FullReads

“Bessy!” he said, “was there a man ever murdered in Yew-lane?”

Bessy was occupied with her own thoughts, and did not notice the anxiety of the question.

“I believe there was,” she answered carelessly, “somewhere about there. It’s a hundred years ago or more. There’s an old gravestone over him in the churchyard by the wall, with an odd verse on it. They say the parish clerk wrote it. But get your tea, or you’ll be late, and father’ll be angry;” and Bessy took up her tub and departed.

Poor Bill! Then it was too true. He began to pull up his trousers and look at his grazed legs; and the thoughts of his aching shins, Bully Tom’s cruelty, the unavoidable night-school, and the possible ghost, were too much for him, and he burst into tears.

CHAPTER II.

“There are birds out on the bushes,
In the meadows lies the lamb,
How I wonder if they’re ever
Half as frightened as I am?”

C.F. ALEXANDER.

The night-school was drawing to a close. The attendance had been good, and the room looked cheerful. In one corner the Rector was teaching a group of grown-up men, who (better late than never) were zealously learning to read; in another the schoolmaster was flourishing his stick before a map as he concluded his lesson in geography. By the fire sat Master Arthur, the Rector’s son, surrounded by his class, and in front of him stood Beauty Bill. Master Arthur was very popular with the people, especially with his pupils. The boys were anxious to get into his class, and loath to leave it. They admired his great height, his merry laugh, the variety of walking-sticks he brought with him, and his very funny way of explaining pictures. He was not a very methodical teacher, and was rather apt to give unexpected lessons on subjects in which he happened just then to be interested himself; but he had a clear simple way of explaining anything, which impressed it on the memory, and he took a great deal of pains in his own way. Bill was especially devoted to him. He often wished that Master Arthur could get very rich, and take him for his man-servant; he thought he should like to brush his clothes and take care of his sticks. He had a great interest in the growth of his moustache and whiskers. For some time past Master Arthur had had a trick of pulling at his upper lip whilst he was teaching; which occasionally provoked a whisper of “Moostarch, guvernor!” between two unruly members of his class; but never till to-night had Bill seen anything in that line which answered his expectations. Now, however, as he stood before the young gentleman, the fire-light fell on such a distinct growth of hair, that Bill’s interest became absorbed to the exclusion of all but the most perfunctory attention to the lesson on hand. Would Master Arthur grow a beard? Would his moustache be short like the pictures of Prince Albert, or long and pointed like that of some other great man whose portrait he had seen in the papers? He was calculating on the probable effect of either style, when the order was given to put away books, and then the thought which had been for a time diverted came back again–his walk home.

Poor Bill! his fears returned with double force from having been for awhile forgotten. He dawdled over the books, he hunted in wrong places for his cap and comforter, he lingered till the last boy had clattered through the doorway, and left him with a group of elders who closed the proceedings and locked up the school. But after this further delay was impossible. The whole party moved out into the moonlight, and the Rector and his son, the schoolmaster and the teachers, commenced, a sedate parish gossip, whilst Bill trotted behind, wondering whether any possible or impossible business would take one of them his way. But when the turning point was reached, the Rector destroyed all his hopes.