"Is that you, sir? I'll come directly. This is nearly finished. I'm changing the beef on young William's eye. Miss Wenaston told you the trouble I am in over this budmash of a boy?"
As she talked she adjusted the wrappings and tucked the shawl round the patient's shoulders. He was lying on his side. At the sound of the Principal's voice he stirred uneasily.
"Now, you keep quiet, William, or you'll fidget the plasters out of place. You have got to be patient. There's a time for fighting for soldiers, and there's a time for keeping quiet, and that time is now."
She came towards Dr. Wenaston, who had stopped on the threshold and continued, addressing herself to him instead of her son.
"As William—that was my first—used to say: 'There's a season for everything. Even the bamboo must be cut when the moon is waxing or it will be good for nothing.'"
"I am sorry this has occurred, Mrs. Hulver," said the Principal, with a seriousness that would have set the pulses of his pupils going, but which had no such effect on his housekeeper. "The hospital would have been the best place for him. He mustn't think that he can run to his mother at every bruise and scratch."
"It would have been a case of guardroom not hospital, sir, if it hadn't been for the kindness of the sergeant. As it is his first offence it would have been the first step towards destroying his clean sheets; and where would have been his chance of promotion if he didn't keep them clean? The licking he has had will do him no harm. It will teach him to keep off drink. As William—that was my third—used to say: 'When beer goes in wisdom goes out.' You'd like to look at him, sir. Come up to the bed. He's too ashamed to make a salute, and his head is too bad to allow of his sitting up."
Wenaston walked into the room, and like Eola stood for a short time by the side of the cot. He felt that it would be like hitting a man when he was down to reproach the sufferer in his present condition.
"I will see him again when he is better and have a talk with him," he said. "You must let me know how he gets on."
"Yes, sir; a serious talking-to will do him no end of good." She bent over the patient and laid her hand on his head. "You need not shiver, William. The Doctor will treat you kinder than those budmashes treated you in the canteen." She turned to Wenaston again and continued: "Lor! sir, how easy fighting comes to men in the army. It seems like a second nature to them."