oney; I was clad in a suit of plain cloth; I was banished from
the parlour, and only on Sunday was I permitted to go to Julia. I ceased
to live in myself. Through the whole course of lessons, at play-time, in
my bed, and round to morning bell, I was hunting my father in an unknown
country, generally with the sun setting before me: I ran out of a wood
almost into a brook to see it sink as if I had again lost sight of
him, and then a sense of darkness brought me back to my natural
consciousness, without afflicting me much, but astonishing me. Why was
I away from him? I could repeat my lessons in the midst of these dreams
quite fairly; it was the awakening among the circle of the boys that
made me falter during a recital and ask myself why I was there and he
absent? They had given over speculating on another holiday and treat
from my father; yet he had produced such an impression in the school
that even when I had descended to the level of a total equality with
them, they continued to have some consideration for me. I was able to
talk of foreign cities and could tell stories, and I was, besides,
under the immediate protection of Heriot. But now the shadow of a great
calamity fell on me, for my dear Heriot announced his intention of
leaving the school next half.

'I can't stand being prayed at, morning and evening, by a fellow who
hasn't the pluck to strike me like a man,' he said. Mr. Rippenger had
the habit of signalizing offenders, in his public prayers, as boys whose
hearts he wished to be turned from callousness. He perpetually suspected
plots; and to hear him allude to some deep, long-hatched school
conspiracy while we knelt motionless on the forms, and fetch a big
breath to bring out, 'May the heart of Walter Heriot be turned and
he comprehend the multitudinous blessings,' etc., was intensely
distressing. Together with Walter Heriot, Andrew Saddlebank, our best
bowler, the drollest fellow in the world, John Salter, and little Gus
Temple, were oftenest cited. They declared that they invariably uttered
'Amen,' as Heriot did, but we none of us heard this defiant murmur of
assent from their lips. Heriot pronounced it clearly and cheerfully,
causing Julia's figure to shrink as she knelt with her face in the chair
hard by her father's desk-pulpit. I received the hearty congratulations
of my comrades for singing out 'Amen' louder than Heriot, like
a chorister, though not in so prolonged a note, on hearing to my
stupefaction