CHAPTER VII.

THE UNHAPPY LIAR.

ERNEST was not lying down. He sat in a rocking chair, his head resting on his hand. He smiled when he saw his teacher, and asked her to sit down.

"Mother has gone into Uncle Drake's. She will be back in a minute," he said.

"I came to see you, Ernest. I think, though you haven't touched my knife, you can tell me something about it."

Blushes dyed the boy's cheeks, as he answered,—

"I told mother, and she says ought to tell you."

His lips quivered as he added, "I didn't think you'd believe I had taken it."

"You can never imagine how much pain I felt when I feared temptation had proved too powerful for you. But you see what a good thing it is to be known as a truthful boy. I then believed your word, as I do now."

"I was coming home with Henry," began Ernest, "and I saw him have a beautiful knife. He said he had found it, and was going to keep it. I thought he was telling the truth, till he tried to make me promise not to tell. Then I was afraid there was something wrong. I told him, if he knew whose it was, he ought to carry it back. I didn't see it again till you held it up in school."

"And are you not afraid Henry will carry out his threat, and cut you worse than he did before?"

"Mother has gone in to see Uncle John about that."

"Well, I'm going in there, too. It is time for me to tell his parents what a bad influence he exerts in the school. Unless he repents, and asks forgiveness, I cannot allow him to go back. We must have no thieves nor liars there."

Unfortunately Mr. Drake had gone to a town at some distance, for a load of lumber, and, was not expected home until late. Mrs. Drake invited the teacher into the parlor, and seemed greatly distressed when listening to the account of her son's bad conduct. She said, her husband would be very angry, both with Henry and with her, for keeping from him what she knew about the keys.

Miss Fosdick left a message for Mr. Drake, that Henry could not attend school till he had made a confession of his sin.

When Mr. Monroe came home to supper, and learned the disgraceful story, he started from his chair in great excitement, exclaiming,—

"Henry ought to be sent to the Reform School. If he goes on so, he will come to the gallows. If he dares lay a finger on you, Ernest, I'll have him put there. John may fume and rage as much as he will. I've borne all that I shall from his family."

"Mary Anne feels dreadfully," urged Mrs. Monroe. "I'm so sorry for her sake."

"She'll feel worse yet, Jane, if nothing is done to prevent Henry from acting so shamefully. I yielded to you against my own judgment, and let John believe our Ernest stole his keys. I'll do so no longer."

In the evening, he went over to talk with Mary Anne.

Henry knew that his mother had heard the story of the knife. At the supper-table, the tears trickled down her cheeks, and once she said,—

"O Henry! You'll break my heart if you go on so. Why can't you confess to the teacher, and be a good boy?"

Feeling very restless and unhappy, he went up to his room early; but soon, hearing his uncle's voice, talking in excited tones, he crept softly down to the door where he could hear every word.

"I ought to have done it before," Mr. Monroe was saying. "John has reason to be angry. It isn't doing as I would have him do to me. Henry grows worse every day, and something must be done to correct his dreadful habit of lying."

"I'm afraid John will break every bone in his body," sobbed Mary Anne. "If it hadn't been for that, I should have told him myself about the keys."

"Henry deserves a good thrashing," answered the clock-maker. "It may save him from the gallows. I shall tell John we all knew he was the guilty one, and why I consented to keep it from him for a time. You had better tell him, too."

"I can't! I can't! You don't realize how angry he'll be; and you know he says he'll never forgive."

Henry had heard enough. Trembling from head to foot, he crept back to his chamber; but he did not think of going to bed.

"I'll stay here till mother goes into her room, and then I'll run off. I know there are places enough better than this. At any rate, I wont stay here, where they're all against me, to be half killed by father."

Stealing to the closet, with his bare feet to the floor, he soon discovered his father's pocket-book in the same pocket where the keys had once been, and, taking from it five dollars, all the money it contained, he wrapped it in a paper, and lay down in his clothes.

"I know mother wont tell father a word about it to-night," he said, his teeth chattering, "and I'll be off before he's up. He said he shouldn't be at home till eleven, 'cause the moon wouldn't rise till late; so it will be light for me to run away."