To the other delights of this delightful term was added the sudden and unexpected success of Gordon's cricket. For the first fortnight Gordon found himself playing on House and Colts games. But as he gathered runs there with ease, he was soon transplanted to the First Eleven nets, which he thenceforward only left for a brief spell, after an attack of chicken-pox. For a member of the School Eleven life has nothing better to offer than a summer term. There were usually two matches a week. The team would get off work at ten o'clock, and just as the school was pouring out in break they would stroll leisurely down to the cricket field. Everything, in fact, was carried out leisurely. A wonderful atmosphere of repose hangs over a cricket field in the morning, when the grass is still sparkling with dew, and there is silence and vast emptiness where usually is the sound of shouting and hurrying feet. There was the long luncheon interval, when the members of the Eleven would wander round the field arm in arm, or lounge on the seats lazy and contented. Gordon loved to sit in the pavilion balcony watching the white forms change across between the overs, the red ball bounce along the grass, the wicket-keeper whip off the bails, the umpire's finger go up. The whole tableau was so unreal, so idealistic. Then the school would come down after lunch with rugs and cushions, and would clamour outside the tuck-shop for ices and ginger beer. Gordon could hardly connect his present existence with the past two years of doubts, uncertainties, wild excitements, hurry, bustle--never a second's peace. One of his most perfect days was the Radley match. After a long journey, at the very end of the day they passed through Oxford, and Gordon caught one fleeting glimpse of those wonderful "dreaming spires," rising golden in the dying sun. As the team walked up from Abingdon to the college, Tester, who had at last got into the side, came up and took Gordon's arm. "You know, when I saw Oxford lying out there so peaceful and calm, I thought I had at last reached the end of searching. This was my first view of Oxford; by passing the certificate I didn't need to go up for smalls. Thank God, I am going up there next term. I think I shall forget all my old misgivings in so completely peaceful an atmosphere. I can't shake off the Public School ideas yet; I am all adrift; still, I think it will be all right there." Gordon wondered indeed how anyone could fail to find all their dreams realised in so secluded, so monastic a Utopia.