Chapter Two.

Saint Winifred’s.

Gay Hope is theirs by Fancy led,
Less pleasing when possess’d,
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast.
 
Grey.

Walter’s destination was the school of Saint Winifred. Let me here say at once that if any reader set himself to discover what and where the school of Saint Winifred is, he will necessarily fail. It is impossible, I suppose, to describe any school without introducing circumstances so apparently special as to lead some readers into a supposed identification. But here, and once for all, I distinctly and seriously repudiate all intention of describing any particular foundation. I am well aware that for some critics this disclaimer will be insufficient. But every honourable reader and critic may rest assured that in describing Saint Winifred’s I have not intended to depict any one school, and that no single word dictated by an unworthy personality will find a place in the following pages.

Saint Winifred’s School stands by the seaside, on the shores of a little bay embraced and closed in by a range of hills whose sweeping semicircle is only terminated on either side by the lofty cliffs which, in some places, are fringed at the base by a margin of sand and shingle, and in others descend with sheer precipices into the ever-boiling surf. Owing to the mountainous nature of the country, the railroad cannot approach within a distance of five miles, and to reach the school you must drive through the dark groves which cover the lower shoulder of one of the surrounding mountains. When you reach the summit of this ascent, the bay of Saint Winifred lies before you; that line of white houses a quarter of a mile from the shore is the village, and the large picturesque building of old grey stone, standing in the angle where the little river reaches the sea, is Saint Winifred’s School.

The carriage stopped at the grand Norman archway of the court. The school porter—the Famulus as they classically called him—a fine-looking man, whose honest English face showed an amount of thought and refinement above his station, opened the gate, and, consigning Walter’s play-box and portmanteau to one of the school servants, directed Mr Evson across the court and along some cloisters to the house of Dr Lane, the headmaster. The entering of Walter’s name on the school books was soon accomplished, and he was assigned as private pupil to Mr Robertson, one of the tutors. Dr Lane then spoke a word of encouragement to the young stranger, and he walked back with his father across the court to the gate, where the carriage was still waiting to take Mr Evson to meet the next train.

“Please let us walk up to the top of the hill, papa,” said Walter; “I shan’t be wanted till tea-time, and I needn’t bid good-bye to you here.”

Mr Evson was as little anxious as Walter to hasten the parting. They had never been separated before. Mr Evson could look back for the rare period of thirteen years, during which they had enjoyed, by God’s blessing, an almost uninterrupted happiness. He had begun life again with his young children; he could thoroughly sympathise alike with their thoughts and with their thoughtlessness, and by training them in a manner at once wise and firm, he had been spared the greater part of that anxiety and disappointment which generally spring from our own mismanagement. He deeply loved, and was heartily proud of, his eldest boy. There is no exaggeration in saying that Walter had all the best gifts which a parent could desire. There was something very interesting in his appearance, and very winning in his modest and graceful manners. It was impossible to see him and not be struck with his fine open face, and the look of fearless and noble innocence in his deep blue eyes.

It was no time for moral lectures or formal advice. People seem to think that a few Polonius-like apophthegms delivered at such a time may be of great importance. They may be, perhaps, if they be backed-up and enforced by previous years of silent and self-denying example; otherwise they are like seed sown upon a rock, like thistle-down blown by the wind across the sea. Mr Evson spoke to Walter chiefly about home, about writing letters, about his pocket-money, his amusements, and his studies, and Walter knew well beforehand, without any repetitions then, what his father wished him to be, and the principles in accordance with which he had endeavoured to mould his thoughts and actions.

The time passed too quickly for them both; they were soon at the top of the hill where the carriage awaited them.

“Good-bye, Walter. God bless you,” said Mr Evson, shaking hands for the last time, and throwing deep meaning into those simple words.

“Good-bye, papa. My best love to all at home,” said Walter, trying to speak cheerfully, and struggling manfully to repress his rising tears.

The carriage drove on. Walter watched it out of sight, and, turning round, felt that a new phase of his life had begun, and that he was miserably alone. It was natural that he should shed a few quiet tears as he thought of the dear friends with whom he had parted, and the four hundred strangers into whose society he was about to enter. Yet being brave and innocent he feared nothing, and, without any very definite religious consciousness, he had a clear and vivid sense that One Friend was ever with him.

The emotions of a boy are as transient as they are keen, and Walter’s tears were soon dried. As he looked round, the old familiar voice of the mountains was in his ears. He gazed with the delight of friendship on their towering summits, and promised himself, many an exhilarating climb up their steep sides. And now, too, for the first time—for hitherto he had not much noticed the scenery around him—a new voice, the great voice of the sea, broke with its grand but awful monotony upon his listening ear. As he gazed upon the waves, glowing and flashing with the golden network of autumnal sunbeams, it seemed to dawn upon him like the discovery of a new sense, and he determined to stroll down to the beach before re-entering the gates of Saint Winifred.

He wandered there not only with a boy’s delight, but with the delight of a boy whose eyes and ears have always been open to the beauty and wonder of the outer world. He longed to have his brother with him there. He picked up handfuls of the hard and sparkling sand; he sent the broad flat pebbles flying over the surface, and skimming through the crests of the waves; he half-filled his pockets with green and yellow shells, and crimson fragments of Delessaria Sanguinea for his little sisters; and he was full of pleasurable excitement when the great clock of Saint Winifred’s, striking five, reminded him that he had better go in, and learn something, if possible, about the order of his future life.