through all things.  He felt the swelling earth bearing him up, as though he were one with its strength and fertility, one with its irresistible march.  He felt the sword-chill breath of the spring wind on his brow; he saw the first faint pricking of the earliest stars, and the rolling up of the sky as the great cumuli massed overhead; and he felt as though he too could sweep into them and be of them.  Life was before him for him to do what he liked with.  He laughed aloud and rolled over a little, flinging his arms wide.  A stinging blow came on his cheek, and he heard Doughty’s angry voice crying, “Take that!” and a sharp sound from Hilaria.

“Well, what’s he want to laugh at me for?  I’ll teach him—­” came Doughty’s voice again.  Ishmael had scrambled up; his blood was still singing in his veins; he felt no dismay at the sight of the looming Doughty.

“Don’t be an ass, Doughty,” said Polkinghorne sharply; “and if you can’t help being a cad, wait till Miss Eliot isn’t present.”

“Oh, never mind about me; I want to see you kill him, Ishmael!” cried Hilaria viciously.

“Well, why did you want to laugh when Doughty said that?” asked Polkinghorne judicially.

“Said what?” asked Ishmael.

“Why, that he was just going to be a gentleman.”

“Did he say that?  I didn’t hear him.  But I should have laughed if I had....”

Killigrew stared at his friend in amazement.  Was this the Ishmael who a half-hour or so ago had put forward the theory that one should never fight till one was sure of winning?  He did not know that the wine in Ishmael’s brain at that minute was the headiest in the world, the most sure in imparting sense of power—­the sudden up-welling of the joy of life.  It was Doughty’s turn to laugh now; he seemed suddenly to have recovered poise.

“I forgot—­you’d be such a good judge of a gentleman—­with your family history,” he said.

The singing went from Ishmael’s being, but something hot came up through him like a tide.  “What d’you mean by that?” he asked, and still in his passionate dislike of the other did not see what was opening at his feet.

“Only that a fellow with a pack of bastard brothers must have had just the father and mother to teach him....”

There was a moment’s silence; the boys all felt intensely uncomfortable, not so much even at Hilaria’s presence as at this sudden nakedness of thought and emotion.  Doughty, set on justifying himself at least as far as accuracy went, held on.  “I heard it at once when I went to my uncle’s at Penzance last holidays.  Everyone knows it down there.  Of course Ruan knew it all along; he’s been kidding all you fellows.  He’s no right in a school for gentlemen at all.  His father married his mother when he was dying and all the brats but him were already born.  That’s why Ruan’s being brought up a gentleman—­because he’s the only one who’s not a bastard.”