The evening closed in fast, and clouded over, dark, cold, and dreary.
"I say, it must be locking-up, I should think," remarked East, breaking the silence--"it's so dark." "What if we're late ?" said Tom.
"No tea, and sent up to the Doctor," answered East.
The thought didn't add to their cheerfulness.

Presently a faint halloo was heard from an adjoining field.

They answered it and stopped, hoping for some competent rustic to guide them, when over a gate some twenty yards ahead crawled the wretched Tadpole, in a state of collapse.

He had lost a shoe in the brook, and had been groping after it up to his elbows in the stiff, wet clay, and a more miserable creature in the shape of boy seldom has been seen.
The sight of him, notwithstanding, cheered them, for he was some degrees more wretched than they.

They also cheered him, as he was no longer under the dread of passing his night alone in the fields.