tricks with; so with an effort
I keep my bat square, and stop it without hitting.

"Played, sir!" cries some one, approvingly, and I feel my self-denial
rewarded.

But the next ball is not so dangerous. I can see it is a careless one,
which I may safely punish. Punish it I will; so I step forward, and
catching it on the bound, bang it I know not and care not where.

What shouting! what cheering as we run, one, two, three, four, five
times across the wickets! The match is ours, with a wicket to spare;
and as we ride back that evening to Parkhurst, and talk and laugh and
exult over that day's victory, we are the happiest eleven fellows,
without exception, that ever rode on the top of an omnibus.

CHAPTER FIVE.

A BOATING ADVENTURE AT PARKHURST.

Once, and once only, did I play truant from Parkhurst, and that
transgression was attended with consequences so tragical that to this
day its memory is as vivid and impressive as if the event I am about to
record had happened only last week, instead of a quarter of a century
ago.

I shall recall it in the hope of deterring my readers from following my
foolish example--or at least of warning them of the terrible results
which may ensue from a thoughtless act of wrong-doing.

I have already mentioned that Parkhurst stood some two or three miles
above the point at which the River Colven flows into the sea. From the
school-house we could often catch the hum of the waves breaking lazily
along the shore of Colveston Bay; or, if the wind blew hard from the
sea, it carried with it the roar of the breakers on the bar mouth, and
the distant thunder of the surf on the stony beach.

Of course, our walks and rambles constantly took the direction of the
shores of this bay; and though, perhaps, a schoolboy is more readily
impressed with other matters than the beauties of nature, I can remember
even now the once familiar view from Raven Cliff as if my eyes still
rested upon it.

I can see, on a hot summer afternoon, the great curve of that beautiful
bay, bounded at either extremity by headlands, bathed in soft blue haze.
I can see the cliffs and chines and sands basking, like myself, in the
sun. On my right, the jagged outline of a ruined sea-girt castle stands
out like a sentinel betwixt is land and water. On my left I can detect
the fishermen's white cottages crouching beneath the crags. I can see
the long golden strip of strand beyond; and, farther still, across the
wid