soon after I got up. A rare taking he seemed to be in; with fright, or something like it; and wanted me to lend him the key of the church. 'No, no, young gent,' says I, 'not without the master's orders.' He was a panting like anything, and looked as resolute as a bear, and when he heard that, he snatched the key, and tore off with it. Presently, back he comes, saying it was the wrong key and wouldn't undo the door. Mr. George Prattleton had come round then: Mr. Prattleton had told him to ask about the time fixed for a funeral—which, by token, I remember was Dame Furbery's—and he took the key from Mr. Lewis, and hung it up, and railed off at me for trusting it to the college gents. Lewis finding he couldn't get it from me, went after Mr. George Prattleton, and they came back, and Mr. George took the key from the hook to go to the church with Lewis. What it was Lewis had said to him, I don't pertend to guess, but they was both as white as corpses—as white I know, as ever was dead Dame Furbery in her coffin: which was just about then a being screwed down. After all, they hung the key up again, and didn't go into the church."
"When was this?" asked Mr. Wilberforce.
"It was the very day, sir, after our cat's chaney saucer was done for; and that was done for the day after the grand audit dinner at the deanery. Master Henry Arkell, after going into the church to practise, couldn't be contented to bring the key back and hang it up, like a Christian, but must dash it on to the kitchen floor, where it split the cat's chaney saucer to pieces, and scattered the milk, a-frighting the cat, who had just got her nose in it, a'most into fits, and my missis too. Well, sir, when I opened my shutters the next morning, who should be a standing at the gate but Arkell, so I fetched him in to see the damage he had done; and it was while he was in the kitchen, a-counting the pieces, that Lewis came to the door."
"But this must have been early morning," cried Mr. Wilberforce.
"Somewhere about half after six, sir: it was half moonlight and half twilight. I remember what a bright clear morning it was for November."
"Why, at that hour both Lewis and Arkell must have been in their beds, asleep, at my house."
"Law, sir, who can answer for schoolboys, especially them big college gents? When they ought to be a-bed, they're up; and when they ought to be up, they're a-bed. They was both at my house that morning."
Mr. Wilberforce could not make much of the tale, except that two of his boarders were out when he had deemed them safe in bed; and he left the church. It was dusk then. As he was striding along, in an irascible mood, he met Henry Arkell. He touched his cap to the master, and was passing on.
"Not so fast, Mr. Arkell. I want a word with you."
Arkell stopped and stood before Mr. Wilberforce, his truthful eye and open countenance raised fearlessly.
"I gave you credit for behaving honourably, and as a gentleman ought, during the time you were residing in my house, but I find I was deceived. Who gave you leave, pray, to sneak out of it at early morning, when everybody else was in bed?"
"I never did, sir," replied Henry.
"Take care, Arkell. If there's one fault I punish more than another, it is a falsehood; and that you know. I say that you did sneak out of my house at untoward and improper hours."
"Indeed, sir, I never did," he replied with respectful earnestness.
The master raised his forefinger, and shook it at his pupil. "You were down at Hunt's one morning last November, by half-past six, perhaps earlier; you must have gone down by moonlight–Ah, I see," added the master, in an altered tone, for a change flashed over Henry Arkell's features, "conscience is accusing you of the falsehood."
"No, sir, I told no falsehood. I don't deny that I was at Hunt's one morning."
"Then how can you deny that you stole out of my house to get there? Perhaps you will explain, sir."
What was Henry Arkell to do? Explain, in the full sense of the word, he could not; but explain, in a degree, he must, for Mr. Wilberforce was not one to be trifled with. He was a perfectly ingenuous boy, both in manner and character, and Mr. Wilberforce had hitherto known him for a truthful one: indeed, he put more faith in Arkell than in all the rest of the thirty-nine king's scholars.
"Perhaps you will dare to tell me that you stopped out all night, instead of sneaking out in the morning?" pursued the master.
"Yes, sir, I did; but it was not my fault: I was kept out."
"Where were you, and who kept you out?"
"Oh, sir, if you would be so kind as not to press me—for indeed I cannot tell. I was kept out, and I could not help myself."
"I never heard so impudent an avowal from any boy in my life," proceeded Mr. Wilberforce, when he recovered his astonishment. "What was the nature of the mischief you were in? Come; I will know it."
"I was not in any mischief, sir. If I might tell the truth, you would say that I was not.'"
"This is most extraordinary behaviour," returned the master. "What reason have you for not telling the truth?"
"Because—because—well, sir, the reason is, that I could not speak without getting others into trouble. Indeed, sir," he earnestly added, "though I did stop out from your house all night, I did no wrong; I was in no mischief, and it was no fault of mine."
Strange perhaps to say, the master believed him: from his long experience of the boy, he could believe nothing but good of Harry Arkell, and if ever words bore the stamp of truth, his did now.
"I am in a hurry at present," said the master, "but don't flatter yourself this matter will rest."
Henry touched his cap again, and the master strode on to the residence of the Reverend Mr. Prattleton, and entered it without ceremony. Mr. Prattleton was seated with his two sons, and with George.
"Send the boys away for a minute, will you?" cried the master to his brother clergyman.
The boys went away, exceedingly glad to be sent. "You can go on with your Greek in the other room," said their father. But to that suggestion they were conveniently deaf, preferring to take an evening gallop through some of the more obscure streets, where they knocked furiously at all the doors, and pulled out a few of the bell-wires.
"An unpleasant affair has happened, Prattleton," began the master. "The register at St. James's has been robbed."
"The register robbed!" echoed Mr. Prattleton. "Not the book taken?"
"Not the book itself. A leaf has been taken out of it."
"How?"
"We must endeavour to find out how. Hunt protests that nobody has had access to it but ourselves, save in his presence."
"I do not suppose they have," returned Mr. Prattleton. "How could they? When was it taken?"
"Sometime since the beginning of November. And there'll be a tremendous stir over it, as sure as that we are sitting here: it was wanted for—for—some trial at the next assizes," concluded the master, recollecting that Mr. Fauntleroy had cautioned him still not to speak of it. "Fauntleroy's people went to-day to take a copy of it, and found it gone; so Fauntleroy came on to me."
"You are sure it is gone?" continued Mr. Prattleton. "An entry is so easily overlooked."
"I am sure it is not in the book now: and I read it there last November."
"Well, this is an awkward thing. Have you no suspicion?—no clue?"
"Not any. Hunt was telling a tale–By the way," added Mr. Wilberforce, turning to George Prattleton, who had moved himself to a polite distance, as if not caring to hear, "you were mixed up in that. He says, that last November you and Lewis had some secret between you, about the church. Lewis went down to his house one morning by moonlight, got the key by stratagem, and brought it back, saying it was the wrong one: and you then went to the church with him, and both of you were agitated. What was it all about? What did he want in the church?"
"Oh—something had been left there, I think he said, when one of the college boys had gone in to practise. That was nothing, Mr. Wilberforce. We did not go into the church, after all."
George Prattleton spoke with eagerness, and then hastened from the room, but not