The Hill | Page 3

room, to be shared with two other boys,
and had told him the hour of lock-up. And then, after tea, came the
walk down the hill, the tip, the firm grasp of the sinewy hand, and a
final--"God bless you."
Coming to the end of these reflections, confronted by the inexorable
future, and the necessity, no less inexorable, of stepping into it, John
passed through the gate. His heart fluttered furiously, and the lump in
the throat swelled inconveniently. John, however, had provided himself
with a "cure-all." Plunging his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a
cartridge, an unused twenty-bore gun cartridge. Looking at this, John
smiled. When he smiled he became good-looking. The face, too long,
plain, but full of sense and humour, rounded itself into the gracious
curves of youth; the serious grey eyes sparkled; the lips, too firmly
compressed, parted, revealing admirable teeth, small and squarely set;
into the cheeks, brown rather than pink, flowed a warm stream of
colour.
The cartridge stood for so much. Only a week before, Uncle John, on
his arrival from Manchuria, had handed his nephew a small leather case
and a key. The case held a double-barrelled, hammerless, ejector,
twenty-bore gun, with a great name upon its polished blue barrels.
The sight of the cartridge justified John's expectations. He put it back
into his pocket, and strode forward and upward.
* * * * *
Close to the School Chapel, John remarked a curly-headed young
gentleman of wonderfully prepossessing appearance, from whom
emanated an air, an atmosphere, of genial enjoyment which diffused
itself. The bricks of the school-buildings seemed redder and warmer, as
if they were basking in this sunny smile. The youth was smiling now,
smiling--at John. For several hours John had been miserably aware that

surprises awaited him, but not smiles. He knew no Harrovians; at his
school, a small one, his fellows were labelled Winchester, Eton,
Wellington; none, curiously enough, Harrow. And already he had
passed half a dozen boys, the first-comers, some strangers, like himself,
and in each face he had read indifference. Not one had taken the trouble
to say, "Hullo! Who are you?" after the rough and ready fashion of the
private school.
And now this smiling, fascinating person was actually about to address
him, and in the old familiar style----
"Hullo!"
"Hullo!"
"I met your governor the other day."
"Did you?" John replied. His father had died when John was seven.
Obviously, a blunder in identity had created this genial smile. John
wished that his father had not died.
"Yes," pursued the smiling one, "I met him--partridge-shooting at
home--and he asked me to be on the look-out for you. It's queer you
should turn up at once, isn't it?"
"Yes," said John.
"Your governor looked awfully fit."
"Did he?" Then John added solemnly, "My governor died when I was a
kid."
The other gasped; then he threw back his curly head and laughed.
"I say, I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to laugh. If you're not Hardacre,
who are you?"
"Verney. I've just come."

"Verney? That's a great Harrow name. Are you any relation to the
explorer?"
"Nephew," said John, blushing.
"Ah--you ought to have been here last Speecher.[2] We cheered him, I
can tell you. And the song was sung: the one with his name in it."
"Yes," said John. Then he added nervously, "All the same, I don't know
a soul at Harrow."
Desmond smiled. The smile assured John that his name would secure
him a cordial welcome. Desmond added abruptly, "My name, Desmond,
is a Harrow name. My father, my grandfather, my uncles, and three
brothers were here. It does make a difference. What's your house?"
"The Manor," said John, proudly.
"Dirty Dick's!" Then, seeing consternation writ large upon John's face,
he added quickly, "We call him Dirty Dick, you know; but the house
is--er--one of the oldest and biggest--er--houses." He continued
hurriedly: "I'm going into Damer's next term. Damer's is always
chock-a-block, you know."
"Why is Rutford called 'Dirty Dick'?" John asked nervously. "He
doesn't look dirty."
"Oh, we've licked him into a sort of shape," said Desmond. "I believe
he toshes now--once a month or so."
"Toshes?"
"Tubs, you know. We call a tub a 'tosh.' When Dirty Dick came here he
was unclean. He told his form--oh! the cheek of it!--that in his filthy
mind one bath a week was plenty," unconsciously the boy mimicked
the thick, rasping tones--"two, luxury, and three--superfluity! After that
he was called Dirty Dick. There's another story. They say that years ago
he went to a Turkish bath, and after a rare good scraping the man who

was scraping him--nasty job that!--found something which Dirty Dick
recognized as a beastly flannel shirt he had lost when he was at the
'Varsity. But only the