many a trick I had joined in-for many an impertinent thing I had done-and for many an unkind word I had spoken. Oh, thought I, some day, on returning to the school, I'll speak to him, and tell him how sorry I was to have behaved so ill. I never had the wished-for chance; the grave may have closed o'er him ere I had the opportunity of begging his pardon, and he may have gone away thinking me one of his cowardly enemies-not what I was, his weak friend. No recollection calls up a deeper blush on my forehead than does the one reminding me how I joined against him with his enemies and nearly drove him mad with persecution; perhaps no circumstance makes my blood boil more than to think that my nature should once have been warped to such an extent.

The tea-bell rings! How often I had heard it! Yet it never struck me before how full and deep was its sound. How curious it seemed that, though mentally I had ceased to obey its summons, my body seemed instinctively to rise up and return to its allegiance-and its tea. The next moment the playground of Weston is

deserted; the last to leave it being the four friends walking up and down the gravel-walk. As my quondam enemy E- passes my boat, I feel actually sorry for him, when I think he will not have me to tease any more, and I could shake hands with him now; but as the four friends pass by, I have no such inclination: my last feelings of school enmity were directed against them, because they alone seemed to me to be responsible for all that I suffered. I would have called out from my boat, had I dared to do so

66

-By nature sober, yet had then,

Boys as ye were, the gravity of men;

Ye knew, at least, by constant proofs addressed
To ears and eyes, the vices of the rest-
⚫But ye connive at what ye dare not cure,
And evils not to be endured, endure.”*

They were gone, and a moment afterwards, I set off towards the high road to M, as fast as I could run.

* Cowper.

CHAPTER VI.

"I LEAVE SCHOOL WITH MORE RAPIDITY THAN

DIGNITY.

Quæque ipsa miserrima vidi

Et quorum pars magna fui, quis talia fandum

Temperat a lacrymis?"

66 Sadly at night,

VIRGIL.

I sat me down beside a stranger's hearth,

And when the lingering hour of rest was come,
Moistened with tears my pillow."

SOUTHEY.

Он, what a relief that run was, and yet how fatiguing! My legs felt heavy, and the exertion I had in dragging one after another was such that I soon was forced to stop. I knew that at least two hours must elapse before my flight would be discovered, and I did my best to put a good distance between my

self and Weston before the shades of night, now rapidly approaching, should hide all traces of the fugitive.

I ran for nearly three miles, when my legs fairly failed me, and, overcome with exhaustion, I sank down on a bank by the lane-side, hid my face in my hands, and burst into tears. Hitherto I had done all calmly, almost as in a dream, but now it all rushed upon me: the open defiance of rule and order, the continued misery which had led to it, the injustice which had been its immediate cause, the place I was flying from, the home I was returning to. How desolate I felt at that moment ! I imagined I had broken bonds with all mankind, and with all womankind, except my mother: she, I knew, would take my part and give me a warm welcome, even if she seasoned it with a quiet reproof.

But I was yet many miles from the spot which had been the goal of all my hopes and thoughts for so long. My strength was nearly exhausted, and I was yet among Weston scenes; the sea was visible from the hill I had just

climbed, and our longer walks and excursions had made me acquainted with each neighbouring tree. It was, indeed, a dreary moment: never have the real misfortunes of life brought such a feeling of hopeless misery as was condensed into that one instant. It was but a moment; for the next, thoughts of weary pilgrims and of their courage and fortitude, on the one hand, and fears of being found and carried back to Weston, on the other, gave me fresh strength; and in a few minutes I was again on my way.

As I sped rapidly along, I soon reached an unknown country: the houses became unfamiliar, and the lanes looked strange to me; I was passing beyond the outer limits of the school excursions, into districts where the very name of the little town of Weston was, perhaps, rarely heard. At length I reached the coachroad, and a few yards on passed the first of many milestones, which cheered me on my long, long journey: on it was carved, "To M. Fifty miles."

I turned into a field a mile further on, and