“You could have suggested nothing that has not been done,” returned Mr. Huntley. “Believe me, dear Mrs. Channing! We have had many good counsellors. Butterby has conducted the search.”
Mr. Channing turned to them. He was standing at the far window. “I should like to see Butterby.”
“He will be here in an hour’s time,” said Hamish. “I knew you would wish to see him, and I requested him to come.”
“The worst feature of the whole,” put in Judith, with as much acrimony as ever was displayed by Mr. Ketch, “is that them boys should not have got their deserts. They have not as much as had a birching; and I say that the college masters ought to be hooted. I’d ‘ghost’ ‘em!”
“The punishment lies in abeyance for the present,” explained Hamish. “A different punishment from any the head-master could inflict will be required, should—should—” Hamish stopped. He did not like to say, in the presence of his mother, “should the body be found.” “Some of them are suffering pretty well, as it is,” he continued, after a brief pause. “Master Bill Simms lay in bed for a week with fright, and they were obliged to have Mr. Hurst to him. Report goes, that Hurst soundly flogged his son, by way of commencing his share.”
A pushing open of the outer door, a bang, and hasty footsteps in the hall. Tom had arrived. Tom, with his sparkling eyes, his glowing face. They sparkled for his father only in that first moment; his father, who turned and walked to meet him.
“Oh, papa! What baths those must be!” cried honest Tom. “If ever I get rich, I’ll go over there and make them a present of a thousand pounds. To think that nothing else should have cured you!”
“I think something else must have had a hand in curing me, Tom.”
Tom looked up inquiringly. “Ah, papa! You mean God.”
“Yes, my boy. God has cured me. The baths were only instruments in His hands.”