“And Warner,” continued the master, as if he had not heard the interruption, “considering that Warner has got off too easily for many pranks of late,—Warner seventy.”
Seventy! The idea of having anybody condemned, through him, to learn seventy lines of Latin by heart, made Holt so miserable that the word seventy seemed really to prick his very ears. Though Mr Tooke’s face was still white, Holt ventured up to him, “Pray, sir—”
“Not a word of intercession for those boys,” said the master. “I will not hear a word in their favour.”
“Then, sir—”
“Well.”
“I only want to say, then, that Proctor told no tales, sir. I did not mean any harm, sir, but I told because—”
“Never mind that,” cried Hugh, afraid that he would now be telling of Harvey, Prince, and Gillingham, who had persuaded him to go up.
“I have nothing to do with that. That is your affair,” said the master, sending the boys back to their seats.
Poor Holt had cause to rue this morning, for long after. He was weary of the sound of hissing, and of the name “tell-tale;” and the very boys who had prompted him to go up were at first silent, and then joined against him. He complained to Hugh of the difficulty of knowing what it was right to do. He had been angry on Hugh’s account chiefly; and he still thought it was very unjust to hinder their lessons, when they wished not to be idle: and yet they were all treating him as if he had done something worse than the boys with the mask. Hugh thought all this was true: but he believed it was settled among schoolboys (though Holt had never had the opportunity of knowing it) that it was a braver thing for boys to bear any teasing from one another than to call in the power of the master to help. A boy who did that was supposed not to be able to take care of himself; and for this he was despised, besides being disliked, for having brought punishment upon his companions.
Holt wished Hugh had not been throwing sponges at the time:—he wished Hugh had prevented his going up. He would take good care how he told tales again.