It cannot be a pleasant thing to be going to be hanged--however
thoroughly you may be aware that you deserve it--however clearly you may
perceive that it will be for the good of society, nay, possibly, looking
beyond the present moment, for your own good also; yet the stubborn fact
must ever remain the same--it cannot be a pleasant thing to be going to
be hanged!
Now, although as the law at present stands they do not exactly hang
refractory or disobedient schoolboys, yet there is a process analogous
thereunto, though milder in degree, termed flogging, to which such
juvenile offenders are occasionally subjected; and this process it was
which, as Hugh Colville sobbed forth his penitence and remorse on his
brother’s neck, loomed large in the distance, and hung over him, and
weighed upon him, and crushed him down into a very abject and desponding
condition indeed. It was not simply the pain (though that constituted a
large and uncomfortable item in his depression) that frightened him, but
the publicity, the exposure, the disgrace, were more than he could
bear to contemplate;--while Percy, cut to the heart by his brother’s
misconduct, yet sympathising with a bitter intensity in his dread of
the probable consequences, could only comfort him with feeble hopes of
commutation of punishment, which his reason belied.
Poor little Hugh! how deeply did he repent having yielded to the
temptation; how bitterly did he reproach himself for having deceived
Percy; what vows of amendment did he register, if only he should escape
that dreaded flogging; and how pale did he turn, and how sick at heart
with apprehension did he feel, when the bell rang for morning school,
and he knew that, before it broke up, his fate would be decided!
As the boys assembled in the great schoolroom, it was evident by their
eager, excited faces, and by a general amount of subdued whispering,
that the news of the _escapade_ of the previous night had transpired,
and all eyes were fixed on Norman, Stradwick, and Terry (Biggington
did not appear); even Hugh Colville came in for a degree of observation
which served still more to embarrass and distress him.
As the clock struck eight, the Doctor, followed by the other masters,
entered; and the cloud that hung upon his brow was-without the smallest
vestige of a silver lining, and appeared so awful and portentous as to
strike terror into the stoutest hearts The moment prayers were ended,
the head-master rose and said, in a clear, stern voice--
“Before school commences, I have a painful duty to perform. Regardless
of my express prohibition, certain scholars of the sixth form have
ventured to break through the regulations of the school--which do not
permit any of the boys to be out at night--and have been to the theatre,
taking with them one of the younger boys, who, on their return, was put
through a window, and made to unbolt the school-room door, in order to
admit them, How they employed their time after they quitted the theatre,
I have yet to discover; but they did not return till two o’clock in
the morning--one of them in a disgraceful state of intoxication. As the
whole school is aware of my orders, and the manner in which they
have been disobeyed, I consider it salutary that they should also be
witnesses of my method of dealing with the culprits, so as at once
to vindicate my authority, and to mark my disapprobation of their
rebellious and ungentlemanly conduct.”
The Doctor then resumed his seat, and continued--“Let those whose names
are mentioned step forward--Biggington!”
There was a moment’s breathless silence, and then, with trembling knees,
downcast eyes, and guilty, sheepish manner, Stradwick replied, that
“Biggington was too ill to leave his bed.”
“I am not surprised,” was the reply. “Let Norman, Stradwick, Terry, and
the younger Colville stand forward.”
With a proud, haughty bearing, Norman advanced, and placed himself
immediately in front of the head-master’s desk. Crestfallen and sulky,
Stradwick shambled after him. A moment’s delay took place ere Hugh could
muster sufficient physical strength to tear himself from his brother’s
side: while Percy was near him, he felt some degree of security; but
Terry put his arm round him, and whispering, “Cheer up, young’un,
flogging’s nothing when you’re used to it, and I dare say the Doctor
will let you off easy--never say die!” half led, half carried him to the
tribunal of justice.
“You are the eldest, Norman,” observed the Doctor, fixing his stern
glance upon him; “and I will therefore deal first with you. Whatever
faults you may possess, I have never known you tell me an untruth, and
therefore I shall, for the satisfaction of myself and of those around
me, ask you one or two questions, which you are at liberty to answer or
not, as you may prefer. In the first place, do you admit the truth of
the accusation brought against you?”
“Yes, sir,” was the quiet self-possessed reply, in a tone neither
disrespectful nor penitent.
“Have you any objection to give me an account of the expedition,
especially how you passed the evening after you quitted the theatre?”
was the next inquiry.
Norman paused for a moment, in thought, ere he answered, “My only
objection, Doctor Donkiestir, would be the possibility, of betraying my
companions; but it appears to me that as you saw and recognised us on
our return, and are acquainted with the main facts of the case, the
little I shall have to add will tend rather to help than to injure them.
For private reasons of my own, I proposed to Biggington to go to the
theatre last night, and devised a scheme by which we might accomplish
our purpose; but the loft window being too small to admit the passage of
a man’s body, I bribed little Colville to accompany us by a promise
of taking him to the play, which he had missed the other morning,
forbidding him to tell his brother lest he should prevent him. We
slipped out after five o’clock school, Stradwick and Terry accompanying
us; went to the theatre, and supped afterwards at a tavern with some
of the actors and actresses; towards the end of the evening, Biggington
insulted and struck me; I returned the blow, and we fought; in the last
round, a hit I made stunned him, and it was some little time before he
recovered sufficiently to walk back; as soon as he was able to do so, we
returned--of the rest, you are yourself aware, sir.”
When Norman had left off speaking, Doctor Donkiestir paused for a moment
ere he replied.
“Your account completely agrees with all the facts I have been able to
acquire in regard to this disgraceful affair. You admit the truth of the
accusation brought against you, and by your own statement confess that
you were the originator of the scheme; you have also demeaned yourself
so far as to quarrel with a youth in a state of partial intoxication,
and as it appears to me, availed yourself of his incapable condition to
punish him most severely. It has always been a chief object with me, and
one in which I have been in many instances most successful, to induce
the elder scholars to set a good example to the younger ones; up to the
present time, I have been well satisfied with you upon this point; I am
the more surprised and disappointed at your late gross misconduct. My
duty is clear. No kind of subordination could be kept up in the school
if I were not to visit such an offence as that of which you have been
guilty, with the most severe punishment it is in my power to inflict--I
have, therefore, resolved to expel you and Biggington. You may now
resume your seat, and, when school is over, come to my study, where
I shall acquaint you with the arrangements I propose to make for
your immediate departure. Stradwick, have you anything to say in your
defence?”
Stradwick, thus appealed to, remained uneasily shifting from leg to leg,
until at last he bleated forth, in a half-crying tone of voice--
“If you please, sir, I went because Biggington went.”
As the abject parasite uttered these words, a furtive smile went the
round of the school, but the Doctor’s face relaxed not’ a muscle as he
said sternly--
“I have long observed with displeasure the weak and servile manner in
which you have imitated the worst points in Big-gington’s character; I,
therefore, cannot do better than afford you a practical lesson how, by
participating in his vices, you must also share in the punishment they
entail. You I shall also expel--sit down. Now, Terry, how came you to be
of this party? Heedless and imprudent I have long known you to be, but
disobedient I have never before found you.”
For a moment Terry hung his head, and a tear glistened in his clear,
blue eye; dashing it away, he raised his face to that of the Doctor, as
he replied earnestly--
“It was the fun and excitement of the thing tempted me, sir; and I never
thought about how wrong it was, till it was too late for thinking to be
of any use. I am most of all sorry to have disobeyed you and forfeited
your good opinion, and, if you will but give me a chance of regaining
it, I’ll cheerfully bear any punishment you like to inflict.”
The head-master paused ere he answered--
“I will take you at your word; I shall not expel you, but degrade you
to the lower school. On every holiday and halfholiday during this
half-year, you will remain in, and employ your time in construing and
learning by heart six hundred lines of Greek tragedy; and, lastly, you
are forbidden to contend for any of the prizes before the holidays. If
it were not against my rule to administer corporal punishment to boys
in the fifth and sixth forms, you would scarcely have escaped so easily.
Resume your place, sir. Now, Hugh Colville, tell me the truth: did the
elder boys force you to accompany them, or merely induce you to do so by
promising to take you to the play?”
Poor Hugh! all eyes were turned upon him as, hastily swallowing his
tears, he replied--
“Biggington promised me a thrashing if I refused to go; but it wasn’t
that, sir; it was the play did it, sir: I did so want to see a play.”
For a moment a faint gleam of pity passed over the Doctor’s face, but
had vanished ere he resumed--
“I am sorry that I feel it impossible to look over this, your first
offence;--you are so young a child that I believed and hoped you had
scarcely been in a position to exercise your own free will in this
instance; that, in fact, you had been merely a passive instrument in
the hands of your elders; but this does not appear to have been the
case--you evidently, being aware of my orders to the contrary, were
persuaded to share in this expedition in order to witness a play; and
you studiously concealed your intentions from your brother, because he,
being older and steadier than yourself, might have interfered to prevent
you from going, which you well knew that he would disapprove of. I
consider this so reprehensible that, in justice, I am bound to punish
you for it, and the only punishment likely to make much impression on
one of your age and character, and to inspire you with a salutary dread
of, and respect for properly constituted authority, is a flogging, which
will be administered to you in private, as soon as morning-school breaks
up.”
Hugh, who had listened to the Doctor’s address as if life or death hung
upon his words, clasped his hands together in an agony of supplication
as his worst fears became realised; the head-master, however, who had
hurried over the latter part of his speech, as though he had mistrusted
in some degree his own resolution, turned hastily away, and began
arranging the papers on his desk; and poor Hugh, finding all hope shut
out from him, crept back to his brother’s side, and burying his face on
Percy’s shoulder, gave way to a burst of passionate but silent weeping.
During the Doctor’s address to Hugh, Norman, who during the whole of
his own examination and sentence had appeared perfectly cool,
self-possessed, and almost indifferent, began for the first time to
evince symptoms of uneasiness:--when the decree for the flogging was
promulgated, he unconsciously bit his lip, and clenched and unclenched
his hand convulsively; but when Hugh burst into tears, he rose and said
in an eager, excited voice--
“I beg your pardon, Doctor Donkiestir, but I believe, in fact I am
certain, this poor child was assured that if the affair came to your
knowledge, he should be protected from the effects of your displeasure.”
“By those who, for their own selfish purposes, were leading him into
evil, I presume?” inquired the Doctor. Norman making no reply, he
continued:--“Did _you_ tell this little fellow such an untruth--pledging
yourself to that which you knew you were unable to perform?”
“If I did not actually say so, I allowed it to be said in my presence
without contradicting it, which amounts to the same thing, sir,” replied
Norman, colouring.
“I am glad to see that you have sufficient right feeling left to be
ashamed of your heartless and unmanly conduct,” resumed the head-master;
“and I can devise you no more fitting punishment, than to show you
by practical experience, how powerless you are to counteract the evil
consequences of the wrong you have committed. Your appeal only confirms
my decision in regard to little Colville.”
Norman had hitherto succeeded beyond his expectations in his
cleverly-devised scheme. His object had been to secure two points:
first, to wreak his revenge on Biggington, by forcing him into a
struggle, for which he had been for some weeks past privately
training himself under the auspices of a retired pugilist, who kept a
public-house in the neighbourhood; and, secondly, to be expelled for so
doing, by which event he should be enabled to join the regiment to which
he had been appointed, and upon which all his hopes and wishes were
just now centred, four months sooner than he otherwise could have done.
Accordingly, till Hugh Colville, for whom he had taken a decided liking,
was sentenced to be flogged, Norman had been inwardly congratulating
himself on his success; but the fact of being unable to protect this
child, to whom he had by implication pledged himself, wounded his
pride and self-respect to such a degree, that, as the Doctor had truly
observed, no more effective punishment could have been devised for him.
In the meantime Percy had been working himself up into a dreadful state
of mind. The reflection that Hugh, his lost father’s darling, who had
scarcely had a cross word spoken to him in his lifetime, and even since
he had been at school (owing to his own watchfulness, and the rough
good-nature of their cousin Wilfred Goldsmith), had never received an
angry blow--the reflection that Hugh, his pet, everybody’s pet, was
sentenced to be flogged, was more than he could bear with equanimity.
What could be done to save him? He glanced inquiringly towards Wilfred,
but that knowing young gentleman shook his head despondingly--the case
was beyond his skill; determined to risk a last appeal, he half rose
from his seat, but the Doctor’s quick glance detected the movement, and
he said in a decided, but not an unkind tone of voice--
“Sit down, Percy Colville; I am doing what is best for your brother’s
future interests, and my decision is irrevocable. I will not hear
another word on this subject from anybody,” he continued angrily,
perceiving that Percy still seemed inclined to remonstrate.
Ernest Carrington’s desk was so situated that he could not only see each
movement of the two Colvilles, but could actually hear every word they
spoke to each other; thus he became aware that, at the moment in which
the Doctor addressed Percy, Hugh started, and made a manful effort to
subdue his tears.
“Hush, Percy,” he said, in a broken whisper, “hush, dear, he will be
angry with _you_. I daresay I can bear it; it’s only the disgrace
I’m thinking of, and that somebody may tell mamma of it, and make her
unhappy, perhaps.” And here, despite his efforts, a sob choked his
utterance.
Ernest caught the import of the whisper, and at the same moment he
became aware of a timid and appealing glance from Percy, which Hugh also
observing, a new light broke in upon him; for the first time,--believing
equally in Ernest’s will and power to assist him,--a hope of deliverance
suggested itself to him; and, with a piteous, expressive little face,
in which every passing thought and emotion could be read as in an open
book, he also fixed his large tearful eyes imploringly upon Ernest’s
countenance.
And Ernest?--in his own private mind, he had all along considered the
Doctor injudiciously severe in regard to Hugh--he had duly estimated the
strength of the temptation, and the poor child’s weakness--he had also
perceived the depth and sincerity of Hugh’s repentance; and now his
promise to do his best to befriend the orphan boys, and the recollection
of the fact that he had been the involuntary instrument of Hugh’s
detection, recurred to him with a force that was irresistible, and
springing from his seat, he said--
“Doctor Donkiestir, I fear the petition I am about to urge may be
opposed to the etiquette of the school, but I ask, as a personal favour,
that Hugh Colville may not be flogged.”
The Doctor’s brow grew dark, but self-restraint in speech had long since
become habitual to him.
“I believe,” he said, “I believe I have clearly signified my wish that
no further attempt to influence me in Hugh Colville’s favour should be
made.”
“I am aware of your prohibition, sir,” returned Ernest, completely
carried away by feeling, “but I have pledged myself to befriend these
orphan boys, and I will not fly from my word; I therefore again ask as a
personal favour that Hugh Colville shall be let off.”
The Doctor’s lips worked convulsively, but by a great exertion of
self-control he a second time restrained himself from any outward
expression of anger.
“I grant your request, Mr. Carrington,” he said gravely, “your position
as second master in this school necessitates my doing so. How far
your having urged it proves you to be unfitted for that position, is a
question which I have yet to consider. Hugh Colville, you may thank Mr.
Carrington for your escape from a well-deserved flogging: I hope the
narrowness of this escape may impress you for the future, and that,
while under my tuition, you may never again merit so severe and
disgraceful a punishment. And now let the sixth form come up to me in
mathematics.”
And so the scene ended. Ernest had redeemed his word, and saved Hugh
from a flogging, but at what amount of personal sacrifice remained yet
to be proved.