None could shoot with a crossbow as skillfully as he (that very spring he had killed twenty-three water-rats, and you know how wary they are); none was so fearless a rider; none more expert at flying the hawk or training hounds.

The boys' worthy instructor received a liberal sum in payment for his services, and his house was thus made more of a home than a mere school.

Each boy who wanted it was permitted to keep his own horse and dog, and after lessons were over their liberty was little encroached upon, provided that they observed the rules of the house.
The Reverend Jeremy Fullarton was Royalist to the marrow, and only Royalists entrusted their sons to his keeping; hence the house was a home of Cavalier sentiment.

The older boys had even constituted themselves into a little corps, and all games had given way before the joys of drilling and military tactics.

Here again Philip led, although his sworn allies, Hugh Lorimer and Vernon Hutchinson (a nephew of the great Colonel Hutchinson, whose memoirs were written by his wife Lucy) and Rupert Ommaney, shared the command.