The Gold-Stealers | Page 7

head, and
wearing a benignant and thoughtful smile.
CHAPTER III.
WADDY was soon possessed of the facts of the shameful acts of
insubordination at the school and the escape of Dick Haddon and Ted
McKnight, and nobody--according to everybody's wise
assurances--was the least bit surprised. The fathers of the township (and
the mothers, too) had long since given Dick up as an irresponsible and
irreclaimable imp. One large section declared the boy to be 'a bit gone,'
which was generally Waddy's simple and satisfactory method of
accounting for any attribute of man, woman, or child not in conformity
with the dull rule of conduct prevailing at Waddy. Another section
persisted in its belief that 'the boy Haddon' was possessed with several
peculiar devils of lawlessness and unrest, which could only be
exorcised by means of daily 'hidings,' long abstinence from any diet
more inflammatory than bread and water, and the continuous
acquisition of great quantities of Scripture.
An extraordinary meeting of the School Committee was held at the
Drovers' Arms that evening to confer with Joel Ham, B.A., and
consider what was best to be done under the circumstances. The men of

the township recognised that it was their bounden duty to support the
master in an affair of this kind. When occasion arose they assisted in
the capture of vagrant youths, and when Joel imagined a display of
force advisable they attended at the punishment and rendered such
assistance as was needful in the due enforcement of discipline. It was
understood by all that the school would lose prestige and efficiency if
Haddon and McKnight were not taken and at once subjected to the
rules of the establishment and the rod of the master.
The meeting was quite informal. It was held in the bar, and the
discussion of the vital matter in hand was concurrent with the
absorption of McMahon's beer. Mr. Ham's best attention was given to
the latter object.
'Bring the boys to me, gentlemen,' he said, 'and I will undertake to
induce in them a wholesome contrition and a proper respect for
letters--temporarily, at least.'
Neither of the lads had yet returned to his home; but the paternal
McKnight promised, like a good citizen, that immediately his son was
available he would be reduced to subjection with a length of belting,
and then handed over to the will of the scholastic authority without any
reservation. Mr. McKnight was commended for his public spirit; and it
was then agreed that a member of the Committee should wait upon
Widow Haddon to invite her co-operation, and point out the extent to
which her son's mental and moral development would be retarded by a
display of weakness on her part at a crisis of this kind?
Mr. Ephraim Shine volunteered for this duty. Ephraim was a tall gaunt
man, with hollow cheeks, a leathery complexion, and large feet. He
walked or sat with his eyes continually fixed upon these
feet--reproachfully, it seemed--as if their disproportion were a source of
perennial woe; he carried his arms looped behind him, and had
acquired a peculiar stoop--to facilitate his vigilant guardianship of his
feet, apparently. Mr. Shine, as superintendent of the Waddy Wesleyan
Chapel, represented a party that had long since broken away from the
School Committee, which was condemned in prayer as licentious and
ungodly, and left to its wickedness when it exhibited a determination to

stand by Joel Ham, a scoffer and a drinker of strong drinks, as against a
respectable, if comparatively unlettered, nominee of the Chapel and the
Band of Hope. His presence at the committee meeting to-night was
noted with surprise, although it excited no remark; and his offer to
interview the widow was accepted with gratitude as a patriotic proposal.
There was only one dissentient--Rogers, a burly faceman from the
Silver Stream.
'Don't send Shine to cant an' snuffle, an' preach the poor woman into a
fit o' the miserables,' he said.
Ephraim lifted his patient eyes to Rogers's face for a moment with an
expression of meek reproof, then let them slide back to his boots again,
but answered nothing. The enmity of the two was well known in
Waddy. Rogers was a worldly man who drank and swore, and who
loved a fight as other men loved a good meal; and Shine, as the
superintendent, must withhold his countenance from so grievous a
sinner. Besides, there was a belief that at some time or another the
faceman had thrashed Shine, who was searcher at the Stream in his
week-day capacity, and for that reason was despised by the miners, and
regarded as a creature apart. Ephraim, it was remarked, was always
particularly careful in searching Rogers when he came off shift, in the
hope, as the men believed, of one day finding a secreted nugget,