“Come to me this time to-morrow,” repeated the doctor. “As to the other boys of the house, I want you to understand that you are all concerned in the wellbeing of your house. If, as I fear, a spirit of insubordination is on foot, and your own proper spirit and loyalty to the school is not enough to stamp it out, I must use methods which I have never had to use yet in Low Heath. It may need courage and self-sacrifice in a boy to stand up against the prevailing tone, but I trust there is some of that left even in this misguided house. Now dismiss.”
It had been a memorable interview. The doctor might have stormed and raged, and done nothing. As it was, he had talked like a quiet gentleman, and made us all thoroughly ashamed of ourselves.
And yet, as we all of us felt, everything now depended on Tempest. If he surrendered he might count on us to fall in line and make up to him for all he had sacrificed on our behalf. If he held out, and refused his chance, we too refused ours and went out with him! If only any one could have brought home to him how much depended on him!
Yet who could blame him for finding it impossible to apologise to Jarman, who had persecuted him all the term with a petty rancour which, so far from deserving apology, had to thank Tempest’s moderation that it did not receive much rougher treatment than it had? He might go through the words of apology, but it would be a farce, and Tempest was too honest to be a hypocrite.
There was unwonted quiet in Sharpe’s house that afternoon. Fellows were too eagerly speculating as to the fate in store for them to venture on a riot. The Philosophers, of course, stoutly advocated a policy of “no surrender”; but one or two of us, I happened to know, would have been unfeignedly glad to hear that Tempest had squared matters with his pride, and left himself free to take our reform in hand.
Tempest himself preserved a glum silence until after afternoon chapel, when he said to me,—
“Isn’t this one of Redwood’s evenings, youngster? I’ll go with you if you’re going.”
The Redwoods had given me an open invitation to drop in any Thursday evening to tea and bring a friend. I had been several times with Dicky, and once, in great triumph, had taken Tempest as my guest. It had been a most successful experiment. Not only had Tempest taken the two little girls (and therefore their mother) by storm, but between him and Redwood had sprung up an unexpected friendship, born of mutual admiration and confidence. Since then he had once repeated the visit, and to-night, to my great satisfaction, proposed to go again.
To me it was a miniature triumph to carry off the hero of Sharpe’s from under the eyes of his house, and on an occasion like the present, to a destination of which he and I alone knew the secret.
I flattered myself that, in spite of their mocking comments, the Philosophers were bursting with envy. It is always a rare luxury to be envied by a Philosopher; and I think I duly appreciated my blessings, and showed it in the swagger with which I marched my man under the faggery window.