Page:The Fight at Dame Europa's School.djvu/38

 the head and champion of the school is thoroughly beaten by circumstances—utterly at a loss, at some critical moment, what is the right thing to do—let him confess at once that he is unequal to his place—that he is not the Boy we took him for—that his courage has been overrated, and his reputation as a hero too cheaply earned; that for all his vaunted influence with others he is too weak to stay an unrighteous strife—to avert a storm of cruel, savage blows—to spare the infliction of wounds which will lie gaping and unhealed for long years to come, bearing on their ghastly face a bitter hatred for the foe that dealt them, and contempt for the 'neutral' friend who looked calmly on."