Poor Hugh, his worst fears realized, had been crouching close to Terry (the most goodnatured of the party) in an agony of apprehension; but, at this insinuation, all his love for Percy, together with the innate sense of justice which was one of his best traits, rose up within him, and, at any cost, he hastened to repel it.
“Percy knew nothing of it; knows nothing yet,” he said; “I have deceived him; and it will serve me right if you flog me to death, sir, but do not be angry with dear Percy!” and here a burst of tears chocked his utterance.
The Doctor was as much affected as a school-master can be.
“Poor child!” he replied; “do not be alarmed for your brother; if he is, as you state, ignorant of this business, he has nothing to fear. You may all,” he added, raising his voice—“you may all depend upon my acting with the most strict and impartial justice; and now to your dormitories instantly. I shall investigate this affair most scrupulously to-morrow.”
So saying, the Doctor withdrew, courteously but stiffly bowing to Ernest; leaving the man-servant, with the thick stick and the lantern, to see the delinquents safely to bed; where it is but charitable to desire for them a good night; a consolation we can scarcely expect them to obtain, however much we may “wish they may get it.”
CHAPTER X.—THE TRIBUNAL OF JUSTICE.
It cannot be a pleasant thing to be going to be hanged—however thoroughly you may be aware that you deserve it—however clearly you may perceive that it will be for the good of society, nay, possibly, looking beyond the present moment, for your own good also; yet the stubborn fact must ever remain the same—it cannot be a pleasant thing to be going to be hanged!
Now, although as the law at present stands they do not exactly hang refractory or disobedient schoolboys, yet there is a process analogous thereunto, though milder in degree, termed flogging, to which such juvenile offenders are occasionally subjected; and this process it was which, as Hugh Colville sobbed forth his penitence and remorse on his brother’s neck, loomed large in the distance, and hung over him, and weighed upon him, and crushed him down into a very abject and desponding condition indeed. It was not simply the pain (though that constituted a large and uncomfortable item in his depression) that frightened him, but the publicity, the exposure, the disgrace, were more than he could bear to contemplate;—while Percy, cut to the heart by his brother’s misconduct, yet sympathising with a bitter intensity in his dread of the probable consequences, could only comfort him with feeble hopes of commutation of punishment, which his reason belied.