Unluckily, Lenny's apprehensions of the mockery that awaited him in the merciless world of his village were realized.

Though Stirn at first kept his own counsel the tinker blabbed the whole affair.
And after the search instituted for Lenny on the fatal night, all attempt to hush up what had passed would have been impossible.

So then Stirn told his story, as the tinker had told his own; both tales were very unfavourable to Leonard Fairfield.

The pattern-boy had broken the Sabbath, fought with his betters, and been well mauled into the bargain; the village lad had sided with Stirn and the authorities in spying out the misdemeanours of his equals therefore Leonard Fairfield, in both capacities of degraded pattern-boy and baffled spy, could expect no mercy,--he was ridiculed in the one, and hated in the other.
It is true that, in the presence of the schoolmaster and under the eye of Mr.Dale, no one openly gave vent to malignant feelings; but the moment those checks were removed, popular persecution began.
Some pointed and mowed at him, some cursed him for a sneak, and all shunned his society; voices were heard in the hedgerows, as he passed through the village at dusk, "Who was put into the stocks ?--baa!" "Who got a bloody nob for playing spy to Nick Stirn ?--baa!" To resist this species of aggression would have been a vain attempt for a wiser head and a colder temper than our poor pattern-boy's.

He took his resolution at once, and his mother approved it; and the second or third day after Dr.Riccabocca's return to the Casino, Lenny Fairfield presented himself on the terrace with a little bundle in his hand.