"Yes," resumed Travice. "The dean informed Mr. Arkell that Henry's fall had not been accidental. But—as he had prayed the dean, so he prayed his father, to forgive the culprit. Lewis junior, I am here on the part of Mr. Arkell to offer his forgiveness to you."
"I wish I could as easily accord mine," said the dean. "No punishment will be inflicted on you, Lewis junior: not because no punishment, that I or Mr. Wilberforce could command, is adequate to the crime, but that his dying request, for your pardon, shall be complied with. If you have any conscience at all, his fate will lie upon it for the remainder of your life, and you will bear its remembrance about with you."
Lewis bent down his head on the shoulder nearest to him, and his howls changed into sobs.
"One word more, boys," said the dean. "I have observed that not one in the whole school—at least such is my belief—would be capable of acting as Henry Arkell did, in returning good for evil. The ruling principle of his life, and he strove to carry it out in little things as in great, was to do as he would be done by. Now what could have made him so different from you?"
The dean obtained no reply.
"I will tell you. He loved and feared God. He lived always as though God were near him, watching over his words and his actions; he took God for his guide, and strove to do His will: and now God has taken him to his reward. Do you know that his death was a remarkably peaceful one? Yes, I think you have heard so. Holy living, boys, makes holy dying; and it made his dying holy and peaceful. Allow me to ask, if you, who are selfish and wicked and malignant, could meet death so calmly?"
"Arkell's mother is often so ill, sir, that she doesn't know she'll live from one day to another," a senior ventured to remark in the general desperation. "Of course that makes her learn to try not to fear death, and she taught him not to."
"And she now finds her recompense," observed the dean. "A happy thing for you, if your mothers had so taught you. Dismiss the school, Mr. Wilberforce. And I hope," he added, turning round to the boys, as he and the other two gentlemen left the hall, "that you will, every one, go home, not to riot on this solemn holiday, but to meditate on these important thoughts, and resolve to endeavour to become more like Henry Arkell. You will attend service this afternoon."
And that was the ending. And the boy, with his talents, his beauty, and his goodness, was gone; and nothing of him remained but what was mouldering under the cloister gravestone.
Henry Cheveley Arkell.
Died March 24th, 18—,
Aged 16.
Not lost, but gone before.