“The Dog Star and Aldebaran, pointing to the restless Pleiades, were half up the southern sky, and between them hung Orion, which gorgeous constellation never burnt more vividly than now, as it swung itself forth above the rim of the landscape; Castor and Pollux with their quiet shine were almost on the meridian: the barren and gloomy square of Pegasus was creeping round to the North-West; far away through the plantation Vega sparkled like a lamp suspended amid the leafless trees, and Cassiopeia’s chair stood daintily poised in the uppermost boughs.”
“Better than the _Story of the Heavens_?” asked Mr. Heal. “Come, come, Ingleby . . . surely not?”
Mr. Heal shut the book. “The barren and gloomy square of Pegasus,” he murmured to himself. And all the rest of that evening Edwin found himself remembering the phrase. The bareness and the gloom of Pegasus had never struck him before; and now, at a sudden suggestion, the whole atmosphere of the sky had changed; the vague heavens became habitable to his fancy; new and immense territory opened before him. . . .
He told Widdup what he remembered of the passage that Heal had read.
“Poor old Tommy,” said Widdup compassionately. “It isn’t an exact square at all. It’s an irregular quadrilateral, and I don’t see anything gloomy about it. Stars aren’t gloomy anyway. Look how they sparkle. Look at Vega.”
Above the gable of the swimming bath that wonderful star throbbed white.
In the Lent term they both had measles and woke with swollen eyes to find each other side by side. In the same ward at the Sanatorium was Layton’s successor, Payne, a thawed, thin, almost unfamiliar Payne; and while they swam upon the first buoyant spirits of convalescence, the sheer hulk of Griffin was hove in, in the snivelling misery of the early stages. Edwin thought that Griffin had never looked so beastly, and rejoiced in the pig’s humiliation; but when, at last, Griffin recovered he found his ancient victim a handy plaything, and for want of anything better to do attempted to seduce Widdup from Edwin’s friendship. Edwin never quite forgave Widdup his defection; and when they were all better and back in school again he found that he still had to avoid Griffin on whom the habit of persecution had been regrafted. It seemed such a pity . . . he thought he had outgrown all that sort of thing.