DR. MUSGRAVE’S HUMILIATION
Dr. Musgrave was so occupied with thoughts of the punishment that he
proposed to inflict on the poor boy whom he had captured that he did not
notice the visitors, who stood at one side of the path leading to his
office.
Simon brought up the wagon in front of the gate.
Dr. Musgrave jumped out, and then extended his hand to Vivian Bell.
“Give me your hand!” he said gruffly.
The poor boy tremblingly held out his hand, which was grasped roughly by
the tyrant. He was jerked out with no gentle motion.
“Now, Simon, give me the whip!”
Dr. Musgrave grasped it, and seizing Vivian by the collar, began to push
him before him up the path.
Guy and August Locke looked on in disgust and anger.
“Speak to him, Mr. Locke,” whispered Guy.
“Dr. Musgrave!” said August, in a clear, cold voice.
Then for the first time the head master turned his attention to the
newcomers.
“I will be at your service in a few moments,” he said, waving his hand.
He thought that August Locke wished to enter Guy at his school.
“That will not do, Dr. Musgrave. I wish your attention now!”
Dr. Musgrave, whose temper was none of the best, took umbrage at this.
“You will have to wait!” he said, sharply. “I have to mete out justice
to this young rascal, who had the audacity to run away from me. I have
just recovered him, and I intend to flog him in the presence of the
school. You can be present, if you like.”
“Dr. Musgrave,” said Locke, sternly, “this flogging shall not take
place!”
“What!” exclaimed the head master, with blazing eyes. “Do you come here
to interfere with my discipline?”
“I do; or rather we do.”
“I never heard of such audacity!” exclaimed Dr. Musgrave, fairly
aghast.
“Is not this boy Vivian Bell?”
“Yes.”
“Then you shall not flog him!”
Dr. Musgrave was exasperated beyond endurance. He had been accustomed to
move among his pupils like an Eastern despot, with no one bold enough to
oppose him.
“This is my answer,” he said, grasping the whip, and lashing Vivian
across the legs, eliciting a cry of pain.
“And this is mine!” said August Locke.
He snatched the whip from the head master, grasped him by the collar,
and with all the strength he possessed rained down blows across the
teacher’s legs.
Dr. Musgrave shrieked with anger and dismay. As he did so he let go of
Vivian Bell.
Guy instantly drew the trembling boy to his side.
“What do you mean by this outrage?” demanded Dr. Musgrave. “Give me back
that whip!”
“You cannot be trusted with it,” said Locke, coolly.
Dr. Musgrave, fairly boiling with passion, made a spring for Vivian, but
August Locke anticipated the movement, and brought down the whip over
the head master’s shoulders.
“Boys, come to the help of your teacher!” shrieked Musgrave.
Not a boy stirred except Simon.
He ran forward, and tried to attack Vivian Bell.
Guy let go of Vivian, and with a well-directed blow stretched Simon on
the ground.
“What do you mean by this outrage? Who are you?” asked the head master,
pale and agitated.
“I, sir, am August Locke, once your pupil,” replied Locke. “I am paying
you off for some of your former brutality.”
“I will have you arrested--yes, and you, too!” shaking his head at Guy.
“Let me introduce my young companion, Dr. Musgrave,” went on Locke. “He
is Master Guy Fenwick. He comes here as the agent of Mr. John Saunders,
of Bombay, the guardian of Vivian Bell.”
“Is this true?” asked the head master, bewildered and incredulous.
“Yes, sir,” answered Guy. “I came here to find out how the boy was
treated, but I have seen for myself. I withdraw him from your school. He
is no longer a pupil of yours!”
Vivian Bell’s expression changed at once. He looked overjoyed.
“Oh!” he said, “is this true?”
“Yes,” answered Guy, putting his hand caressingly on the boy’s shoulder.
“I shall take you away with me.”
Dr. Musgrave, though still shaking with anger, was not wholly destitute
of prudence.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “before anything is decided upon, I wish to
explain that this boy has committed a daring act of rebellion, an act
which merits summary punishment.”
Vivian looked up nervously into Guy’s face, but the expression he saw
there reassured him.
“Yes, sir; he ran away,” said August Locke, “and any boy would be
justified in running away under the circumstances.”
“Sir,” said Dr. Musgrave, striving to recover some of his lost dignity,
“in a school like this there must be discipline.”
“Yes, but not brutality.”
“You have evidently been misinformed as to the character of my
discipline. It is firm, but parental.”
“Dr. Musgrave,” retorted August Locke, with a disgust which he could not
conceal, “you forget that I was a former pupil of yours. Of all the
abominable tyrants to be found in English schools, I think you carry off
the palm.”
“I had hoped, Mr. Locke--I remember you now--that your maturer judgment
would have enabled you to understand the reason of my occasional
severity. My own conscience justifies me in what I have done.”
“Then you have a peculiar conscience; that is all I have to say.”
“If this boy--as I can hardly believe--represents Bell’s guardian, I
will describe to him the flagrant acts of disobedience of which his ward
has been guilty. Surely he will not justify a pupil in running away from
his school!”
“Under the circumstances I do, sir.”
“I trust you will leave Bell here till the end of the term, four weeks
hence.”
Vivian Bell looked alarmed.
“I must decline to do so, Dr. Musgrave.”
“I shall, under the rules of the school, charge to the end of the term.”
“You can do so, sir, but I shall withdraw Vivian to-day.”
“I claim the right, before he leaves, to inflict punishment for the act
of rebellion of which he has been guilty.”
“So it would afford you satisfaction to flog him, Dr. Musgrave?” said
August Locke, with a sarcastic smile.
“No, sir. I am always pained when I have to chastise a pupil, but it is
necessary to the maintenance of my authority over the other boys that
Bell’s offense should not go unpunished.”
“Your authority will have to take care of itself, Dr. Musgrave. You are
fortunate that I do not punish you for your past brutality!”
“Mr. Locke, a higher-handed outrage was never perpetrated than your
interference with my authority, and your assault upon myself.
“You are quite welcome to take any view of it you choose. Guy, I think
you ought to take immediate steps toward the withdrawal of your young
ward.”
“Dr. Musgrave, will you direct that my ward’s trunk be packed, and all
made ready for his departure? When this is done I will settle your
bill.”
“I protest once more against your remarkable proceedings. I shall write
to Mr. Saunders and complain of them.”
“You are at liberty to do so. In the meanwhile, please have the boy’s
clothes packed.”
The humiliation of Dr. Musgrave was the greater because nearly all his
pupils had been witnesses of it. Though they had not manifested their
feelings in any way, there was not one, except Simon, his son, who was
not rejoiced when they saw the tables turned upon their tyrannical
teacher.
Dr. Musgrave hesitated, but Guy’s bold, resolute bearing convinced him
that opposition would be useless.
If he could have retained Vivian Bell to the end of the term he would
have had an opportunity to make him suffer, and thus obtained some
satisfaction; but Guy saw through his scheme, and resolutely vetoed it.
He would not allow Vivian to remain an hour longer, but declared his
intention of taking him away with him at once.
When the doctor went inside to give orders about packing Vivian’s trunk,
Jim Rawdon went up to Guy and shook hands with him.
“You are a brave boy,” he said. “I never enjoyed myself more than I have
in the last half hour. It was fun to see the doctor under the lash.”
“I wish you could leave the school, too,” said Guy.
“I shall soon. I am in no danger of a flogging, though. The doctor
doesn’t dare to flog me.”