At Bevis’s home the authorities were still more wroth when they received the scrap of paper sent by Charlie, who scampered off before he could be questioned. There was more wrath about the battle than any of their previous misdeeds, principally because it was something novel. No one was hurt, and no one had even had much of a knock, except the larger boys, who could stand it. There was more rattling of weapons together than wounds. Ted’s forehead was bruised, and Bevis’s ankle was tender where some one had stepped on it while he was down. This was nothing to the bruises they had often had at football. The fall over the quarry indeed might have been serious, so too the sinking of the punt; but both those were extrinsic matters, and they might have fought twenty Pharsalias without such incidents. All of them had had good sense enough to adhere to the agreement they had come to before the fighting. They could not anyhow have hurt themselves more than they commonly did at football, so that the authorities were perhaps a little too bitter about it. If only they had known what was going on, and had had it explained, if it had not been kept secret, so that the anxiety about Bevis being lost might not have been so great, there would not have been much trouble. But now Bevis and Mark were in deep disgrace. As for their going away they might go and stay away if they wished. For the first day, indeed, it was quite a relief, the house was so quiet and peaceful; it was like a new life altogether. It would be a very good plan to despatch these rebels to a distance, where they would be fully employed, and under supervision. How peaceful it would be! The governor and Bevis’s mother thought with such a strain removed they should live fully ten years longer. But next day somehow it did not seem so pleasant. There was a sense of emptiness about the house. The rooms were vacant, and occasional voices sounded hollow. No one chattered at breakfast. At dinner-time Pan was called in that there might be some company, and in the stillness they could hear the ring, ring of the blacksmith’s hammer on his anvil. When Bevis was at home they could never hear that. The governor rode off in the afternoon, and Bevis’s mother thought now these tormentors were absent it would be a good time to sit down calmly at some needlework. Every five minutes she got up and looked out of window. Who was that banged the outer gate? Was it Bevis? The familiar patter of steps on the flags, the confused murmur which came before them did not follow. It was only John Young gone out into the road. The clock ticked so loud, and Pan snored in the armchair, and looked at her reproachfully when she woke him. By-and-by she went upstairs into their bedroom. The bed was made, but no one had slept in it.