It is probable that the whole affair would have passed over quietly, and the woman in the lane might have made large profits by other inexperienced boys, and Mr Carnaby might have gone on being careless as to where the boys went out of his sight on Saturdays, but that Tom Holt ate too many plums on the present occasion. On Sunday morning he was not well; and was so ill by the evening, and all Monday, that he had to be regularly nursed; and when he left his bed, he was taken to Mrs Watson’s parlour,—the comfortable, quiet place where invalid boys enjoyed themselves. Poor Holt was in very low spirits; and Mrs Watson was so kind that he could not help telling her that he owed a shilling, and he did not know how he should ever pay it; and that Hugh Proctor, who had been his friend till now, seemed on a sudden much more fond of Dale; and this made it harder to be in debt to him.
The wet, smeared lining of the pockets had told Mrs Watson already that there had been some improper indulgence in good things; and when she heard what part Lamb had played towards the little boys, she thought it right to tell Mr Tooke. Mr Tooke said nothing till Holt was in the school again, which was on Thursday; and not then till the little boys had said their lessons, at past eleven o’clock. They were drawing on their slates, and Lamb was still mumbling over his book, without getting on, when the master’s awful voice was heard, calling up before him Lamb, little Proctor, and Holt. All three started, and turned red; so that the school concluded them guilty before it was known what they were charged with. Dale knew,—and he alone; and very sorry he was, for the intimacy between Hugh and him had grown very close indeed since Saturday.
The master was considerate towards the younger boys. He made Lamb tell the whole. Even when the cowardly lad “bellowed” (as his school-fellows called his usual mode of crying) so that nothing else could be heard, Mr Tooke waited, rather than question the other two. When the whole story was extracted, in all its shamefulness, from Lamb’s own lips, the master expressed his disgust. He said nothing about the money part of it—about how Hugh was to be paid. He probably thought it best for the boys to take the consequences of their folly in losing their money. He handed the little boys over to Mr Carnaby to be caned—“To make them remember,” as he said; though they themselves were pretty sure they should never forget. Lamb was kept to be punished by the master himself. Though Lamb knew he should be severely flogged, and though he was the most cowardly boy in the school, he did not suffer so much as Hugh did in the prospect of being caned—being punished at all. Phil, who knew his brother’s face well, saw, as he passed down the room, how miserable he was—too miserable to cry; and Phil pulled him by the sleeve, and whispered that being caned was nothing to mind—only a stroke or two across the shoulders. Hugh shook his head, as much as to say, “It is not that.”
No—it was not the pain. It was the being punished in open school, and when he did not feel that he deserved it. How should he know where Lamb was taking him? How should he know that the ginger-beer was to be paid for, and that he was to pay? He felt himself injured enough already: and now to be punished in addition! He would have died on the spot for liberty to tell Mr Tooke and everybody what he thought of the way he was treated. He had felt his mother hard sometimes; but what had she ever done to him compared with this? It was well he thought of his mother. At the first moment, the picture of home in his mind nearly made him cry—the thing of all others he most wished to avoid while so many eyes were on him; but the remembrance of what his mother expected of him—her look when she told him he must not fail, gave him courage. Hard as it was to be, as he believed, unjustly punished, it was better than having done anything very wrong—anything that he really could not have told his mother.
Mr Carnaby foresaw that a rebuke was in store for him for his negligence during the walk on Saturday; and this anticipation did not sweeten his mood. He kept the little boys waiting, though Holt was trembling very much, and still weak from his illness. It occurred to the usher that another person might be made uncomfortable; and he immediately acted on the idea. He had observed how fond of one another Dale and Hugh had become; and he thought he would plague Dale a little. He therefore summoned him, and desired him to go, and bring him a switch, to cane these boys with.
“I have broken my cane; so bring me a stout switch,” said he. “Bring me one out of the orchard; one that will lay on well—one that will not break with a good hard stroke;—mind what I say—one that will not break.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Dale, readily; and he went as if he was not at all unwilling. Holt shivered. Hugh never moved.
It was long, very long, before Dale returned. When he did, he brought a remarkably stout broomstick.
“This won’t break, I think, sir,” said he.
The boys giggled. Mr Carnaby knuckled Dale’s head as he asked him if he called that a switch.