But Tempest did not wait, nor did we, but made a deliberate rush into our house, and in less than a minute were safely stowed away in our several studies, secure from all immediate arrest.
It was an act of open rebellion such as Sharpe’s had not yet ventured on. There was no excuse that any of us had not heard the order. We had, and had disobeyed it. And in the present instance Tempest had headed us. What would be the consequence?
We were not destined to know till next morning, when a notice appeared on the board stating that Mr Sharpe’s house having been reported for riotous conduct and disobedience to orders, the head master would meet the boys in the hall at eleven o’clock.
Chapter Nineteen.
Halting between Two Opinions.
There was no mistaking the doctor’s meaning this time. Sharpe’s had had a long rope, but had come to the end of it at last. I would not for the world have confessed it at the time, but I was half glad a crisis had come. My conscience had smitten me more than once about my work. I had fooled away the good chance with which I had entered Low Heath. Fellows far below me in scholarship had got ahead of me by force of steady plodding, while I was wasting my time. The good resolutions which I had brought up with me had one by one fallen overboard, and I had been content enough to take my place among the rowdies without an effort.
I had counted all through on Tempest’s backing up. If he had been keen on the credit of the house, I felt I could have been so too. If he had been down on me for my neglect of work, I felt I should have stuck to it. As it was, slackness reigned supreme. Tempest was slack because he was out of humour. Pridgin was slack because he was lazy. Wales was slack because he wanted to be in the fashion. And all of us were slack because our betters set us the example. It needs no little courage for a single boy to attempt to stem the drift of slackness in a school house. A dull, dogged boy like Dicky Brown might have done it; but I could not afford to be peculiar, and therefore succumbed, against my judgment, to the prevalent dry rot.
Now that a crisis had come I hoped Tempest might, if not for his own sake, for ours, pull up, and take his house in hand, as he well could do if he chose. A short conversation I overheard as I was fagging in his study that morning, however, was not encouraging.