THE LANCHESTER TRADITION _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ 5_s._ net each. DICK: A Story without a Plot. Also 2_s._ net. ‘FOR THIS I HAD BORNE HIM.’ THE LANCHESTER TRADITION. WHEN EVERY TREE WAS GREEN. THE AWAKENING OF BITTLESHAM. * * * * * THE GREAT DAYS OF VERSAILLES, 10_s._ 6_d._ net. REAPING THE WHIRLWIND, and other Poems. 3_s._ 6_d._ net. THE LANCHESTER TRADITION BY G. F. BRADBY AUTHOR OF ‘DICK,’ ‘WHEN EVERY TREE WAS GREEN,’ ‘THE AWAKENING OF BITTLESHAM,’ ETC. LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1919 FIRST EDITION _September, 1913_ _Reprinted_ _January, 1914_ _Reprinted_ _August, 1919_ [_All rights reserved_] PREFACE This is a school story; but Chiltern School has yet to be founded and the masters and boys who figure in the following pages have never existed outside the author’s brain. It is necessary to say so much, partly because most stories of this kind have admittedly dealt with particular schools, and partly because many readers have very little idea of the workings of the imaginative faculty. At all events, when a professional man ventures to write fiction, they insist on seeing history or caricature, and proceed to affix labels; for there is a general assumption that professional men, and schoolmasters in particular, are necessarily devoid of imagination. Once more then, Chiltern is not a real school and its masters are not real masters. But, though not real, they are not impossible--at least, so the author believes. For men, like boys, are unconsciously moulded by their environment and tend to conform to types; and, given a school like Chiltern, there would probably be masters like the Chiltern masters. G. F. B. _June, 1913._ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE ELECTION 1 II. MR. FLAGGON PAYS A VISIT 14 III. EXIT DR. GUSSY 29 IV. THE FIRST SKIRMISH 43 V. MR. TIPHAM 56 VI. THE CLOVEN HOOF 69 VII. THE AFFAIR OF LE WILLOW 79 VIII. THE PARENTS’ COMMITTEE 92 IX. “GOD’S IN HIS HEAVEN” 103 X. THE LANCHESTER LETTERS 114 XI. MR. CHOWDLER WINS A BATTLE AND MEETS WITH A REBUFF 126 XII. THE EXPLOSION 139 XIII. IN DARK PLACES 151 XIV. THE DAY OF DECISION 164 XV. AFTERMATH 176