“I should think you hardly could be in more pain than you are now,” replied Mr Tooke. “I trust they will relieve you of this pain. I should not wonder if you are asleep to-night as quietly as any of us; and then you will not mind what they may have done to you.”
Hugh thought he should mind nothing, if he could ever be asleep again.
He was soon asked if he would like to see his uncle and aunt, who were come. He wished to see his uncle; and Mr Shaw came up, with the surgeon. Mr Annanby did scarcely anything to the foot at present. He soon covered it up again, and said he would return in time to meet the surgeon who was expected from London. Then Hugh and his uncle were alone.
Mr Shaw told him how sorry the boys all were, and how they had come in from the playground at once, and put themselves under Firth, to be kept quiet; and that very little dinner had been eaten; and that, when the writing-master arrived, he was quite astonished to find everything so still, and the boys so spiritless: but that nobody told him till he observed how two or three were crying, so that he was sure something was the matter.
“Which? Who? Who is crying?” asked Hugh.
“Poor Phil, and I do not know who else,—not being acquainted with the rest.”
“How glad I am that Dale had nothing to do with it!” said Hugh. “He was quite on the other side of the playground.”
“They tell me below that I must not ask you how it happened.”
“Oh, yes! You may. Everything except just who it was that pulled me down. So many got hold of me that nobody knows exactly who gave the pull, except myself and one other. He did not mean it; and I was cross about playing with them; and the stone on the wall was loose or it would not have happened. O dear! O dear! Uncle, do you think it a bad accident?”
“Yes, my boy, a very bad accident.”