"Just gone six, my dear; and there: I mustn't stop gossiping, for I've my fire to light, my kitchen to do; but I hate people to be miserable.

I can't abide it. There's plenty of worries with one's work, as I told missus only yesterday. There, good-bye, and don't you fret."

I heard the rustling of her dress as she went along the pa.s.sage, and I stood by the door till it died away, feeling sad but pleased, for it was satisfactory to know that there were people about the place who cared for me. But I felt more low-spirited directly as I thought of what she might say as soon as she knew the real cause of why I was a prisoner.

The bell rang for rising, and I heard some of the boys soon after out in their gardens; then, as I stood back from the window, I caught sight of one or two, and after a while heard the increasing hum and buzz of voices, and knew that some of them must be getting up lessons that had been neglected over-night. And as I listened, I thought of the times when I had murmured and felt dissatisfied at being obliged to give so much time to such work, whereas now I was envying the happy boys who were seated at study, with no greater care upon their minds.

Perhaps I was learning a great lesson then, one that I did not know.

The time went on very slowly, and it seemed many hours since I awoke, when the breakfast-bell rang, and I sat picturing the scene, and fancying I could hear the boys talking and the mugs and spoons clattering, as the great piles of bread and b.u.t.ter disappeared.

I was just thinking this when there were steps in the pa.s.sage, and soon after the key was rattled in the lock, Mr Rebble appeared, and with him one of the maids, with a tray on which was a mug and a plate of bread and b.u.t.ter.

He did not look at me, only admitted the maid to set down the tray, saw her out, and I was locked in again.

It was very much like the old time, but Tom Mercer was not there to lighten my loneliness.

As the door closed, I noticed that the mug was steaming, and found that I was not to have prison fare though I was a prisoner, for my breakfast was precisely the same as that of the other boys.

"I can't touch it," I said, "It is impossible to eat."

But I was feverishly thirsty, and I took up the mug of milk, just made warm by the addition of some boiling water. It was pleasantly sweet, too, and I half fancied that Cook had put in an extra quant.i.ty of sugar.

More from habit than anything else, for I felt sick and full of distaste for food, I broke off a piece of bread and b.u.t.ter and began to eat it mechanically, and now knew that I was right, for, instead of the salt b.u.t.ter we generally had, this was fresh and sweet. Cook had certainly been favouring me, and that sc.r.a.p led to the finishing of the slice, and finally to the disappearance of all that was on the plate, while the last drop of milk and water was drained from the big mug.

As soon as the breakfast was finished, a morbid feeling of vexation came over me. I was angry because I had touched it, and wished that I had sulked, and shown myself too much injured to go on as if nothing had happened. But it was too late then.

After a while, Mr Rebble came back, looking very severe. He watched the maid as she took the tray, but the girl gave me a sympathetic look, and then I was once more left alone.

Hard people think they do not,--they say, "Oh, he's only a boy; he'll soon forget,"--but boys suffer mentally as keenly, or more keenly, than grown people. Of course they do, for everything about them is young, tender, and easily wounded. I know that they soon recover from some mental injury. Naturally. They are young and elastic, and the sapling, if bent down, springs up again, but for the time they suffer cruelly.

I know I did, shut up there in disgrace, and, as I sat or walked about my prison, it made no difference to me that it was a plainly furnished, neat bedroom, for it was as prison-like to me in my vein as if the floor had been stone, the door of iron-clamped oak with rusty hinges. And as I moved about the place, I began to understand how prisoners gladly made friends with spiders, mice, and rats, or employed themselves cutting their names on the walls, carving pieces of wood, or writing long histories.

But I had no insects or animals to amuse me, no wood to carve, no stone walls upon which to chisel my name.

I had only been a prisoner for a few hours, you may say.

Quite true, but, oh, what hours they were, and what agony I suffered from my thoughts!

I spent most of my time at the window, forcing myself to think of how things were going on in school, and I pictured the boys at their lessons--at the Doctor's desk at Mr Rebble's, and Mr Hasnip's. It was German day, too, and I thought about our quaint foreign master, and about Lomax drilling the boys in the afternoon. He would be asking them where I was; and the question arose in my mind, would the boys tell him, or would they have had orders, as we did once before, about a year back, when a pupil disgraced himself, not to mention the affair outside the school walls.

My spirits rose a little at this, for it would be horrible for Lomax to know, and go and think it over. And I seemed to know that he would take it more to heart about me than if it were any other boy, for I was to be a soldier, and, as he would have expressed it, "One of ours."

Dinner-time at last--the bell ringing, and the shouts and cries of the boys, "All in! all in!" though we used to want very little calling for meals.

After a time, my dinner was brought up, as my breakfast had been, in silence, and I felt then that I should have liked Mr Rebble to speak, if it had only been to bully. But he did not so much as look at me, only stalked into the room and out again.

Who was going to eat and enjoy a dinner, brought like that?

"It's like an animal in a cage being fed," I said angrily; and I was quite angry because the roast beef, potatoes, and greens smelt so nice that I was obliged to sit down and eat and enjoy the meal, for I was very hungry.

After the tray had been fetched, I made up my mind that at any minute now the Doctor might send for me, to give me a severe examination, and I shivered at the idea of being forced to speak out, and say everything I knew. I wished now that it was dark, so that I might have attempted to escape, if only to avoid that meeting. But it was impossible. Even if I could get off the lock, I should be seen, for certain, and brought back in an ignominious fashion, that would be terrible.

But the afternoon wore away, as I sat listening to the shouts of the boys at play, thinking bitterly of how little they thought of me shut up there; and I began wondering where Mercer was, little thinking that he was watching me; but he was, sure enough, for, just close upon tea-time, I caught sight of him, lying down upon his chest, where he had crawled unseen among the shrubs, and there he was, with his elbows on the ground and his chin in his hands, watching me, just as a faithful dog might his master.

I shrank away from the window, as soon as I saw him, and then waited till the bell rang for tea, when I peeped out again, to see that he was gone, but I could trace him by the movement of the laurels, bays, and lilacs, whose branches were thrust aside as he crept through.

"He'll come back again after tea," I thought, and I was right. I had only just finished my own, brought up as before, when, glancing from the window, there I saw him, gazing up at me like a whipped dog, asking to be taken into favour once again.

"Why hasn't the Doctor sent for me?" I asked myself; but I could find only one reason,--he meant me to come to his study quite late in the evening.

But he did not, and that dreary time pa.s.sed slowly away, as I watched the darkness come on, and the stars peer out one by one. Then I saw the moon rise far away over the sea, shining brightly, till the sky grew cloudy, as my life seemed now to be.

But no footstep--no summons to go down to the Doctor's room, and, though I kept on fancying that I heard steps on the stairs, I was always deceived, and it was not until I heard the bell ring for prayers and bed, that I knew I should not have to meet the Doctor that night.

There were steps enough now in the corridors and on the stairs, and I sat near the door, for the sake of the company, naming the boys to myself, as I recognised the voices. But I shrank away once, as two boys stopped by my door, and I heard them say,--

"Wonder how old Burr junior's getting on?"

"Ah! he's in for it now. Don't talk, or he'll hear us."

They pa.s.sed on, and I heard their door close, after which there was a loud scuffling and b.u.mping from the other sides accompanied by smothered laughter and dull blows.

I knew directly what was going on, and sighed, as I recalled how many times I had engaged in the forbidden joys of a bolstering match.

Their merriment only made me feel the pain the more bitterly, and I was glad when I heard a familiar cough at the end of the pa.s.sage, and the tapping of a stick on the floor.

All was silent in an instant, and by degrees every murmur died away, and I lay down and slept heavily, for mine was weary trouble. There was no guilty conscience to keep me awake.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

I was up in good time next morning, to find that Tom Mercer was beforehand with me, waiting in the shrubbery, and making signs now as soon as he saw me; but I turned away, and with a disconsolate look, he dropped down among the bushes, and crouched where he would be screened.

He disappeared at breakfast-time, but he was back there before dinner, and for a time after, but he suddenly rushed away, and I supposed that some of the boys were coming round to that side of the great house.

Then came another weary time of waiting, and I was beginning to think that I should escape again, when there were steps on the stairs--the decided, heavy steps of Mr Rebble, who always stamped when he came up by the boys' bedrooms--to give him importance, we used to say.

It was not a meal-time, so I felt that at last I was to be taken down to the Doctor's library. Then the door was unlocked, thrown open, and the master said loudly, "Burr junior, the Doctor wishes to see you in his room."

My heart began to beat heavily as I followed him down-stairs, and then through the door on to the front staircase with its thick carpet. The hall was reached, and Mr Rebble crossed to the library, waited till I was on the mat, threw the door wide-open and seemed to scoop me in.

A low murmur of voices fell on my ear as the door was opened, and I knew that I was not to see the Doctor alone, but I did not antic.i.p.ate facing such a gathering as I gazed at wildly, with my heart throbbing, my cheeks hot, and a film coming over my eyes.

For there before me were the Doctor and his lady, Mr Hasnip, and Mercer, Burr major, and d.i.c.ksee. I saw them at a glance, my eyes hardly resting upon them, for there were three strangers in the room, and I divined now why it was that I had not been fetched before.

I was to meet those who had placed me at the school; while beside my mother and my uncle there stood the old General, gazing at me with a very severe scowl.

For a few moments no one spoke, and I felt giddy. A mist was before my eyes, and everything looked blurred and strange, but through it all I could see my mother's eyes gazing yearningly at me, and she half rose from her seat to take me to her heart, but my uncle laid his hand upon her arm and said firmly,--