“About a quarter of an hour. His run down the field at the last was really a good piece of play, and every one seemed surprised. But there was any amount of room and time to get past Forrester instead of charging right on to him. It’s possible, of course, he may have lost his head and not seen what he was doing.”
Mr Frampton shrugged his shoulders.
“Well,” said he with a dejected look, “I wish you could have told me anything but what you have. At any rate, to-morrow morning the matter must be faced and decided upon. Jeffreys is unpopular in the school, is he not?”
“Most unpopular,” said Mr Freshfield.
“That will make our responsibility all the greater,” said the head-master. “He will have every one’s hand against him.”
“And you may be quite certain he will do himself injustice. He always does. But what of Forrester?”
“He is conscious, and has taken some nourishment; that is all I can say, except, indeed,” added Mr Frampton, with a groan, “that if he lives the doctor says it will be as a cripple.”
The day dragged wearily on, and night came at last. Most of the boys, worn-out with their last night’s vigil, went to bed and slept soundly. The doctor, too, leaving his patient in the charge of a trained nurse, specially summoned, returned home, reporting hopefully of the case as he departed.
In two studies at Bolsover that night, however, there was no rest. Far into the night Mr Frampton paced to and fro across the floor. His hopes and ambitions had fallen like a house of cards. The school he had been about to reform and regenerate had sunk in one day lower than ever before. There was something worse than dry-rot in it now. But Mr Frampton was a brave man; and that night he spent in arming himself for the task that lay before him. Yet how he dreaded that scene to-morrow! How he wished that this hideous nightmare were after all a dream, and that he could awake and find Bolsover where it was even yesterday morning! The other watcher was Jeffreys. He had slept not a wink the night before, and to-night sleep seemed still more impossible. Had you seen him as he sat there listlessly in his chair, with his gaunt, ugly face and restless lips, you would have been inclined, I hope, to pity him, cad as he was. Hour after hour he sat there without changing his posture, cloud after cloud chasing one another across his brow, as they chased one another across the pale face of the moon outside.
At length, as it seemed, with an effort he rose to his feet and slipped off his boots. His candle had burned nearly out, but the moon was bright enough to light his room without it, so he extinguished it and softly opened the door.