t rustic to guide them, when over a gate some
twenty yards ahead crawled the wretched Tadpole, in a state of
collapse; he had lost a shoe in the brook, and had been groping in it
up to his elbows in the stiff, wet clay, and a more miserable creature
in the shape of a boy seldom has been seen.

The sight of him, notwithstanding, cheered them, for he was some
degrees more wretched than they. They also cheered him, as he was no
longer under the dread of passing his night alone in the fields. And
so in better heart the three plashed painfully down the never-ending
lane. At last it widened, just as utter darkness set in, and they came
out on a turnpike road, and there paused bewildered, for they had lost
all bearings, and knew not whether to turn to the right or left.

Luckily for them they had not to decide, for lumbering along the road,
with one lamp lighted, and two spavined horses in the shafts, came a
heavy coach, which after a moment's suspense, they recognized as the
Oxford coach, the redoubtable Pig and Whistle.

It lumbered slowly up, and the boys mustering their last run, caught
it as it passed, and began clambering up behind, in which exploit East
missed his footing, and fell flat on his nose along the road. Then the
others hailed the old scarecrow of a coachman, who pulled up and
agreed to take them in for a shilling; so there they sat on the back
seat, drubbing with their heels, and their teeth chattering with cold,
and jogged into Rugby some forty minutes after locking-up.

THEIR RECEPTION.

Five minutes afterward, three small, limping, shivering figures steal
along through the Doctor's garden, and into the house by the servants'
entrance (all the other gates have been closed long since), where the
first thing they light upon in the passage is old Thomas, ambling
along, candle in one hand and keys in the other.

He stops and examines their condition with a grim smile. "Ah! East,
Hall, and Brown, late for locking-up. Must go up to the Doctor's study
at once."

"Well, but Thomas, mayn't we go and wash first? You can put down the
time, you know."

"Doctor's study d'rectly you come in--that's the orders," replied old
Thomas, motioning toward the stairs at the end of the passage which
led up into the Doctor's house; and the boys turned ruefully down it,
not cheered by the old verger's muttered remark, "What a pickle they
boys be in!" Thomas referred to their faces and habiliments, but they
construed it a