“To be sure I will—I’ll go this instant—” he was turning.
“It is of no use, papa, to-night; Dr. Hoxton has a dinner-party.”
“He is always having parties. I wish he would mind them less, and his business more. You disbelieved! but I’ll see justice done you, Norman, the first thing to-morrow. Well—”
“Well then, I said, old Ballhatchet could tell that I crossed the bridge at the very time they were doing this pretty piece of work, for he was sitting smoking in his porch when I went home, and, would you believe it? the old rascal would not remember who passed that evening! It is all his malice and revenge—nothing else!”
“Why—what have you been doing to him?”
Norman shortly explained the ginger-beer story, and adding, “Cheviot told me I should get nothing but ill-will, and so I have—all those town fellows turn against me now, and though they know as well as possible how it was, they won’t say a word to right me, just out of spite, because I have stopped them from all the mischief I could!”
“Well, then—”
“They asked me whether—since I allowed that I had been there at last—I had dispersed the boys. I said no, I had no time. Then they desired to know who was there, and that I had not seen; it was all dark, and there had not been a moment, and if I guessed, it was no affair of mine to say. So they ordered me down, and had up Ned Anderson, and one or two more who were known to have been in the riot, and then they consulted a good while, and sent for me; Mr. Wilmot was for me, I am sure, but Harrison was against me. Dr. Hoxton sat there, and made me one of his addresses. He said he would not enter on the question whether I had been present at the repetition of the outrage, as he called it, but what was quite certain was, that I had abused my authority and influence in the school; I had been setting a bad example, and breaking the rules about Ballhatchet, and so far from repressing mischief, I had been the foremost in it, making inflammatory harangues, leading them to commit violence the first time, and the next, if not actually taking part in it personally, at any rate not preventing it. In short, he said it was clear I had not weight enough for my post—it was some excuse I had been raised to it so young—but it was necessary to show that proficiency in studies did not compensate for disregard of discipline, and so he turned me down below the first six! So there’s another May in disgrace!”
“It shall not last—it shall not last, my boy,” said Dr. May, pressing Norman’s arm; “I’ll see you righted. Dr. Hoxton shall hear the whole story. I am not for fathers interfering in general, but if ever there was a case, this is! Why, it is almost actionable—injuring your whole prospects in life, and all because he will not take the trouble to make an investigation! It is a crying shame.”
“Every fellow in the school knows how it was,” said Norman; “and plenty of them would be glad to tell, if they had only the opportunity; but he asked no one but those two or three worst fellows that were at the fire, and they would not tell, on purpose. The school will go to destruction now—they’ll get their way, and all I have been striving for is utterly undone.”