The Launching of Roger Brook Read Free Page A

resent it, and some even regarded him as a malicious old man who delighted in deliberately playing a cat and mouse game for his own amusement.
    The belief was fostered owing to the fact that few of his pupils ever got to know him. He regarded boys in the main as young animals, whom time alone could change from barbarous little savages into reasoning human beings. Moreover, he considered that his responsibility consisted only in keeping the worst of their natural vices in check and sending them out into the world stuffed with enough knowledge, acquired parrot fashion, to form a basis for further education should they later choose to develop any talents they might have.
    Yet to the few of whom he took conscious notice he presented a very different personality. In the seclusion of his untidy, book-bestrewn study he was no longer the reserved and apparently dreamy individual, who nine times out of ten failed to take notice of minor misdemeanours but on the tenth occasion would deal out birchings and impositions with startling suddenness. Those whom he invited there occasionally for purposes other than inflicting punishment, always found him both tolerant and kindly; moreover,he had a strange facility for setting them at their ease and talking to them, not as their House Master, but as a friend.
    These favoured few were always boys who had attracted his notice by the promise they showed of becoming something worthwhile later in life. His historical studies had long since made him aware that these were by no means always the youngsters who did best at their lessons and he had an uncanny knack of singling out those showing incipient strength of character, regardless of their talents or lack of them. Among those with whom during the past year he had felt it worth while to bother was Roger Brook.
    Roger, therefore, had been in no trepidation on being sent for and, even had he not just been reassured by Droopy Ned, would have felt no qualms as he knocked on Old Toby’s door.
    ‘Come in,’ boomed a sonorous voice, and on entering the study, Roger saw that, as usual for such interviews, Old Toby had dispensed with all formality. He was a fat, elderly man, with a round face, sharp nose and rather fine green eyes. The desk behind which he sat was covered with a disorderly mass of parchments, his ill-curled grey wig reposed on a wig-stand beside his chair, the double lappets of his white clerical collar were undone and his rusty black gown was stained with spilt snuff.
    ‘Ah, ’tis you, Brook,’ he said. ‘Come in and sit down. Take that armchair and make yourself comfortable.’
    As Roger obeyed, Old Toby scratched his shaven pate and went on with a smile: ‘Now why did I send for you? For the life of me I can’t remember, but ‘twill come back in a minute; that is, if you don’t grudge me the time from your packing for a little conversation.’
    ‘Of course not, Sir,’ Roger replied politely, marvelling, not for the first time, that his House Master could be so affable when in the seclusion of his own room. ‘I’ve naught left to do but cord my boxes tomorrow morning.’
    ‘Have you far to go?’
    ‘Only some forty-odd miles, Sir. I live at Lymington, on the Solent.’
    ‘Ah, yes. That is something of a cross-country journey, though, and the coaches would serve you ill. You’ve bespoken a post-chaise, no doubt?’
    ‘No, Sir, I prefer to ride. Jim Button, our groom, willhave arranged a change of horses for us on his way over today, and my baggage will go by carrier.’
    ‘That should be pleasant if the weather is clement, as it has been these few days past. You’ll take the turnpike road to Poole and so on through Christchurch, I suppose?’
    Roger shook his head. ‘We go by way of Blandford, and then through the New Forest. The tracks are quite passable at this time of year, and the forest glades are wondrous beautiful.’
    ‘You’re not afraid of footpads then,’ Old Tony smiled. ‘’Tis common knowledge that