most insupportable tyranny, and that they ought to strike for freedom. Now almost every effort for that sacred cause had succeeded, from the Exodus of the Israelites to the last fight of the Greeks under Lord Byron. He adverted to Epaminondas and Leonidas: talked of the tyrants Tarquin and Cæsar, and how they had fallen by patriotic arms; and, lastly, urged that they had only to be unanimous, and the rod of the scholastic despot would be for ever broken.

The Greek class, in the end, entered most enthusiastically into his views, and, on the next day, a secret muster was had of the other boys at the bottom of the orchard, when the whole plan was detailed, and the machinery put in a state of forwardness, the whole of the school-boys giving their hearty concurrence. Some, however, preferred to wait till the breaking-up; but this was stoutly opposed by the captain, who urged that the whole should be put in practice the very next day, or the day after at the latest. "On a previous occasion," he said, (for Master Henry had been at this fun before,) "" 'some officious little urchin had told the master the whole plot, several days having been foolishly allowed to intervene between the planning of the project and its execution; and, to the astonishment of the boys, they had found the master at the desk two hours before the usual time, and had the mortification of being congratulated on their early attendance, with an order to be there every morning at the same hour."

To prevent the recurrence of such a defeat, the boys determined upon organising their plan the very next night, and accordingly agreed to assemble at a well-known tombstone in the neighbouring church-yard. Our leader took his stand at one end of the stone, with the head boys who were in the

secret at the other, and on each side of him. "My boys," he said, "we are met here upon a most important occasion; in defence of our rights and liberties, and in the cause of light tasks and more holidays-for all of you know how we have fretted and fumed over long tasks-how we begin at six o'clock in the morning, and are not done till eight o'clock at night-how we have only half-an-hour for play and breakfast, an hour for play and dinner, and only half-anhour for play and supper; and how we are forbidden to speak after we go to bed; and how we go to bed in the dark; and how the shutters of our dormitory are shut close when there is any moonlight." ("We avow it, we know it," said the boys.) "Then, I have to ask you," said the captain, "whether we are to endure it like mongrel curs, or whether we ought not to fight like true-bred bull-dogs?" ("We ought, we ought," said the boys, not being very particular in this general answer as to which the propositions they acceded.) "Then," continued the captain, "are we are we not noble Grecians, are we not patriots by our very studies? Do we read of the fall of Thermopylæ, or of the heroic retreat of the ten thousand, for nothing? No; the ideas of liberty that have been wrought in us by our tyrants we will turn against themselves! We will go forward, like Greeks. The boys of the Greek form will be your captains, and I am to be your captain-general. Those who are cowards had better retire, and go back to their future floggings; but you, who have pluck, had better go with the friends of liberty, and not be flogged for nothing. If we are to be flogged, let us be flogged in a worthy cause. Come here, then, my boys, and sign your names; and let us, to show that we are in

earnest, sign it with our blood!" The captain-general imme. diately pulled out a pen and a sheet of paper, and having tied some bits of string about the finger-ends of two or three of the boys, with a pin he drew blood to answer for ink, and signed himself first, and all the Greek boys immediately after him; some others followed in succession. The little boys, however, slunk away, and some of the more timid ones. Upon the whole, eighty names were obtained, sufficient to defend the school-room against the Pedagogue: and then the captain-general, with an air of great importance, thus addressed his colleagues :

We

"Friends and Schoolmates,-We have now ratified a great act that is to be; we have signed with our blood our will to strike for freedom, and no more to be the slaves of school tyranny. We are a Greek Phalanx. When Greek meets Greek then comes the tug of war.' We must screw ourselves up to heroic deeds and do all that becomes men. must think of Achilles, and Hector, and Brutus, and Curtius, and Hannibal, and Scipio-for they were all boys once, as we are. I have the key of the school, and shall be there before the cock crows or the old cormorant leaves his roost. He will not arrive till nine, and every one of you must be there before seven, so as allow time for barricading the doors and windows. Go to Mr. Barritt, the cake man, and lay in a good store of his buns, sausage rolls, three-cornered puffs, and other kinds of provender. Let every one bring something with him with which to carry on the war of freedom. Let us have shields also defend us, and bows and arrows, and clubs, and bats and balls, for our weapons; and, above all, a good supply of turnips or potatoes, or both, for our ammunition

and also plenty of water to drink, for we shall have some hot work, depend upon it. Let everything be done secretly and with order. Be careful, every one of you, to obey me exactly in what I tell you to do. Now, march home directly, and try to sleep as if nothing great was on the tapis.”

A half-subdued cheer from the heroes followed these worthy remarks and directions, and the boys immediately vanished from the place of meeting, and having dined and gone through their afternoon severe tasks they retired to their dormitories. The Greek boys being all collected together could hold conference during the hours appropriated to slumber, and Alexander, being captain of the sleeping ward, of course offered no objection to their treasonable consultations.

After a few minutes spent in resolving themselves into a committee of ways and means, it was proposed by the Captain that some should be sent out on a foraging expedition, for the purpose of laying in a supply of potatoes or turnips to be used as missiles of defence in the forthcoming siege. Four of the elder boys were therefore speedily let down from the bedroom windows, by means of united blankets, and directed to go and forage for the missiles already alluded to. There was a turnip-field close by belonging to the school, and there were potatoes in store in a dirt-pit in the same locality, and some three or four bushels of each were quickly removed to the school-room, and were quietly and snugly placed at the bottom of an old closet used for lumber. The boys then went in search of all the sticks and other barricading implements they could find, and brought broomsticks, mopsticks, old brooms and mops, stakes used in the garden to prop hollyhocks, hurdles of iron and wood-in short, all kinds of useful matters

were, at the gloomy hour of midnight, collected for this great enterprise, and, after an hour's foraging, the Greek class returned shivering to their beds.

Little sleep was had that night, as the thoughts of the boys were entirely upon what was to be done on the coming morning. Some slept, some dreamed, others lay thinking and tumbling about like ships at anchor, but in heaving billows; but at last the dim gray of the morning began to peep sullenly in at the windows, with all the dingy, leaden, uncomfortable look common to the last month of the year. At half-past six o'clock there was just light enough to see noses by, and the major part of the boys got up and dressed themselves, ready for the fray. The Greek boys led the way out of the dormitory, and, after their usual ablutions rushed into the schoolroom, and by far the greater part of the remainder followed them. In a very few minutes the doors were closed, and the carpenters' tools of the boys (many of them had such things in their play-boxes) were now brought into requisition. The noise of the hammer, the creak of the gimlet, the clatter of boards and chairs was heard by those without; the windows were blockaded; desks, forms, and other matters were piled up against every point of ingress, and the whole made as secure as possible. The thoughtful general had, however, taken care to leave certain loop-holes in the upper part of the works, for the annoyance of the enemy, and a few were made at the lower part of the door, for several of the boys had bows and arrows, and it would have been bad generalship not to have provided for their use. There were also the long shot-the potato, and the round shot, -the turnip to be employed; and, what was better still, so