en he could bear up no longer. He burst into
tears, and throwing himself on the dewy moonlit sward, wept bitterly.

"Oh, mamma, mamma, why did you die? why did you die? What shall I do?"
he sobbed in a low, excited tone, "I'm so lonely, mamma! mamma!"

And the quiet night stole on, and the soft winds of June whispered over
the motherless boy, weeping there alone in the churchyard.

The sound of footsteps! Harry jumped up and listened, eager, and
frightened. The churchyard wicket was opened and shut again, and then
he heard a steady measured tread of persons slowly approaching. He was
riveted to the spot, and a cold perspiration broke upon his forehead.
The steps were nearing, and then, rounding the corner of the tower, the
new comers came into sight.

One look was enough, and Harry was off down the other path that led
from the churchyard to the further end of the village.

It was only a funeral of a drowned man who had been picked up the
previous night upon the shore of Wilton. But the dark, slow-moving
figures of the bearers, and the flickering gleam of the lanthorns, made
dim by the moonshine, froze his heart with terror, and drove him away
from his mother's grave without one word of parting. Perhaps it was
better so. It saved him the difficulty and sorrow of having to decide
to say good-bye for ever to that grassy sleeping-place where slept the
one so dear to him.

Away he ran, heedless, frightened, through the straggling remainder of
the village. Not a light was burning, not a person stirring, which was
fortunate, though he never paused to see; or think, but hastened on
till he fancied he had gone miles; and then, seeing an inviting barn
close by the roadside, turned in, and, worn out with fatigue and
excitement, soon slept heavily in a low, broken manger full of hay--a
strange but welcome bed.

CHAPTER XV.

THE BITERS BIT.

Excitement in school--Expecting a row--The doctor speaks--Deliberate
falsehood--The truth comes out--The two culprits--Manly confession--Mr
Franklyn speaks--Honest shame--Egerton convicted--The doctor's
speech--Warburton caned--Egerton birched--Justification.

The bright fresh summer hour of seven, the following morning, was very
different in the barn where Harry had taken up his abode to what it was
at the grammar-school. In the former, it saw the tired lonely boy
sleeping heavily, his face stained with tears; in the latter, a great
stir and confusion. Campbell ha