The Gold-Stealers | Page 6

was a degrading attitude,
and the presence of the girls made the punishment a disgrace to rankle
and burn. Jacker, for pride and the credit of his boyhood made no sound
under the first dozen cuts; but his younger brother Ted, from his place
in the Lower Fifth, set up a lugubrious wail of sympathy almost
immediately, and, as his feelings were more and more wrought upon by
the painful sight, his wailing developed into shrill and tearful abuse of
the master.
'You let him alone, see!' yelled Ted, when Jacker, unable longer to
contain himself, uttered a dismal cry.
'Hit some one yer size--go on, hit some one yer size!' screamed Ted.
But Mr. Ham's whole attention was devoted to his task, and the
younger McKnight's threats, commands, and warnings were entirely
ignored, although the boy continued to utter them between his heart
broken sobs.
'Mind who you're hittin'! You'll suffer for this, Hamlet, you'll see! We'll
get some one what'll show you! Rocks for you nex' Saterdee!
Ted howled, Jacker howled, but the master caned on until he thought he
had quite accomplished his duty in that particular; then he let the limp
youth slide back into his seat.
Mr. Ham returned to his high stool to rest and recuperate. Thoughout
the proceedings he had displayed no heat whatever, and when he
addressed Jacker it was with his usual bland irony.
'You should thank me for my pains, my boy, but youth is proverbially
ungrateful. You will think better of my efforts a few years hence;
meanwhile I can afford to wait for the verdict of your riper judgment,
Jacker--I can afford to wait, my boy.'

Jacker's only reply to this was a long wail expressive of a great disgust.
That outburst was too much for the already over-wrought youngster in
the Lower Fifth; starting up with a cry, Ted snatched one of the leaden
ink-wells from its cell in the desk, and took aim at the master's head.
The well struck the wall just above its mark, and scattered its contents
in Joel Ham's pale hair, in his eyes, down his cheeks, and all over his
white moles. Amazement--blind, round-eyed, dumb
amazement--possessed the school, and for a few seconds a dead silence
prevailed. The spell was broken by Dick Haddon, who discovered his
opportunity, plunged like a diver at the weak spot in the wall, went
clean through and disappeared from view. Ted McKnight, who had
awakened to the enormity of his crime at the sight of the master
knuckling the ink out of his eyes, and had gone grey to the lips in his
trepidation, looking anxiously to the right and left for a refuge, saw
Dickie's departure; jumping the desk in front he rushed at the aperture
the latter had left in the wall, and was gone in the twinkling of an eye.
The master mopped the ink from his hair and his face with a sheet of
blotting paper, and calling Belman, Cann, Peterson, Jinks, and Slogan,
made for the door. Already Dick Haddon was halfway across the flat,
scattering the browsing sheep to the right and left in his flight, and Ted
was following at his best pace.
'After them!' cried the master. 'Two whole days' holiday for you if you
run them down.'
The pursuit was taken up cheerfully enough, but it was quite hopeless.
The breakaways were heading for the line of bush, and the sapling
scrub along the creek was so thick that the boys would have been
perfectly secure under its cover, even if the pursuers were not in hearty
sympathy with the pursued, and the pursuit were not a miserable and
perfidious pretence.
Mr. Ham, recognising after a few minutes how matters really stood,
returned to the school. His approach had been signalled by a scout at
one of the windows, and he found the classes all in order and
suspiciously industrious, and Jacker McKnight still sitting with his
head sunk upon his arms--a monument of sturdy resentment.

'My boys,' said the master, looking ludicrously piebald after his ink
bath, 'before resuming duties I wish to draw your attention to the crass
foolishness of which our young friends Haddon and McKnight are
guilty. You perceive that their action is not diplomatic, eh?'
'Ye--yes, sir,' piped a dubious voice here and there.
'To be sure. Had they remained they would have been caned; as they
have run away, they will receive a double dose and certain extra pains
and penalties, and meanwhile they suffer the poignant pangs of
anticipation. Anticipation, Jacker, my boy, the smart of future
punishments, is the true hell-flame.'
Jacker replied with a grunt of derisive and implacable bitterness, but
the schoolmaster seemed much comforted by his apophthegm, and
stood for several minutes surveying the back of McKnight's