fled with the thought of death, which was
the most serious of all things, and how in his vanity he had tried to
alarm his brother, and how this evil lying spirit must be beaten out of
him. Paul was silent, for how could he explain? And the kindly father,
who had had to work himself up to this cold-blooded severity, went half
hysterical when he had once begun, and overdid the thing. Paul's
flesh ached and stung and quivered on his bones for days. A fortnight
afterwards, when he went to bathe, having forgotten his flogging, his
stripes were seen, and a schoolmate christened him Tiger on account of
them. To that day there were people who knew him as Tiger Armstrong,
though they had forgotten the reason of the nickname.

This was one of the inconveniences of having a reputation. There were
more such doleful comedies in the lonely man's mind as he looked down
the gorge.

The scenes came back as if they were enacted before him. The old
eight-day dock ticked in its recess; the fire rustled and dropped a
cinder; the cat purred on the hearth; Paul sat reading, absorbed, and
yet in memory he knew of the cat and the dock and the fire, and even of
a humming fly somewhere, and a gleam of sunshine on the weather-stained
whitewash of the wall outside.

In came Mrs. Armstrong, with the little household servant at her heels,
and laid something on the ledge of the old clock face. She was an
uncommonly tall woman, and had a knack of putting things on high out of
other people's reach.

'That's for the potatoes,' she said; 'run and get 'em as soon as ever
you've peeled the turnips.'

'Yes, ma'am,' said the girl; and they both went out together.

Two or three minutes later Paul went out. His father sat behind the
counter of the shop, and Paul was afraid that if he went that way he
would be seized upon and compelled to take his place. So he ran up the
garden, climbed a wall or two, and dropped into Badger's field. He had
not gone twenty yards when he found a halfpenny lying on the grass. He
laid hands on it, and made for the confectioner's, where he expended
it on a sickly sweet called 'paper-suck'--a treacly, sticky abomination
with a spiral of old newspaper twined about it Brother Dick appeared
by chance, and shared the treat. Paul at this time had taken to making
verses on his own account, incited by a great deal of miscellaneous
reading. This was an exercise which demanded quiet and retirement, and
he got away into the fields, and,