SCHOOL DAYS
CHAPTER IX
FINIS
"Strange friend, past, present, and to be;
Loved deeplier, daiklier understood;
Behold, I dream a dream of good,
And mingle all the world with thee."—Tennyson.
N the summer of 1842, our hero stopped once again at the well-known station; and, leaving his bag and fishing-rod with a porter, walked slowly and sadly up toward the town. It was now July. He had rushed away from Oxford the moment that term was over, for a fishing ramble in Scotland with two college friends, and had been for three weeks living on oatcake, mutton-hams, and whiskey, in the wildest parts of Skye. They had descended one sultry evening on the little inn at Kyle Rhea ferry, and while Tom and another of the party put their tackle together and began ex-
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