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.