of its usual
activity. Most of the boys were gathered near Sam Brierly's Gothic
portico, now in unpicturesque ruins and hanging limply to the school
front like an excrescence. Here Richard Haddon and Edward McKnight were
standing in attitudes of extreme unconcern, heroes and objects of
respectful admiration, but nevertheless inwardly ill at ease and
possessed with sore misgivings. Some of their mates were offering sage
advice on a matter that concerned them most nearly: how to take cuts from
a cane so as to receive the least possible amount of hurt. Peterson was
full of valuable information.

'See, you stan' so,' he said, giving rather a good imitation of an
unhappy scholar in the act of receiving condign punishment, 'holdin' yer
hand like this, you know, keepin' yer eye on Jo; an' jes' when his nibs
comes down you shoves yer hand forwards, that sort, an' it don't hurt fer
sour apples.'

'Don't cut no more'n nothin' at all,' added the boy 'who was called
Moonlight, in cheerful corroboration.

Ted, who was very pale, and had a hunted look in his eyes, nodded his
head hopefully, and rehearsed the act with pathetic gravity.

The little girls, who should have been at the other end of the ground,
clustered at the corner and peeped round the portico, some giggling,
others fully seized of the gravity of the situation. Dick in spite of his
fine air of sang froid was well aware that there was one little girl
there, a pretty little girl of about ten, with brown hair and dark
serious eyes, who was suffering keenest apprehensions on his behalf, and
who would weep with quite shameless abandonment when it came to his turn
to endure the torments Mr. Joel Ham knew so well how to inflict. Dick was
rather superior to little girls; his tender sentiment was usually
lavished on ladies ten or twelve years his senior; but he could not hide
from himself the fact that Kitty Grey's affection, however hopeless it
might be, was at times most gratifying. Once he had resented its
manifestations with bitterness, imagining that they were likely to bring
him into contempt and undermine his authority; and when she interfered in
his memorable fight with Bill Cole and fiercely attacked his opponent
with a picket, cutting his head and incapacitating him for fighting for
the rest of the day, he felt that he could never forgive her. She had
violated the rule of battle and outraged the noble principle of fair
play; and, worse and worse, had disgraced him