His stories had been filled with an utter contempt for
lessons and a superb defiance of the authorities, and had ranged
from desperate rabbit-shooting parties on the Yorkshire Wolds to
illicit feasts of Eccles cakes and tinned lobster in moonlit
dormitories. I thought that it would be pleasant to experience this
romantic kind of life before settling down for good with my dreams.
The train wandered on and my eldest brother and I looked at each
other constrainedly. He had already asked me twice whether I had my
ticket, and I realised that he could not think of any other neutral
remark that fitted the occasion. It occurred to me to say that the
train was slow, but I remembered with a glow of anger how he had once
rubbed a strawberry in my face because I had taken the liberty of
offering it to one of his friends, and I held my peace. I had prayed
for his death every night for three weeks after that, and though he
was still alive the knowledge of my unconfessed and unrepented
wickedness prevented me from being more than conveniently polite, he
thought I was a cheeky little toad and I thought he was a bully, so
we looked at each other and did not speak. We were both glad,
therefore, when the train pulled up at the station that bore the name
of my new school.
My first emotion was a keen regret that my parents had not sent me
to a place where the sun shone. As we sat in the little omnibus
that carried us from the station to the town, with my precious
boxes safely stored on the roof, we passed between grey fields
whose featureless expanses melted changelessly into the grey sky
overhead.
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