" Now, Mr. Hathorn," the lawyer said briskly, " we want neither hesitation nor equivocation. We may as well have it from you, because if you don't like telling the truth I can put the thirty miserable lads under your charge into the box one after the other."
" They have had extra tasks to do during their playtime," Mr. Hathorn said, "because they refused to reveal which among them brutally murdered my cat."
"And how do you know they murdered your cat?"
" I am sure they did," the schoolmaster said shortly.
" Oh! you are sure they did! And why are you so sure? Had they any grudge against your cat?"
" They pretended they had a grudge."
" What for, Mr. Hathorn?"
" They used to accuse her of upsetting the ink-bottles when they did it themselves."
"You did not believe their statements, I .suppose?"
" Not at all."
"You caned them just the same as if they had done it themselves. At least I am told so."
" Of course I caned them, especially as I knew that they were telling a lie."
" But if it was a lie, Mr. Hathorn, if this cat did not upset their ink, why on earth should these boys have a grudge against her and murder her?"
The schoolmaster was silent.
" Now I want an answer, sir. You are punishing thirty boys in addition to the sixteen daily canings divided among them; you have cut off all their play-time, and kept them at work from the time they rise to the time they go to bed. As you see, according to your own statement, they could have had no grudge against the cat, how are you sure they murdered her?"
" I am quite sure," Mr. Hathorn said doggedly. " Boys have always a spite against cats."
" Now, your honours, you hear this," Mr. Wakefield said. " Now I am about to place in the witness-box a very respectable woman, one Jane Tytler, who is cook to our esteemed fellow-townsman Mr. Samuel Hawkins, whose residence is, as you know, not far from this school. She will tell you that, having for some time been plagued by a thieving cat which was in the habit of getting into her larder and carrying off portions of food, she, finding it one day there in the act of stealing a half-chicken, fell upon it with a broom-stick and killed it, or as she thought killed it, and I imagine most cooks would have acted the same under the circumstances.
" She thought no more about it until she heard the reports in the town about this business at the school, and then she told her master. The dates have been compared, and it is found that she battered this cat on the evening before the Hathorn cat was found dead in the yard. Furthermore, the cat she battered was a white cat with a black spot on one side, and this is the exact description of the Hathorn cat; therefore, your honours, you will see that the assumption, or pretence, or excuse, call it what you will, by which this man justifies his tyrannical treatment of these unfortunate boys has no base or foundation whatever. You can go now, Mr. Hathorn; I have nothing further to say to you."
A loud hiss rose again from the crowded court as the schoolmaster stepped down from the witness-box, and Jane Tytler took his place. After giving her evidence she was succeeded by Dick Tompkins in much trepidation. Dick was a most unwilling witness, but he produced the note-book in which he had daily jotted down the number of boys caned, and swore to the general accuracy of the figures.
Mr. Wakefield then asked the magistrates if they would like to hear any further witnesses as to the state of things in the school-room. They said that what they had heard was quite sufficient. He then addressed them on the merits of the case, pointing out that although in this case one of the parties was a master and the other a pupil this in no way removed it in the eye of the law from the category of other assaults. " In this case," he
said, "your worships, the affair has arisen out of a long course of tyranny and provocation on the part of one of the parties, and you will observe that this is the party who first commits the assault, while my client was acting solely in self-defence.
" It is he who ought to stand in the witness-box, and the complainant in the dock, for he is at once the aggressor and the assailant. The law admits any man who is assaulted to defend himself, and there is, so far as I am aware, no enactment whatever to be found in the statute-book placing boys in a different category to grown-up persons. When your worships have discharged my client, as I have no doubt you will do at once, I shall advise him to apply for a summons for assault against this man Hathorn."
The magistrates consulted together for some time; then the squire, who was the senior, said:
" We are of opinion that Master Sankey, by aiding this rebellion against his master, has done wrongly, and that he erred grievously in discharging a heavy missile at his master; at the same time we think that the provocation that he received by the tyranny which has been proved to have been exercised by Mr. Hathorn towards the boys under his charge, and especially by their unjust punishment for an offence which the complainant conceived without sufficient warrant, or indeed without any warrant at all, that they had committed, to a great extent justifies and excuses the conduct of Master Sankey. Therefore, with a reprimand as to his behaviour, and a caution as to
the consequences which might have arisen from his allowing his temper to go beyond bounds, we discharge him.
" As to you, sir," he said to the schoolmaster, " we wish to express our opinion that your conduct has been cruel and tyrannical in the extreme, and we pity the unfortunate boys who are under the care of a man who treats them with such cruel harshness as you are proved to have done."
The magistrates now rose, and the court broke up. Many of those present crowded round Ned and shook his hand, congratulating him on the issue; but at a sign from his father the boy drew himself away from them, and joining Captain Sankey, walked home with him.
" The matter has ended better than I expected, Ned," he said gravely; " but pray, my boy, do not let yourself think that there is any reason for triumph. You have been gravely reprimanded, and had the missile you used struck the schoolmaster on the head, you would now be in prison awaiting your trial for a far graver offence, and that before judges who would not make the allowances for you that the magistrates here have done.
" Beware of your temper, Ned, for unless you overcome it, be assured that sooner or later it may lead to terrible consequences." Ned, who had in fact been inclined to feel triumphant over his success, was sobered by his father's grave words and manner; and resolved that he would try hard to conquer his fault; but evil habits are hard to overcome, and the full force of his father's words was still to come home to him.
He did not, of course, return to Mr. Hathorn's, and indeed the disclosures of the master's severity made at the examination before the magistrates obtained such publicity that several of his pupils were removed at once, and notices were given that so many more would not return after the next holidays that no one was surprised to hear that the schoolmaster had arranged with a successor in the school, and that he himself was about to go to America.
The result was that after the holidays his successor took his place, and many of the fathers who had intended to remove their sons decided to give the new-comer a trial. The school opened with nearly the original number of pupils. Ned was one of those who went back. Captain Sankey had called on the new master, and had told him frankly the circumstances of the fracas between Ned and Mr. Hathorn.
" I will try your son at any rate, Mr Sankey," the master said. " I have a strong opinion that boys can be managed without such use of the cane as is generally adopted; that, in my opinion, should be the last resort. Boys are like other people, and will do more for kindness than for blows. By what you tell me, the circumstances of your son's bringing up in India among native servants, have encouraged the growth of a passionate temper, but I trust that we may be able to overcome that; at any rate I will give him a trial." And so it was settled that Ned should return to Porson's, for so the establishment was henceforth to be known.