There was nothing to which poor Charley Channing was more sensitive, than to ridicule on the subject of his unhappy failing--his propensity to fear; and there is no failing to which schoolboys are more intolerant. Of moral courage--that is, of courage in the cause of right--Charles had plenty; of physical courage, little. Apart from the misfortune of having had supernatural terror implanted in him in childhood, he would never have been physically brave. Schoolboys cannot understand that this shrinking from danger (I speak of palpable danger), which they call cowardice, nearly always emanates from a superior intellect. Where the mental powers are of a high order, the imagination unusually awakened, danger is sure to be keenly perceived, and sensitively shrunk from. In proportion will be the shrinking dread of ridicule. Charles Channing possessed this dread in a remarkable degree; you may therefore judge how he felt, when he found it mockingly alluded to by Bywater. On this very day that we are writing of, Bywater caught Charles, and imparted to him in profound confidence an important secret; a choice few of the boys were about to play old Ketch a trick, obtain the keys, and have a game in the cloisters by moonlight. A place in the game, he said, had been assigned to Charles. Charles hesitated. Not because it might be wrong so to cheat Ketch--Ketch was the common enemy of the boys, of Charley as of the rest--but because he had plenty of lessons to do. This was Bywater’s opportunity; he chose to interpret the hesitation differently. “So you are afraid, Miss Charley! Ho! ho! Do you think the cloisters will be dark? that the moon won’t keep the ghosts away? I say, it _can’t_ be true, what I heard the other day--that you dare not be in the dark, lest ghosts should come and run away with you!” “Nonsense, Bywater!” returned Charley, changing colour like a conscious girl. “Well, if you are not afraid, you’ll come and join us,” sarcastically returned Bywater. “We shall have stunning good sport. There’ll be about a dozen of us. Rubbish to your lessons! you need not be away from them more than an hour. It won’t be _dark_, Miss Channing.” After this, fearing their ridicule, nothing would have kept Charley away. He promised faithfully to be in the cloisters at a quarter past seven. Accordingly, the instant tea was over, he got to his lessons; Tom at one side of the table--who had more, in proportion, to do than Charles--he at the other. Thus were they engaged when Hamish entered. “What sort of a night is it, Hamish?” asked Charles, thinking of the projected play. “Fine,” replied Hamish. “Where are they all?” “Constance is in the drawing-room, giving Annabel her music lesson. Arthur’s there too, I think, copying music.” Silence was resumed. Hamish stood over the fire in thought. Tom and Charles went on with their studies. “Oh dear!” presently exclaimed the latter, in a tone of subdued impatience.