After school Pat and the boys of the “B. O. W. C.” received a message from Mr. Long, requesting them to come to his study.
For the affair had spread, and the teachers had learned all about it. Of course it was a thing that could not be passed over. After some discussion, however, it was considered that it was not of sufficient importance to be brought before Dr. Porter; and so Mr. Long was requested to see all the boys concerned in the affair, and afterwards report.
Mr. Long’s study was a room situated immediately under Bart’s. He generally left at nine in the evening, and slept elsewhere. Consequently he had not been in the way of hearing those “voices of the night.” It was to this room, then, that the “B. O. W. C.,” together with Pat, bent their steps, trying to conjecture what Mr. Long proposed to do about it.
XXI.
Called to Account.—Mr. Long and the B. O. W. C.—They get a tremendous “Wigging.”—Pat to the Rescue.—Mr. Long relaxes.—The unhidden Guest.—Captain Corhet and the irrepressible Bobby.—Coming in Joy to depart in Tears.—The Relics again.—A Solemn Ceremony.—A Speech, a Poem, a Procession, all ending in a Consignment of the exhumed Treasure to its Resting-place.
AS they entered the study they found Mr. Long seated in an arm-chair by his study table. He looked at them with a grave and severe countenance, and motioned them to seats.
They sat down.
“Boys,” said Mr. Long, in a cold and constrained voice, “None of you will accuse me of ever interfering with legitimate sport, or will think that I am destitute of sympathy with boyish ways and manners. I think you know me well enough to believe that I take a deep interest in everything that can make you enjoy yourselves here; that I want you to love this place with all your hearts, and through all your after lives to look back upon Grand Pré Academy with the most affectionate recollection. That very feeling I have now, and it is this that animates me while I call upon you to give an account of those disturbances in which you have been engaged.
“You see a line must be drawn somewhere,” he continued. “Your affair at the French cellar was not altogether what it ought to have been, and I do not approve of it at all. Apart from the lateness of the hour, there was about the whole transaction an air of wildness—a certain headlong recklessness of sport, which I should rather check than indulge. Still, I have nothing to say about that now. You seem to have gone into that affair with an impetuosity of pure fun, that blinded you to anything objectionable which might have been in it. Besides, you have already told all about that, and in a whimsical way that disarmed all reproof.