to be a citizen of Muirtown, and always
believed that there was no river to be found anywhere like unto the Tay.
His garden was surrounded with a high wall, and the entrance was by a
wooden door, and how Bulldog lived within these walls no one knew, but
many had imagined. Speug, with two daring companions, had once traced
Bulldog home and seen him disappear through the archway, and then it was
in their plan to form a ladder one above the other, and that Peter, from
the top thereof, should behold the mysterious interior and observe
Bulldog in private life; but even Speug's courage failed at the critical
moment, and they returned without news to the disappointed school.

Pity was not the characteristic of Seminary life in those days, but the
hardest heart was touched with compassion when Nestie Molyneux lost his
father and went to stay with Bulldog. The Seminary rejoiced in their
master; but it was with trembling, and the thought of spending the
evening hours and all one's spare time in his genial company excited our
darkest imagination. To write our copy-books and do our problems under
Bulldog's eye was a bracing discipline which lent a kind of zest to
life, but to eat and drink with Bulldog was a fate beyond words.

As it was an article of faith with us that Bulldog was never perfectly
happy except when he was plying the cane, it was taken for granted that
Nestie would be his solitary means of relaxation, from the afternoon of
one day to the morning of the next, and when Nestie appeared, on the
third morning after his change of residence, the school was waiting to
receive him.

His walking across the meadow by Bulldog's side, with his hands in his
pockets, talking at his ease and laughing lightly, amazed us on first
sight, but did not count for much, because we considered this manner a
policy of expediency and an act of hypocrisy. After all, he was
only doing what every one of us would have done in the same
circumstances--conciliating the tyrant and covering his own sufferings.
We kept a respectful distance till Nestie parted with his guardian, and
then we closed in round him and licked our lips, for the story that
Nestie could tell would make any Indian tale hardly worth the reading.

Babel was let loose, and Nestie was pelted with questions which came in
a fine confusion from many voices, and to which he was hardly expected
to give an immediate answer.

"What like is the cane he keeps at home?" "Has Bulldog tawse