much applause, but
forfeited all liking directly by proposing a voluntary course of
scholastic logic. One barbarian threw him to the ground and another
jumped on him, but it was done very pleasantly. There were, indeed, some
few of a worse class in the school, solemn sycophants, prigs perfected
from tender years, who thought life already "serious," and yet, as the
headmaster said, were "joyous, manly young fellows." Some of these
dressed for dinner at home, and talked of dances when they came back in
January. But this virulent sort was comparatively infrequent, and
achieved great success in after life. Taking his school days as a whole,
he always spoke up for the system, and years afterward he described
with enthusiasm the strong beer at a roadside tavern, some way out of the
town. But he always maintained that the taste for tobacco, acquired in
early life, was the great life, was the great note of the English Public
School.

Three years after Lucian's discovery of the narrow lane and the vision of
the flaming fort, the August holidays brought him home at a time of great
heat. It was one of those memorable years of English weather, when some
Provencal spell seems wreathed round the island in the northern sea, and
the grasshoppers chirp loudly as the cicadas, the hills smell of
rosemary, and white walls of the old farmhouses blaze in the sunlight
as if they stood in Arles or Avignon or famed Tarascon by Rhone.

Lucian's father was late at the station, and consequently Lucian bought
the _Confessions of an English Opium Eater_ which he saw on the
bookstall. When his father did drive up, Lucian noticed that the old trap
had had a new coat of dark paint, and that the pony looked advanced in
years.

"I was afraid that I should be late, Lucian," said his father, "though I
made old Polly go like anything. I was just going to tell George to put
her into the trap when young Philip Harris came to me in a terrible
state. He said his father fell down 'all of a sudden like' in the middle
of the field, and they couldn't make him speak, and would I please to
come and see him. So I had to go, though I couldn't do anything for the
poor fellow. They had sent for Dr. Burrows, and I am afraid he will find
it a bad case of sunstroke. The old people say they never remember such a
heat before."

The pony jogged steadily along the burning turnpike road, taking revenge
for the hurrying on the way to the station. The hedges were white with
t