‘He thought I was a muff of a white rabbit,’ said Rupert; ‘but he knows the difference now.’
I hope you will not think base scorn of Charles and Caroline when I own that they were both feeling a little uncomfortable in the presence of this young desperado. Fern-seed is all very well, and so is the idea of running away from school, but that any master should really be so piglike as to make running away necessary—this came too near to the really terrible for them to feel quite easy about it.
‘He must be like the Spanish Inquisition,’ said Charlotte indignantly. ‘Why isn’t he put in prison now there are proper laws?’
But Charles and Caroline still felt that it was less likely that the Murdstone man should be so hateful than that Rupert should be drawing long-bows to excuse his running away. If he had been timid and miserable they would have believed him more. As it was, he was easy when he wasn’t defiant.
You know that feeling—when you are not quite sure of some one you want to be kind to—when you can’t be quite certain that if you believe what they say you won’t be being unjust to somebody else. It is a hateful feeling. There is nothing more miserable than not being able to trust some one you want to trust. You know, perhaps, what that sensation is? Rupert, at any rate, must have known it, and must have known that the others were feeling it, for he suddenly pulled his hand out from his pocket.
‘Look here, then,’ he said. ‘But—no, I don’t blame you. I know it’s not the sort of thing you’d expect to be true. Yes. He did it. The first night. About the bread and milk. Came and did it after I was in bed. With a ruler.’
‘I believed you—without that,’ said Charlotte.
‘It’ was a blue bruise and a slight red graze across the back of the hand that, till now, had been hidden.
‘I believed you—without that,’ said Charlotte, with hot cheeks. ‘I know there are people like that. Like Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’