The boys are already in their seats, with
smug fresh faces and shining white collars; the old black-gowned
pensioners are on their benches; the chapel is lighted, and Founder's
tomb, with its grotesque carvings, monsters, heraldries, darkles and
shines with the most wonderful shadows and lights. There he lies,
Fundator Noster, in his ruff and gown, awaiting the great Examination
Day. We oldsters, be we ever so old, become boys again as we look at
that familiar old tomb, and think how the seats are altered since we
were here; and how the doctor--not the present doctor, the doctor of
_our_ time--used to sit yonder, and his awful eye used to frighten us
shuddering boys on whom it lighted; and how the boy next us _would_
kick our shins during service-time; and how the monitor would cane us
afterward because our shins were kicked....
"The service for Founder's Day is a special one. How solemn the
well-remembered prayers are!... how beautiful and decorous the rite!
how noble the ancient words of the supplication which the priest
utters, and to which generations of fresh children and troops of
bygone seniors have cried Amen under those arches!"[6]
Having resolved to found a charity which should provide both for
young and old, Sutton, who had ample reason fully to appreciate the
unprincipled and grasping character of the court, proceeded to take
every precaution that sagacity and ingenuity could suggest to keep his
money secure from the hands of such harpies as Carr and "Steenie,"
and hedge it round with every bulwark possible.
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