I stood ever on the verge of tears, and I dreaded meal-times,
when I had to leave my solitude, lest some turn of the conversation
should set me weeping before them all, and I should hear once more
what I knew very well myself, that it was a shameful thing for a boy
of my age to cry like a little girl. Yet the tears were there and the
hard lump in my throat, and I could not master them, though I stood
in the woods while the sun set with a splendour that chilled my
heart, and tried to drain my eyes dry of their rebellious, bitter
waters. I would choke over my tea and be rebuked for bad manners. When the last day came that I had feared most of all, I succeeded in
saying goodbye to the people at the house where I had stopped, and in
making the mournful train journey home without disgracing myself. It
seemed as though a merciful stupor had dulled my senses to a mute
acceptance of my purgatory. I slept in the train, and arrived home so
sleepy that I was allowed to go straight to bed without comment. For
once my body dominated my mind, and I slipped between the sheets in
an ecstasy of fatigue and fell asleep immediately. Something of this rare mood lingered with me in the morning, and it
was not until I reached the Meat Market that I realised the extent of
my misfortune. I saw the greasy, red-faced men with their hands and
aprons stained with blood. I saw the hideous carcases of animals, the
masses of entrails, the heaps of repulsive hides; but most clearly of
all I saw an ugly sad little boy with a satchel of books on his back
set down in the midst of an enormous and hostile world. The windows;
and stones of the houses were black with soot, and before me there
lay school, the place that had never brought me anything but sorrow
and humiliation. I went on, but as I slid on the cobbles, my mind
caught an echo of peace, the peace of pine-woods and heather, the
peace of the library at home, and, my body trembling with revulsion,
I leant against a lamp-post, deadly sick. Then I turned on my heels
and walked away from the Meat Market and the school for ever. As I
went I cried, sometimes openly before all men, sometimes furtively
before shop-windows, dabbing my eyes with a wet pocket-handkerchief,
and gasping for breath. I did not care where my feet led me, I would
go back to school no more. I had played truant for three days before the grown-ups discovered
that I had not returned to school. They treated me with that
extraordinary consideration that they always extended to our great
crimes and never to our little sins of thoughtlessness or high
spirits. The doctor saw me. I was told that I would be sent to a
country school after the next holidays, and meanwhile I was allowed
to return to my sofa and my dreams. I lay there and read Dickens and
was very happy. As a rule the cat kept me company, and I was pleased
with his placid society, though he made my legs cramped. I thought
that I too would like to be a cat. The New Boy

                                  I

When I left home to go to boarding-school for the first time I did
not cry like the little boys in the story-books, though I had never
been away from home before except to spend holidays with relatives. This was not due to any extraordinary self-control on my part, for I
was always ready to shed tears on the most trivial occasion. But as a
fact I had other things to think about, and did not in the least
realise the significance of my journey. I had lots of new clothes and
more money in my pocket than I had ever had before, and in the
guard's van at the back of the train there was a large box that I had
packed myself with jam and potted meat and cake. In this, as in other
matters, I had been aided by the expert advice of a brother who was
himself at a school in the North, and it was perhaps natural that in
the comfortable security of the holidays he should have given me an
almost lyrical account of the joys of life at a boarding-school. Moreover, my existence as a day-boy in London had been so unhappy;
that I was prepared to welcome any change, so at most I felt only a
vague unease as to the future. After I had glanced at my papers, I sat back and stared at my eldest
brother, who had been told off to see me safely to school. At that
time I did not like him because he seemed to me unduly insistent on
his rights and I could not help wondering at the tactlessness of the
grown-up people in choosing him as my travelling companion. With any
one else this journey might have been a joyous affair but there were
incidents between us that neither of us would forget, so that I
could find nothing better than an awkward politeness with which to
meet his strained amiability. He feigned an intense interest in his
magazine while I looked out of window, with one finger in my
waistcoat pocket, scratching the comfortable milled edges of my
money. When I saw little farm-houses, forgotten in the green dimples
of the Kentish hills, I thought that it would be nice to live there
with a room full of story-books, away from the discomforts and
difficulties of life. Like a cat, I wanted to dream somewhere where
I would not be trodden on, somewhere where I would be neglected by
friends and foes alike. This was my normal desire, but side by side
with my craving for peace I was aware of a new and interesting
emotion that suggested the possibility of a life even more
agreeable. The excitement of packing my box with provender like a
sailor who was going on a long voyage, the unwonted thrill of having
a large sum of money concealed about my person, and above all the
imaginative yarns of my elder brother, had fired me with the thought
of adventure. His stories had been filled with an utter contempt for
lessons and a superb defiance of the authorities, and had ranged
from desperate rabbit-shooting parties on the Yorkshire Wolds to
illicit feasts of Eccles cakes and tinned lobster in moonlit
dormitories. I thought that it would be pleasant to experience this
romantic kind of life before settling down for good with my dreams. The train wandered on and my eldest brother and I looked at each
other constrainedly. He had already asked me twice whether I had my
ticket, and I realised that he could not think of any other neutral
remark that fitted the occasion. It occurred to me to say that the
train was slow, but I remembered with a glow of anger how he had once
rubbed a strawberry in my face because I had taken the liberty of
offering it to one of his friends, and I held my peace. I had prayed
for his death every night for three weeks after that, and though he
was still alive the knowledge of my unconfessed and unrepented
wickedness prevented me from being more than conveniently polite, he
thought I was a cheeky little toad and I thought he was a bully, so
we looked at each other and did not speak. We were both glad,
therefore, when the train pulled up at the station that bore the name
of my new school.