But his annoyance passed quickly. He was far too certain of the future to worry much about what anyone said. He was sure the House would win in the end. It was only a question of time. And when the prize-giving came, his anger gave way to pride. His place in form gave him little satisfaction, for he was easily bottom of the Sixth; but after the books had been given there came the turn of the House cups. Amid enormous cheers Lovelace went up for the Thirds cup; amid still louder cheers he and the outhouse captain stepped up together to receive the Two Cock cup. Then at tea Hazelton walked into hall carrying the two trophies to place on the mantelpiece, and the House burst forth in a roar of cheering. It was all sheer joy; and beyond the present glory shone the dawn of great triumphs to come. The House was just entering on its career of success. The day of Buller's was at an end. There only remained to them the remnants of their earlier glory. Where they had stood the House was about to stand. And in that hour of triumph Gordon himself would be the protagonist. The short Easter holidays passed happily. Over the fresh grass of Hampstead Heath Gordon wandered alone on those April mornings, when the trees were breaking into a green splendour, when the long waters of the Welsh Harp lay out in the morning sun like a sheet of gold. Looking across from the firs he saw the spire of Harrow church cutting the red sky, and the long stretch of country in between rolling out into a panorama of loveliness. On the road to Parliament Hill he passed the spot where Shelley found a starving woman dying in the snow, and took her to Leigh Hunt's house to give her warmth. Near John Masefield's house was the garden where Keats had written his immortal _Ode to a Nightingale_. Hampstead was prodigal of associations, and they stirred the boy's imagination like a trumpet call. Then followed the long summer term, with its drowsy afternoons, its white flannels, its long evening shadows creeping across the courts, its ices, its innumerable lemonades; everything conspired to make Gordon supremely happy. Scholastically he had at last achieved his great wish of specialising in history; a fine-sounding programme which actually implied that he would not need to do another stroke of work during his Fernhurst career. Specialising in history was an elastic activity, and might mean a few hours a week in which to read up political economy. It might mean what Prothero made it mean--seven hours in school a week, and the remainder pretending to read history in his study.