accordingly left in
the school till the evening, when more hands would be available for
removing it; and the schoolmaster gave a final glance round.

The boy Jude assisted in loading some small articles, and at nine
o'clock Mr. Phillotson mounted beside his box of books and other
_impedimenta_, and bade his friends good-bye.

"I shan't forget you, Jude," he said, smiling, as the cart moved off.
"Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read
all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt
me out for old acquaintance' sake."

The cart creaked across the green, and disappeared round the corner
by the rectory-house. The boy returned to the draw-well at the edge
of the greensward, where he had left his buckets when he went to help
his patron and teacher in the loading. There was a quiver in his lip
now and after opening the well-cover to begin lowering the bucket he
paused and leant with his forehead and arms against the framework,
his face wearing the fixity of a thoughtful child's who has felt the
pricks of life somewhat before his time. The well into which he was
looking was as ancient as the village itself, and from his present
position appeared as a long circular perspective ending in a shining
disk of quivering water at a distance of a hundred feet down.
There was a lining of green moss near the top, and nearer still the
hart's-tongue fern.

He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy,
that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores of times on a
morning like this, and would never draw there any more. "I've seen
him look down into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I
do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the buckets home!
But he was too clever to bide here any longer--a small sleepy place
like this!"

A tear rolled from his eye into the depths of the well. The morning
was a little foggy, and the boy's breathing unfurled itself as
a thicker fog upon the still and heavy air. His thoughts were
interrupted by a sudden outcry:

"Bring on that water, will ye, you idle young harlican!"

It came from an old woman who had emerged from her door towards the
garden gate of a green-thatched cottage not far off. The boy quickly
waved a signal of assent, drew the water with what was a great effort
for one of his stature, landed and emptied the big bucket into his
own pair of smaller ones, and pausing a moment for breath, starte