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he Careys made up their minds to send Philip to King’s
TSchool at Tercanbury. The neighbouring clergy sent
their sons there. It was united by long tradition to the Ca-
thedral: its headmaster was an honorary Canon, and a past
headmaster was the Archdeacon. Boys were encouraged
there to aspire to Holy Orders, and the education was such
as might prepare an honest lad to spend his life in God’s
service. A preparatory school was attached to it, and to this
it was arranged that Philip should go. Mr. Carey took him
into Tercanbury one Thursday afternoon towards the end
of September. All day Philip had been excited and rather
frightened. He knew little of school life but what he had
read in the stories of The Boy’s Own Paper. He had also read
Eric, or Little by Little.
When they got out of the train at Tercanbury, Philip
felt sick with apprehension, and during the drive in to the
town sat pale and silent. The high brick wall in front of the
school gave it the look of a prison. There was a little door
in it, which opened on their ringing; and a clumsy, untidy
man came out and fetched Philip’s tin trunk and his play-
box. They were shown into the drawing-room; it was filled
with massive, ugly furniture, and the chairs of the suite
were placed round the walls with a forbidding rigidity. They
waited for the headmaster.