the boys in his own house, and those
who had known him best, followed him to the grave. They were standing
in two lines along the court, and the plumed hearse stood at the cottage
door. Just at that moment the rest of the boys began to flock out of
the school, for lessons were over. Each as he came out caught sight of
the hearse, the plumes waving and whispering in the sea-wind, and the
double line of mourners; and each, on seeing it, stood where he was, in
perfect silence. Their numbers increased each moment, till boys and
masters alike were there; and all by the same sudden impulse stopped
where they were standing when first they saw the hearse, and stood still
without a word. The scene was the more strangely impressive because it
was accidental and spontaneous. Meanwhile, the coffin was carried
downstairs, and placed in the hearse, which moved off slowly across the
court between the line of bareheaded and motionless mourners. It was
thus that Daubeny left Saint Winifred's, and passed under the Norman
arch; and till he had passed through, the boys stood fixed to their
places, like a group of statues in the usually noisy court. He was
buried in the churchyard under the tower of the grand old church. It
was a lovely spot; the torrent murmured near it; the shadows of the
great mountains fell upon it; and as you stood there in the sacred
silence of that memory-haunted field, you heard far-off the solemn
monotone of the everlasting sea. There they laid him, and the stream of
life, checked for a moment, flashed on again with turbulent and
sparkling waves. Ah me!--yet why should we sigh at the merciful
provision, which causes that the very best of us, when we die, leaves
but a slight and transient ripple on the waters, which a moment after
flow on as smoothly as before?

Mrs Daubeny left Saint Winifred's that evening; her carriage looked
strange with her son's boxes and other possessions piled up in it. Who
would ever use that cricket-bat or those skates again? Power and Walter
shook hands with her at the door as she was about to start; and just at
the last moment, Henderson came running up with something, which he put
on the carriage seat without a word. It was a bird-cage, containing a
little favourite canary, which he and Daubeny had often fed.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

KENRICK'S HOME.

Yonder there lies the village and looks how quiet and small,
And yet bubbles o'er like a city with gossip and scand