Rosewarne; but their independence had not yet translated
itself into steady payment of the fees, and Mr. Toy (for example)
notoriously practised dilatoriness of payment as part of his scheme of
life.

Without a twitch of her fierce features she ranged up her attenuated
class, distributed the well-thumbed books--with a horn-book for little
Luke Toy--and for two hours taught them with the same joyless severity
under which their fathers and mothers had suffered. For spelling 'lamb'
without the final b, Ivy Nancarrow underwent the punishment invariably
meted out for such errors--mounted the dunce's bench, and wore the dunce's
cap; nor did 'Thaniel Langmaid's knuckles escape the ruler when he dropped
a blot upon his copy, 'Comparisons are Odious'--a proposition of which he
understood the meaning not at all. The cane and the birch-rod on Mrs.
Butson's desk served her now but as insignia. She had not wielded them as
weapons of justice since the day (four years ago) when a struggle with Ivy
Nancarrow's elder brother had taught her that her natural strength was
abating.

At twelve o'clock she told the children to close their books, dismissed
them to play, and sat down to await the invited company.

Mr. Toy was the first to arrive. He came straight from the jetties--that
is to say, as straight as a stevedore can be expected to come at noon on
Saturday, after receiving his week's pay. He wore his accustomed mask of
clay-dust, and smelt powerfully of beer, two pints of which he had
consumed in an unsocial hurry at the Ferry Inn on his way.

"Good-morning." Mrs. Butson welcomed him with a nod. "Your wife is
coming, I hope?"

"You bet she is," Mr. Toy answered cheerfully, smacking the coins in his
trousers pocket. "She don't miss looking me up this day of the week."
Recollecting that certain of the shillings he so lightly jingled were due
to Mrs. Butson, he suddenly grew confused, and his embarrassment was not
lightened by the entrance of Maudie Hosken's parents. Mr. Hosken tilled a
small freehold garden in his spare hours, and Mr. Toy owed him four
shillings and sixpence for potatoes, and had reason to believe that Mrs.
Hosken took a stern view of the debt.

Next came Mrs. Langmaid, a seaman's widow, and lastly Mrs. Toy, who noted
that all the others had made themselves tidy for the ceremony, and at once
began to apologise for her husband's appearance.

Aunt Butson cut her short, however, by ringing the school bell,