y Jf Few people could guess why George Oak worth, master of the national school at Craigside, extended the pat ronage of his friendship to. Dick Den holme, drunkard and law-breaker. He was a handsome, pale, intellectual youth of twenty-five years, with a taste for botanising and geological speculation; while Dick, fifteen years his senior, was a man of no taste what ever, unless the taste for ale be counted —a being whose rough and dissolute aspect spc'.ce with such unblushing ef frontery of his flagrant knavishness that a little dissimulation might have passed, in him, for a kind of negative virtue. Yet tho relationship which subsisted between them was that of the most intimate comrades. They lived in tho same cottage: they spent their Satur days in long excursions; and it was un stood that those who wished to quarrel with the young teacher might also hope to indulge themselves in the hos tility of Dick. The opinion was boldly hazarded by some that, if the truth could be told, George Oakworth was no better than he ought to be, be cause a man is known by the company he keeps. There were othsrs who pointed out that the schoolmaster, out of motives of personal timidity, had merely possessed himself of a stout de fender. Not only were both these views mistaken ones, but when the friendship was struck up it was Dick who took the initiative. Alandoninga hopeful career and the m rotricious insincerities of a big city, George Oakworth had sought oblivion aud honest dealing in a village com munity. The first week of his duties at the national school was disturbed by an incident, which, trivial in it self, sufficed to shape for a while his course of life. He had begun with a gentle hand, hoping to interest the boys rather than to govern them; and although some at times had fallen happily asleep, and others, on the back benches, had exhibited a morti fying preference for the furtive game called "noughts and crosses," he had persevered with heroic good temper. Hut one restless morning the sharp crack of an explosive paper pellet sounded on the wall behind him, and the school burst out laughing. His face flushed, and his practised eye traveled at once to the delinquent, an overgrown and lubberly youth named Puggy Cullingworth, who was accustomed to slaver on his copybook, and whose father hadsenthim to school at an age when it was uo longer pos sible to teach him anything, Puggy sat at tho end of a bench. Advancing upon him slowly the teacher administered a box on the ear which smote, as the lightning smites, before it was seen, and which set a big bell booming in his head The school felt that the incident . had only commenced and was thrilled with a gleeful expectancy. Puggy had long been admired for his amazing effrontery and unmanageable du lness. He could fight any three small boys of the normul school age, and it was wed known that old Scaife, who kept the school v%hen he first came to it, did not dare to frown at him. Conse quently when the effeminate now mas ter, palo and unsuspecting, advanced upon tho raw-boned hero and struck him an impressive silence brooded in the room. And the wide-eyed on lookers were right The incident had rot terminated. When the young boor sprang to his feet with a cry of rage the? domiuio gripped him by the slack of his waisteo.it, kneading his fists into the rebel's abdomen, and rushed him down the schoolroom till his luck struck the wall with a crash that knocked all the breath out of his body and all tho expression out of his face. "You big baby," he cried hoarsely. "Go to your seat. If you had been more of a man I'd have thrashed you!" And, turning to the rest, he added, with a quietness of manner that was equally appalling with fury: "I wish to treat this school as a seminary of gentlemen; but I will be treated as a g ntleinan myself." \\ hich was rather fine, but rather atove the heads of his juvenile audi ence, whose hearts were beating fast at ihe spectacle of this vivid and awful example. Moreover, a clamorous bel lowing A>f inarticulate threats and pro tests burst the next moment from the hum t