Boarding schools -- Juvenile fiction; Football stories; School sports -- Juvenile fiction; Teenage boys -- Juvenile fiction
In the shrubbery along the farther side of the courtyard a gang
of noisy sparrows were chasing each other about, plump, truculent
roisterers who squabbled and fought for no apparent reason. Beyond
them the ivy along the lower wall of the three-story stone building
was still green and varnished looking. Some of the ambitious tendrils
were well above the second line of windows over there. Clif’s gaze
wandered toward the front of the building and was captured by a moving
flash of color at an open window. It was a bit of yellow silk curtain
that swayed beyond the frame in the stirring of a languid breeze. Clif
was viewing that window at an angle, but the room beyond was flooded
by sunlight and so much of it as was within his range of vision was
visible in detail. He could see the end of a couch tapestried in blue
and brown, the corner of a bookcase, a picture on a wall. But what
interested him far more was the object that occupied most of the
foreground.
That object was his late adversary, Kemble. Even across the width of
the courtyard Clif read in attitude and countenance dejection and
perplexity. It wasn’t difficult for the observer to complete the scene
from imagination. Kemble was seated at one side of a table. Across from
him, wearing, doubtless, a look of stern yet patient displeasure, sat
the Mr. Wyatt of whom he had so feelingly spoken. In short, Clif was
viewing his enemy in the throes of an inquiry into his knowledge of
English!
For the moment Clif’s emotion was one of unmixed delight. Retribution
had overtaken the hated foe! Then, however, his feeling of triumph
waned――gave way before a faint stirring of sympathy. Even if the
fellow was a blighter he deserved some pity under such conditions,
and, besides, simple _esprit de corps_ demanded that Clif should align
himself on the side of the oppressed fellow student rather than with
that enemy body the Faculty! For a minute longer he looked and then
turned away. To-morrow, he told himself, he would hold Kemble to strict
accountability, but meanwhile he was “rooting” hard for that suffering
youth and for the confusion of the tyrant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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