oys. It goes without saying that no work was
done, for there were only half a dozen who had any desire to work, and
they were not allowed, in justice to themselves and to their fellows, to
waste the mercies which had been provided. Upon Bulldog's suggestion,
Moossy once provided himself with a cane, but it failed in his hands the
first time he tried to use it, which was not at all wonderful, as Jock
Howieson, who did not approve of canes, and regarded them as an
invention of the Evil One, had doctored Moossy's cane with a horse-hair,
so that it split into two at a stroke, and one piece flying back struck
Moossy on the face.

"That'll learn him to be meddling with canes. It's plenty that Bulldog
has a cane, without yon meeserable wretch"; and that was the last effort
which Moossy made to exercise discipline.

Every afternoon he made a pitiable appeal that the boys would behave and
learn their verbs. For about ten minutes there was quietness, and then,
at the sight of Thomas John, sitting at the head of his form and working
diligently upon a French translation, which he could do better than
Moossy himself, Speug would make a signal to the form, and, leading off
from the foot himself, the form would give one quick, unanimous, and
masterful push, and Thomas John next instant was sitting on the floor;
while if, by any possibility, they could land all his books on him as he
lay, and baptise him out of his own ink-bottle, the form was happy and
called in their friends of other forms to rejoice with them. Moossy, at
the noise of Thomas John's falling, would hurry over and inquire the
cause, that a boy so exemplary and diligent should be sitting on the
floor with the remains of his work around him; and as Thomas John knew
that it would be worth his life to tell the reason, Moossy and he
pretended to regard it as one of the unavoidable accidents of life, and
after Thomas John had been restored to his place, and the ink wiped off
his clothes, Moossy exhorted the form to quietness and diligence. He
knew what had happened, and would have been fit for a lunatic asylum if
he had not; and we knew that he knew, and we all despised him for his
cowardice. Had there been enough spirit in Moossy to go for Speug (just
as Bulldog would have done), and thrash him there and then as he sat in
his seat, brazen and unashamed, we would all have respected Moossy, and
no one more than Speug, to whom all fresh exploits would have had a new
relish. Bu