Chips and Jan did not see the fiendish humour of the situation, any more than they looked beyond their immediate oppressors for first principles and causes. But whatever may be said for the punishment of many for the act of one or two, as the only thing to do in certain cases, it would still be hard to justify the course pursued by Mr. Haigh, who held his threat over the whole form until the two boys’ lives had been made a sufficient misery to them, and then only withdrew it in consideration of a special holiday task, to be learnt by heart at home and said to him without a mistake (on pain of further penalties) when they came back after Christmas. CHAPTER XI A MERRY CHRISTMAS Christmas weather set in before the holidays. Old Boys came trooping down from Oxford and Cambridge, and stood in front of their old hall fires in astonishing ties and wondrous waistcoats, patronising the Loder of the house, familiar only with the Charles Cave. But when they went in a body to inspect the Upper, it was seen at once that the Old Boys’ Match could not take place for the ground was still thickly powdered with snow, and a swept patch proved as hard and slippery as the slide in Heriot’s quad. This slide was a duly authorised institution, industriously swept and garnished by the small fry of the house under the personal supervision of old Mother Sprawson, who sent more than one of them down it barefoot, as a heroic remedy for chilblains rashly urged in excuse for absence. Indeed it was exceptionally cold, even for a nineteenth-century December. The fire in the hall was twice its usual size; the study pipes became too hot to touch, yet remained a mockery until you had your tollies going as well and every chink stopped up. Sprawson himself was understood to be relying more than ever on his surreptitious flask; but as he never betrayed the ordinary symptoms of indulgence, except before a select and appreciative audience, and could sham sober with complete success whenever necessary, these entertainments were more droll than thrilling. It was Sprawson, however, who lit up the slide with tollies after lock-up on the last night, and kept the fun fast and furious until the school bell rang sharply through the frost, and the quad opened to dispatch its quota of glowing faces to prize-giving in the big schoolroom.