viso of returning
them when empty, but which, it must be confessed, were still lying at
the bottom of Deadman's Hole, for the farther improvement of my
diving.

Having just been disappointed in my endeavours to procure a boat at
Hester's, I was returning towards my dames about the middle of
after-six, totally at a loss for amusement. Every other boy was now
eagerly employed on the river, or at cricket, and the whole college
was silent and deserted. As I strolled listlessly along, I observed a
funeral slowly issuing from the church-door on its way to the
burial-ground. Singular to say, this was the first instance of death's
doing on a fellow-being I had yet witnessed. On its approach, I seated
myself on the Long-walk wall, and watched the coffin and its
noiseless followers, as they glided slowly before me. So soon as all
had passed, I quietly slid down from my seat, and accompanied the
procession at a little distance.

While we are young, we are not only moved more easily, but doubt not
that every person else feels as sincerely. Under this impression, I
accompanied the corpse towards its grave, touched with a sort of pity
for the mourners, and sobered by a deep and respectful sympathy.

As I stood by the brink of the grave, I could not but feel a soothing
comfort and hope under our affliction, so beautifully held out to us
by the spirit of "the service of the dead;" and I even entertained an
affection for the clergyman who officiated. But when I witnessed the
lowering of the coffin to its future resting-place--heard the soft
crumbling of the churchyard soil, as it dropped from the grasp of the
sexton on the below-sounding coffin, down below--the anguished but
stifled moan of the childless father, who had apparently expended his
hard-got earnings for the interment of his child--I not only repassed
the gates considerably affected, but overpowered with an indescribable
dread of impending death. I was now possessed with a servile love of
God, arising from fear; an anxiety to please and obey him, to an
infinite degree. Alas! even at this early age, how worldly-minded,
how pitiful, can be our motives!

I now determined within myself, as resolutely as presumptuously, to
"go and sin no more;" and to that effect, that very evening, dived to
the bottom of Deadman's Hole, and returned to Joe Hyde his horribly
portentous bottles.

CHAPTER IV.

A few weeks previous to the holidays, "the old Queen" gave a
magnificent