Certain words, “the horror of sin, the infamy of evil,” caught David’s ears at this moment, and he attended for a little. It seemed to him rather poor stuff, and why the Head should sway about and shout like that was impossible to conjecture. But it gave him a hint, and David, closely listening, intended to reproduce some of it in dormitory that night. A night-shirt made an admirable surplice, and a pair of trousers hung over the shoulders would make a ripping stole. He himself would be the Head, as he had thought of it, and Stone and Ferrers should be stuffed with pillows to represent Goggles and Carrots, with his bed as the organ. David would march the whole way down the dormitory, after the matron had gone, with the Head’s rocking walk and some cotton-wool for a beard, preceded by a small boy carrying a poker. . . . Then suddenly the Head’s voice changed; it became extraordinarily solemn and beautiful, as it did sometimes when he read to them. And the words were beautiful, and they affected David in that puzzling, incomprehensible manner in which words did. Words and the pictures, dim and only half-conscious, that they produced in his mind, often had that effect on him; they gave him a sort of homesick yearning, and an ache, as if his mind was hungry. And it was clear that what he was saying moved the Head in the same sort of way; his voice shook and grew lower yet, reminding David of something he had felt once when he woke early and heard the chirruping of birds before daybreak. . . . “So prepare to be men,” he said, “and when manhood dawns on you, let it dawn on you as on the clean dewy grass, with birds singing in your hearts, and innocence still looking from your eyes. Never contemplate evil, and the desire of it will fade from you. Run away from it, if by staying near it you would yield, and ‘Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, think on those things.’” David gave a little gulp; not only were these beautiful words, but they meant something. . . . But the sermon was over, and it was impossible not to remember that in a few minutes now he would be having tea in the housekeeper’s room, while the wretched Dubs was doing the Head the honour to wait on him. It had been “jam” to see the Head stamp on that yellow-covered book! And, with any luck, the fragments of it would be in the grate of the museum to-morrow. David determined to get up early, and see what it was about. It was in French, which was a bore, but it was worth while, even at the trouble of looking out heaps of words, to see what it was that had made the Head in such a wax. . . . Or had it something to do with the things the Head told them they must run away from. . . . Rum old bird, the Head. But he did say jolly things sometimes. CHAPTER III