ckless youngster, and stammered
through some eight or ten lines.

"There, that will do," said the Doctor; "now construe."

On common occasions, the boy could have construed the passage well
enough probably, but now his head was gone.

"Triste lupus, the sorrowful wolf," he began.

A shudder ran through the whole form, and the Doctor's wrath fairly
boiled over; he made three steps up to the construer, and gave him a
good box on the ear. The blow was not a hard one, but the boy was so
taken by surprise that he started back; the form caught the back of his
knees, and over he went on to the floor behind. There was a dead silence
over the whole school; never before, and never again while Tom was at
school did the Doctor strike a boy in lesson. The provocation must have
been great. However, the victim had saved his form for that occasion,
for the Doctor turned to the top bench, and put on the best boys for the
rest of the hour; and though, at the end of the lesson, he gave them all
such a rating as they did not forget, this terrible field-day passed
over without any severe visitations in the shape of punishments or
floggings. Forty young scapegraces expressed their thanks to the
"sorrowful wolf" in their different ways before second lesson.

But a character for steadiness once gone is not easily recovered, as Tom
found, and for years afterwards he went up to the school without it, and
the masters' hands were against him, and his against them. And he
regarded them, as a matter of course, as his natural enemies. Matters
were not so comfortable either in the house as they had been, for Old
Brooke left at Christmas, and one or two others of the sixth-form boys
at the following Easter. Their rule had been rough, but strong and just
in the main, and a higher standard was beginning to be set up; in fact,
there had been a short foretaste of the good time which followed some
years later. Just now, however, all threatened to return into darkness
and chaos again. For the new praepostors were either small young boys,
whose cleverness had carried them up to the top of the school, while in
strength of body and character they were not yet fit for a share in the
government; or else big fellows of the wrong sort, boys whose
friendships and tastes had a downward tendency, who had not caught the
meaning of their position and work, and felt none of its
responsibilities. So under this no-government the School-house began to
see bad times. Th