The summer was come now, and the gardener, an old sailor, made him a hammock and fixed it up for him in the branches of a weeping willow.  And here for long hours he lay, hidden from anyone who might come to the vicarage, reading, reading passionately.  Time passed and it was July; August came:  on Sundays the church was crowded with strangers, and the collection at the offertory often amounted to two pounds.  Neither the Vicar nor Mrs. Carey went out of the garden much during this period; for they disliked strange faces, and they looked upon the visitors from London with aversion.  The house opposite was taken for six weeks by a gentleman who had two little boys, and he sent in to ask if Philip would like to go and play with them; but Mrs. Carey returned a polite refusal.  She was afraid that Philip would be corrupted by little boys from London.  He was going to be a clergyman, and it was necessary that he should be preserved from contamination.  She liked to see in him an infant Samuel.

X

The Careys made up their minds to send Philip to King’s School at Tercanbury.  The neighbouring clergy sent their sons there.  It was united by long tradition to the Cathedral:  its headmaster was an honorary Canon, and a past headmaster was the Archdeacon.  Boys were encouraged there to aspire to Holy Orders, and the education was such as might prepare an honest lad to spend his life in God’s service.  A preparatory school was attached to it, and to this it was arranged that Philip should go.  Mr. Carey took him into Tercanbury one Thursday afternoon towards the end of September.  All day Philip had been excited and rather frightened.  He knew little of school life but what he had read in the stories of The Boy’s Own Paper.  He had also read Eric, or Little by Little.

When they got out of the train at Tercanbury, Philip felt sick with apprehension, and during the drive in to the town sat pale and silent.  The high brick wall in front of the school gave it the look of a prison.  There was a little door in it, which opened on their ringing; and a clumsy, untidy man came out and fetched Philip’s tin trunk and his play-box.  They were shown into the drawing-room; it was filled with massive, ugly furniture, and the chairs of the suite were placed round the walls with a forbidding rigidity.  They waited for the headmaster.

“What’s Mr. Watson like?” asked Philip, after a while.

“You’ll see for yourself.”

There was another pause.  Mr. Carey wondered why the headmaster did not come.  Presently Philip made an effort and spoke again.

“Tell him I’ve got a club-foot,” he said.

Before Mr. Carey could speak the door burst open and Mr. Watson swept into the room.  To Philip he seemed gigantic.  He was a man of over six feet high, and broad, with enormous hands and a great red beard; he talked loudly in a jovial manner; but his aggressive cheerfulness struck terror in Philip’s heart.  He shook hands with Mr. Carey, and then took Philip’s small hand in his.