“What’s the matter, my man? has the watch stopped.”
“Oh, sir,” said Charlie, running up to him, “I am glad it’s you, and I’m so sorry I drove the cab, and hit Walker in the eye. I’ll never do it again!”
“Tut, tut,” said the head master; “if you never do any worse than that, you won’t go far wrong. I didn’t tell you who I was yesterday, because I wanted you to manage for yourself, and fight your own battle on first arriving. Now tell me how you have got on.”
And Charlie faithfully recounted to him everything, including my sudden indisposition, and my cure by Tom Drift.
Dr Weldon (for that was his name) listened to his story, and then said,—
“Well, you’ve made a pretty good beginning. Now try to remember this: your father has sent you here for two reasons; one is that your head may be furnished, and the other is that your character may be trained. I and your teachers can undertake the first; but it depends chiefly on you how the second succeeds. You will constantly be having to choose for yourself between what is right and what is wrong, and between what is true and what is false. Take the advice of one who has passed through all the temptations you are likely to meet here—rely always on a wisdom that is better than your own, and when once you see which way duty calls, follow that way as if your life depended on it. Do this, and you’ll turn out a far better man than the man who is talking to you. Whenever you are in trouble come to me, I shall always be glad to see you. I promised you, you know, I would ask for you occasionally, didn’t I? And now let’s see what you’ve got in your head.”
And then followed a brief examination, conducted in a way which put Charlie quite at his ease, and so enabled him to acquit himself with a fair amount of credit and win from his master a commendation, which he prized not a little, for it was that his father’s efforts had not been wasted on him.
“You will be put in the second-form,” said the doctor, “and if you work hard, I see no reason why you should not get up into the third next midsummer. Now, good-bye. I hope you won’t find the head master of Randlebury is as ‘stiff and stuck-up a fellow’ as you dreaded, and I trust I shall find you as honest and brave a fellow as I hoped you would turn out the first time I saw you. Good-bye.”
Charlie rose to leave with overflowing heart. He even forgot in the midst of his pleasant emotion to inquire, as he had fully intended to do, after the doctor’s watch, and if it was still a quarter of an hour fast.
As he left the room he could not help contrasting with thankfulness his present state of mind with that in which he had entered it an hour ago. He laughed at himself for all his foolish fears then, and as for the future, that seemed now ever so much easier and brighter.