“My lord,” said Bywater, turning his red, impudent, but honest face full upon the prelate, “I don’t deny that we do provoke him; but you can have no idea what an awful tyrant he is to us. I can’t believe any one was ever born with such a cross-grained temper. He vents it upon every one: not only upon the college boys, but upon all who come in his way. If your lordship were not the bishop,” added bold Bywater, “he would vent it upon you.” “Would he?” said the bishop, who was a dear lover of candour, and would have excused a whole bushel of mischief, rather than one little grain of falsehood. “Not a day passes, but he sets upon us with his tongue. He would keep us out of the cloisters; he would keep us out of our own schoolroom. He goes to the head-master with the most unfounded cram--stories, and when the master declines to notice them (for he knows Ketch of old), then he goes presumingly to the dean. If he let us alone, we should let him alone. I am not speaking this in the light of a complaint to your lordship,” Bywater added, throwing his head back. “I don’t want to get him into a row, tyrant though he is; and the college boys can hold their own against Ketch.” “I expect they can,” significantly replied the bishop. “He would keep you out of the cloisters, would he?” “He is aiming at it,” returned Bywater. “There never would have been a word said about our playing there, but for him. If the dean shuts us out, it will be Ketch’s doings. The college boys have played in the cloisters since the school was founded.” “He would keep you out of the cloisters; so, by way of retaliation, you lock him into them--an uncomfortable place of abode for a night, Bywater.” “My lord!” cried Bywater. “Sir!” responded his lordship. “Does your lordship think it was I who played that trick on Ketch?” “Yes, I do--speaking of you conjointly with the school.” Bywater’s eyes and his good-humoured countenance fell before the steady gaze of the prelate. But in the gaze there was an earnest--if Bywater could read it aright--of good feeling, of excuse for the mischief, rather than of punishment in store. The boy’s face was red enough at all times, but it turned to scarlet now. If the bishop had before suspected the share played in the affair by the college boys, it had by this time been converted into a certainty. “Boy,” said he, “confess it if you like, be silent if you like; but do not tell me a lie.” Bywater turned up his face again. His free, fearless eyes--free in the cause of daring, but fearless in that of truth--looked straight into those of the bishop. “I never do tell lies,” he answered. “There’s not a boy in the school punished oftener than I am; and I don’t say but I generally deserve it! but it is never for telling a lie. If I did tell them, I should slip out of many a scrape that I am punished for now.”