his now illegible hand the crooked and
blotted lines of punishment which his seeming ignorance or sluggishness
brought upon him; and although he was always to be seen at detention, he
almost hailed this disgrace as affording him at least some miserable
shadow of occupation, and a refuge, however undesirable, from the
torments of those degraded few to whom his childish tears, his weak
entreaties, his bursts of impotent passion, caused nothing but low
amusement. Out of school his great object always was to hide himself;
anywhere, so as to be beyond the reach of Jones, Harpour, and other
bullies of the same calibre. For this purpose he would conceal himself
for a whole afternoon at a time up in the fir-groves, listlessly
gathering into heaps the red sheddings of their umbrage, and pulling to
pieces their dry and fragrant cones; or, when he feared that these
resorts would be disturbed by some little gang of lounging smokers, he
would choose some lonely place, under the shadow of the mountain cliffs,
and sit for hours together, aimlessly rolling white lumps of quartz over
the shingly banks. Under continued trials like these he became quite
changed. The childish innocence and beauty of countenance, the childish
frankness and gaiety of heart, the childish quickness and intelligence
of understanding, were exchanged for vacant looks, stupid indifference,
and that half-cunning expression which is always induced by craven fear.
Accustomed, too, to be waited upon and helped continually in the home
where his mother, a gay young widow, had petted and spoiled him, he
became slovenly and untidy in dress and habits. He rarely found time or
heart to write home, and even when he did, he so well knew that his
mother was incapable of sympathy or comprehension of his suffering, that
the dirty and ill-spelt scrawl rarely alluded to the one dim
consciousness that brooded over him night and day--that he couldn't
understand life, and only knew that he was a very friendless, unhappy,
unpitied little boy. If he could have found even one to whom to unfold
and communicate his griefs, even one to love him unreservedly, all the
inner beauty and brightness of his character would have blown and
expanded in that genial warmth. He once thought that in Walter he had
found such an one, but when he saw that his dullness bored Walter, and
that his listless manners and untidy habits made him cross, he shrank
back within himself. He was thankful to Walter