“Matter!” shouted her father; “I’m disgraced—we’re all disgraced. Where is he? Heavens! I’ll cut the skin off his back! Peter, get my horsewhip; he’s no son of mine! I’ll turn him off—I’ll have him locked up. Where is he? where is the young thief? Only let me get hold of him. Bring him here at once, Pip. Where’s that horsewhip, Peter?”
“He’s run away, we think,” Nellie said in a trembling voice; and there was a great silence for two minutes, broken only by a very deep breath from Poppet. Then Meg’s voice was heard.
“What has he done?” she said, “because—because—oh, indeed, I believe we have all been misunderstanding the poor boy.”
“Misunderstanding!” echoed her father, with almost a snort of anger. [“Read that,] miss, and don’t talk nonsense!”
He passed her a letter that had just been brought [73] ]him, and Meg read it and grew pale; Nellie read it and crimsoned; Poppet picked it up in her little shaking hands and looked piteously from one to the other,—that black, thick writing—oh, what was it all about?
“[‘READ THAT, MISS, AND DON’T TALK NONSENSE!’]”
Meg told her afterwards, for it was no use trying to put the child off, and indeed it seemed she knew more than they did.
The letter was from the head master. It stated everything that Bunty had confessed to Poppet about the broken window and glass cases, about the lie he had told when taxed with it. But then the terrible part came. On the desk five sovereigns were lying in a little heap when the master was called [74] ]out of the room; it was one of the boys’ fees, and the master was in the act of entering the amount in the book when he was sent for. He was detained a quarter of an hour, and when he returned the window and the glass cases were broken, and the money had gone!
Now there was no one on the top floor at all during the time, it seemed—that was the mystery that had puzzled every one. But then it came out that Hawkins, who was waiting in Mr. Burnham’s own room for his caning, had seen John Woolcot come creeping down the stairs just after the crash, with a white face and the cricket-ball in his hand. Woolcot, too, when he found his lie of no avail, had confessed to the smashing, but denied having taken the money. The head master regretted having to perform such a painful duty as communicating the intelligence to his father; but there seemed no doubt that the boy had committed the theft, and under the circumstances perhaps it would be wiser if he were removed from the school.