ard from an adjoining field. They answered it and stopped, hoping
for some competent rustic to guide them, when over a gate some twenty
yards ahead crawled the wretched Tadpole, in a state of collapse. He had
lost a shoe in the brook, and had been groping after it up to his elbows
in the stiff, wet clay, and a more miserable creature in the shape of
boy seldom has been seen.

The sight of him, notwithstanding, cheered them, for he was some degrees
more wretched than they. They also cheered him, as he was no longer
under the dread of passing his night alone in the fields. And so, in
better heart, the three plashed painfully down the never-ending lane. At
last it widened, just as utter darkness set in, and they came out on
a turnpike road, and there paused, bewildered, for they had lost all
bearings, and knew not whether to turn to the right or left.

Luckily for them they had not to decide, for lumbering along the road,
with one lamp lighted and two spavined horses in the shafts, came a
heavy coach, which after a moment's suspense they recognized as the
Oxford coach, the redoubtable Pig and Whistle.

It lumbered slowly up, and the boys, mustering their last run, caught
it as it passed, and began clambering up behind, in which exploit East
missed his footing and fell flat on his nose along the road. Then the
others hailed the old scarecrow of a coachman, who pulled up and agreed
to take them in for a shilling; so there they sat on the back seat,
drubbing with their heels, and their teeth chattering with cold, and
jogged into Rugby some forty minutes after locking-up.

Five minutes afterwards three small, limping, shivering figures steal
along through the Doctor's garden, and into the house by the servants'
entrance (all the other gates have been closed long since), where the
first thing they light upon in the passage is old Thomas, ambling along,
candle in one hand and keys in the other.

He stops and examines their condition with a grim smile. "Ah! East,
Hall, and Brown, late for locking-up. Must go up to the Doctor's study
at once."

"Well but, Thomas, mayn't we go and wash first? You can put down the
time, you know."

"Doctor's study d'rectly you come in--that's the orders," replied old
Thomas, motioning towards the stairs at the end of the passage which led
up into the Doctor's house; and the boys turned ruefully down it, not
cheered by the old verger's muttered remark, "What a pickle they boys be
in!" Thomas