Walter they
let him pass by, and waited till Mr Paton came out of the chapel door,
and as he walked across the court the boys all followed him with hearty
cheers.

Mr Paton did not like the demonstration, although he appreciated the
kindly and honourable motives which had given rise to it. He was not a
man who courted popularity, and this external sign of it was, as he well
knew, the irregular expression of an evanescent feeling. So he took no
further notice of the boys' cheers than by slightly raising his cap, and
by one stately inclination of the head, and then he walked on with his
usual quiet dignity of manner to his own rooms. But after this he every
now and then took an opportunity to walk with Walter; and almost every
Sunday evening he might have been seen with him pacing, after morning
chapel, up and down the broad walk of the masters' garden, while Walter
walked unevenly beside him, in vain endeavours to keep step with his
long slow stride.

A letter from Dr Lane brought Walter's father to Saint Winifred's the
next day. Why dwell on their sad and painful meeting? But the pain of
it soon wore off as they interchanged that sweet and frank communion of
thoughts and sympathies that still existed as it had ever done between
them. They had a long, long walk upon the shore, and at every step
Walter seemed to in-breathe fresh strength, and hope, and consolation,
and Mr Evson seemed to acquire new love for, and confidence in, his
unhappy little son, so that when in the evening he kissed him and said
"good-bye," at the top of the same hill where they had parted before,
Mr Evson felt more happily and gratefully secure of his radical
integrity, now that the boy had acquired the strength which comes
through trial, through failure, and through suffering, than he had done
before when he had left him only with the strength of early principle
and untested innocence of heart.

But long years after, when Walter was a man, and when he had been
separated for years from all intelligence of Mr Paton, there emanated
from a quiet country vicarage a now celebrated edition of the "Major
Prophets," an edition which made the author a high reputation, and
secured for him in the following year the Deanery of --. And in the
preface to that edition the reader may still find the following passage,
which, as Walter saw even then, those long years after, he could not
read without a thrill of happy, yet penitent emotion. It ran thus--