Yet up to the present these four heroes had been popular in their house--Barnworth was the best high jumper Grandcourt had had for years, and Ainger was as steady as a rock at the wickets of the first eleven, and was reported to be about to run Smedley, the school captain, very close for the mile at the spring sports.

Stafford, dear fellow that he was, was not a particularly "hot" man at anything, but he would hold the coat of anyone who asked him, and backed everybody up in turn, and always cheered the winner as heartily as he condoled with the loser.

Felgate was one of those boys who could do better than they do, and whose unsteadiness is no one's fault but their own.

His ways were sometimes crooked, and his professions often exceeded his practice.

He meant well sometimes, and did ill very often; and, in short, was just the kind of fellow for the short-tempered, honest Ainger cordially to dislike.
Such was the miscellaneous community which Mark Railsford found himself called upon to govern.