So with another
effort he strode through the quadrangle, and into the School-house
offices.

He found the little matron in her room in deep mourning; shook her hand,
tried to talk, and moved nervously about: she was evidently thinking of
the same subject as he, but he couldn't begin talking.

"Where shall I find Thomas?" said he at last, getting desperate.

"In the servants' hall, I think, sir. But won't you take anything?" said
the matron, looking rather disappointed.

"No, thank you," said he, and strode off again to find the old Verger,
who was sitting in his little den as of old, puzzling over
hieroglyphics.

He looked up through his spectacles, as Tom seized his hand and wrung
it.

"Ah! you've heard all about it, sir, I see," said he.

Tom nodded, and then sat down on the shoe-board, while the old man told
his tale, and wiped his spectacles, and fairly flowed over with quaint,
homely, honest sorrow.

By the time he had done, Tom felt much better.

"Where is he buried, Thomas?" said he at last.

"Under the altar in the chapel, sir," answered Thomas. "You'd like to
have the key, I dare say."

"Thank you, Thomas--Yes, I should very much." And the old man fumbled
among his bunch, and then got up, as though he would go with him; but
after a few steps stopped short, and said, "Perhaps you'd like to go by
yourself, sir?"

Tom nodded, and the bunch of keys were handed to him, with an injunction
to be sure and lock the door after him, and bring them back before eight
o'clock.

He walked quickly through the quadrangle and out into the close. The
longing which had been upon him and driven him thus far, like the
gad-fly in the Greek legends, giving him no rest in mind or body, seemed
all of a sudden not to be satisfied, but to shrivel up, and pall. "Why
should I go on? It's no use," he thought, and threw himself at full
length on the turf, and looked vaguely and listlessly at all the
well-known objects. There were a few of the town boys playing cricket,
their wicket pitched on the best piece in the middle of the big-side
ground, a sin about equal to sacrilege in the eyes of a captain of the
eleven. He was very nearly getting up to go and send them off. "Pshaw!
they won't remember me. They've more right there than I," he muttered.
And the thought that his sceptre had departed, and his mark was wearing
out, came home to him for the first time, and bitterly enough. He was
lying on the very spot where the fights