nt of his master, for a day or half of a
day. The boy did not disappear because he was ill, for he was on such
occasions outrageously well: nor because he was overburdened by work,
for the truants always guarded themselves against brain fag; nor because
he wanted to hang about the streets, or smoke in secret places. He was
simply seized with the passion of the open air and of the country. To
tramp through the bosky woods, hunting for birds' eggs and watching the
ways of wild animals; to guddle for trout under the stones of some clear
running mountain burn, or to swim in the cool water on a summer day, or
to join the haymakers on a farm, and do a full day's work, as long as
lesson time and harder. There was a joy in escaping from bounds, as if
an animal had broken out from a menagerie; there was joy in thinking, as
you lay beside your burn or under the shadow of a tree, of the fellows
mewed up in the hot class-room and swatting at their sums, under
Bulldog's eye; and joy in coming home in the evening, tired, but
satisfied, and passing the empty Seminary with defiance. There is no
joy--I mean sin--but has its drawbacks, and there were clouds in the
truant's sky. Country folk had their own suspicions when they came on a
couple of boys going at large on a working day, when the school was in
session, as one might have a shrewd guess if he came upon two convicts
in their professional dress fishing in some lonely spot on Dartmoor. But
there is a charitable sympathy with all animals who have escaped from a
cage, unless it be a tigress looking for her dinner, and no one would
have thought of informing on the boys, except one bad man; and
Providence, using Speug as an instrument, punished him for his evil
doings--as I shall tell.

"Well, laddies," some honest farmer would say, as he came upon them
sitting by the burnside eating bread and cheese and counting up their
trout, "I'm judgin' it will be a holiday at the Seminary the now, or
mebbe the maister's given ye a day's leave for yir health. Or is this
the reward for doing yir work so well? Ye have all the appearance of
scholars." And then the good man would laugh at the simple raillery and
the confusion of the boys.

"Dinna answer, laddies; for least said soonest mended, and ye mind where
leears go to. But I'm thinkin' ye wadna be the worse for a jug of milk
to wash down your dinner, and there's some strawberries in the garden up
by, just about ripe."

So they all went up to