ay evening was a shocking
time for me. I had no intention of being bad, but somehow, what with
the excitement of our scheme, and the dreariness of the reader's voice,
and the closeness of the room, I fell asleep and nearly rolled off my
form.

The Henniker put down her book.

"Batchelor," said she, "you shall be punished. Stand on the form and
read aloud."

And so saying, she handed me the book and pointed to the place.

This was the very refinement of torture, and I draw a veil over the sad
spectacle which followed. Nor was I the only victim standing there
struggling and perspiring through the long sentences, turned back
whenever I made a mistake, to begin the page over again, till the end of
the chapter seemed to get farther and farther away; the other boys, too,
came in for part of the tragedy, for the Henniker, being now free of her
book, had no occupation for her eyes but to glare at them, and no
occupation for her tongue but to level bad marks and rebukes and
punishments at the head of every offender.

"Reading" lasted that evening until ten o'clock, and to this day I
cannot imagine how it ever came to an end even then. I know I never got
to the end. This sad experience gave a considerable additional zest to
our hopes of freedom on the following day.

Smith was not the sort of fellow to undertake what he did not mean to
carry through, and I was astonished to see how carefully his plans were
laid, and how precisely he had allotted to every one of us our
respective duties.

Monday dawned at length, and we rose from our beds like patriots on the
morning of a battle which is to decide their freedom or slavery.

I had two minutes' whisper with Smith as we went down to breakfast.

"Tell the fellows," said he, "that the signal to begin will be just when
morning school is over. The Hen goes to get ready for dinner, and
Shankley and Philpot are to follow and screw her up. The holes are
already bored, so it won't take long."

"Suppose she yells," suggested I.

"Not likely, but if she does--her room's far enough away. Oh! by the
way, I've screwed her window already. I thought we can one of us easily
smash a pane for her if she wants more ventilation."

"And how about Ladislaw and Hashford?"

"I'm going down, when the Henniker's safe, to ask them both to step up
into the parlour. They'll probably think something's wrong, and hurry
up. (I've screwed that window, too, by the way.) Then you and Rathbo