HARRY PUT ON TRIAL.
The geography paper--Before Dr Palmer--The accusation--Sentenced--The
doctor's study--William's reminiscences--The doctor--Enter
Egerton--Punishment--A hasty summons--Heart-stricken.
Not a single word greeted Harry on his entering the playground the
following morning; neither was there any symptom of the persecution of
the previous evening. No murmured words flung at him; no hissing; but
only a few stares of wonder, almost, at his recent achievement. He was
treated as a mere cypher,--sent to Coventry in fact. But this he did
not mind; it certainly was preferable to positive persecution; and as
he wished to keep calm for his coming ordeal, he was glad that nothing
ensued to cause another fight--a contingency he had been fully prepared
to expect. Warburton scowled at him. Egerton turned his face away as
they passed. This, however, did not make the slightest impression on
Harry; he felt proud of his victory over the former, and despised the
meanness of the latter.
He was allowed to proceed with the examination; but his place had been
changed, and he now sat close to Mr Prichard. The reason was evident,
and he asked himself wearily, as he bent over his paper, when would he
ever be set clear in the eyes of the masters and his schoolfellows?
Strangely enough, one of the questions (it was a geography paper) was,
"What do you know of Malta?" Harry here felt at an advantage. He
remembered, of course, nothing from his own experience; but he had
heard his mother's description, and as his pen ran quickly, echoing in
boyish language her words whom he loved so well, it is not much to be
wondered that his interest almost banished from his mind the memory of
his sorry plight.
But "like a dream, when one awaketh," he came back suddenly to a
recollection of how he was situated. He was going to be put, as it
were, on trial, and the charge against him was a difficult one to
disprove.
Being a half-holiday, prayers were read at the end of morning-school.
And now the time was come. Harry walked to Mr Prichard's desk, who
conducted him at once across the room to Dr Palmer. The latter looked
over his spectacles, surprised. Indeed, Harry had always been one of
the "model boys."
"What is the matter, Mr Prichard?" he inquired. "Has Campbell been
misbehaving himself?"
"Yesterday morning, sir," answered Mr Prichard, "during the
examination, I detected Campbell deliberately looking over Egerton's
paper, who you know at present stands next to him in class."
"No, sir, indeed I wasn't," burst in Harry.
"Silence, sir!" sharply said Dr Palmer.
"Had this been all," resumed Mr Prichard, "I should have punished him
myself, severely, without troubling you; but, in the afternoon, as I
was collecting the papers, and passing close by Campbell's desk, which
was open at the time, I found this book in it," and he handed the
delectus-crib. "And Campbell says--"
"It isn't mine, sir!" pleaded Harry. "Some one must have put it there!"
"Silence, sir!" said Dr Palmer, sharply again. "You will have to
answer presently. Well, Mr Prichard?"
"Campbell makes the matter, as I told him, far worse by persistently
denying that he is the owner of the book. And yet his name is in it."
"Campbell," said Dr Palmer, gravely, "this is a most serious charge
against you. I had always thought you were an honourable boy. You
always have been very industrious, and your work has been well done, as
I hear; but this matter alters the whole case. It shows how one can be
deceived in a boy."
As he paused a moment, Harry broke in with the same denials he had used
before. He could not yet bring himself to try his last resource of
affirming who was the rightful owner of the book, and he feared even
that would but make his case worse.
"Go into my study, and wait till I come," added Dr Palmer.
And Harry, knowing what that meant, went away trembling; for no boy on
the eve, or in the midst of, a caning, feels much consolation in a
consciousness of his innocence.
How he got to Dr Palmer's study he knew not. The playground seemed so
very long, and the boys who crowded to watch him pass, to have doubled
or trebled their number. And he was almost glad, if such a feeling is
compatible with his position, when he reached the room of horrors, as
the Doctor's sanctum really was to the boys; for none set foot therein
save those who were "in for a row."
Crossing the hall he met Dr Palmer's butler, an old man, most familiar
to everybody, who never even said "Sir" to his master; but then he had
known him from a boy. So it is no wonder his greeting to Harry was so
blunt.
"What? 's that you, Campbell? Well, to be sure! In for a caning, I
s'pose. What have you been and done now?"
"Nothing, William. I haven't done nothing," sobbed Harry, regardless
of grammar. "I'm going to be caned for nothing."
"Oh no! nothing at all. That's what they all say, the young rascals,"
ejaculated William, half aloud, as he hurried away, partly about his
business, but chiefly because he didn't like the sight of the boy's
tears.
It made him think of the time when he used to steal apples (he would
tell them in the kitchen), and his mother used to hold him up by his
ears while his father thrashed him.
Harry had scarcely taken his seat upon the edge of one of Dr Palmer's
crimson-morocco-covered chairs when he heard the fatal footstep in the
hall, and the next moment the Doctor entered.
The first thing he did was to take down one of the canes that lay on
the top of the bookshelves, Harry narrowly watching him the while, and
then he said--
"Campbell, I am exceedingly sorry to be obliged to punish you."
Harry shivered; the doctor was a powerful man; and the cane looked very
lithe and lissome.
"But I cannot pass over such a serious fault, even though you have
always hitherto, so far as I have seen, conducted yourself well. There
can be not the slightest doubt that the book is yours. It was found in
your desk, and has your name in it."
"It isn't mine, sir. I declare it isn't. Some one must have put it
there; and I saw,"--and here Harry paused.
Dr Palmer looked at him narrowly.
"Some one must have put it there? And do you mean to say, then, that
you accuse one of your schoolfellows, not only of putting it there, but
also of--"
Harry could endure no longer, and with excited and stammering tones, he
told the whole tale.
"This is a most serious charge for you to bring," said Dr Palmer,
laying down the cane and ringing the bell. "Send Master Egerton here,"
he said, when William appeared.
After a pause of about three minutes, which seemed like an hour to
Harry, and during which not a word was uttered, Egerton entered, cool
and collected, and said respectfully to Dr Palmer:
"William said I was wanted, sir."
"Campbell tells me he saw you using this book,"--holding out the
delectus-crib--"in yesterday-morning school. The conclusion, therefore
is, that it is yours, and that you put it into his desk. What have you
to say to this, Egerton?"
"No, sir, I declare the book isn't mine," answered Egerton, positively,
and still quite coolly. "I suppose Campbell's tried to put it off on
me, because I'm next him in class."
"Oh, Egerton, how can you say so!" ejaculated Harry. "You know you
were using it."
"Ask Evans, sir; he sat on the other side of me," said Egerton.
Evans was sent for.
"No, he never saw Egerton using the book. He sat close to him, and
couldn't have helped seeing if he was cribbing."
Egerton again positively and solemnly declaring he knew nothing
whatever of the matter, and Evans' evidence so far bearing him out, Dr
Palmer dismissed them both, and then turned to Harry.
"Campbell, you have now had every chance. You have been detected in a
most dishonourable act, and you have added to your fault by telling a
lie. Bend down," he concluded, taking his cane.
In vain Harry protested his innocence. In vain he begged Dr Palmer to
believe him. Twenty times the strong arm rose, twenty times the cane
whished through the air, and twenty times Harry felt the sting. By the
time it was all over, he was perfectly numbed and stiff with pain. But
the bodily suffering was nothing when compared with the mental agony he
felt at thus being punished when innocent. His whole frame was
convulsed with sobs, and Dr Palmer was giving him a few words of
concluding rebuke, when a hasty knock came at the door; and William,
without waiting for the customary "Come in," hurried into the room, and
said in his blunt way:
"Campbell's wanted home. His mother's bad."
Doctor Palmer's sternness and severity vanished in a moment. So it was
always with him. Strict as he was, severe as he was, directly the
punishment had been duly administered, he was kind-hearted and genial
to the culprit long before _he_ had recovered the effects of his
punishment.
"Campbell, your mother is ill." He knew nothing more than that Mrs
Campbell was a confirmed invalid. "Go and get your cap; I will come
with you. Perhaps I can be of some use."
But Harry's heart was too stricken to accept those well-meant words;
and the sudden change in the Doctor made Harry say what at another time
he would never have dared to say.
"No," he sobbed. "I'll go alone. She doesn't want you. She believes
me, and you don't. She won't speak to _you_." And he rushed from the
room, leaving the doctor far too affected and moved to attempt to stop
him or call him back.