowledged, perhaps
grudgingly, the dwarf's superiority, The talk, short enough, had
wandered into Darkest Africa. His uncle, as usual, said little, replying
almost in monosyllables to the questions of his host; but John junior
told himself exultantly that it was not necessary for Uncle John to talk;
the wide world knew what he had done.
Then his house-master, Rutford, had told John where to buy his first
straw hat.
"You can get one without an order at the beginning of each