"Yes, you see, masters grow old; they forget what it was like to be young; they want us to look at life through their spectacles, and, of course, we can't. Youth and age is an impossible combination; we have to cut a way for ourselves, Caruthers, sometimes we fail, sometimes we succeed. I've made a pretty fair mess of things, because I have gone on my own way; because I have had no one to guide me. I found little consolation in mature thought, and I am not one of the fools who has just taken things for granted; I strike out by myself. I want to find what beauty really is, and I shall find it by sifting out everything first. I have probed a good many things one way and another, some ugly, some beautiful. I have followed the course of Nature. After all, Nature is more likely to be right than an artificial civilisation. I follow where my inclinations lead me. I hate laws and regulations. As I've often said, I did not ask to come into this world, so I shall do as I please, and I think that I shall reach home all right in the end. Literature is a great sign-post!" "Yes," said Gordon simply. "I never imagined it before. Who wrote that, by the way?" "Swinburne, the great pagan who was sick of the sham and pretence of his day, and cried for the glories of Rome. Look here, Caruthers, come down to Gisson's afterwards, and as a memento of our year together in Study 1, just let me give you Swinburne's _Poems and Ballads_. It's great stuff; you'll like it, and you'll find there something a bit better than your caps and pots." Gordon did not answer. The sun had now risen high above the Abbey. Across the silence was wafted the cracked notes of the School House bell; there was a rush of feet from the studies. For a few minutes Gordon lay back in his chair quite quiet. A new day had broken on his life. The future opened out with wide promises, with possibilities of great things. For he had heard at last the call which, if ever a man hears it, he casts away the nets and follows after--the call of beauty--"which is, after all, only truth, seen from another side." BOOK III: UNRAVELLING THE THREADS "... and drank delight of battle with my peers." TENNYSON. "Yet would you tread again All the road over? Face the old joy and pain-- Hemlock and clover? Yes. For it still was good, Good to be living, Buoyant of heart and blood; Fighting, forgiving." AUSTIN DOBSON. "Oh! the hardest day was never then too hard." LINDSAY GORDON. CHAPTER I: COMMON ROOM FACES