s into the
playground. Everything was in bustle and confusion. Bats and balls
were laid aside; jackets thrust on hastily; rough heads smoothed by hot
hands. From their different house-doors the masters were emerging,
putting on, as they came, gowns, some brand-new, some rusty and worn.
The whole stream was setting in one and the same direction, towards the
doors of the school-buildings. And by the time the bell's last clang
had ceased, masters and boys were duly assembled in their respective
places in the big school-room. Prayers over, Dr Palmer announced, amid
breathless silence, the regulations respecting the examination, which
was unexpectedly to begin, in part, that morning. Who does not
remember those anxious, nervous days, before the examination; the
anticipation worse, if possible, than the actual realisation; the
visions of questions unanswered, translations sent up full of mistakes,
sums that never would come out right, problems that never would be
proved?

For the first few days questions, to be answered on paper, would be set
to the whole school according to their respective work and classes. On
the fifth day the examiner would arrive; he would commence at the
bottom of the school, and, taking two classes each day, examine them
_viva voce_.

This was the substance of Dr Palmer's speech; and then the business of
the morning began.

The different classes and their masters filed away into their
particular rooms, Dr Palmer and the senior form being left alone in the
big school-room.

The greater portion of the school-buildings, it should be stated, had
been converted some years ago from the remains of an old monastery.
Standing on a slight eminence, and backed by a deep belt of firs, broad
meadows sloped from it, straight down to a grey shingly beach, where
the boys used to bathe. Three sides only had left their ruins behind;
and these were accordingly rebuilt, as closely after the original style
as was possible. There was the shadowy row of cool cloisters, edging
the square smooth-shaven plot of grass, which no boy was allowed to
cross. Then all round the building above the cloisters were various
class-rooms; and at the end of one wing stood the chapel, and at the
other, the big school-room.

Harry's class-room was in one corner, and consequently was darker than
most of the others; but this the boys liked in the summer; it was such
a contrast after the glaring sun that streamed in through the wi