CHAPTER VI
PROBATION
It was after dark on the January afternoon when the sleigh in which David Ives and Lester Wallace drove from the station to the school drew up in front of the rectory. The boys had made the last stage of their journey in company with a number of others; from New York it had been a jolly and exciting trip. David had been surprised as well as pleased by the greetings of fellows whom he had hardly known, by the way in which they had said, “Awfully glad you’re coming back to the school, Ives.” Even Henshaw had been, as David expressed it afterwards to Lester, “mighty decent to him.”
The welcome from the rector was equally cordial. He kept David for a few moments after Lester had gone.
“There are just one or two things that I might add to what I wrote in my letter, David. Your friend who is putting you through wants you to be under no handicap in your relations with the other fellows; in other words, he wants you to have the usual amount of spending money, so that you shall be able to take part freely in the games and sports.”
“That’s pretty fine of him, isn’t it!” David exclaimed. “But honestly, Dr. Davenport, it doesn’t seem to me right to—to let him be so generous.”
“I don’t think he will spoil you by over-indulgence,” the rector said smiling. “If I were you I should accept the situation and make the best of it. By the way, I wish you’d stop in and see Mr. Dean. He has been expressing the greatest pleasure at the prospect of having you back here, and I know he will appreciate your looking him up.”
So at once David betook himself to Mr. Dean’s cottage, and there in the study he found the master, sitting in front of the fire, with the old green eye-shade over his eyes.
“Hello, David!” Mr. Dean rose and came forward; he led David into the room. “Something told me that we should have you with us again; I felt sure that somehow you’d manage it.”
“I didn’t manage it,” David said. “It came to me as a great surprise—a Christmas surprise, too.” Mr. Dean looked interested. “I suppose you know, Mr. Dean, how it happens that I’m back.”