Mildred Arkell: A Novel. Vol. 2 (of 3)

"We cannot act against the customs of the school, Dr. Ferraday," repeated the master. "Arkell is at the first desk, but he cannot be senior of the school out of his turn."

"Can you tell me whence England chiefly procures her supplies of cotton?" asked Mr. Meddler, mildly, of a mild-looking boy belonging to the third desk. "You, sir; Van Brummel, I think your name is."

Mr. Van Brummel, considerably taken-to at being addressed individually, lost his head completely. "From the signing of Magna Charta by King John."

"Why, what a stupid owl you must be!" snapped Dr. Ferraday, before Canon Meddler could speak. Mr. Van Brummel's face turned red; he was a timid boy, and he wondered whether they would order him to be flogged.

"Please, sir, I know that's the answer in the book," he earnestly said: "I learnt them over again this morning."

"It may be an answer to something, but not to my question," said Mr. Meddler, as he stepped apart to confer with his colleagues. "What is to be done, Mr. Dean? This state of things cannot be allowed to go on."

They talked for a few moments together, and then the dean turned to the boys.

"Stand forward, Arkell."

Henry Arkell advanced, a hot flush on his sensitive face; and the Dean threw round his neck a broad blue ribbon, suspending a medal of gold. "I have much pleasure in bestowing this upon you; never was reward more justly merited; and," he concluded, raising his voice high as he swept the room with his eyes, "I feel bound to declare publicly, that Henry Cheveley Arkell is an honour to Westerbury collegiate school."

"As all the rest of you are a disgrace to it," stormed Dr. Ferraday on the discomfited lot behind.

"You must let me have it back again to-morrow morning, that I may get your name inscribed on it," said the dean to Henry, in a low tone. "Wear it for to-day."

The boys were dismissed. They took off their surplices in the cloisters, not presuming to unrobe in the presence of the cathedral dignitaries, who prolonged their stay in the college hall: "to blow off at Wilberforce and the rest," one of the seniors irreverently surmised aloud. Some swung the surplices across their arms; some crammed them into bags; and an unusual silence pervaded the group. Lewis was bitterly disappointed. He was as good a classical scholar as Arkell, and thought he ought to have had the medal.

Miss Beauclerc was waiting at the deanery door. "Well, boys, and who has got it?" was her salutation before any of them were up.

"A sneaking young beggar," called out Lewis, thinking he might as well make the best of things to her, and answer first.

"Then you have not got it, Lewis; I told you you wouldn't," laughed the young lady; "though I heard that you made certain sure of it, and had ordered a glass case to keep it in."

Lewis nearly boiled over with rage.

"Arkell has gained it, Miss Beauclerc," said the senior boy.

"Of course; I knew he would. I was sure from the first that none of you could contend against him, provided there was a fair field and no favour."

"No favour!" scornfully echoed Lewis. "A bright eye and a girl's face, these are what we should covet now, to curry favour with the Dean and Chapter."

"Lewis, you forget yourself," reproved Miss Beauclerc; "and I'll inform against you if you talk treason of the dean," she laughingly continued.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Beauclerc," was the sullen apology of Lewis, delivered in a most ungracious tone.

"Arkell's merits alone have gained the prize, Lewis, and you know it," proceeded the young lady; "they must have gained it had he been as ugly as you."

"I am much obliged to you, Miss Beauclerc," foamed Lewis, with as much resentment as he dared show to the dean's daughter.

"Well, you are right about his merits, Miss Beauclerc," interrupted Jocelyn; "no question came amiss to him. By Jove! old Ferraday was not wrong in calling him a brilliant scholar; I had no idea he knew half as much. The dean said he was an honour to the school."

"That he has been a long while," she said, quietly. "You boys may sneer—you are sneering now, Aultane, but——"

"No, indeed, Miss Beauclerc," interrupted Aultane, "I would not do such a thing as sneer in your presence. Of course it couldn't be expected that he'd be anything but a good scholar, when his father's a schoolmaster."

"And teaches boys at half-a-crown an hour," put in Lewis junior. "He acknowledged to the dean, it was all through his father's cramming him."

Henry Arkell was coming up; Miss Beauclerc moved forwards and shook him by the hand.

"I congratulate you," she said, in a half whisper. "Why it looks like the ribbon of the Garter. You may win that some time, if you live; who knows? I knew you would get it, if you were only true to yourself; Frederick St. John said so too. Mind you write to-day to tell him."

She had taken the medal in her hand, and was looking at it. The rest pressed round as closely as they dared. Lewis only stood aside, a bitter expression on his ugly lips.

A little fellow ran up, all in a fright. "Oh! if you please, if you please, Miss Beauclerc, here comes the dean."

"What if he does?" retorted Miss Beauclerc; "he won't eat you. There, you may go, boys. Henry Arkell, you know you are expected at the deanery to-night."

"Yes, thank you, Miss Beauclerc," he replied, some hesitation, or surprise, visible in his tone.

"Ah, but I mean to us, after the dinner. Mamma has what she calls one of her quiet soirées. You'll be sure to come."

One glance from his brilliant eyes, beneath which her blue ones fell, and he drew away. The rest were already off. Georgina walked forward to meet the dean, and she put her arm within his in her loving manner.

"Oh, papa, the boys are so envious of the medal. I stopped them and made them show it me. That ugly Lewis is ready to cut his throat."

"Random-spoken as usual, my darling. Who's throat?"

"Henry Arkell's of course, papa. But I knew no one else would gain it. They are not fit to tie his shoes."

"In learning, they certainly are not. You can't imagine what a ludicrous display we have had! And some of them go soon to the university!"

"It's not the fault of the boys, papa. If they are never taught anything but Greek and Latin, how can they be expected to know anything else?"

"Very true, Georgie," mused Dr. Beauclerc. "Some of these old systems are stupid things."

The audit dinner in the evening went off as those dinners generally did. The boys dined at a table by themselves, and Henry, as their senior, had to exert firm authority over some, for the supply of wine was unlimited. Later in the evening, he passed through the gallery to the drawing-room, as invited by Miss Beauclerc. A few ladies were assembled: the canons' wives and daughters, Mrs. Wilberforce, and two or three other inhabitants of the Grounds; all very quiet, and what in these later days might have been called "slow:" Mrs. Beauclerc's parties mostly were so. They were talking of Frederick St. John when Henry went in, who was again absent from Westerbury, visiting somewhere with his mother and Lady Anne.

He sang song after song—for they pressed for it—accompanying himself. One song that he was especially asked for, he could not remember without the music. Mrs. Wilberforce suggested that he should fetch it from home, but Georgina said she could play it for him, and sat down. It was that fine song called "The Treasures of the Deep," by Mrs. Hemans. It was found, however, that she could not play it; and after two or three attempts, she began a waltz instead; and the ladies, in the distance round the fire, forgot at length that they had wanted it.

Georgina wore an evening dress of white spotted muslin, a broad blue sash round her waist, and a bit of narrow blue velvet suspending a cross on her neck. She had taken off her bracelets to play, and her pretty white arms were bare. Her eyes were blue as the ribbon, and altogether she looked very attractive, very young, and she was that night in one of her wild and inexplicable humours.

What she really said, how he responded, will never be wholly known: certain it is, that she led him on, on, until he resigned himself wholly to the fascination and "told his love;" although he might have known that to do so was little less than madness. She affected to ridicule him; she intimated that her love was not for a college boy; but all the while her looks gave the lie to her words; her blue eyes spoke of admiration still; her flushed face of triumphant, gratified vanity. They were engaged round the fire, round the tables, anywhere; and Georgina had it all to herself, and played bars of music now and then, as if she were essaying different pieces.

"Let us put aside this nonsense," she suddenly said. "It is nonsense, and you know it, Harry. Here's a song," snatching the first that came to hand—"sing this; I'll play it for you."

"Do you think I can sing?—now? with your cold words blighting me. Oh, tell me the worst!" he added, his tone one of strange pain. "Tell me——"

"Goodness, Henry Arkell. If you look and talk in that serious manner, I shall think you have become crazy. Come; begin."

"I seem to be in a sort of dream," he murmured, putting his hands to his temples. "Surely all the past, all our pleasant intercourse, is not to be forgotten! You will not throw me away like this?"

"Where's the use of my playing this symphony, if you don't begin?"

"Georgina!—let me call you so for the first, perhaps for the last time—dear Georgina, you cannot forget the past! You cannot mean what you have just said."

"How unpleasant you are making things to-night!" she said, with a laugh. "I shall begin to think you have followed the example of those wretched little juniors, and taken plentifully of wine."

"Perhaps I have; perhaps it is owing to that that I have courage freely to talk to you now. Georgina, you know how I have loved you; you know that for years and years my life has been as one long blissful dream, filled with the image of you."

She stole a glance at him from her blue eyes; a smile hovered on her parted lips. He bent his head until his brown wavy curls mingled with her lighter hair.

"Georgina, you know—you know that you can be life or death to me."

He could not speak with consecutive smoothness; his heart was beating as if it would burst its bounds, his whole frame thrilled, his fingers were trembling.

"Tell me that it is not all to be forgotten!"

"Indeed, if you have been cultivating a wrong impression—I can only advise you to forget it. I have liked you;" her voice sank to the lowest whisper—"very much; I have been so stupid as to let you see it; but I never meant you to—to—presume upon it in this uncomfortable manner."

"One question!" he urged. "Only one. Is it that you have played with me, loving another?"

Her right hand was on the keys of the piano, striking chords continually; a false note grating now and then on the ear. Her left hand lay passive on her lap, as she sat, slightly turned to him.

"Stuff and nonsense! No, I have not. You will have them overhear you, Harry."

"Do not equivocate—dearest Georgina—let me hear the truth. It may be better for me; I can bear anything rather than deceit. Let me know the truth; I beseech it of you by all the hours we have passed together."

"Harry, you are decidedly beside yourself to-night. Don't suffer the world behind to get a notion of it."

"You are playing with me now," he said, quite a wail in his low voice. "Let me, one way or the other, be at rest. I never shall bear this suspense, and live. Give me an answer, Georgina; one that shall abide for ever."

"An answer to what?"

"Have you all this while loved another?"

She took her hand off the keys, and began picking out the treble notes of a song with her forefinger, bending her head slightly.

"The answer might not be palatable."

"No, it may not. Nevertheless, I pray you give it me. You are killing me, Georgina."

She looked up hastily; she saw that the bright, transparent complexion of the face had turned to a deadly whiteness; and, perhaps, in that one moment, Georgina Beauclerc's heart smote her with a slight reproach of cruelty. But she may have deemed it well to put an end to the suspense, and she bent her head again as she spoke.

"Even though I had loved another, what of that? I don't admit that I have; and I say that it is a question you have no right to ask me. Harry! be reasonable; though I had loved you, it could not come to anything; you know it could not; so what does it signify?"

"But you have not loved me?"

"Well—no. Not in that way. Here's the dean coming in; and here's pompous old Ferraday. You must sing a song; papa's sure to ask for one."

She hastened from the piano, as if glad to escape. The dean did ask for a song. But when they came to look for him who was to sing it, he was nowhere to be seen.

"Bless me!" cried the dean, "I thought Henry Arkell was here. Where is he?"

"I dare say he has gone home for the 'Treasures of the Deep,' papa," readily replied Georgina. "Somebody asked him to fetch it just now."

He had not gone for the "Treasures of the Deep;" and, as she guessed pretty accurately, he had no intention of returning. He was walking slowly towards the master's house, his temporary home; his head was aching, his brain was burning, and he felt as if all life had gone out of him for ever. That she had been befooling him; that she loved Frederick St. John with an impassioned lasting love, appeared to him as clear as the stars in a frosty sky.

But there were no stars then, and no frost; the fineness of the night had gone, and a drizzling rain was falling. He did not heed it; it might wet him if it would, might soak even that gay blue badge on his breast. Two people within view seemed to heed it as little; they were pacing together, arm-in-arm, in a dark part of the grounds, talking in an undertone. So absorbed were they, that both started when Henry came up; they were near a gaslight then, and he recognised George Prattleton. The other face, on which the light shone brightly, he did not know.

"How d'ye do?" said Henry. "Do you know whether Prattleton junior has got home yet?" Prattleton junior, the younger of the Reverend Mr. Prattleton's sons, was in the choir under Henry; and the senior chorister had had some trouble with that gentleman at the dinner-table on this, the audit-night.

"I don't know anything about Prattleton junior," returned George Prattleton in a testy tone, as if the question itself, or the being spoken to, had annoyed him.

Henry walked on, and round the corner came upon the gentleman in question, Prattleton junior, with another of the choristers, Mr. Wilberforce's son Edwin, each having taken as much as was good for him, both to eat and to drink.

"Who's that with George?" asked Henry—for it was somewhat unusual to see a stranger in the grounds at night.

"Oh, it's a Mr. Rolls," replied young Prattleton: "I heard my brother ask George. He meets him in the billiard rooms."

"Well, you be off home, now; you'll get wet. Wilberforce, I'm going in. You can come with me."

Young Mr. Prattleton appeared disposed to resist the mandate. He liked being in the rain, he persisted. But the arrival of his father at that moment from the deanery settled the matter.

And Henry Arkell, having happened to look back, saw George Prattleton draw the stranger into the shade, and remain in ambush while the minor canon passed.

CHAPTER XV.
A NIGHT WITH THE GHOSTS.

The succeeding day to this was fine again, a charming day for the middle of November; and when the college school rushed down the steps at four o'clock, the upper boys were tempted to commence one of their noisy games. Nearly the only two who declined were the senior boy and Arkell. The senior of the school, whoever he might be for the time being, rarely, if ever, played, and the present one, Jocelyn, was also too idle. Both went quietly on to the master's, walking arm-in-arm. The school closed at four in the dead of winter. Henry came out again immediately, his music in his hand, and was running past the boys.

"I say, Arkell, we are going to cast lots for the stag. Where are you bolting to?"

"I can't join this evening—I'm off to practise. To-morrow is my lesson day, and I have not touched the organ this week."

"Cram! What's the good? It'll be night directly, and that mouldy old organ loft as dark as pitch."

"Oh, I shall see for ever so long to come—the sun has not set yet," returned Henry, without stopping. "Thank you, Lewis," he added, as a sharp stone struck his trencher. "That was from you, I saw. I shall not pay you back in kind."

There was a sting in the retort, from the very manner of giving it, so pointedly gentleman-like, for Henry Arkell had stopped a moment, and raised his trencher, as he might have done to the dean. Lewis saw that the boys were laughing at him, and he suddenly set upon seven juniors, and made the whole lot cry.

Active and swift, Henry soon gained the precincts of the church, St. James the Less. He pushed open the outer door of the clerk's house, and took the key of the church from its niche in the passage, close to the kitchen door. This he also opened, and looked in. It was a square room, the floor of red brick, and a bed, with a curtain drawn before it, was on one side against the wall. The old man, Hunt, sat smoking in the chimney corner.

"I am going in to play, Hunt. I have the key."

"Very well, sir."

"How's the missis?" he stopped to ask.

"She be bad in all her bones, sir, she be. I telled her to lie down for half an hour: it's that nasty ague she have got upon her again. This be a damp spot to live in, so many low trees about," he continued, with a shrug of his shoulders.

Henry could not remember when the "missis" was not "bad in all her bones;" her ague seemed to be chronic. He proceeded on his way, passed the iron gates, walked up the churchyard, and unlocked the church door. Once in, he took the key from the outer lock, and placing it upon the bench inside, pushed the door to, but did not shut it. The taking out the key in this manner was by Mr. Wilberforce's orders: if they left it in the lock outside, some mischievous person might come and remove it, he had told the boys. Then he ascended to the organ-loft and commenced his practising. No blower was required, as certain pedals, touched with the feet, acted instead, something after the manner of a modern harmonium. His heart was in his task, in spite of the heavy care at it, for he loved music; and when it grew too dusk to see, he continued playing from memory.

The shades of evening were gathering outside, as well as in; and under cover of them a boy might have been seen stealing through the churchyard. It was Henry's rival, Lewis, whose mind had just been hatching a nice little revengeful plot. To say that Lewis had been half mad since the preceding day, would not be saying too much: he could have borne anything better than taunts from Miss Beauclerc; and for those taunts he would be revenged, the fates permitting, upon Henry Arkell. He did not quite see how, yet; but, as a little prologue, he intended to lock him in the church for the night, the idea of that having flashed into his mind after Henry had thanked him for throwing the stone.

Lewis gently pulled open the church door, looked for the key, saw it, and snatched it, locked the church door upon the unconscious boy, who was playing, and stole back again, key in hand. Beyond the gates of the churchyard he stopped to laugh, as though he had accomplished a great feat.

"Won't his crowing be cooled by morning! He'll be seeing ghosts all night, and calling out blue murder; but nobody can hear him, and there he must stop with them. What a jolly sell!"

He hid the key in his jacket pocket until he reached old Hunt's house. Lewis knew it was kept there, but did not know there was a niche or a nail for it in the passage. He did not care to be seen, and therefore must get the key in, in the best way he could.

The clerk and his ailing wife were sitting by their fire now, taking tea. A china saucer, containing some milk, had just been put down on the brick floor for the cat, a snarling, enormous yellow animal, but a particularly cherished one by both master and mistress. The cat had got her nose in it, and the old woman was lovingly regarding her, when the door opened about an inch, and the church key came flying in, propelled on to the cat's head and the saucer. The cat started away with a howl, the saucer flew in pieces, and the milk was scattered. In the midst of this the door closed again, and footsteps were heard scampering off.

"Mercy on us!" shrieked the old dame, startled out of her seven senses. "What be that?"

The clerk, recovering his consternation, rose and regarded the damage; the broken saucer, the wasted milk, and the scared cat—the genial animal standing with her back up in the farthest corner.

"That's the way they do it, is it?" he wrathfully cried, as he stooped to pick up the key, a difficult process, from his rheumatic loins. "My gentleman can't bring in the key and hang it up decently, but must shy it in, and do this mischief! I wonder the master lets 'em have the run of the organ! I wouldn't."

"It were that Robbins, I know," said the dame, shaking still.

"It were just the t'other, then—Arkell. Poor pussy! poor tit, tit, tit!"

"Arkell! Why he be always so quiet and perlite!"

"It's a perlite thing to fling the key in upon us after this fashion, ain't it?" growled the clerk.

"Come along then, titsey! Don't put its back up! Come to its missis!"

But the outraged cat wholly refused to be soothed. It snarled, and spit, and snarled again; making a spring finally into a pantry, and thence away through an open casement window.

The tea hour at the head master's was half-past five; and the boys sat down to it this evening as usual. They were accustomed to take that meal alone, and the absence of one or other of the boys at it had become, in consequence, rather general; therefore, Arkell's not appearing went really without notice. Lewis appeared to be in a flow of delight, and devoured Arkell's share of bread-and-butter as well as his own. There were in all, at this time, about ten boarders residing at the master's, some of them being his private pupils. The two Lewises were there still; but Mrs. Lewis had given notice of their removal at Christmas, as she intended to receive them into the house she had taken possession of—the late Marmaduke Carr's.

Now it happened, by good or by ill luck, as the reader may decide, that the master and Mrs. Wilberforce were abroad that evening. In his absence the senior boy had full authority, and the rest dared not disobey him. This might not have been well with some seniors; but Jocelyn was one in whom confidence could be placed. At supper—eight o'clock—Arkell was still absent, and Jocelyn now observed it. One of the others remarked that he was most likely at the deanery. This was Vaughan; a rather stupid boy, who had been nicknamed in consequence Bright Vaughan.

At nine o'clock, the man-servant brought in the book for prayers, read by the senior boy when the master himself was not there. Absence from prayers was never excused, unless under the especial permission of Mr. Wilberforce; and he would have severely punished any boy guilty of it. Another thing that he exacted was, that prayers should be read precisely to the hour. So Jocelyn read them, and the servant carried away the book.

"I say, though, where can Arkell be?" wondered the boys. "He's never out like this, unless he has leave."

"Perhaps he means to make a night of it?" suggested Lewis junior, opportunely enough, if he had but known it.

"Hold your tongue, Lewis junior," said Jocelyn. "He may have got leave from the master for the evening, and we not know it."

"I don't think he has, though," dissented young Wilberforce.

"We won't split upon him," eagerly spoke up Lewis—not the junior. "He has been a horrid sneak, especially in getting himself in with the dean's daughter; but it won't do to begin splitting one upon another."

"I should like to hear any of you attempting it," authoritatively spoke the senior boy. "I'd split you."

"We don't mean to. Don't be so sharp, Jocelyn."

"There's not the least doubt that he is at the deanery," decided Jocelyn. "I heard something said the other day about the master's having given him general leave to stop there, when asked, without coming home to say it."

"Who told you that, Jocelyn?" questioned Lewis, his ears turning red.

"I heard it, and that's enough. The master can depend upon Arkell, you know."

"Oh, can he though!" cried Lewis, ironically. "I'd lay a crown he's not at the deanery."

"Up to bed, boys," commanded Jocelyn.

The Lewises, senior and junior, and Henry Arkell slept in one room; the rest of the boys were divided into two others. The rooms in the quaint old house were not large. All had separate beds. Arkell's was in the corner behind the door. Marmaduke Lewis, the younger, was in bed immediately, schoolboy fashion, the process occupying about half-a-minute; but the elder did not seem inclined to be so quick to-night. He dawdled about the room, brushed his hair, held his mouth open to admire his teeth in the glass, tried how many different faces he could make, stuck pins in the candle, and, in short, seemed in anything but a bed humour. In the midst of this delay, he heard the voice of Mr. Wilberforce, speaking to one of the servants, as he ascended the stairs.

What Lewis did, in his consternation, he hardly knew. The first thing was to turn the candle upside down in the candlestick, and jam it well in; the next was to fling some of his brother's clothes on to his own chair; and the third to bolt into bed with his own clothes on, and draw the counterpane over his head. Mr. Wilberforce opened the door.

"Are you in bed, boys?"

Lewis put part of his face out.

"Yes, sir. Good night, sir."

"Good night," repeated Mr. Wilberforce, and closed the door upon the room.

Lewis breathed a blessing upon all propitious stars, that he had not looked behind the door at the vacant bed. Then his going to let out Arkell was impossible, now Mr. Wilberforce was in: which had been the indecisive project agitating his brain.

And now we must return to Henry Arkell. The church of St. James the Less struck a quarter past five when Henry took his fingers from the keys of the organ. "Only a quarter past five," he soliloquized; "how the evenings draw in! Last week was moonlight, and I did not notice it so much. I don't see how I shall get my practising here these winter months, unless I snatch an hour between morning and afternoon school."

He felt for his music, for it was too dark to see, rolled it up, and then felt his way down the narrow and nearly perpendicular staircase, dark even in daylight. When he reached the bench at the entrance, he placed his hand on the spot where he had put the key. He could not feel it: he only supposed he had missed the spot by an inch or two, and groped about with his hands. He turned to the door to pull it open, and let in the light.

The door was closed, was fast; and Henry Arkell felt his face grow hot as the truth burst upon him, that he was fastened up in the church. He concluded that the old clerk had done it in mistake. "I must ring the bell," thought he, "and let them know somebody's in the church."

But he was doomed to fresh disappointment, for, on groping his way to the belfry, he found it fastened: cords, bells, and all were locked up. Sometimes this door was locked, sometimes it was left open, just as the clerk remembered, or not, to fasten it.

"I can't stop here all night!" exclaimed he, his face growing more and more heated. "What in the world am I to do?"

What indeed? What would you have done, reader? Set on and shouted? But there was nobody to hear: the church was solitary, and its walls were thick. Thump at the door? But if you had nothing but your hands to thump with, little hope that any result would be obtained.

It was a novel and a disagreeable situation for the boy to be placed in—locked alone in the gloomy old church; gloomy in more than one sense of the word, and smelling of the dead. The small, confined windows were high up in the walls, and entirely inaccessible, and there was no other outlet. The vestry was only lighted by two panes of thick glass inserted into its roof; and, in short, the case was hopeless.

And the boy grew so. He shouted, and called, and thumped, just as you or I might have done, without any regard to its manifest inutility. He was a brave-spirited boy, owning a clear conscience; and he was a singularly religious boy, far more so than it is usual for those of his age to be, possessing an ever-present trust in God's good care and protection. Still, disagreeable thoughts would intrude: his lonely situation stood out in exaggerated force, and recollections of a certain ghostly tale, connected with that church, rose up before him. It was a tale which had gone the round of Westerbury the previous year, and the ghostly-inclined put firm faith in it. The old clerk was an obstinate believer in it, for he had seen it with his own eyes; the sexton had seen it with his, and two gravediggers had seen it with theirs. A citizen had died, and been buried in the middle aisle, not many yards from where Henry Arkell now stood. After his burial, suspicion arose that he had not come fairly to his end, and the coroner had issued his mandate for the disinterment of the body, and the sexton and two gravediggers proceeded to their task. They chose night to do it in, "not to be bothered with starers at 'em," they said; and the clerk chose to bear them company. At three o'clock in the morning the whole four rushed out of the church panic-stricken, made their way to the nearest street, and rose it with their frantic cries. Windows were thrown up in alarm, and nightcaps stretched out—what on earth was the matter? The buried man's ghost had appeared to them in a sea of blue flame, was the trembling tale they told, and which went forth to Westerbury. The blue flame was accounted for; the ghost, never. They had a basin full of gin with them, and, in lighting a pipe, they had managed to set light to the gin, which immediately ascended in a ghastly stream. The men, it was found, had a little gin on board themselves, as well as in the basin; and to that, no doubt, in conjunction with the blue flames, the ghost owed its origin.

Now a ghost in broad daylight, with all the bustle and reality of mid-day life about us, and a ghost fastened up with oneself in a church at night-time, bear two widely different aspects. Henry Arkell had heartily laughed at the story, had made merry over the consternation of the half-drunken men, but he did not altogether enjoy being so near the ghostly spot now; for though reason tried to be heard, imagination had got fast hold of the reins. He lifted his eyes, with a desperate effort, and looked round the church: he began to calculate which was the very spot, in the gloom of the middle aisle: he grasped the door of a pew near where he stood, and bent his face down upon it in an agony of terror.

"And I must be here until morning," his conviction whispered. "O God! keep this terror from me! Send thine Holy Spirit to come near and strengthen me! Oh, yes, yes," he resumed, after a pause; "I shall be all right if I do but trust in God. He is everywhere; He is with me now. I will go up to the organ again."

He groped his way up, sat down, and began to play as well as he could in the perfect darkness. He played some of the cathedral chants, and sang to them; it was a curious sound, echoing there in the dark and lonely night; and it was a positive fact that, in so doing, his superstitious alarm passed, from his mind.

But oh, how long the hours were! how long the quarters, as the slow clock gave them out! He still kept on playing, dreading to leave off lest the terror should come back again. When it struck nine, he could have thought it four in the morning, judging by the dreary time that seemed to have elapsed. "The boys will be going up to bed directly," he said, thinking of the master's; "oh, why don't they send out to look for me? But they'd never think of looking here!"

He kept on playing. About ten o'clock he knelt down to say his prayers, as if preparing to retire for the night, and then ensconced himself as comfortably as he could on the seat of the singers, which was well cushioned. "If I could but go to sleep, and sleep till daylight," thought he, "there would be no chance of that foolish terror coming back again. Foolish indeed! How very absurd I am!"

He fell into a train of thought; not happy thought: schoolboys have trouble as well as grown people: and Henry Arkell had plenty just then, as you know. The superstitious feeling did not come back, and at length he sank into sleep.

He did not know what roused him: something did. The first thing he heard distinctly was a scuffling noise, followed by a "hush-sh-sh!" breathed from a human voice. He felt a cramped sensation all over, but that arose from his inconvenient couch, and he could not for the life of him remember where he was.

He stretched out his hand, and it came in contact with the front of the gallery; it was close to him, for the singers' seat was very narrow: he raised himself to look over, still not remembering what had passed. He seemed to be in a church, for one of two male figures, walking up the aisle, carried a lighted taper, which threw its glimmering upon the pews, though the man shaded it with his hand. Whether Henry Arkell had been dreaming of robbers, certain it is, he judged these men to be such: they turned off to the vestry, which was on the side of the church, nearly at the top; and he rubbed his eyes, and full recollection returned to him.

"What has put robbers in my head?" he debated. "They are not robbers: they must be come to look for me. But they stole up as if they were robbers!" he added after a pause. "And why did they not call out to me?"

An impulse took him down from the gallery and up the church; he moved as silently as the men had done. The vestry door was open, and he stood outside on the matting and peeped in, secure of not being seen in the darkness. To his surprise, he recognised faces he knew—gentlemen's faces, not robbers'. One of them was George Prattleton; and the other was the stranger he had seen with him the previous night. What were they doing in the vestry at that hour?

"Now make haste about it, Rolls," George Prattleton was saying, as Henry gazed in. "I don't half like the work, and if I had not been more hard up than any poor devil ever was yet, you would never have got me on to it. There's the register."

George Prattleton had unlocked a safe and taken a book from it, which he put on the table. "Mind, Rolls, you are not to copy anything; that was the agreement."

"I don't want to copy anything: I gave you my word, didn't I?" was the reply of Mr. Rolls, who had seized upon the book. "I only want to see whether a certain entry is here, or whether it is not, and I give you 20l. for getting me the sight: and a deuced easy way it is of earning 20l., Prattleton."

Rolls had drawn a chair to the table, and was poring over the register, as he spoke, turning the leaves one by one. Prattleton stood by, and held the candle, not very steadily.

"I can't see, if you whiffle it like that, Prat," cried Mr. Rolls, taking the candlestick from his hand and setting it on the table.

"How long shall you be?"

"Why, I have hardly begun. Don't be impatient. Sit down on that other chair and take a nap, if you are tired."

Prattleton continued to stand at the table, but his impatience was evidently great. His back was to Henry Arkell, but the boy had full view of the countenance and movements of the other: his interest, in what was passing, was not less than his astonishment.

"You say you know the date, so where's the use of being so dilatory?" cried Mr. Prattleton. "You turn over the leaves as slow as if you were going to execution. Ah, you have it now, I think."

"No, I have not." And Rolls turned another leaf over as he spoke, and went on studying; but he stealthily placed his thumb to mark the page he left. Prattleton yawned, whistled, and yawned again, and finally turned away and began to look in the safe; anything to cover his impatience. Upon which, Henry Arkell distinctly saw Rolls turn back to the page where his thumb was, examine it intently, and then silently blow out the light.

"Halloa!" roared Prattleton, finding himself in darkness.

"What a beast of a candle!" indignantly uttered Mr. Rolls. "It's gone out!"

"What put it out?"

"How can I tell? The damp, I suppose: everything smells mouldy. Give us the matches, Prat."

"I have not got the matches. You took them."

"Did I? Then I'm blest if I have not left them on the bench at the door. Go for them, Prat, will you: if I lose my place in the book I shall have to begin all over again, and that will keep us longer than you'd like."

Mr. Prattleton—with a few expletives not often heard in churches—felt his way through the vestry door. Henry had not time to retreat, so he drew himself closely up against the wall, and Prattleton passed him. But, to Henry Arkell's surprise, a light almost immediately reappeared inside the vestry. He naturally looked in again.

Rolls had relighted the candle, and was inserting what looked like a thin board, behind one of the leaves of the register: he then drew a sharp penknife down it, close to the binding, and out came the leaf, leaving no trace. He folded the leaf, put it in his pocket with the board and the knife, and then blew out the light again. All was accomplished with speed, but with perfect coolness. "Nothing risk, nothing win," cried he, audibly: "I thought I could do him."

Prattleton soon came up the church with the box of matches, igniting some as he walked, by way of lighting his steps. Henry drew away against the wall, and crouched down beneath a dark mahogany pew.

"There go the three-quarters past one, Rolls; we have been in here five-and-twenty minutes. Don't let the light go out again."

"I shall soon have done. I am getting near the place where the entry ought to be—if it is in at all; but I told you there was a doubt. So much the better for us if it's not."

Prattleton sat down and drummed on the table. Rolls came to the end of the register.

"It's not in, Prattleton. Hurrah! It will be thousands of pounds in our pocket. When the other side brought forth the lame tale that there was such a thing, we thought it was a bag of moonshine. Here's your register. Put it up."

Henry stole silently towards the church door, hoping to get out: he dared not show himself to those two swindlers. He was fortunate: though the door was locked, the key was in, and he passed out, leaving it open. What he was to do with himself till morning, he knew not: he might sit down on the gravestones; but he had had enough of graves; he supposed he must pace the town.

The gentlemen set things straight in the vestry, and also came, in due course, to the door. They had left it locked, and now it was open! Each looked at the other in amazement.

"What possessed you to do that?" demanded Rolls, in a fiercer tone than was consistent with politeness.

"I do it! that's good," retorted Prattleton. "It was you locked it, or pretended to."

"I did lock it. You must have opened it when you came down for the matches."

"I wish we may be dropped upon if I did! I should be an idiot to open the door and give nightbirds a chance of scenting what we were up to."

"Psha!" impatiently uttered Rolls, "a locked door could not open of itself. But there's no harm done; so blow out the light, and let's get off."

Thus disputing—for in truth the open door had struck something like terror on the heart of both—George Prattleton and his friend quitted the church, leaving all secure. Mr. George had to carry the key home with him; he could not fling it into the clerk's house, as Lewis had done, for the house was fastened up; most houses are at two in the morning. He had successfully executed a little ruse to get the key, unsuspected by the clerk: watching his opportunity, he had arrived at the clerk's house when that official had gone out for his supper-beer, ostensibly to put a question in regard to the time that a funeral was to take place on the morrow; and while talking to the old dame, he managed to abstract the key, hanging one that outwardly resembled it in its place. The Reverend Mr. Prattleton often took the duty at St. James the Less for the head master; and George was tolerably familiar with its ways and places.

They went along with stealthy steps, their eyes peering fitfully into dark corners, lest any should be abroad and see them. Once in the more frequented streets it did not so much matter; they might be going home from some late entertainment, as Mr. George and his latch-key were not infrequently in the habit of doing. Rolls was in a glow of delight; and even an odd fear of detection now and then could not check it.

"I was as sure there was no entry there as sure can be. Our side was sure of it also; only it was well to look and see. I'm more glad than if anybody had put a hundred pounds in my hand."

"Who is your side?" asked George Prattleton. "You have not told me anything, you know, Rolls."

"Well, it would not be very interesting to you. It's an old dispute about a tithe cause; the name's Whiffam."

Not a very lucid explanation; but George Prattleton was tired and cross, and not really overcurious. At the corner of a street he and Rolls parted, and Mr. George went home and let himself in with his latch-key, deeming nobody the wiser for the night's exploit.

CHAPTER XVI.
PERPLEXITY.

Henry Arkell had ample leisure that night for reflection. He got into a newly-built house, whose doors were not yet in, glad of even that shelter. The precise object of what he had seen he did not presume to guess; but, that some bad deed had been transacted, there could be no doubt. And what ought to be his course in it?—it was that that was puzzling him. He could not go to Mr. Wilberforce, the incumbent of the church, and denounce George Prattleton—as he would have done had this stranger, Rolls, been the sole offender. Of all the people in Westerbury, that it should have been George Prattleton!—the brother of that kind man from whom his family had received so many obligations. Gratitude towards Mr. Prattleton seemed to demand his silence as to George; and Henry Arkell had an almost ultra sense of the sin of ingratitude.

There was no one of whom he could take counsel; his father was still absent, and he did not like to betray what he had seen to others. Once, the thought crossed him to ask Travice Arkell; but he knew how vexed George Prattleton would be; and he came to the final resolution of speaking to George himself. The mystery of locking him in seemed to be clear now. He supposed George had done it to get possession of the key, not knowing he was in the church.

With the first glimmering dawn of morning—not very early, you know, in November—Henry was hovering about the precincts of the clerk's house. He had no particular business there; but he was restless, and thought he might, by good luck, see or find out something, and he could not hope yet to get in at the master's. Hunt came out to fasten back his shutters.

"What's it you, sir?" exclaimed the old man, in surprise. "You be abroad betimes."

"Ay. How's the rheumatism?"

"Be you going to pay for that chaney saucer you broke?" asked Hunt, allowing the rheumatism to drop into abeyance.

"What saucer?"

"Why that chaney saucer. It was on the floor with the cat's milk, when you flung the key in last night and broke it. The missis is as vexed as can be—she have had it for years; and if it were cracked a bit, it did for our cat."

"I never broke it," returned Henry. "At least," he added, recollecting himself, and afraid of making some admission that might excite inquiries, "I did not know that I did."

"No, you weren't perlite enough to stop and see what damage you'd done; you made off as fast as your legs would take you. Here's the pieces on the dresser," added the clerk; "you can come and look at the smash you've made. The missis began a talking of getting 'em jined. 'Jine seven pieces,' says I; 'it would cost more nor a new one of the best chaney; and run out then.'"

He hobbled indoors as fast as he could for his lameness, and Henry followed him. The church key hung on its nail in the niche. Henry stared at it with open eyes; he did not expect to see it there. Had George Prattleton returned it to the clerk in the middle of the night? and was the old man an accomplice? But, as he gazed, his keen eye detected something not familiar in its aspect, and he raised his hand and turned the wards into the light. It was not the church key, though it closely resembled it.

He went into the kitchen: the old man was putting the broken pieces in a row. "There they be, sir; you can count 'em for yourself; and they ought to be replaced with a new one. A common delf would be better than none, for we be short of saucers, and the missis don't like a animal to drink out of the same as us Christians."

"You shall have a saucer," said Henry, somewhat dreamily. "Who threw in the key?"

"Who threw it in?" echoed the clerk.

"I meant to ask what time it was thrown in."

"Why, about five, or a little after: we was at tea. Didn't you know what time it was, yourself, with the clock going the quarters and the halves in your ears while you was at the organ? The missis——Who's that!"

The "who's that!" referred to a thumping at the house door, which Henry Arkell had closed when he came in. The clerk went and opened it. It was Lewis. Henry recognised his voice, and drew back out of sight.

Now, however uncomfortably Henry Arkell had passed the night, the author of his misfortune had passed it more so. Conscience, especially at the midnight hours, does indeed make cowards of us all, and it had made a miserable one of the senior Lewis. Not that he repented of what he had done, for the ill in itself, or from a better feeling towards his schoolfellow; but he feared the consequences. Suppose Henry Arkell, locked up with the dead, should die of fright, or turn mad? Lewis remembered to have heard of such things. Suppose he should, by a superhuman effort, reach one of the high and narrow windows, and, impelled by terror, propel himself through it and be killed? Why he, Lewis, would be hung; or, at the very least, transported for life. These flights of imagination, conveniently suppressing themselves during the evening, worked him into a state of indescribable dread and agitation, when alone at night. How he lay through it he could not tell, and as soon as the master's servants were astir, he got up and sneaked out of the house, with the intention of looking after Arkell, and what the night might have brought forth for him, administering first of all a preliminary beating to his brother as an instalment of what he would get, if he opened his mouth to tell of Arkell's absence.

"Why, what do you want?" uttered the clerk, when he saw Lewis. "We shall have the whole rookery of you college gents here presently."

Lewis paid no attention to what the words might imply; indeed, it may be questioned if he heard them, so great was his state of suspense and agitation. "Old fellow," said he, "I want the key of the church. Do lend it me: I'll bring it back to you directly."

"The key of the church!" returned the clerk; "you'll come and ask me for my house next. No, no, young master; I have not got the rector's orders to trust it to any but the two what practises. What do you want in the church?"

"Only to look after something that's left there. It's all right. I won't keep it five minutes."

"No, that you won't, sir, for you won't get it. If the master says you may have it, well and good; but you must get his orders first."

Lewis was desperate. He saw the key hanging in its place, rushed forward, took it from the hook, and made off with it in defiance.

"I won't have this," uttered the discomfited old man. "One a breaking our cat's saucer, and t'other a thieving off the key in my very face! I'll complain to Mr. Wilberforce. Sir, what do that senior Lewis want in the church? He looked as resolute as a lion, and his breath was a panting. What's he after?"

"It is beyond my comprehension," replied Henry, who was preparing to depart, more mystified than before. "If Lewis can get out, I can get in," he thought to himself, "and by dint of some great good luck, they may not have missed me."

Calling out a good morning to Hunt, he hastened away in the direction of the master's, wondering much what Lewis wanted in the church, but not believing it could have reference to his own incarceration.

The next actor on the scene was George Prattleton. He softly entered the clerk's passage, and stretched his hand up to the niche. But there he halted as if dumbfounded, and a key which he held he dropped back into his pocket again.

"What the mischief has been at work now?" muttered he. "How can the old man's eyes have been so quick? I must face the matter boldly, and persuade him his eyes are wrong. Hunt," cried he, aloud, pushing open the kitchen door, "where's the key of the church?"

"Where indeed, sir!" grumbled Hunt. "One of them senior college rebels have just been in and clawed it. But I promise him he won't do it twice: Mr. Wilberforce shall know the tricks they play me, now I'm old. Did you want it, sir?"

"No," returned George Prattleton, carelessly. "I saw it was not on its nail, that's all. I came to know the hour fixed for the funeral. Mr. Prattleton desired me to ascertain, and I looked in last evening, but you were out."

"The missis told me you had been, sir, but I had only just stepped out for our supper beer. Three o'clock to-day is the hour, sir: I thought the missis told you."

At this juncture, in came Lewis, very pale. "Hunt, this is not the key; it won't undo it; and——"

Lewis stopped in consternation, for his eyes had fallen on Mr. George Prattleton. The latter took the key from his unresisting hand.

"If Hunt is to let you college boys have the key at will, and you get tampering with the lock, no wonder it will not undo it. I had better keep it for him," he added, slipping it into his own pocket. "What did you want with the key, Lewis?"

Lewis did not answer.

"Here, Hunt, I'll give you up possession," continued Mr. Prattleton, putting the key on the hook; "but you know if any damage is done to the church, through your allowing indiscriminate entrance to these college gentlemen, you will be held responsible."

"I allow 'em!" returned the indignant clerk. "But Mr. Wilberforce shall settle it."

"That's not the church key," said Lewis, staring at the one just hung up.

Mr. Prattleton heard the assertion with equanimity, and began whistling a popular air as he left the house. Hunt just glanced upwards, and saw it was the veritable church key. "It is the key," he said. "What do you mean?"

"It must have been my shaking hand then," debated Lewis. "Old Hunt must know the key, and George Prattleton too. Hunt," he added, aloud, "you will lend me the key again for five minutes."

"No, sir," raved out the old clerk, "and I hope you'll be flogged for having took it in defiance, though you be a senior, and a'most six foot high."

He pushed Lewis out at the door as he spoke, fearing another act of defiance, and closed it.

Lewis stood in irresolution; his terror for the fate of Henry Arkell was strong upon him. He flew after George Prattleton.

"Will you do me a favour?" he panted, completely out of breath in his haste and agitation. "I want to get into the church, and Hunt has turned obstinate about the key. Will you get it from him for me?"

Mr. Prattleton stopped and gazed at him. "You cannot want anything in the church, Lewis. What are you up to?"

"Do get the key for me," he entreated, unable to help betraying his emotion. "I must go in; I must, Mr. Prattleton. It may be a matter of life or death."

"You are ill, Lewis; you are agitated. What is all this?"

"I am not ill. I only want to get into the church."

"For what purpose?"

"It's a little private matter of my own."

"You can tell me what it is."

"No, I cannot do that."

"Then I cannot help you."

Lewis was pushed to his wits' end. George Prattleton was walking on, but turned again and waited. He was not free from some inward wonder and agitation himself, remembering his own adventure of the past night.

"If I trust a secret to you, will you promise, on your honour, not to tell it again?" asked Lewis. "It's nothing much; only a lark, concerning one of us college boys."

"Oh, I'll promise," readily answered George Prattleton, who was rarely troubled with scruples of any sort, and used to be fond of "larks" himself; rather too much so.

"Well, then, I locked Harry Arkell in the church last night, and I want to go and see after him, for fear he should be dead of fright, or something of that, you know."

"In there all night? in the church all night?" stammered George Prattleton, as if he could not take in the meaning of the words.

"He went in to practise after school yesterday evening, and I turned the key upon him, and took it back to old Hunt's, and he has been in there ever since, fastened up with the ghosts. I did it only for a lark, you know."

George Prattleton's arms dropped powerless by his side, and his face turned of some livid colour between white and green. Would the previous night's exploit—his exploit—come out to the world through this miserable fellow's ill-timed "joke?" But all they could do now was to see after Henry Arkell.

They went back to the clerk's, and George Prattleton took the key from the hook.

"Something has been dropped in the church, Hunt," he carelessly said; "I'll go myself with Lewis, and see that he meddles with nothing."

"Something dropped in the church?" repeated the old man; "then, I suppose, that was what the other college gent has been after; though he didn't say nothing of it. He was here afore I had opened our shutters."

"Which of them was that?" asked George Prattleton, pausing, with the key in his hand.

"It were Mr. Arkell, sir; him what goes in to practise on the organ. He were in yesterday practising, and he flung the key back when he'd done, and broke our cat's chaney saucer, and then made off. I've been a showing him the mischief he went and done."

"Was that Mr. Arkell, do you say? Has Arkell been here this morning?"

"Why, it ain't two minutes since, sir. He cut up that way as if he was going straight home."

And as the man spoke, there flashed into George Prattleton's mind the little episode that had so startled him and his friend Rolls in the night—the finding of the church door open, when they had surely locked it. It must have been then that Henry Arkell got out of the church. How much had he witnessed of the scene in the vestry? had he recognised him, George Prattleton?

George Prattleton exchanged a look with Lewis, and hung the key up again, making some vague remark to the clerk, that Mr. Arkell had probably found what they were about to look for, if he had been to practise so recently as yesterday evening. Shutting the door behind him, he walked away with Lewis, whose senses were in a state of hopeless perplexity.

"He has got out, you hear, Lewis."

"But how could he get out?" returned Lewis. "He's not a fairy, to get through the keyhole, and he couldn't have got down from the windows! It's an impossibility."

"These apparent 'impossibilities' turn out sometimes to have been the most straightforward trifles in the world," observed George Prattleton, carelessly. "How do we know but old Hunt may have gone into the church himself last evening, to dust it, or what not? It is——"

"But then, Arkell would have come home," debated the perplexed Lewis, who truly thought some incomprehensible magic must have been at work.

"Well, Lewis, I don't think it much signifies how he got out, provided he is out; and were I you, I should not inquire too closely into particulars. You had better keep as quiet as you can in the matter; that's my advice to you; Mr. Wilberforce might not be disposed to treat your exploit as a 'joke,' should it come to his ears."

"But nobody knows it was me," said Lewis, eagerly.

"Just so: therefore your policy should be to keep still. As you please, though, of course."

"You won't tell of me, Mr. Prattleton?"

"Not I, faith! It's no affair of mine; but I'd not recommend you to attempt it again, Lewis. Good morning; I'm going into the town."

So early had they been abroad, and all this taken place, that it was not yet very much past seven, and when Henry Arkell reached the master's house, some of the boys were only going out of it for morning school. The hour for assembling was seven, but in the winter season some irregularity in arriving was winked at, for the best of all possible reasons, that the masters were late themselves; and it was often half past before the senior boy called over the roll. Henry went upstairs to give his face a wash; the man-servant saw him going up, but supposed he had only returned for something he might have forgotten. Neither of the Lewises was in the room, and he found his own bed tumbled as if he had slept in it. This of course had been Lewis's care; but Henry wondered at it. If Lewis had done it out of good nature, that his absence should not be observed, he must have changed greatly. It must be remembered that he knew nothing of Lewis's having locked him in the church; he supposed that must have been George Prattleton; but what he had seen tied his tongue from inquiring.

Jocelyn had done calling the roll when Henry got to the college hall. It was so unusual a thing for him to be marked late, that Jocelyn heaved his eyebrows in a sort of lazy surprise. Presently Jocelyn asked him in an undertone where he had been the previous evening.

"You missed me, then?" said Henry.

"Missed you!—we couldn't help missing you; you had not got back at bed-time. I suppose you were at the deanery—and got home at eleven? It's fine to be you! How's Miss Beauclerc?"

"As well as usual," replied Henry, with a nod and a laugh, to keep up the deception. Jocelyn's assumed idea was the most convenient one that could have been taken up.

Henry threw his eyes round the school in search of the Lewises. Surely they must know of his night's absence. The elder one he could not see; but the younger was at his desk with a red and sullen face, the effects of the private beating. He sat down to his lessons, with what courage he had, after his vigil; and presently, happening to look up, he saw Lewis senior.

Lewis senior was stealthily regarding him over the corner of a desk, with as much inward curiosity as though he had risen from the dead. Lewis was in a perplexed state of mystification yet. There Arkell was, sure enough; alive, and apparently well. He had not become an idiot; that, Lewis could see; he had not parted with his arms and legs. How had he got out? But the relief, to find him thus, was so great to Lewis's mind, that his spirits rose to a reckless height; and he was insolent to Jocelyn when the latter spoke to him about coming in after the roll was called.

At breakfast time Henry went in search of George Prattleton, but could not see him; the probability was that Mr. George had gone to bed again, and was taking out his night's rest by daylight. He sought him again at dinner-time, and then he had gone out; the two Prattleton boys thought to the billiard rooms. In the afternoon, however, as Henry was passing through the cloisters to the school, after service in the cathedral, he met him.

George Prattleton listened with an air of apparent incredulity to the tale; Henry had got locked up in the church, and seen him and a stranger go into the church at midnight, or thereabouts!—him, George Prattleton! Mr. George denied it in toto; and expressed his belief that Henry must have been dreaming.

"It's of no use talking like that, George Prattleton," said Henry, in a vexed tone. "You know quite well you were there. I saw the same man with you in the Grounds, the previous night, when I was going home after the audit-dinner."

"You must have seen double, then! I don't know whom you are talking of. Had you been drinking?"

"It won't do, George Prattleton. I was in full possession of both my sight and senses. You know whom I mean. His name's Rolls."

"Did he tell you his name?"

"No; but you did. I heard you call him by his name two or three times in the church last night. I want to know what I am to do about it."

"I don't know any Rolls; and I was not in the church last night; and my full persuasion is—if you really were locked in, as you say—that you fell asleep and dreamt this story."

"Now look you here, George Prattleton; if you persist in this line of denial, I shall be obliged to tell Mr. Wilberforce. I don't like to do it; your family and mine are intimate, and we have received many kindnesses from them, and I assure you I'd almost rather cut my tongue out than speak. But I can't let things go on at this uncertainty. Do you know what that Rolls did?"

"What did he do?" was the mocking rejoinder.

"He cut a leaf out of the register book."

"No?" shouted George Prattleton, the words scaring him to seriousness.

"I declare he did. When the candle went out, you thought it went out of itself, didn't you; well, he blew it out. I saw him blow it, and he called out, 'What a beast of a candle,' and said it was the damp put it out, and he got you to go for the matches. Was it not so?"

"Well?" said George Prattleton, too much alarmed to heed the half admission.

"Well, you had no sooner gone than he somehow got the candle alight again; I didn't see how, I suppose he had matches; and he took out a penknife, and put what looked like a thin board behind the leaf he was looking at, and cut it out. I say I'm not sure! but it's transportation for life to rob a church register."