The Hill

The Hill, by Horace Annesley
Vachell

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Title: The Hill A Romance of Friendship
Author: Horace Annesley Vachell
Release Date: October 23, 2007 [EBook #23154]
Language: English
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ALSO BY HORACE A. VACHELL
QUINNEYS'

THE HILL
A ROMANCE OF FRIENDSHIP

HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL

LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET

FIRST EDITION April, 1905
Fortieth Impression Jan., 1950

Transcriber's Note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Greek
text has been transliterated and is shown between {braces}.

To GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL
I dedicate this Romance of Friendship to you with the sincerest
pleasure and affection. You were the first to suggest that I should write
a book about contemporary life at Harrow; you gave me the principal
idea; you have furnished me with notes innumerable; you have revised
every page of the manuscript; and you are a peculiarly keen Harrovian.
In making this public declaration of my obligations to you, I take the
opportunity of stating that the characters in "The Hill," whether masters
or boys, are not portraits, although they may be called, truthfully
enough, composite photographs; and that the episodes of Drinking and
Gambling are founded on isolated incidents, not on habitual practices.

Moreover, in attempting to reproduce the curious admixture of
"strenuousness and sentiment"--your own phrase--which animates so
vitally Harrow life, I have been obliged to select the less common types
of Harrovian. Only the elect are capable of such friendship as John
Verney entertained for Henry Desmond; and few boys, happily, are
possessed of such powers as Scaife is shown to exercise. But that there
are such boys as Verney and Scaife, nobody knows better than yourself.
Believe me, Yours most gratefully, HORACE ANNESLEY
VACHELL
BEECHWOOD, February 22, 1905

CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE MANOR 1 II. CÆSAR 19 III. KRAIPALE 35 IV. TORPIDS
58 V. FELLOWSHIP 70 VI. A REVELATION 92 VII. REFORM 107
VIII. VERNEY BOSCOBEL 123 IX. BLACK SPOTS 140 X.
DECAPITATION 158 XI. SELF-QUESTIONING 173 XII. "LORD'S"
189 XIII. "IF I PERISH, I PERISH" 211 XIV. GOOD NIGHT 230
CHAPTER I
The Manor
"Five hundred faces, and all so strange! Life in front of me--home
behind, I felt like a waif before the wind Tossed on an ocean of shock
and change.
"Chorus. Yet the time may come, as the years go by, When your heart
will thrill At the thought of the Hill, And the day that you came so
strange and shy."
The train slid slowly out of Harrow station.

Five minutes before, a man and a boy had been walking up and down
the long platform. The boy wondered why the man, his uncle, was so
strangely silent. Then, suddenly, the elder John Verney had placed his
hands upon the shoulders of the younger John, looking down into eyes
as grey and as steady as his own.
"You'll find plenty of fellows abusing Harrow," he said quietly; "but
take it from me, that the fault lies not in Harrow, but in them. Such
boys, as a rule, do not come out of the top drawer. Don't look so solemn.
You're about to take a header into a big river. In it are rocks and rapids;
but you know how to swim, and after the first plunge you'll enjoy it, as
I did, amazingly."
"Ra--ther," said John.
In the New Forest, where John had spent most of his life at his uncle's
place of Verney Boscobel, this uncle, his dead father's only brother,
was worshipped as a hero. Indeed he filled so large a space in the boy's
imagination, that others were cramped for room. John Verney in India,
in Burmah, in Africa (he took continents in his stride), moved colossal.
And when uncle and nephew met, behold, the great traveller stood not
much taller than John himself! That first moment, the instant shattering
of a precious delusion, held anguish. But now, as the train whirled
away the silent, thin, little man, he began to expand again. John saw
him scaling heights, cutting a path through impenetrable forests,
wading across dismal swamps, an ever-moving figure, seeking the
hitherto unknowable and irreclaimable, introducing order where chaos
reigned supreme, a 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,