“I’ll think of what you say; but I must leave him in Dr Lane’s hands now,” said Mr Paton.
“Who, I heartily hope, won’t flog him,” said Mr Percival.
“Why? I don’t see how he can do otherwise.”
“Because it will simply drive him to despair; because, if I know anything of his character, it will have upon him an effect incalculably bad.”
“I hope not,” said Mr Paton.
The conversation dropped, and Mr Percival resumed his newspaper.
When Walter went to Dr Lane in the evening, the Doctor inquired kindly and carefully into the nature of his offence. This, unfortunately, was clear enough, and Walter was far too ingenuous to attempt any extenuation of it. Even if he had not been intentionally idle, it was plain, on his own admission, that he had been guilty of the greatest possible insubordination and disrespect. These offences were rare at Saint Winifred’s, and especially rare in a new boy. Puzzled as he was by conduct so unlike the boy’s apparent character, and interested by his natural and manly manner, yet Dr Lane had in this case no alternative but the infliction of corporal punishment.
Humiliated again, and full of bitter anger, Walter returned to the great schoolroom, where he was received with sympathy and kindness by the others in his class. It was the dark part of the evening before tea-time, and the boys, sitting idly round the fire, were in an apt mood for folly and mischief. They began a vehement discussion about Paton’s demerits, and called him every hard name they could invent. Walter took little part in this, for he was smarting too severely under the sense of oppression to find relief in mere abuse; but, from his flashing eyes and the dark scowl that sat so ill on his face it was evident that a bad spirit had obtained the thorough mastery over all his better and gentler impulses.
“Can’t we do something to serve the fellow out?” said Anthony, one of the boys in Walter’s dormitory.
“But what can we do?” asked several.