THE GRAVESTONE IN THE CLOISTERS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "ASHLEY."

I.

THE Reverend Mr. Wilberforce sat at the head of his dinner-table, eating his own dinner and carving for his pupils. His face looked hot and angry, and his spectacles were pushed to the top of his brow, for if there was one thing more than another that excited the ire of the master, it was that of any boys being unpunctual at meals, and Cookesley had this day chosen to be absent. The second serving of boiled beef was going round when he made his appearance.

"What sort of behaviour do you call this, sir?" was the master's salutation. "Do you expect to get any dinner ?"

"I am very sorry to be so late, sir," replied Cookesley, eyeing the boiled beef wishfully, but not daring to take his seat. "I went to see Arkell, and-"

"And who is Arkell, pray, or you either, that you must upset the regulations of my house?" retorted the master. "You should choose your visiting times better, Mr. Cookesley."

Yes, sir. I heard he was worse; that's the reason I went; and when I got there the dean was with him. I waited, but I had to come away without seeing Arkell, after all."

"The dean with Arkell!" echoed Mr. Wilberforce.

"He is there still, sir. Arkell is a great deal worse. They say he will never come to school or college again."

"Who says so, pray?"

"Everybody's saying it now," returned Cookesley. "There's something wrong with his head, sir; some internal injury caused by the fall ; but they don't know whether it's an abscess, or what it is. It may kill him, they say."

The master's wrath had faded: truth to say, his anger was generally more fierce in show than in reality. "You may take your seat for this once, Cookesley, but if ever you transgress again- -Halloa !" broke

off the master, as he cast his eyes on another of his pupils, "what's the matter with you, Lewis, junior? Are you choking, sir?"

Lewis, junior, was choking, or gasping, or something of the sort, for his face was distorted, and his eyes were round with seeming fright. "What is it?" angrily repeated the master.

"It was the piece of meat, sir," gasped Lewis. A ready excuse.

"No it wasn't," put in Vaughan the bright, who sat next to Lewis, junior. "Here's the piece of meat you were going to eat: it dropped off the fork on to your plate again: it couldn't be the meat. He's choking at nothing, sir."

"Then, if you must choke, you had better go and choke outside, and come back when it's over," said the master to Lewis. And away Lewis went: none guessing at the fear and horror which had taken possession of him.

The assize week had passed, and this was the week following it, and

still Henry Arkell did not make his appearance in the cathedral or the school. Was it likely that the effects of a fall, which broke no bones, bruised no limbs, only told somewhat heavily upon his head, should last all this while, and incapacitate him from his duties? Had it been any other of the king's scholars, no matter which of the whole thirty-nine, Mr. Wilberforce would have said that he was skulking, and have sent a sharp mandate for him to appear in his place; but he knew better things of Henry Arkell. He did not much like what Cookesley said-that Arkell might never come out again, though he affected to receive the information with disbelief.

The dull, heavy pain in the head, complained of by Henry Arkell soon after the fall in the cathedral (a somewhat mysterious fall, as it was looked upon, since nobody could imagine what caused it), had increased, by imperceptible degrees, until it grew to intensity. Then his friends called in the family doctor, who said he saw no cause for apprehension, and thought he only required rest. But when two or three days more went on, and the pain grew no better, but worse, and the boy more heavy, it dawned into the surgeon's mind that he possibly did not understand the case, and it might be as well to have the advice of a physician. The most clever the city afforded was summoned; and he did not appear to understand it, either. That there was some internal injury to the head, both agreed; but, what it might be, was not so easy to state. So a few days more went on, and the doctors paid their regular visits, and the pain still grew worse; and then the half shadowed doubt grew into one which had little shadow about it, but stern substance—that the injury was rapidly running on to a fatal issue.

He had not then taken to his bed: he would sit at his chamber window in an easy-chair, his poor aching head leaning on a pillow. "You would be better in bed," everybody said to him. No, he thought he was best up, he answered: it was more change: when he was tired of the chair and the pillow, he could lie down outside the bed. "It is unaccountable his liking to be at the window so much," Mrs. Arkell remarked to Mr. St. John. To them it might be: for how could they know that a sight of one, who might pass, and cast a glance up to him, made his day's happiness?

One afternoon, just about the time that the physician was first sent for, Mr. St. John called to see him. Henry was at his usual post, the window, but standing up, his head resting against the frame, and his eyes strained after some distant object outside. So absorbed was he, that Mr. St. John had to touch his arm to draw his attention, and Henry I drew back with a start.

"How are you to-day, Harry? Better?"

66 No, thank you. This curious pain in my head gets worse." "Why do you call it curious?"

"It is not like an ordinary pain. And I cannot tell exactly where it is. I cannot put my hand on any part of my head and say it is here or it is there. It seems to be in the centre of the inside-as if it could not be got at."

"What were you watching so eagerly?"

"I was looking outside," was Henry's evasive reply. "They had Dr. Ware to me this morning: did you know it ?"

"I am glad of that!" exclaimed Mr. St. John. say ?"

"What does he

"I did not hear him say much. He asked me where my head was struck when I fell, but I could not tell him—I did not know at the time, you remember. He and Mr.

Henry's voice faltered. A sudden, almost imperceptible, movement of the head nearer the window, and a wild accession of colour to his feverish cheek, betrayed to Mr. St. John that something was passing, which bore for him a deep interest. He raised his own head and

caught a sufficient glimpse: Georgina Beauclerc.

It told Mr. St. John all: though he had not been without his suspicions. He recalled certain words Miss Beauclerc had spoken to him the night previous to Assize Sunday, when he had gone to the deanery for an hour, after meeting the judges at dinner at the bishop's palace. Mysterious words they had sounded to Mr. St. John then, but now their meaning was cleared to him. So! the boy's heart had been thus early awakened-and crushed.

"The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers

Is always the first to be touched by the thorns,"

whistled Mr. St. John to himself.

Ay, crushing is as sure to follow that early awaking, as that thorns grow on certain rose-trees.

The first, beyond the immediate family, to hear the news that there was no further hope, was Mr. St. John. He never missed a day without going to see Henry, and upon going one morning as usual, he found him in bed.

"Like a sensible man as you are," quoth Mr. St. John, by way of salutation. "Now don't rise from it again until you are better." Henry looked at him, an expression in his eyes that Mr. St. John did not like, and did not understand. "Did they tell you anything down stairs, Mr. St. John ?" he inquired.

"I did not see any one but the servant. I came straight up."

"Mamma is lying down, I dare say: she has been sitting with me part of the night. Then I will tell it you. I shall not be here many days," he whispered, putting his hand within Mr. St. John's.

Mr. St. John did not take the meaning: that the case would have a fatal termination had not yet crossed his mind. "Where shall you be ?"

cried he, gaily, "up in the moon?"

Henry sighed." Up somewhere. I am going to die." "Going to what?" was the angry response.

"I am dying, Mr. St. John.'

Mr. St. John's pulses stood still.

"Who has been putting that

rubbish in your head?" cried he, when he recovered them to speak. "The doctors told my father yesterday evening, that as I went on, like this, from bad to worse, without their being able to discover the true nature of the case, they began to fear it might terminate fatally. Afterwards mamma came and broke it to me."

"Why did she do so?" involuntarily uttered Mr. St. John, in an accent of reproach. "Though their opinion may be unfavourablewhich I don't believe, mind-they had no right to frighten you with it."

"It does not frighten me. Just at first I shrank from the news, but I am quite reconciled to it now. A faint idea that this might be the ending, has been running through my own mind for some days past, though I would not dwell on it sufficiently to give it a form."

“I am astonished that Mrs. Arkell should have imparted it to you!" emphatically repeated Mr. St. John. "What could she have been thinking of ?"

"Oh, Mr. St. John! mamma has striven to bring us up not to fear death. What would have been the use of her lessons, had she thought I should run in terror from it when it came ?"

"She ought not to have told you-she ought not to have told you!" was the continued burden of Mr. St. John's song. "You may get well yet."

"Then there is no harm done. But, with death near, would you have had me, the only one it concerns, left in ignorance to meet it, not knowing it was there? Mamma has not waited herself for death-as she has done, you know, for years-without learning a better creed than that."

Mr. St. John made no reply, and Henry went on: "I have had such a pleasant night with mamma. She read to me parts of the Revelations; and in talking of the glories which I may soon see, will you believe that I almost forgot my pain? She says how thankful she is now, that she has been enabled to train me up more carefully than

are trained-to think more of God."

"You are a strange boy," interrupted Mr. St. John. "In what way am I strange?"

many boys

"To anticipate death in that tone of cool ease. Have you no regrets to leave behind you ?"

Many regrets but they seemed to fade into insignificance last night, while mamma was talking with me. It is best that they should."

"Harry, it strikes me that you have had your griefs and troubles, inexperienced as you are," resumed Mr. St. John.

"Oh yes, I have," he answered, betrayed into an earnestness, incompatible with cautious reserve. "Some of the college boys have not suffered me to lead a pleasant life with them," he continued, more calmly: "and then there has been my father's gradually straitening income."

"I think there must have been some other grief than these," was Mr. St. John's remark.

"What other grief could there have been?"

"I know but of one. And you are over young for that."

"Of course I am ; too young," was the eager answer.

"That is enough," quietly returned Mr. St. John; "I did not tell you to betray yourself. Nay, Henry, don't shrink from me; let me hear it: it will be better and happier for you that I should."

"There is nothing-I don't know what you mean-what are you talking of, Mr. St. John ?" was the incoherent answer.

Harry, my poor boy, I know almost as much as you," he whispered. "I know what it is, and who it is. Georgie Beauclerc. There: you cannot tell me much, you see."

Henry Arkell laid his hand across his hot face and aching eyes:

his chest was heaving with emotion. Mr. St. John leaned over him, not less tenderly than a mother.

"You should not have wasted your love upon her: she is a heartless girl. I expect she drew you on, and then turned round and said she did not mean it."

99

"Oh yes, she did draw me on," he replied, in a tone full of anguish; "otherwise, I never- -But it was my fault also. I ought to have remembered the barriers that divided us: themany "You ought to have remembered that she is an incorrigible flirt, that is what you ought to have remembered," interrupted Mr. St. John. Well, well," sighed Henry, "I cannot speak of these things to you: less to you than to any one."

66

"Is that an enigma? I should think you could best speak of them to me, because I have guessed your secret, and the ice is broken."

Again Henry Arkell sighed. "Speaking of them at all will do no good; and I would now rather think of the future than of the past. My future lies there," he added, pointing to the blue sky, which, as seen from his window, formed a canopy over the cathedral tower. "She has, in all probability, many years before her here: Mr. St. John, if you spend those years together, will you sometimes talk of me: I should not like to be quite forgotten by you-or by her."

"Spend them together!" he echoed. "Another enigma. What should bring me spending my years with Georgina Beauclere?"

Henry withdrew his hand from his eyes, and turned them on Mr. St. John. Are you not engaged to her? Is she not to be your wife?" "She! Georgina Beauclerc! No, thank you."

"But-I

Henry Arkell's face wore an expression of puzzled wonder.
It was for your sake she treated me

do not understand. It must be so.

so ill. She loves you, Mr. St. John."

"She is a little simpleton, then. I would not marry Georgie Beauclerc if there were not another English girl extant. And as to loving her—Harry, I only wish, if we are to lose you, that I loved you but one tenth part as little."

"Sorrow in store for her! sorrow in store for her!" he murmured, as be turned his face to the pillow. "I must send her a message before I die you will deliver it for me."

"I won't have you talk about dying," retorted Mr. St. John. may get well yet, I tell you."

"You

Henry opened his eyes again to reply, and the calm peace had returned to them. "It is better to talk of death than to shrink from it, Mr. St. John." And Mr. St. John grumbled an ungracious acquiescence.

"And there is another thing I wish you would do for me: get Lewis, junior, here to-day. If I send to him, I know he will not come; but I must see him. Tell him, please, that it is only to shake hands and make friends; that I will not say a word to grieve him. He will understand."

"It is more than I do," said Mr. St. John. "He shall come."

"I should like to see Aultane-but I don't think my head will stand it all. Tell him from me, not to be harsh with the choristers, now he is senior

"He is not senior yet," interposed Mr. St. John, in a husky tone. March-VOL. CXV. NO. CCCCLIX.

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