“Oh! And don’t you think it a very disreputable thing, a great discredit, sir, for a young fellow of your years to be found abroad by your proctor at midnight?”
“But I could not help being late, sir, last night; and I was not abroad for any purpose of pleasure. I had been staying with a poor fellow who is sick; dying, in fact: and—and it was not my fault, sir.”
“Take care, young man,” said he, glaring through his spectacles. “There’s one thing I can never forgive if deliberately told me, and that’s a lie.”
“I should be sorry to tell a lie, sir,” I answered: and by the annoyance so visible in his looks and tones, it was impossible to help fancying he had found out, or thought he had found out, Gaiton in one. “What I have said is truth.”
“Go over again what you did say,” cried he, very shortly, after looking at his paper again and then hard at me. And I went over it.
“What do you say the man’s name is?”
“Charles Tasson, sir. He was our scout until he fell ill.”
“Pray do you make a point, Mr. Ludlow, of visiting all the scouts and their friends who may happen to fall sick?”
“No, sir,” I said, uneasily, for there was ridicule in his tone, and I knew he did not believe a word. “I don’t suppose I should ever have thought of visiting Tasson, but for seeing him look so ill one afternoon up at Godstowe.”
“He must be very ill to be at Godstowe!” cried Dr. Applerigg. “Very!”