Wilton School | Page 4

burst out impetuously:
"No, you shan't die, mamma! Why should you die? I won't let you go!"
And Harry sobbed as though his heart would break. For his sake, Mrs
Campbell seemed to win strength and quietness. And taking him gently
by the hand she led him upstairs to bed, sat by him till he was heavily
asleep, his face all stained with tears, and then went wearily downstairs
again, took her writing desk, and began a letter to her husband.
CHAPTER IV.
WILTON SCHOOL.
The examination--Wilton school--Harry's
class-room--Absorbed--Prized possessions--Too
busy--Cribbing--Misplaced sympathy--Harry blushes.
The morning sun shone brightly over Wilton as Harry started to school;
brightly over the dancing waters of the roadstead; and the seawind sang
gaily through the wave-washed piles of the pier. The school-bell was
ringing lustily as Harry passed through the iron gates into the
playground. Everything was in bustle and confusion. Bats and balls
were laid aside; jackets thrust on hastily; rough heads smoothed by hot
hands. From their different house-doors the masters were emerging,
putting on, as they came, gowns, some brand-new, some rusty and
worn. The whole stream was setting in one and the same direction,
towards the doors of the school-buildings. And by the time the bell's
last clang had ceased, masters and boys were duly assembled in their
respective places in the big school-room. Prayers over, Dr Palmer
announced, amid breathless silence, the regulations respecting the
examination, which was unexpectedly to begin, in part, that morning.
Who does not remember those anxious, nervous days, before the

examination; the anticipation worse, if possible, than the actual
realisation; the visions of questions unanswered, translations sent up
full of mistakes, sums that never would come out right, problems that
never would be proved?
For the first few days questions, to be answered on paper, would be set
to the whole school according to their respective work and classes. On
the fifth day the examiner would arrive; he would commence at the
bottom of the school, and, taking two classes each day, examine them
vivâ voce.
This was the substance of Dr Palmer's speech; and then the business of
the morning began.
The different classes and their masters filed away into their particular
rooms, Dr Palmer and the senior form being left alone in the big
school-room.
The greater portion of the school-buildings, it should be stated, had
been converted some years ago from the remains of an old monastery.
Standing on a slight eminence, and backed by a deep belt of firs, broad
meadows sloped from it, straight down to a grey shingly beach, where
the boys used to bathe. Three sides only had left their ruins behind; and
these were accordingly rebuilt, as closely after the original style as was
possible. There was the shadowy row of cool cloisters, edging the
square smooth-shaven plot of grass, which no boy was allowed to cross.
Then all round the building above the cloisters were various
class-rooms; and at the end of one wing stood the chapel, and at the
other, the big school-room.
Harry's class-room was in one corner, and consequently was darker
than most of the others; but this the boys liked in the summer; it was
such a contrast after the glaring sun that streamed in through the
windows of the big school-room. And Harry's place, too, in the room,
he specially liked; close to the window, he could look out, through its
ivied frame, across the smooth green lawn, away down the meadows to
the distant sea. And who can wonder that the sight of the heaving
billows brought thoughts of his father to him many a time and oft? But

many a time, too, those dreams were snapt by the voice of Mr Prichard,
his master--
"Campbell, attend to your work;" or, "Campbell, don't look out of the
window;" or, when in a facetious mood, "Campbell, you cannot learn
your delectus by the light of nature."
But this morning, Harry was far too occupied to stare about. Not that he
was thinking specially of what his mother had told him the night before,
that she would soon be gone away from him; childlike, he had almost
forgotten that, or at any rate the examination, for the time being,
absorbed his whole attention. And like us all, he could not realise the
sorrow his mother's words conveyed. Who of us, indeed, does not feel,
even when standing over the grave of some dear one dead, even when
decking the green mound with flowers--feel it is well-nigh impossible
fully to realise that those hands, now laid white beneath the mould, will
never again be clasped in ours on earth. So it is no wonder that Harry
was in his usual good spirits; with this only difference, that the
examination into whose depths he had now