ee months the night's mishap would be a memory of the past.

It was autumn--a splendid time for fishing; a better time for the
painter, the artist declaring that the tints of the trees and bracken,
the glow of the skies, and the lovely mists that floated down from the
hills and up from the well-charged falls were more glorious than any he
had ever seen before.

His white mushroom, as Will called it, was always visible, and the boys
spent much time with him when they were not reading with the Vicar up by
the church, for Josh had declared that the message that had come from
Worksop was about the jolliest piece of news he had ever heard.
Doubtless, the headmaster and his subordinates did not think the same,
the news being the breaking out of an exceedingly virulent epidemic of
fever, necessitating the closing of the great school about the time when
the bulk of the pupils were to return.

Then rumours came that sanitary inspectors had condemned the whole of
the arrangements there as being too old-fashioned to be tolerated, and
instead of becoming once more a busy hive of study during the autumn
term, the whole place had been put in the builders' hands, and rumour
said that the school would not reassemble until the spring, even if the
builders were got rid of then.

"Well, I don't care," said Will. "I didn't want longer holidays, but it
is much nicer reading and doing exercises up at the Vicarage than with
old Buzfuz's lexicon over there. I'm learning twice as much, and quite
beginning to like Latin now."

"Of course," said Josh, complacently. "My father used to be a famous
college don before the Bishop gave him the living here."

"Yes, but he's never been don enough to bring old Boil O back to his
senses. He's worse than ever now."

"Bring him back to his senses! I don't believe he's got any senses to
bring back," said Josh. "It wants a very clever college don to put
something straight that isn't there."

The boys were right about Drinkwater, for the man was more fiercely
morose than ever. His efforts to avoid all who knew him, and spend the
greater part of his time moping in the woodlands and high up the valley
towards the headwaters of the stream, were so much waste of time, for
all men and women too, and the children, for the matter of that, avoided
him now as one who was ogreish and evil. Master, Vicar, the artist, and
the two lads might cast away all idea of his guilt respecting the fire
if they liked,