Poor boy! he felt in a sad strait, for he well knew how hard it would be to clear himself. However, the consciousness of his innocence gave him a brave heart. His mother had always told him that, no matter what the consequences were, so long as his conscience told him he was in the right, it was all well; and that seeming misfortunes would but work to his final good.
Prayers over, Harry took up his position at Mr Prichard's desk. It so happened no boys were kept in that evening, so the rest of the masters were soon gone; but somehow or other the room did not clear so speedily as usual. Harry's class especially was among the lingerers. The report had soon spread through the school. And the boys (the younger ones chiefly), always glad of a row when not themselves concerned, stood peeping through the open doors.
"Leave the room at once, all of you," shouted Mr Prichard, "unless you want an imposition?"
Waiting calmly and deliberately till the room was clear, and the doors shut, while Harry longed, and yet dreaded for him to begin, Mr Prichard turned and said—
"Well, Campbell, what have you to say for yourself? This morning, I catch you in the act of copying, or attempting to copy, from Egerton's paper; and, now, this afternoon, I find you with a book in your possession, which, you know, you have no business whatever to have. I suppose this will account for the correctness of your work during the past half-year? Do you feel very proud of your performance," he added, sneeringly, "when none of it was your own labour or cleverness?"
Meek-hearted Harry was in tears long before this oration was concluded; and the streaming face and crimson blushes only tended to confirm Mr Prichard's conviction of his guilt.
"Please, sir, I wasn't copying off Egerton this morning," sobbed Harry; "I wasn't copying off him; and it isn't my book. It's—it's—it isn't mine, sir!"
"It isn't yours, sir?" cried Mr Prichard, indignantly. "Have you the face to contradict me flatly, sir, and say the book does not belong to you? Whose name is that?" he cried, holding the delectus-translation, open at its fly-leaf, to Harry.
And there plain enough it was—Harry Campbell.
"No, sir, no; it isn't mine," persisted Harry, through his tears. "It isn't mine. I never saw it till this morning."