Wilton School; or, Harry Campbell's Revenge

by F. E. Weatherly

It was not long before Harry and his father were both seated in the train that was to carry them to Wilton. A wearisome journey it was, that hot dusty day, and Harry was very tired, when, about half-past seven, they reached the nearest station to Wilton, a small town called Oldwell.

From this place they took a cab and drove to Wilton; and how familiar it was to them both as they bowled along the leafy summer lanes in the June twilight, and into the well-remembered village!

By Alan's direction, the cabman drove them to the farm; and there, having deposited them and their luggage, turned his horse's head, and departed.

The meeting may easily be imagined. Two years had not made much difference in the good Mrs Valentine, though that time had done so much for Harry. And the two years of doubt and anxiety for "her boy," as she called him, had only increased her affection. But it was a sad, sad pleasure, this meeting; a sad pleasure this, their return to the little farm where there had been so much of gladness and so much of sorrow for them all. And lips quivered, and eyes were red with starting tears, and scarcely a word was uttered.

While his father wandered from room to room, lingering over each spot that he associated with her, his dead, loved wife, Harry sat in the window-seat of the oak-panelled parlour, and, pressing his face against the glass, looked out across the churchyard, and remembered how he sat thus on that far-off evening when his father said good-bye for ever to her who slept yonder near the ivied church-porch.

Presently Alan entered the room, and taking Harry's hand, walked with him to the churchyard. And there, over the grave carefully, lovingly tended by Mrs Valentine, they stood, father and son, and not a word was said. Was not their sorrow too great for words? And, as of old, the twilight breezes crept in and out among the leaves of the lime-trees, and round the grey church tower.

The next morning was one of excitement to Harry. There was first a visit to Mr and Mrs Bromley, who were as delighted as they were surprised to see the two. And then came the visit to the school. Never, as long as he lived, did Harry forget that morning. How the Doctor's sternness all vanished; how he welcomed him and his father as if they had been his own flesh and blood; how he conducted them to the big school-room, and told the boys who it was (for Harry was so altered, scarcely any one knew him); how the room rung with deafening cheers; how the masters shook hands with them; and how he left, as the school's hero, he who, but two days since, had been roaming about the country with a travelling menagerie.

Yes! it was a grand time for Harry. Yet even this joy, even his sorrow and loneliness at his mother's grave, did not banish from his heart the wish for revenge. He had shut his ears to the words—"Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord."

Mr Campbell had soon made up his mind with regard to Harry's future. The two years he had been away from school were, at his age, a most serious loss to him; and all idea of his going to Oxford must be abandoned. There was not time for him to make progress sufficient to enable him to do well there; and unless he could do well, and help himself by gaining a scholarship, his father could not afford to send him to the University.

So he arranged that he should remain four years with a well-to-do farmer of his acquaintance in Herefordshire, and learn farming; at the end of that time, he should go to Australia, and try his fortune there, where so many were filling their pockets and returning to England rich men.