“Oh, I am utterly wretched, Verny. I hate myself And to think that while I am like this, they are yet loving and praising me at home. And, oh, Verny, I was so sorry to hear from Duncan, how you were talking the other day.” Vernon hid his face on Eric’s shoulder; and as his brother stooped over him, and folded him to his heart, they cried in silence, until wearied with sorrow, the younger fell asleep; and then Eric carried him tenderly down stairs, and laid him, still half-sleeping, upon his bed. He laid him down, and looked at him as he slumbered. The other boys had not been disturbed by their noiseless entrance, and he sat down on his brother’s bed to think, shading off the light of the candle with his hand. It was rarely now that Eric’s thoughts were so rich with the memories of childhood, and sombre with the consciousness of sin, as they were that night, while he gazed on his brother Vernon’s face. He did not know what made him look so long and earnestly; an indistinct sorrow, an unconjectured foreboding, passed over his mind, like the shadow of a summer cloud. Vernon was now slumbering deeply; his soft childish curls fell off his forehead, and his head nestled in the pillow; but there was an expression of uneasiness on his sleeping features, and the long eyelashes were still wet with tears. “Poor child,” thought Eric; “dear little Vernon; and he is to be flogged, perhaps birched, to-morrow.” He went off sadly to bed, and hardly once remembered, that _he_ too would come in for certain punishment the next day. CHAPTER IV MR. ROSE AND BRIGSON “Raro antecedentem scelestum Deseruit pede Poena claudo.”--HOR. After prayers the next morning Dr. Rowlands spoke to his boarders on the previous day’s discovery, and in a few forcible vivid words set before them, the enormity of the offence. He ended by announcing that the boys who were caught would be birched,--“except the elder ones, Bull and Brigson, who will bring me one hundred lines every hour of the half-holidays till further notice. There are some,” he said, “I am well aware, who, though present yesterday, were not detected. I am sorry for it, for _their_ sakes; they will be more likely to sin again. In cases like this, punishment is a blessing, and impunity a burden.” On leaving the room he bade Eric follow him into his study. Eric obeyed, and stood before the head-master with downcast eyes.