“Another fellow and I were taking a row on the water, and trying to catch some fish,” answered Julian, doggedly.
“Who was the other fellow?” asked Mr Nugent.
“He’s called Dick Owlett, I believe; he gets bait for us sometimes.”
“Then I can fancy how it happened,” said Sutton. “I’ll now get hold of Master Owlett, who is the wildest young scamp in the place; he’ll lie through thick and thin, there’s no doubt of that, but I’ll squeeze the truth out of him before I’ve done with him, depend on that.”
Julian when he heard this felt very sure that Dick Owlett, to escape punishment, would throw the entire blame upon his shoulders. Could he have communicated with Dick he thought that he might have bribed him to be silent, but as he had no hopes of so doing he was excessively puzzled to know how to act. He had already denied having had anything to do with the matter. He doubted even whether further falsehoods would assist him; still he could not bring himself to speak the truth, confess his folly, and take the whole blame on himself. However, Sutton had learned quite enough for his purpose. His style of proceeding with Owlett was likely to be very different to that of Mr Nugent’s with his pupils. Julian was sent back to his room to finish his toilet, Mr Nugent telling him that he must breakfast there, and not leave it without his permission. He consequently had to spend a very miserable and solitary day in a cold room; but he did not escape having to do his lessons, which he might possibly have considered a counterbalancing advantage, as Mr Nugent took him his books and went there to hear him. He was left in doubt all the time what steps Sutton had taken with Owlett, and also as to what Digby had said.
As may be supposed, Sutton had no great difficulty in getting the whole truth, and perhaps something more even, out of Dick Owlett, who, in the hope of escaping punishment, was ready enough to throw all the blame on his young gentleman companion.
Mr Nugent bethought him of calling in the aid of Toby Tubb. The affair had become the conversation of all the seafaring population of the place.
Toby was very unhappy to think that Digby was implicated, but, when he heard that he had nothing to do with it, he undertook to arrange matters, observing that somebody would have to pay pretty smartly for the lark, if lark it was, though he thought it a very bad one.
Neither Julian nor Digby had an idea that any such negotiations were going forward, and they were left with the impression that they should have to present themselves before a bench of magistrates, and perhaps be sent to the house of correction and receive a sound flogging, or be set to work at the treadmill, or some other dreadful thing to which they had read in the newspapers that juvenile delinquents were subjected.
Mr Nugent, of course, was compelled to write to Mr Langley, to explain the whole matter, and, from the tone of that gentleman’s reply, he saw that the only satisfactory course he could pursue was to request him to remove his son to another place of instruction. He from the first, when he discovered how his young gentlemen contrived to leave the house, had suspected that they had been engaged in the cannon-firing affair.