ugh;" and we sat there, miserable enough,
waiting till the other boys came up, and it was time to go to bed.

We had not begun to undress, when the door was opened, and three heads
were thrust in, and to our disgust, as we looked up, we saw that they
belonged to our three principal tormentors, who began at us in a jeering
way.

"Hallo, poachers!" said Burr major; "where are the rabbits?"

"I say," cried Hodson, "you fellows are going to be expelled. Leave us
the stuffed guys, Senna."

"He won't," cried Dicksee; "he'll want the skins to make a jacket--a
beggar!"

"You're a set of miserable cowards," I said indignantly, "or you
wouldn't come and jump upon us now we are down."

"You give me any of your cheek, Burr junior, and I'll make you smell
fist for your supper."

"Pst! Some one coming!" whispered Hodson, and the three scuffled away,
for there were footsteps on the stairs, and directly after Mr Rebble
appeared.

"Mercer, Burr junior," he said harshly, "Doctor Browne requests that you
will not come down till he sends for you in the morning. As for you,
young gentlemen, you will take no notice of the door being fastened; I
shall be up here in time to let you out. Good-night."

He went out, and closed and locked the door, and we heard him take out
the key and go down the stairs.

"Well, that's a rum one!" cried Mercer. "I say, Burr, old Rebble made
an Irish bull, or something like it. How can we go down if the door's
locked?"

"It's because they're afraid we shall run away," I said bitterly. "They
needn't have thought that."

And somehow that first part of our punishment seemed to be the most
bitter of all. It kept me awake for hours, growing more and more
low-spirited; and, to make me worse, as I lay there listening to the
loud breathing of the boys, Mercer having gone off like the rest, as if
nothing was the matter, I could hear an owl come sailing about the
place, now close at hand, and now right away in the distance, evidently
in Sir Hawkhurst's old park, where, no doubt, it had a home in one of
the great hollow beeches. Every now and then it uttered its mournful
_hoi, hoi, hoi, hoi_! sounding exactly like some one calling for help,
and at times so real that I was ready to awaken Mercer and ask him if he
thought it was a bird; but just as I had determined to do so, he spoke
half drowsily from his pillow.

"Hear the old owl," he said. "That's the one I told you about the other
night. It is