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When the holiday time came round, Edgar Foster bade farewell to Redbank with feelings of regret. As he looked back at the school he was leaving he thought of the many happy hours he had spent within its walls. He had gone through trial and struggle, such as every lad must encounter, but they only made victory taste the sweeter.

‘I shall feel quite lonely next term,’ said Will Brown, who was going home with Edgar to spend a few days. ‘It’s lucky for some of us Rakes is leaving, or he would have made it uncomfortably hot. I shall never forget the thrashing you gave him. It did me good to see you punish him;’ and Will Brown chuckled with delight at the mere thought.

‘If I never have a harder battle to fight than that,’ said Edgar, ‘I shall be lucky.’

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Will Brown.

‘With my father’s permission I shall go to Australia,’ said Edgar. ‘You know how fond I have always been of reading and learning about our great colonies. I think it is a splendid thing to start life in a new country, where you are not bound down by a lot of old-world prejudices.’