matter that he made a special
journey to Roughborough before the half year began. It was a relief to
have him out of the house, but though his destination was not mentioned,
Ernest guessed where he had gone.

To this day he considers his conduct at this crisis to have been one of
the most serious laches of his life--one which he can never think of
without shame and indignation. He says he ought to have run away from
home. But what good could he have done if he had? He would have been
caught, brought back and examined two days later instead of two days
earlier. A boy of barely sixteen cannot stand against the moral pressure
of a father and mother who have always oppressed him any more than he can
cope physically with a powerful full-grown man. True, he may allow
himself to be killed rather than yield, but this is being so morbidly
heroic as to come close round again to cowardice; for it is little else
than suicide, which is universally condemned as cowardly.

On the re-assembling of the school it became apparent that something had
gone wrong. Dr Skinner called the boys together, and with much pomp
excommunicated Mrs Cross and Mrs Jones, by declaring their shops to be
out of bounds. The street in which the "Swan and Bottle" stood was also
forbidden. The vices of drinking and smoking, therefore, were clearly
aimed at, and before prayers Dr Skinner spoke a few impressive words
about the abominable sin of using bad language. Ernest's feelings can be
imagined.

Next day at the hour when the daily punishments were read out, though
there had not yet been time for him to have offended, Ernest Pontifex was
declared to have incurred every punishment which the school provided for
evil-doers. He was placed on the idle list for the whole half year, and
on perpetual detentions; his bounds were curtailed; he was to attend
junior callings-over; in fact he was so hemmed in with punishments upon
ever side that it was hardly possible for him to go outside the school
gates. This unparalleled list of punishments inflicted on the first day
of the half year, and intended to last till the ensuing Christmas
holidays, was not connected with any specified offence. It required no
great penetration therefore, on the part of the boys to connect Ernest
with the putting Mrs Cross's and Mrs Jones's shops out of bounds.

Great indeed was the indignation about Mrs Cross who, it was known,
remembered Dr Skinner himself as a small boy only j