Within the last few weeks it had been the practice of the six boys in Seabrooke's dormitory to slip out of the window at night upon the roof of the porch, thence by the pillars to the ground, and then off and away to Rice's house, where a hot supper, previously ordered, awaited them. This flagrant violation of rules and order had taken place several times, and, so far, thanks to Seabrooke's heavy slumbers, had not yet been discovered.
About this time a hard frost of several days duration had made the skating unusually good; and there was no place within miles of the school so pleasant or so favorable for that pastime as Rice's pond. Tempted by this, all the boys under Dr. Leacraft's care had signed a petition, asking that they might be allowed to go upon this pond if they would promise not to go into the house.
An hour or two after this petition had been sent in, but before it had received an answer, a telegram came to the doctor calling him to Harvard, to his only son, who had been dangerously hurt. The boys were all assembled at the time for recitation to the doctor, and rising in his place he made known the subject of the despatch, and then said:
"In answer to the request which I have just received from you, young gentlemen, I must return a positive negative. My reasons for forbidding you to go near Rice's place have lately been given additional force, and, although I cannot take time to mention them now, I must request, I must absolutely forbid each and every one of you from going in the neighborhood of Rice's house or Rice's pond. I cannot tell how long I may be away; meanwhile the school will be left under the charge of Mr. Merton and Mr. Seabrooke, and I trust that you will all prove yourselves amenable to their authority, and that I shall receive a good report. I leave by the next train. Good-bye."
The doctor's face was pale and his voice was husky, as he bade them farewell, dreading what might have come to him before he should see them again. He was gone in another moment, and in half an hour had left the house.
Dr. Leacraft was a kind, a just, and a lenient master, granting to his pupils all the indulgence and privileges consistent with good discipline, and the more reasonable among the boys felt that he must have just cause for this renewed and emphatic prohibition against Rice's place. But Lewis Flagg and his followers were not reasonable, and many and deep, though not loud, were the murmurs at his orders. Lewis' boon companions saw from the expression of his eye that he meditated rebellion and disobedience even while the doctor was speaking; and Percy Neville and one or two others resolved that they would refuse to share in them.
Nor were they mistaken. No sooner were the six choice spirits alone together than Lewis unfolded a plan for "a spree" for the following night.
The moon was about at the full, and his proposal was that they should leave the house in the manner they had done more than once before, by means of the window and the root of the porch, go to Rice's and have a supper, which was to be previously ordered, and afterwards a moonlight skate on the lake.
"Rip Van Winkle will never wake," said Flagg, "not if you fire a cannon-ball under his bed, and we'll be back and in our places and have a good morning nap before he suspects a thing."
But some of the better disposed among the boys demurred, fresh as they were from the doctor's late appeal to them, and their knowledge of the sad errand upon which he had gone; and foremost among them was Percy Neville.