Palmer was a stocky bow-legged young
man in knickerbockers, who was good at football and used to lament the
gentle birth that prevented his becoming a professional. The boys called
him Gentleman Joe; but they were careful not to let Mr. Palmer hear
them, for he had a punch and did not believe in cuddling the young. He
used to jeer openly at his colleague, Mr. Spaull, who never played
football, never did anything in the way of exercise except wrestle
flirtatiously with the boys, while Mr. Palmer was bellowing up and down
the field of play and charging his pupils with additional vigour to
counteract the feebleness of Mr. Spaull. Poor Mr. Spaull, he was
ordained about three years after Mark came to Slowbridge, and a week
later he was run over by a brewer's dray and killed.
CHAPTER X
WHIT-SUNDAY
Mark at the age of fifteen was a bitter, lonely, and unattractive boy.
Three years of Haverton House, three years of Uncle Henry's desiccated
religion, three years of Mr. Palmer's athletic education and Mr.
Spaull's milksop morality, three years of wearing clothes that were too
small for him, three years of Haverton House cooking, three years of
warts and bad haircutting, of ink and Aunt Helen's confident purging had
destroyed that gusto for life which when Mark first came to Slowbridge
used to express itself in such loud laughter.
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