ately proud, while Nestie
declared that the thing had been done on purpose, and Bulldog threatened
him with the tawse for insulting his master.

"Div ye think, Speug, ye could manage a piece of rock before ye go," and
Bulldog produced the only rock that a Muirtown man will ever think worth
eating--Fenwick's own very best, thick, and pure, and rich, and
well-flavoured; and when Speug knew not whether to choose the
peppermint, that is black and white, or the honey rock, which is brown
and creamy, or the cinnamon, which in those days was red outside and
white within, his host insisted that he should take a piece of each, and
they would last him till he reached his home.

"Speug," and Bulldog bade farewell to his pupil at the garden gate,
"ye're the most aggravating little scoundrel in Muirtown Seminary, and
the devilry that's in you I bear witness is bottomless; but ye're fine
company, and ye 'ill, maybe, be a man yet, and Nestie and me will be
glad to see ye when ye're no engaged with yir study. Ye 'ill no forget
to come, Peter."

Peter's tongue, which had been wagging freely among the rabbits, again
forsook him, but he was able to indicate that he would seize an early
opportunity of again paying his respects to Mr. Dugald MacKinnon in his
own home; and when Bulldog thrashed him next day for not having prepared
an exercise the night before, the incident only seemed to complete
Speug's pride and satisfaction.

THE DISGRACE OF MR. BYLES

VI

Bulldog's southern assistant had tried the patience of the Seminary by
various efforts to improve its mind and manners, but when he proposed at
the beginning of the autumn term to occupy Saturdays with botanical
excursions to Kilspindie Woods, which, as everybody knows, are three
miles from Muirtown, and a paradise of pheasants, it was felt that if
there was any moral order in the universe something must happen. From
the middle of September, when the school opened, on to the beginning of
October, when football started, our spare time was given to kites, which
we flew from the North Meadow in the equinoctial gales gloriously. Speug
had one of heroic size, with the figure of a dragon upon it painted in
blue and yellow and red--the red for the fire coming out of his
mouth--and a tail of eight joints, ending in a bunch of hay fastened
with a ribbon. None but a sportsman like Speug could have launched the
monster from the ground--bigger than Peter by a foot--and nursed it
thr