The Story of Sugar Part 15

"I can't tell yet. He is hurt enough so that he doesn't come to his senses, poor little chap! Here, Jackson, ring for a couple of nurses. We'll get the child up-stairs."

Van tagged behind them more because he was anxious to hear of the lad's condition than because he could be of any real use.

As the sad procession left the elevator, emerging into the corridor on the second floor, a tall man who was coming down the stairway confronted them.

It was Dr. Maitland, the princ.i.p.al of the school!

"What's this?" he asked, advancing with swift stride.

The doctor hurriedly explained the circ.u.mstances.

"A motor accident on the Claybrook Road, you say? Well, well! Poor little chap! Who brought him in?"

"This lad--one of the schoolboys. You showed good judgment, Blake, and it was a mighty fortunate thing that you were there," observed the surgeon, pa.s.sing on.

"The Claybrook Road?" repeated the puzzled princ.i.p.al. "You were on the Claybrook Road, Blake? And what were you doing there at this time of day?"

With throbbing heart Van suddenly came to himself.

Up to that instant no thought of his own peculiar plight had crossed his mind. Now the reality of his dilemma rushed upon him with pitiless force.

"May I ask," repeated the princ.i.p.al in measured tone, "what were you doing on the Claybrook Road at this hour, Blake?"

CHAPTER IX

VAN'S GREAT DEED

Dr Maitland, who was a man of unswerving justice, was influenced in his judgments neither by pity nor explanations, and thus it came about that when Van had answered his questions, putting before him the facts about his runaway, the princ.i.p.al sent the boy to his own room to there await sentence Van was in the lowest of spirits. What would the penalty of his insurrection be? He knew Dr. Maitland far too well to expect mercy, nor did he wish it. He was too proud for that. He had disobeyed the rules of the school, and he must now bear the punishment, be it what it would. The thought of holding back the facts had never entered his mind. Indolent he sometimes was even to laziness but never within his memory had he been dishonest. So he had fearlessly told the truth, and despite the calamity it threatened he found himself the happier for telling it. Whether it would mean expulsion from Colversham he did not know; probably it would.

To think of leaving Colversham, the place he loved so much! And in disgrace, too. What would the other boys say? And his father?

Van shrank at the thought of telling his father.

Mr. Blake was a severe man who, like Dr. Maitland, would not gloss over the affair either by tolerance or sympathy. He would be angry, and he would have the right to be. Van admitted that. As he looked back on his school days he realized for the first time how indulgent his father had been; he had denied his son no reasonable wish, simply asking in return that the boy express his grat.i.tude by studiousness and obedience. Van flushed as with vividness it came to his consciousness that he had repaid his father's goodness with neither of these things. He had studied just as little as was possible, and in place of appreciation he had rendered nothing but disgrace.

His self-esteem was at a very low ebb when Bob, dismissed from the infirmary, returned to his old quarters. Van was seldom depressed--so seldom, in fact, that the sight aroused in his chum nothing but an anxiety lest he be ill. Surely nothing but sickness could cause Van Blake to lie on a couch, his face buried in pillows!

"What's the matter, old fellow?" called Bob the instant he was inside the door. "Are you used up?"

No answer.

"I say, what's the trouble?" Bob repeated, hurrying to his side.

It took much questioning before the story could be drawn from the boy's reluctant lips.

"When Bob had at last heard it he was silent.

"Can't you say something?" queried Van peevishly.

"I hardly know what to say," Bob answered with slow gentleness. "I'm so sorry--so sorry and upset. I can't for the life of me understand how you came to do such a thing. Did you expect to get away with it?

You must have known you would be missed at recitations and tracked down."

"That's right--rub it in!"

"I'm not rubbing it in; I'm only trying to understand it."

"There's nothing to understand. I just was crazy to go to that ball game and I started. I should have gone, too, if it hadn't been for the kid getting hurt."

"It was bully of you to bring him back, anyway," Bob said. "Of course you knew it was all up with you when you did it."

"I didn't think about it at all. I wasn't thinking of anything but that poor little chap who was mowed down by the brute in that car.

If I hadn't happened to hear the motor it might have been me instead. I wish it had been," he declared gloomily.

"No you don't. Great Scott, cheer up, Van! The country hasn't gone to the dogs yet. I must admit you are in a mess; but it doesn't begin to be the mess it would have been if you had gone to the game, had a bang-up time, and come home a sneak who had stolen his fun. At least you have done the square thing and 'fessed up, and now you'll be man enough to take what's coming to you. What do you suppose Maitland will do?"

"I can guess pretty well--pack me off home. He is stiff as a ramrod on obedience to the school rules," sighed Van, "and he's right, too.

It is perfectly fair. I knew it when I went."

"I can't see, just for one afternoon of sport, how you--" Bob broke off. "If I'd only been here you never would have gone."

"Maybe not," admitted Van. Then he added in the same breath: "No, I shouldn't have gone if you had been here, Bobbie. Somehow you're my good angel. I wrote Father so the other day."

"Stuff!"

"It's true. You are such a brick! I thought you'd blow my head off when you'd heard what I'd done."

"Well, I am mad enough to do it," was the tart reply. "For you to go and do a thing like that just for a ball game! It wasn't worth it.

Think of your being pitched out of Colversham for a measly game of baseball. And you didn't get there, either!"

Van kicked the pillows impatiently.

"Don't light into me, Bobbie," he moaned. "Don't I feel bad enough as it is?"

"I don't know whether you do or not; you ought to."

"I do, Bob. I'm dead sorry."

"If you'd stay sorry it might do some good," returned Bob. A sudden thought seemed to strike him. He did not speak for a few moments; then he said half aloud: "Who knows--it might help."

"What might help?"

"Nothing."

Bob got up and sauntered to the door.