I shall be glad of your company." Yorke was ready in ten minutes--thankful at last to be allowed to do something, yet secretly doubting if anything would come of this forlorn quest.
Apart from Rollitt, however, good did come of it to Fellsgarth.

For during the long walk master and boy got to understand one another better than ever before.

With a common ambition for the welfare of the School, and a common trouble at the dissensions which had split it up during the present term, they also discovered a common hope for better times ahead.
They discussed all sorts of plans, and exchanged confidences about all sorts of difficulties.

And all the while they felt drawn close to one another, exchanging the ordinary relations of master and boy for those of friend and friend.
Some of my readers may say that Mr Stratton must have been a very foolish master to give himself away to a boy, or that Yorke must have been a very presuming boy to talk so familiarly to a master.

Who cares what they were, if they and Fellsgarth were the better for that morning's walk?
"In many ways," said Mr Stratton, "a head boy has as much responsibility for the good of a school as a head-master--always more than an assistant master.