My first emotion was a keen regret that my parents had not sent me to a place where the sun shone.  As we sat in the little omnibus that carried us from the station to the town, with my precious boxes safely stored on the roof, we passed between grey fields whose featureless expanses melted changelessly into the grey sky overhead.  The prospect alarmed me, for it seemed to me that this was not a likely world for adventures; nor was I reassured by the sight of the town, whose one long street of low, old-fashioned houses struck me as being mean and sordid.  I was conscious that the place had an unpleasant smell, and I was already driven to thinking of my pocket-money and my play-box—­agreeable thoughts which I had made up my mind in the train to reserve carefully for possible hours of unhappiness.  But the low roof of the omnibus was like a limit to my imagination, and my body was troubled by the displeasing contact of the velvet cushions.  I was still wondering why this made my wrists ache, when the omnibus lurched from the cobbles on to a gravel drive, and I saw the school buildings towering all about me like the walls of a prison.  I jumped out and stretched my legs while the driver climbed down to collect the fares.  He looked at me without a jot of interest, and I knew that he must have driven a great many boys from the station to the school in the course of his life.

A man appeared in shirt-sleeves of grey flannel and wheeled my boxes away on a little truck, and after a while a master came down and showed us, in a perfunctory manner, over the more presentable quarters of the school.  My brother was anxious to get away, because he had not been emancipated long enough to find the atmosphere of dormitories and class-rooms agreeable.  I was naturally interested, in my new environment, but the presence of the master constrained me, and I was afraid to speak in front of this unknown man whom it was my lot to obey, so we were all relieved when our hurried inspection was over.  He told me that I was at liberty to do what I pleased till seven o’clock, so I went for a walk through the town with my brother.

The day was drawing to a chill grey close, and the town was filled with a clammy mist tainted with the odour of sewage, due, I afterwards discovered, to the popular abuse of the little stream that gave the place its name.  Even my brother could not entirely escape the melancholy influence of the hour and the place, and he was glad to take me into a baker’s shop and have tea.  By now the illusion of adventure that had reconciled me to leaving home was in a desperate state, and I drank my tea and consumed my cakes without enjoyment.  If life was always going to be the same—­if in fleeing one misfortune I had merely brought on myself the pain of becoming accustomed to another—­I felt sure that my meagre stoicism would not suffice to carry me through with credit.  I had failed once, I would fail again.  I looked forward with a sinking heart to a tearful and uncomfortable future.