74 DOGGED JACK.

 What could be better for the future safety of the
traveller, than that the pitfalls into which he has
already fallen should be continually lighted up,
even though with a fearful distinctness, that for all
time to come he may guard his trembling feet from
their dreaded brink! But our poor boy's pain was
too new-too new, and sore, and raw, for him to feel
any comfort in such reflections as these latter.
 All he was capable of feeling was a consuming
sorrow for the evil he had occasioned a bitter
remorse at not having obeyed his father's well-
known wishes.
 He had been repeatedly forbidden to play prac-
tical jokes of any kind-and now all this misery
was come on him in consequence of his wilful
disobedience. There lay the sting that smarted !
 At last he stopped in his aimless pacing from
sheer exhaustion, and threw himself on his face
on the bed. In after days he could never be sure
if he had fainted or only slept the heavy torpor-like
sleep that sorrow brings.
 Whichever it was, he did not rouse from it until
the middle of the night. The faint light of the stars
came in through the unshuttered windows, and made
the objects in the room partly visible.
 Jack rose, giddy and chilled, and all the force of
his grief came upon him as his senses returned.