helpless as an idiot. So that he felt that the ground was
never sure under his feet, he was nowhere. His final downfall
was his complete inability to attend to a question put without
suggestion. If he had to write a formal composition on the Army,
he did at last learn to repeat the few facts he knew: "You can
join the army at eighteen. You have to be over five foot eight."
But he had all the time a living conviction that this was a
dodge and that his common-places were beneath contempt. Then he
reddened furiously, felt his bowels sink with shame, scratched
out what he had written, made an agonized effort to think of
something in the real composition style, failed, became sullen
with rage and humiliation, put the pen down and would have been
torn to pieces rather than attempt to write another word.

He soon got used to the Grammar School, and the Grammar
School got used to him, setting him down as a hopeless duffer at
learning, but respecting him for a generous, honest nature. Only
one narrow, domineering fellow, the Latin master, bullied him
and made the blue eyes mad with shame and rage. There was a
horrid scene, when the boy laid open the master's head with a
slate, and then things went on as before. The teacher got little
sympathy. But Brangwen winced and could not bear to think of the
deed, not even long after, when he was a grown man.

He was glad to leave school. It had not been unpleasant, he
had enjoyed the companionship of the other youths, or had
thought he enjoyed it, the time had passed very quickly, in
endless activity. But he knew all the time that he was in an
ignominious position, in this place of learning. He was aware of
failure all the while, of incapacity. But he was too healthy and
sanguine to be wretched, he was too much alive. Yet his soul was
wretched almost to hopelessness.

He had loved one warm, clever boy who was frail in body, a
consumptive type. The two had had an almost classic friendship,
David and Jonathan, wherein Brangwen was the Jonathan, the
server. But he had never felt equal with his friend, because the
other's mind outpaced his, and left him ashamed, far in the
rear. So the two boys went at once apart on leaving school. But
Brangwen always remembered his friend that had been, kept him as
a sort of light, a fine experience to remember.

Tom Brangwen was glad to get back to the farm, where he was
in his own again. "I have got a turnip on my shoulders, let me
stick to th' fall