webbed corners, the faded roundabouts of
fellow-martyrs, the dismal figures of Daboll, the shining tail-coat of
Master Brummem, as he stalks up and down from hour to hour, collecting
in this way his scattered thoughts for some new argumentative thrust of
the quill into the sixthly or the seventhly of his next week's sermon!
And the long and weary afternoons, when the sun with a mocking bounty
pours through the dusty and curtainless windows to the west, lighting
only again the gray and speckled roundabouts of the fagging boys, the
maps of Malte-Brun, and the shining forehead of the Brummem!

There is a dismal, graceless, bald air about town and house and master,
which is utterly revolting to the lad, whose childish feet had pattered
beside the tender Rachel along the embowered paths of Ashfield. The lack
of congeniality affronts his whole nature. In the keenness of his
martyrdom, (none the less real because fancied,) the leathern-faced,
gaunt Brummem takes the shape of some Giant Despair with bloody maw and
mace,--and he, the child of some Christiana, for whose guiding hand he
gropes vainly: she has gone before to the Celestial City!

The rod of the master does not cure the chronic state of moody rebellion
into which Reuben lapses, with these fancies on him. It drives him at
last to an act of desperation. The lesson in Daboll that day was a hard
one; but it was not the lesson, or his short-comings in it,--it was not
the hand of the master, which had been heavy on him,--but it was a
vague, dismal sense of the dreariness of his surroundings, of the
starched looks that met him, of the weary monotony, of the lack of
sympathy, which goaded him to the final overt act of rebellion,--which
made him dash his leathern-bound arithmetic full into the face of the
master, and then sit down, burying his face in his hands.

The stern doctrines of Parson Brummem had taught him, at least, a rigid
self-command. He did not strike the lad. But recovering from his
amazement, he says, "Very well, very well, Master Reuben, we will sleep
upon this"; and then, tapping at the inner door, "Keziah, make ready the
little chamber over the hall for Master Johns: he must be by himself
to-night: give him a glass of water and a slice of dry bread: nothing
else, Sir," (turning to Reuben now,) "until you come to me to-morrow at
nine, in this place, and ask my pardon"; and he motions him to the door.

Reuben staggers out,--staggers up the stairs into the d