--how art thou
laid low! Where is the blooming cheek, ruddy with the browning air?
where the bright and swimming eye? Alas where? `_Tum breviter dirae
mortis aperta via est_,' as sweet Tibullus hath it;" and the Dominie
sobbed anew. "Had this stroke fallen upon me, the aged, the ridiculed,
the little regarded, the ripe one for the sickle, it would have been
well--yet fain would I have instructed thee still more before I quitted
the scene--fain have left thee the mantle of learning. Thou knowest,
Lord, that I walk wearily, as in the desert, that I am heavily burdened,
and that my infirmities are many. Must I then mourn over thee, thou
promising one--must I say with the epigrammatist--

"`Hoc jacet in tumulo, raptus puerilibus annis,
Jacob Faithful domini cura, doloroque sui?'

"True, most true. Thou hast quitted the element thou so joyously
controlledst, thou hast come upon the terra firma for thy grave?

"`Sis licet inde sibi tellus placata, levisque,
Artifices levior non potes esse manu.'

"Earth, lay light upon the lighter-boy--the lotus, the water-lily, that
hath been cast on shore to die. Hadst thou lived, Jacob, I would have
taught thee the Humanities; we would have conferred pleasantly together.
I would have poured out my learning to thee, my Absalom, my son!"

He rose and stood over me; the tears coursed down his long nose from
both his eyes, and from the point of it poured out like a little
rain-gutter upon the coverlid. I understood not all his words, but I
understood the spirit of them--it was love. I feebly stretched forth my
arms, and articulated "Dominie!"

The old man clasped his hands, looked upwards, and said, "O God, I thank
thee--he will live. Hush, hush, my sweet one, thou must not prate;" and
he retired on tiptoe, and I heard him mutter triumphantly, as he walked
away, "He called me `Dominie!'"

From that hour I rapidly recovered, and in three weeks was again at my
duties. I was now within six months of being fourteen years old, and
Mr Drummond, who had occasionally called to ascertain my progress, came
to confer with the Dominie upon my future prospects. "All that I can do
for him, Mr Dobbs," said my former master, "is to bind him apprentice
to serve his time on the River Thames, and that cannot be done until he
is fourteen. Will the rules of the school permit his remaining?"

"The regulations do not exactly, but I will," replied the Dominie. "I
have asked nothing for