Cashel Byron's Profession

Accordingly, at half-past one o'clock, the doctor was roused by a

knocking at his chamber-door, outside which he presently found his

professor of mathematics, bruised, muddy, and apparently inebriated.

Five minutes elapsed before Wilson could get his principal's mind on

the right track. Then the boys were awakened and the roll called.

Byron and Molesworth were reported absent. No one had seen them go;

no one had the least suspicion of how they got out of the house. One

little boy mentioned the skylight; but observing a threatening

expression on the faces of a few of the bigger boys, who were fond

of fruit, he did not press his suggestion, and submitted to be

snubbed by the doctor for having made it. It was nearly three

o'clock before the alarm reached the village, where the authorities

tacitly declined to trouble themselves about it until morning. The

doctor, convinced that the lad had gone to his mother, did not

believe that any search was necessary, and contented himself with

writing a note to Mrs. Byron describing the attack on Mr. Wilson,

and expressing regret that no proposal having for its object the

readmission of Master Byron to the academy could be entertained.

The pursuit was now directed entirely after Molesworth, an it wan

plain, from Mr. Wilson's narrative, that he had separated from

Cashel outside Panley. Information was soon forthcoming. Peasants in

all parts of the country had seen, they said, "a lad that might be

him." The search lasted until five o'clock next afternoon, when it

was rendered superfluous by the appearance of Gully in person,

footsore and repentant. After parting from Cashel and walking two

miles, he had lost heart and turned back. Half way to the cross

roads he had reproached himself with cowardice, and resumed his

flight. This time he placed eight miles betwixt himself and Moncrief

House. Then he left the road to make a short cut through a

plantation, and went astray. After wandering until morning, thinking

dejectedly of the story of the babes in the wood, he saw a woman

working in a field, and asked her the shortest way to Scotland. She

had never heard of Scotland; and when he asked the way to Panley she

lost patience and threatened to set her dog at him. This discouraged

him so much that he was afraid to speak to the other strangers whom

he met. Having the sun as a compass, he oscillated between Scotland

and Panley according to the fluctuation of his courage. At last he

yielded to hunger, fatigue, and loneliness, devoted his remaining

energy to the task of getting back to school; struck the common at

last, and hastened to surrender himself to the doctor, who menaced

him with immediate expulsion. Gully was greatly concerned at having

to leave the place he had just run away from, and earnestly begged

the doctor to give him another chance. His prayer was granted. After

a prolonged lecture, the doctor, in consideration of the facts that

Gully had been seduced by the example of a desperate associate, that

he had proved the sincerity of his repentance by coming back of his

own accord, and had not been accessory to the concussion of the

brain from which Mr. Wilson supposed himself to be suffering,

accepted his promise of amendment and gave him a free pardon. It

should be added that Gully kept his promise, and, being now the

oldest pupil, graced his position by becoming a moderately studious,

and, on one occasion, even a sensible lad.