“It is a noble and a fine thing to risk one’s life to save the life of another, and I do not doubt that most, if not all, of our boys would gladly seize such an opportunity in the same spirit as it was seized by Anthony Deering and his companions a few nights since. That gladness to risk life should be a symbol of what is infinitely harder, and infinitely more needed, I may say, but of which also our friends set us the example,—the good will and unselfishness to live for others. A school altogether fails, just as a human life altogether fails, if at heart and in spirit, it is not dedicated, so far as opportunity permits, to the service of men. The lesson of this incident is the lesson that I would we might all learn from the school.” The Doctor’s sermon was not the kind of a sermon to be much discussed, but it made a deep impression on the school. For one or two masters and for several boys it was the inspiration as they knelt later of as earnest prayer as they had ever offered. Doctor Forester had been going frequently to the Infirmary to see Tony, and after the first few days he had continued his confirmation instructions so that Deering could keep up with the class. Tony’s first appearance amongst the boys after his convalescence was in the Chapel at the preparatory service the night before the confirmation. It was a quiet little service, conducted by the Bishop and the Head. Again the theme of the address was service—a theme that in some fashion or other seemed to have flashed in and out of all Tony’s consciousness and experience for the past year. As he knelt that night in the dim Chapel and offered up a grateful thanksgiving that life and health had been spared to him, he resolved more definitely and consciously than ever before that whatever he did in the world thereafter he would never live wholly or selfishly for himself. And in after years he was to look back on that night, as he looked back on the night on the beach when he had walked with Mr. Morris, as another important moment in the process of his coming to himself. CHAPTER XXIII THE LAST TERM It was a warm bright May day, with just enough breeze to fleck the waves of the bay and passage with white caps and make it lively for the school crews in their heavy whaleboats, the substitute at Deal for the conventional shell. From their post on the Rocking-stone or just by it, high up on the highest ridge of Lovel’s Woods, two boys looked out upon the spreading panorama of marsh and beach and river and bay. They both were drinking it in with a deep sense of its beauty and with a sense too that it was the more beautiful in that it all was a part of the old school. Up on the hill there, across the wide valley of the marshes and Beaver Pond and Creek, rose the school itself, gleaming now in the bright western sunlight as a fairy castle of rose and gold.