The train, which had been stopping everywhere for the last half-hour,pulled up again, and Mike, seeing the name of the station, got up,opened the door, and hurled a Gladstone bag out on to the platform inan emphatic and vindictive manner. Then he got out himself and lookedabout him.

　　"For the school, sir?" inquired the solitary porter, bustling up, asif he hoped by sheer energy to deceive the traveller into thinkingthat Sedleigh station was staffed by a great army of porters.

　　Mike nodded. A sombre nod. The nod Napoleon might have given ifsomebody had met him in 1812, and said, "So you're back from Moscow,eh?" Mike was feeling thoroughly jaundiced. The future seemed whollygloomy. And, so far from attempting to make the best of things, he hadset himself deliberately to look on the dark side. He thought, forinstance, that he had never seen a more repulsive porter, or one moreobviously incompetent than the man who had attached himself with afirm grasp to the handle of the bag as he strode off in the directionof the luggage-van. He disliked his voice, his appearance, and thecolour of his hair. Also the boots he wore. He hated the station, andthe man who took his ticket.

　　"Young gents at the school, sir," said the porter, perceiving fromMike's _distrait_ air that the boy was a stranger to the place,"goes up in the 'bus mostly. It's waiting here, sir. Hi, George!""I'll walk, thanks," said Mike frigidly.

　　"It's a goodish step, sir.""Here you are.""Thank you, sir. I'll send up your luggage by the 'bus, sir. Which'ouse was it you was going to?""Outwood's.""Right, sir. It's straight on up this road to the school. You can'tmiss it, sir.""Worse luck," said Mike.

　　He walked off up the road, sorrier for himself than ever. It was suchabsolutely rotten luck. About now, instead of being on his way to aplace where they probably ran a diabolo team instead of a cricketeleven, and played hunt-the-slipper in winter, he would be on thepoint of arriving at Wrykyn. And as captain of cricket, at that. Whichwas the bitter part of it. He had never been in command. For the lasttwo seasons he had been the star man, going in first, and heading theaverages easily at the end of the season; and the three captains underwhom he had played during his career as a Wrykynian, Burgess, Enderby,and Henfrey had always been sportsmen to him. But it was not the samething. He had meant to do such a lot for Wrykyn cricket this term. Hehad had an entirely new system of coaching in his mind. Now it mightnever be used. He had handed it on in a letter to Strachan, who wouldbe captain in his place; but probably Strachan would have some schemeof his own. There is nobody who could not edit a paper in the idealway; and there is nobody who has not a theory of his own aboutcricket-coaching at school.

　　Wrykyn, too, would be weak this year, now that he was no longer there.

　　Strachan was a good, free bat on his day, and, if he survived a fewovers, might make a century in an hour, but he was not to be dependedupon. There was no doubt that Mike's sudden withdrawal meant thatWrykyn would have a bad time that season. And it had been such awretched athletic year for the school. The football fifteen had beenhopeless, and had lost both the Ripton matches, the return by oversixty points. Sheen's victory in the light-weights at Aldershot hadbeen their one success. And now, on top of all this, the captain ofcricket was removed during the Easter holidays. Mike's heart bled forWrykyn, and he found himself loathing Sedleigh and all its works witha great loathing.

　　The only thing he could find in its favour was the fact that it wasset in a very pretty country. Of a different type from the Wrykyncountry, but almost as good. For three miles Mike made his way throughwoods and past fields. Once he crossed a river. It was soon after thist............