.

Hardly had I entered the door when I met Sparrow.

"Have you heard the news, Master Eden?" he exclaimed.
"Dreadful--dreadful! Poor Master Coverthorne! His father's been
shot--mortally wounded--and is most probably dead by this time. It's a
great question if the young gentleman will ever see him alive."

"What!" I cried--"Mr. Coverthorne shot! How did it happen?"

"It's true enough," answered Sparrow. "I had it all from the messenger
himself. Mr. Coverthorne was out shooting with a party, and a
gen'leman's gun went off by accident as he was climbing a hedge. Mr.
Coverthorne was shot in the breast. They got a trap, and took him to
the Crown at Welmington, and sent for a surgeon. He wanted particular
to see his son, so one of the postboys rode over; but it's hardly
likely the young gentleman will get there in time."

"What a dreadful thing!" I muttered. "Poor Miles! I wish I could have
seen him before he went."

The news of this terrible blow which had so suddenly fallen on my
companion shocked me almost as much as if the trouble had been my own.
When adventuring together into the woods that afternoon, how little he
imagined what the immediate future had in store!

I sat down with the rest in the long, bare dining-room, but had little
heart to eat; the thought of Miles being hurried along the country
road, not knowing whether he would find his father alive or dead,
weighed down my spirits. If his father died, the only relative he
would have in the world, besides his widowed mother, would be his uncle
Nicholas; and remembering the latter's hard face and harsh voice, and
the story of the brothers' quarrel, my mind was filled with dark
forebodings for the future of my friend.

CHAPTER II.

THE KNOCKING ON THE WALL.

It was ten days before I saw Miles again; then he returned to school
for the last three weeks of the half. Seeing him dressed in black, and
noticing the unaccustomed look of sadness on his usually cheerful face,
boylike I felt for a moment shy of meeting him; but with the first
hearty hand-grip all feeling of restraint vanished, and I was able to
give him the assurance of my sympathy and friendship. Then it was that
I heard for the first time how he had arrived at Welmington too late to
see his father alive--a fact which must have added greatly to the
heaviness of the blow and the keenness of his grief.

Naturally, for the time, he had no heart to join in our usual
amusements;