ebbed away. Gabriel remembered Abel's words in the play-ground--"There's
more than one kind of fagging."

When the laugh was over, Gabriel's had been loudest of all.




CHAPTER VII.

CASTLE DANGEROUS.


The next day when school was dismissed, Abel asked leave to stroll out
of bounds. He pushed along the road, whistling cheerily, whipping the
road-side grass and weeds with his little ratan, and all the while
approaching the foot of the hill up which the road wound through the
estate of Pinewood. As he turned up the hill he walked more slowly,
and presently stopped and leaned upon a pair of bars which guarded the
entrance of one of Mr. Burt's pastures. He gazed for some time down into
the rich green field that sloped away from the road toward a little
bowery stream, but still whistled, as if he were looking into his mind
rather than at the landscape.

After leaning and musing and vaguely whistling, he turned up the hill
again and continued his walk.

At length he reached the entrance of Pinewood--a high iron gate, between
huge stone posts, on the tops of which were urns overflowing with vines,
that hung down and partly tapestried the columns. Immediately upon