“I ordered them an immediate caning, Mr Carnaby, and not mental torture. School is up,” he declared to the boys at large. “You may go—you have been punished enough,” he said to the little boys. “Mr Carnaby, have the goodness to remain a moment.”
And the large room was speedily emptied of all but the master, the usher, and poor Lamb.
“The usher will catch it now,” observed some boys, as the master himself shut the door behind them. “He will get well paid for his spite.”
“What will be done to him?” asked Hugh of Dale, whom he loved fervently for having saved him from punishment.
“Oh, I don’t know; and I don’t care—though he was just going to give my head some sound raps against the wall, if Mr Tooke had not come up at the moment.”
“But what will be done to Mr Carnaby?”
“Never mind what: he won’t be here long, they say. Fisher says there is another coming; and Carnaby is here only till that other is at liberty.”
This was good news, if true: and Hugh ran off, quite in spirits, to play. He had set himself diligently to learn to play, and would not be driven off; and Dale had insisted on fair scope for him. He played too well to be objected to any more. They now went to leap-frog; and when too hot to keep it up any longer, he and Dale mounted into the apple-tree to talk, while they were cooling, and expecting the dinner-bell.
Something happened very wonderful before dinner. The gardener went down to the main road, and seemed to be looking out. At last he hailed the London coach. Hugh and Dale could see from their perch. The coach stopped, the gardener ran back, met Mr Carnaby under the chestnuts, relieved him of his portmanteau, and helped him to mount the coach.
“Is he going? Gone for good?” passed from mouth to mouth, all over the playground.