Night came; the call for the evening session was sounded, and again only the boys who had remained at home filed into their places in the schoolroom.
Colonel Silsbee came in and took his place at the desk as usual. The look of anger which the boys thought they had seen on his face in the morning had now given way to one of anxiety and sadness. He looked down again on the empty chairs with perceptible emotion.
“To you who have remained faithful,” he said, addressing the boys, “it is perhaps right that I should say something of what has occurred. You doubtless agree with me that your companions who are absent from us to-night have made a grievous mistake. For those younger boys who have been led away thoughtlessly into this folly I have much anxiety and pity; but for those who are older, and who ought to be wiser, I know of no excuse. There must come a day of retribution for them, and their punishment will be severe. Some of these young men have received honors at our hands; many of them have received favors; all of them have enjoyed the best we had to give: and my indignation at their unexampled conduct is lost in the deep pain which their ingratitude has given me.”
He paused a moment; then, greatly moved, he continued: “I have had schoolboys under my care for nearly thirty years, but I have never experienced anything like this before. It is not I alone who suffer; there are fathers and mothers who will be grieved beyond measure at this reckless conduct of their sons, for it is my plain duty to make that conduct known to them.
“To-night I can only hope that no harm will befall these rash adventurers; to-morrow they will doubtless be with us again, and in the hard, unhappy days that must come for them, we shall look to you, you who are wise, to lead them into right paths. From this time on, the honor of the school will rest on you.”
He opened the book, and read a favorite selection from the Psalms; but in the prayer his voice broke, and his “Amen” was scarcely audible.
He went back across the room to his office; and the boys, some of them furtively wiping tears from their eyes, took up their evening tasks.
The next day passed in much the same way as the preceding one had done. Some one brought a morning paper down from the city, and an eager group read the reporter’s vivid and somewhat amusing account of the rebellion and flight. A special telegram to the paper from New Hornbury, dated the previous night, was to the effect that the rebels had attended the circus at that town in a body, and from there had crossed the river by the rowboat ferry. The supposition was that they were on their way to New Bury.
About noon a rumor came floating down to the school that one of the row-boats containing the runaways had been swamped, and several of the boys drowned; but telegraphic inquiry resulted in a contradiction of this report later in the day.