sure to be jolly. So the forbidden
campaign had opened just a day too soon. It proved to be an
Armageddon, too; Lowlander and Highlander, Sassenach and Hibernian,
they battered each other right royally, and now here they were ranged
before their judge to find to their dismay that he was clear-eyed,
clear-headed, and ready to inflict upon the culprits the severest
penalties of the law.

The strange, tense atmosphere filled Scotty with vague alarm. He felt
that the air was pregnant with disaster. Danny Murphy nudged him when
the master closed his eyes for prayer and whispered that "Somebody was
goin' to get an awful hidin', likely the MacDonalds." Prayers were
extremely lengthy, always a bad sign, and Scotty felt his hair rise as
at their close the master banged his desk lid, and glared fiercely
about him. Perhaps McAllister was going to thrash him for pretending
he was a MacDonald, he reflected fearfully.

The master lost no time in going straight to the point, he knew his
period of weakness was coming over him with overwhelming rapidity; one
more visit to that which lay in his desk would, he knew, destroy his
judgment; and struggling desperately to do what he deemed right, he put
his fists firmly upon the desk lid as if to crush down the tempter and
proceeded to business.

"So, ye've been fighting again!" he cried, fixing the row of bigger
boys with his eye. "Ye uncivilised MacDonald pack, an' ye savage
Murphy crew! Tearin' at each other like wolves! Aye! Roarin' an'
rantin' an' ragin' like a pack o' blood-hounds! Ah, ye're nothing but
a pack o' savages! Jist uncivilised savages! But Ah'll have no wild
beasts in my school. Ah'll teach ye! Ah'll take some o' the fight out
o' ye!" He glared meaningly at Peter Lauchie, one of the most
bellicose Highlanders, but that young man dodged cleverly behind Pat
Murphy's broad shoulders. "Ye'll think Ah'll not find ye out?" the
master shouted triumphantly. "But Ah'll soon do that! Aye, it was at
the Birch Crick ye were fightin' like a pack o' wild beasts; ye thought
ye were far enough away to be safe. But Ah'll find out who started
it!" His eye ranged quickly round the room and fell upon Scotty,
sitting open-mouthed straight in front of him. McAllister was not
above extorting information from the younger pupils, and Scotty went by
the Scotch Line and could be made to tell. "You, Ralph Stanwell!" he
cried, fixing the boy with an admonitory finger. "Yon's y