f life, though, that first day at school.
Well might the children have prayed with David--"Let us fall now into
the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great; and let us not fall
into the hand of man." And well might the children at many another
school respond with a loud _Amen_!

At one o'clock they were dismissed, and went home to dinner, to return
at three.

In the afternoon she was set to make figures on a slate. She made
figures till her back ached. The monotony of this occupation was
relieved only by the sight of the execution of criminal law upon
various offending boys; for, as must be already partially evident, the
master was a hard man, with a severe, if not an altogether cruel
temper, and a quite savage sense of duty. The punishment was mostly in
the form of _pandies_,--blows delivered with varying force, but
generally with the full swing of the _tag_, as it was commonly called,
thrown over the master's shoulder, and brought down with the whole
strength of his powerful right arm upon the outstretched hand of the
culprit. But there were other modes of punishment, of which the
restraints of art would forbid the description, even if it were
possible for any writer to conquer his disgust so far as to attempt it.

Annie shivered and quaked. Once she burst out crying, but managed to
choke her sobs, if she could not hide her tears.

A fine-looking boy, three or four years older than herself, whose open
countenance was set off by masses of dark brown hair, was called up to
receive chastisement, merited or unmerited as the case might be; for
such a disposition as that of Murdoch Malison must have been more than
ordinarily liable to mistake. Justice, according to his idea, consisted
in vengeance. And he was fond of justice. He did not want to punish the
innocent, it is true; but I doubt whether the discovery of a boy's
innocence was not a disappointment to him. Without a word of
expostulation or defence, the boy held out his hand, with his arm at
full length, received four stinging blows upon it, grew very red in the
face, gave a kind of grotesque smile, and returned to his seat with the
suffering hand sent into retirement in his trowsers-pocket. Annie's
admiration of his courage as well as of his looks, though perhaps
unrecognizable as such by herself, may have had its share with her pity
in the tears that followed. Somehow or other, at all events, she made
up her mind to bear more patiently the persecutions of t