e, come here and bowl to
me.'

I went and bowled till I thought my head was flying after the ball and
getting knocks, it swam and throbbed so horribly.

Temple related that I fell, and was carried all the way from the
cricket-field home by Heriot, who would not give me up to the usher. I
was in Julia's charge three days. Every time I spoke of her father and
Heriot, she cried, 'Oh, hush!' and had tears on her eyelids. When I was
quite strong again, I made her hear me out. She held me and rocked over
me like a green tree in the wind and rain.

'Was any name mentioned?' she asked, with her mouth working, and to my
'No,' said 'No, she knew there was none,' and seemed to drink and choke,
and was one minute calm, all but a trembling hanging underlip, next
smiling on me, and next having her face carved in grimaces by the jerking
little tugs of her mouth, which I disliked to see, for she would say
nothing of what she thought of Heriot, and I thought to myself, though I
forbore to speak unkindly, 'It's no use your making yourself look ugly,
Julia.' If she had talked of Heriot, I should have thought that crying
persons' kisses were agreeable.

On my return into the school, I found it in a convulsion of excitement,
owing to Heriot's sending Boddy a challenge to fight a duel with pistols.
Mr. Rippenger preached a sermon to the boys concerning the unChristian
spirit and hideous moral perversity of one who would even consent to
fight a duel. How much more reprehensible, then, was one that could bring
himself to defy a fellow-creature to mortal combat! We were not of his
opinion; and as these questions are carried by majorities, we decided
that Boddy was a coward, and approved the idea that Heriot would have to
shoot or scourge him when the holidays came. Mr. Rippenger concluded his
observations by remarking that the sharpest punishment he could inflict
upon Heriot was to leave him to his own conscience; which he did for
three days, and then asked him if he was in a fit state of mind to beg
Mr. Boddy's pardon publicly.

'I'm quite prepared to tell him what I think of him publicly, sir,' said
Heriot.

A murmur of exultation passed through the school. Mr. Rippenger seized
little Temple, and flogged him. Far from dreading the rod, now that
Heriot and Temple had tasted it, I thought of punishment as a mad
pleasure, not a bit more awful than the burning furze-bush plunged into
by our fellows in a follow-my-leader scamper on the comm