ons experienced by Lenny Fairfield, as he sat
alone in that place of penance. He felt no more the physical pain of
his bruises; the anguish of his mind stifled and overbore all corporeal
suffering,--an anguish as great as the childish breast is capable of
holding.

For first and deepest of all, and earliest felt, was the burning sense
of injustice. He had, it might be with erring judgment, but with all
honesty, earnestness, and zeal, executed the commission entrusted to
him; he had stood forth manfully in discharge of his duty; he had
fought for it, suffered for it, bled for it. This was his reward! Now
in Lenny's mind there was pre-eminently that quality which distinguishes
the Anglo Saxon race,--the sense of justice. It was perhaps the
strongest principle in his moral constitution; and the principle had
never lost its virgin bloom and freshness by any of the minor acts of
oppression and iniquity which boys of higher birth often suffer from
harsh parents, or in tyrannical schools. So that it was for the
first time that that iron entered into his soul, and with it came its
attendant feeling,--the wrathful, galling sense of impotence. He had
been wronged, and he had no means to right himself. Then came another
sensation, if not so deep, yet more smarting and envenomed for the
time,--shame! He, the good boy of all good boys; he, the pattern of the
school, and the pride of the parson; he, whom the squire, in sight of
all his contemporaries, had often singled out to slap on the back, and
the grand squire's lady to pat on the head, with a smiling gratulation
on his young and fair repute; he, who had already learned so dearly to
prize the sweets of an honourable name,--he to be made, as it were, in
the twinkling of an eye, a mark for opprobrium, a butt of scorn, a jeer,
and a byword! The streams of his life were poisoned at the fountain. And
then came a tenderer thought of his mother! of the shock this would be
to her,--she who had already begun to look up to him as her stay and
support; he bowed his head, and the tears, long suppressed, rolled down.

Then he wrestled and struggled, and strove to wrench his limbs from
that hateful bondage,--for he heard steps approaching. And he began to
picture to himself the arrival of all the villagers from church, the
sad gaze of the parson, the bent brow of the squire, the idle,
ill-suppressed titter of all the boys, jealous of his unspotted
character,--character of which the original w