Chapter 13: Old Principle

It was a soft, mild day in December. Mr. Selby’s study seemed close and stifling to the boys as they sat up at the long table with books and slates before them, and a blazing fire behind their backs.

“This sum won’t come right, Mr. Selby,” groaned Roy; “and I’ve gone over it three times. It is made up of nothing but eights and nines. I hate nine. I wish it had never been made. Who made up figures, Mr. Selby?”

Roy’s questions were rather perplexing at lesson time.

“I will tell you all about that another time,” was Mr. Selby’s reply. “Have another try, my boy: never let any difficulty master you, if you can help it.”

A knock at the door, and Mr. Selby was summoned to some parishioner. He was often interrupted when with his pupils, but they were generally conscientious enough to go on working during his absence.

But Roy’s lesson this morning was not interesting, and he was unusually talkative.

“It’s no good trying to master this sum, it’s all those nines. They’re nasty, lanky, spiteful little brutes, I should like to tear them out of the sum-books.”

“Expel them from arithmetic,” said Dudley, looking up from a latin exercise, his sunny smile appearing. “Don’t you wish we could have a huge dust hole to empty all the nasty people and things in that we don’t like?”

“Yes—I’d shovel the nines in fast enough, and a few eights to keep them company, and then I would throw in all my medicine bottles, and my great coat, and—and Mrs. Selby on the top of them!”

This last clause was added in a whisper, for if there was any one that Roy really disliked, it was his tutor’s wife. She was a kind-hearted woman, but fidgety and fussy to the last degree, and was always in a bustle. Having no children, she expended all her energies on the parish, and there was not a domestic detail in any village home that escaped her eye. She had spoken sharply to the boys that morning for bringing in muddy footprints, and her words were still rankling in Roy’s breast.

“It’s so awfully hot,” Roy continued; “let us open the window, Dudley. Old Selby won’t mind for once; it’s like an oven in here.”

The window was opened with some difficulty, and the fresh air blowing in seemed delicious to the boys. Roy clambered up on the old window-seat, slate in hand, but his eyes commanded the view of the village street, and the sum made slow progress in consequence.

“I say! Tom White’s pig has broken loose, and that stupid Johnnie Dent is driving it straight into old Principle’s! I expect he’ll come out in an awful rage. No—the door must be shut, he can’t get in. There seems quite a crowd round old Principle’s. He’s giving them a lecture, I expect. Here comes old Mother Selby tearing up the street, her bonnet strings are flying and she’s awfully excited!”

A minute after the door was thrown open.

“John, it’s the most extraordinary thing—oh, you are not here!--Where is Mr. Selby? I always knew something would happen to that old man roaming over the hills half the night, and digging holes big enough to bury himself! John! Where are you?”

She disappeared as quickly as she had come, banging the door violently behind her; but Roy sprang down from his seat instantly.

“Dudley, it’s old Principle! Something must have happened to him, do let us go and see.”

Dudley dashed down his pen, and was vaulting out of the window, when he suddenly stopped.

“Roy get your great coat, quick. Aunt Judy made me promise to look after you. I’ll wait while you get it.”

Roy dashed out into the hall. He heard the rector’s voice in the distance, but was too excited to wait to see him, and after impatiently tugging on his objectionable coat, he limped off as quickly as he could, joining Dudley at the garden gate. They heard the news on the way to old Principle’s. It appeared that the old man had gone out the afternoon before, and had never come home. His shop was shut up exactly as he had left it, and the woman who went in every day to do his cleaning and cooking for him, was the first one to notice his absence. The group of idle women round his door were busily discussing the question when the boys arrived.