Others had pockets full of loose buttons which they jingled contentedly. I turned away and was thankful that the Field Day had ended when it did.

I lay in bed that night wishing that everyone would stop talking. There was some discussion which never seemed to end. At last I could stand it no longer; I let out a sort of groan, and someone hearing it said, “What’s wrong with Welch, is he talking in his sleep?”

I was so tired that I caught at this idea. I pretended that a battle was going on in my dream and that I was shouting out warnings and war-cries. It must have sounded convincing, for soon the whole dormitory was listening and there were suppressed chuckles and long, smothered laughs. Nobody wanted to wake me up; they wanted to hear the end of the dream.

I began to enjoy myself as I sensed how amused they were. Gradually, as my invention failed, I became silent. I tried to make it appear that I had sunk to a deeper layer of unconsciousness.

In the morning everyone asked me if I had slept well-if I had not been disturbed by bad dreams.

“No, I don’t think so,” I said, trying to appear as innocent as possible. Then they all laughed and told me about my noises and the battle I had fought in my sleep.

I felt rather guilty; it seemed so easy to hoax people. But I knew I must never confess. It would make them feel such fools, and they would rightly want to punish my trickery.

         

The Gym. became my refuge on free afternoons when I did not have to play games. I used to go down and let myself in quietly. Nobody was there at this time. It seemed to me a sort of temple of freedom.

After I had taken off my hateful butterfly collar, tail coat and straw hat, I would run round, jumping over the horse, climbing up the wall bars, trying everything in turn. When at last I had reached the top of the rope, a climax of excitement would pass through me-to be swinging up amongst the rafters after so much pulling and straining with arms and legs.

Then I would slide down, worn out with clutching the rope, my arms and thighs aching and my hands scraped and burning.

There was a grand piano standing in one corner. It was old and never used. I would sit down and play one of the three pieces I knew by heart, the Bach gigue, the Mozart waltz or the Beethoven sonatina.

It always sounded better here than anywhere else-grander, fuller, more exciting. I would exaggerate the louds and softs and play very staccato when I could.

I hated putting my ugly clothes on again. If there was time before evening school I would branch off into the fields, behind the Gym. where the Witches’ Cauldrons were. There were deep holes in the ground with brambles growing over and almost roofing them sometimes. They were along a ridge with a footpath running beside them. The ground was always churned up by the cows.

I used to climb down into one of the cauldrons and sit there thinking. Only a small sheet of sky appeared above. People used once to come here for a quiet smoke, but there had been a great scandal the term before, when all our lockers were searched and several boys beaten because of the cigarettes found there.

Nobody came here now. I had it all to myself.

         

When the snow came everyone went tobogganing. One of the masters put on the skis he had brought from Switzerland, but the snow was too thin and he fell on his head and was knocked unconscious. We all laughed about it for days.

I had no toboggan and I did not want to share one, so I used to go for walks with Brophy.

He wore a small truss under his clothes, and his face was rather puce-coloured. He was always eating sweets and seemed to be ashamed of it. We had both come the same term, so there was some bond between us.

We decided one afternoon to try and catch a glimpse of the famous “Findern Fillies”, not because we were at all attracted to girls but because, I think, we wanted to appear knowing and vicious.

These three women would sweep by every Sunday evening as we went into chapel.