the unofficial
subjects that had won the school its name, but Ishmael soon found that
to show any keenness for these two pursuits was to class yourself a
prig. The robuster natures preferred rod and line, or line only, in the
waters of Bolowen Pool to any dalliance with stink-pots and specimen
cases. Like far greater schools, it was really run by the traditions
evolved by the boys. There were certain things that were the thing and
certain other things that were not the thing, and these varied
occasionally. One term you simply had to wear a dark blue-and-white tie
for going into the town and bear's grease your hair; another term a
certain slovenliness in dress was the thing. You dismissed all womenkind
as trivial and useless, but you were in love with the doctor's daughter,
a stately, full-blown damsel who floated, so to speak, up the church
upon the swaying bubble of her crinoline every Sunday morning, and sat,
sunk to the waist in the swelling waves of silk, worshipped by a row of
eyes from the school pew.

During the Sunday promenade around the churchyard--an unchanging
ritual--you manoeuvred to be the one of the couple passing her as she
came up the short path that bisected the circular one where you were
marching. The two boys who were leading had the advantage of being able
to set the pace more or less, but often they miscalculated the time of
her appearance, and then some other couple, by a judicious lagging for a
moment or a sudden quickening, achieved the meeting that after all was
no more than a furtive interchange of glances, supercilious or
almost-smiling on her part, according to her mood and the boy that
encountered it. None of the boys ever met the damsel in any other way,
except sometimes at a select party; but this adoration was a cult,
though a purely academic one, so to speak. The true goddess of the
school was far otherwise, as Ishmael was to find.

Another feature of life at St. Renny was the weekly market-day. It was
forbidden to go into the town, it being placed out of bounds for the
occasion, and therefore to slip out and drink cider at the corner shop
and come back with your pockets stuffed with buns and solid country
sweets of gaudy hues was a deed that placed you high in the respect of
your fellows. Ishmael achieved this once as a matter of form, and then,
having no real interest in it, turned his attention to other matters. On
ordinary days the boys had a very real freedom, only limited by th