enny seemed embowered in foliage that did
not indeed encroach upon its actual ways, but that gave the rolling
slopes of its guarding hills a richness of dark green that Ishmael had
never imagined trees could hold. The life itself bore a very similar
analogy to that he had led hitherto, not because the school was at all
luxurious or riotous, but because his life, even at the Vicarage, had
been of an unusual austerity. This new world held at once greater
restrictions and more liberty of spirit, for at school every boy works
out his own salvation or the reverse. Not being shy, Ishmael had no
inner terrors to overcome--only a feeling for self-defence which was the
outcome of his anomalous position. The Parson hoped and thought there
would be no disagreeables about that at St. Renny; the headmaster, of
course, knew of it, but of the boys, those adepts at torture, none
happened to be from the furthest West. For St. Renny still bore the
reputation it had attained under a famous headmaster, when the best
known of West Country novelists had been a scholar there, and parents
from right up the country, even from London itself, if they had the
blood of Devon or Cornwall in their veins, sent their sons to grey St.
Renny. It was with a London boy, son of a one-time Plymouth merchant who
had become an alderman and a shining light of Bloomsbury, that Ishmael's
fortunes were to be most closely linked.

In spite of his pose of self-sufficiency--so ingrained as to deceive
himself--Ishmael's heart beat fast as he followed the Parson through the
arched doorway of grey granite that was to open so often for him in the
years to follow. He was filled with an inarticulate wonder at the
knowledge that it was to be so, and it occurred to him for the first
time--for children, like animals, accept what comes to them very
naturally--that it was odd one could be so completely disposed of by
grown-up people, even for one's undoubted good....

Of the interview with the headmaster, so square of jowl and brow and yet
so kindly, Ishmael remembered little in after years; for it became
blurred by all he grew to know of "Old Tring" during the long though
intermittent association of school. Old Tring rang a bell, after a gruff
sentence of welcome, and, apparently as glad as Ishmael for an excuse to
part, told him he should be shown round by one Killigrew. Old Tring
added that he, Ishmael Ruan, would be sure to like Killigrew. Ishmael
doubted this; somehow, wa