'Sid Henshaw knocked me and took it.'

Mr Bostock leads Henshaw out by the hair, beats him until he howls, comes back with George's tie, and gives the class a lecture about theft. After school, Wallie Sharp stands in George's path and as he steps round him says, 'You're not a right sort.'

George rules out Wallie Sharp as a possible friend.

He rarely feels the lack of what he does not have. The family takes no part in local society, but George cannot imagine what this might involve, let alone what the reason for their unwillingness, or failure, might be. He himself never goes to other boys' houses, so cannot judge how things are conducted elsewhere. His life is sufficient unto itself. He has no money, but also no need of it, and even less when he learns that its love is the root of all evil. He has no toys, but does not miss them. He lacks the skill and eyesight for games; he has never even jumped a hopscotch grid, while a thrown ball makes him flinch. He is happy to play fraternally with Horace, more gently with Maud, and more gently still with the hens.

He is aware that most boys have friends – there are David and Jonathan in the Bible, and he has watched Harry Boam and Arthur Aram huddling at the edge of the yard and showing one another things from their pockets – but he never finds this happening to himself. Is he meant to do something, or are they meant to do something? In any case, though he wants to please Mr Bostock, he is not especially interested in pleasing the boys who sit behind him.

When Great-Aunt Stoneham comes to tea, as she does on the first Sunday of each month, she scrapes her cup noisily across its saucer and through a wrinkled mouth asks him about his friends.

'Harry Charlesworth,' he always replies. 'He sits next to me.'

The third time he gives her the same reply, she puts her cup noisily back in its saucer, frowns, and asks, 'Anyone else?'

'The rest of them are just smelly farm boys,' he replies.

From the way Great-Aunt Stoneham looks at Father, he knows he has said something wrong. Before supper, he is called into the study. His father stands at his desk, with all the authority of the faith shelved behind him.

'George, how old are you?'

This is how conversations often begin with Father. They both of them already know the answer, but George still has to give it.

'Seven, Father.'

'That is an age by which a certain intelligence and judgement may reasonably be expected. So let me ask you this, George. Do you think that in the eyes of God you are more important than boys who live on farms?'

George can tell that the correct answer is No, but is reluctant to give it immediately. Surely a boy who lives in the Vicarage, whose father is the Vicar and whose great-uncle has been Vicar as well, is more important to God than a boy who never goes to church and is stupid and also cruel like Harry Boam?

'No,' he says.

'And why do you call these boys smelly?'

It is less clear what the correct answer to this might be. George considers the matter. The correct answer, he has been taught, is the truthful one.

'Because they are, Father.'

His father sighs. 'And if they are, George, why are they?'

'Why are they what, Father?'

'Smelly.'

'Because they do not wash.'

'No, George, if they are smelly, it is because they are poor. We are fortunate enough to be able to afford soap, and fresh linen, and to have a bathroom, and not to live in close proximity with beasts. They are the humble of the earth. And tell me this, whom does God love more, the humble of the earth or those who are filled with wrongful pride?'.

This is an easier question, even if George doesn't particularly agree with the answer. 'The humble of the earth, Father.'

'Blessed are the meek, George. You know the verse.'

'Yes, Father.'

But something in George resists this conclusion. He does not think Harry Boam and Arthur Aram are meek. Nor can he believe it to be part of God's eternal plan for His creation that Harry Boam and Arthur Aram shall end up inheriting the earth. That would scarcely conform to George's sense of justice. They are just smelly farm boys, after all.

Stonyhurst offered to remit Arthur's school fees if he was prepared to train for the priesthood; but the Mam declined the proposal. Arthur was ambitious and well capable of leadership, already marked down as a future Captain of Cricket. But she did not foresee any child of hers as a spiritual guide. Arthur, for his part, knew that he could not possibly supply the promised gold glasses and velvet dress and seat by the fire if he vowed himself to a life of poverty and obedience.

The Jesuits were not bad fellows, in his assessment. They considered human nature to be essentially weak, and their mistrust seemed justified to Arthur: you only had to look at his own father. They also understood that sinfulness began early. Boys were never permitted to be alone together; masters always accompanied them on walks; and every night a shadowy figure would perambulate the dormitories. Constant surveillance might undermine self-respect and self-help; but the immorality and beastliness rife at other schools were kept to a minimum.

Arthur believed, in a general way, that God existed, that boys were tempted by sin, and that the Fathers were right to beat them with the Tolley. When it came to particular articles of faith, he argued in private with his friend Partridge. He had been impressed by Partridge when, standing at second slip, he had taken a blinding catch from one of Arthur's fastest deliveries, pocketed the ball quicker than the eye could see, and turned away, pretending to watch the ball disappear to the boundary. Partridge liked to bamboozle a fellow, and not just on the cricket field.

'Are you aware that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception became an article of faith as recently as 1854?'

'Somewhat late in the day, I'd have thought, Partridge.'

'Imagine. The Church has been debating the dogma for centuries, and all that time it has never been heresy to deny it. Suddenly it is.'

'Hmm.'

'Now why should Rome decide, so far after the event, to downgrade the participation of Mary's corporeal father in the matter?'

'I say, steady on, man.'

But Partridge was already addressing the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, pronounced only five years previously. Why should all the popes of centuries past be implicitly declared fallible, and all popes present and future the opposite? Why indeed, Arthur echoed. Because, Partridge rejoined, it was more a question of Church politics than theological advance. It was all to do with the presence of influential Jesuits high up in the Vatican.

'You are sent to tempt me,' Arthur would sometimes reply.

'On the contrary. I am here to strengthen your faith. Thinking for ourselves within the Church is the path of true obedience. Whenever the Church feels threatened, it responds by imposing stricter discipline. It works in the short term, but not in the long. It's like the Tolley. You are beaten today, and so you do not offend again tomorrow or the next day. But not offending for the rest of your life because of a memory of the Tolley is a nonsense, is it not?'

'Not if it works.'

'But in a year or two we shall be quit of this place. The Tolley will not exist any more. We need to be equipped to resist sin and crime by rational argument, not the fear of physical pain.'

'I doubt rational argument will work on some boys.'

'Then the Tolley by all means. And the same in the world outside. Of course there must be prison, and hard labour, and the hangman.'

'But what is the Church threatened by? It seems strong to me.'

'By science. By the spread of sceptical teaching. By the loss of the Papal States. By the loss of political influence. By the prospect of the twentieth century.'