Somewhere in the world the sun was shining, birds were twittering; somewhere in the world lambkins frisked and peasants sang blithely at their toil (flat, perhaps, but still blithely), but to Mike at that moment the sky was black, and an icy wind blew over the face of the earth.
The tragedy had happened, and there was an end of it. He made no attempt to appeal against the sentence. He knew it would be useless, his father, when he made up his mind, having all the unbending tenacity of the normally easygoing man.
Mr. Jackson was sorry for Mike. He understood him, and for that reason he said very little now.
"I am sending you to Sedleigh," was his next remark.
Sedleigh! Mike sat up with a jerk. He knew Sedleigh by name—one of those schools with about a hundred boys which you never hear of except when they send up their gym team to Aldershot, or their Eight to Bisley. Mike's outlook on life was that of a cricketer, pure and simple. What had Sedleigh ever done? What were they ever likely to do? Whom did they play? What Old Sedleighan had ever done anything at cricket? Perhaps they didn't even play cricket!
"But it's an awful hole," he said blankly.
Mr. Jackson could read Mike's mind like a book. Mike's point of view was plain to him. He did not approve of it, but he knew that in Mike's place and at Mike's age he would have felt the same. He spoke dryly to hide his sympathy.
"It is not a large school," he said, "and I don't suppose it could play Wrykyn at cricket, but it has one merit—boys work there. Young Barlitt won a Balliol scholarship from Sedleigh last year." Barlitt was the vicar's son, a silent, spectacled youth who did not enter very largely into Mike's world. They had met occasionally at tennis parties, but not much conversation had ensued. Barlitt's mind was massive, but his topics of conversation were not Mike's.
"Mr. Barlitt speaks very highly of Sedleigh," added Mr. Jackson.
Mike said nothing, which was a good deal better than saying what he would have liked to have said.
Prev.
Back
Top