me, or else I lick him. So we know. We like our policeman
in Breckonside. He can make lovely whistles out of bore-tree, and his
name is Codling.

You can see the sea from Breckon Hill, which is wooded to the top, only
by climbing up a tree. And away to the north, Scotland way, you can
make out the hills called Cheviots, like a long, low, blue cloud.

But about the Bewick carrier, Harry Foster, the thing is just this, and
it is a Mystery. I saw the red and blue cart come in--the piebald pony
lame, and the splashboard all leaves and blood, but no Harry Foster to
be seen anywhere.

It was catechism morning, when the school had to go in half an hour
earlier, and the Dissenter folk could keep away their children, if they
liked; and that always made Mr. Mustard, our schoolmaster, very
mad--hopping, indeed. He did not admire Dissenters anyway, at the best
of times, because they had voted against him when he wanted to be
parochial officer, or something. And it was just gall and squirm wood
(as Elsie said) for him to see Ned Tiger, the Wesleyan minister's son,
playing "plunkie" and "ringi" with marbles, when he, Henry Powell
Mustard, a good Churchman and parish clerk, had to be teaching
catechism to half-empty benches. He would glower and rap with his cane
on the desk, and find fault--all the time with an eye on Ned Tiger (his
real name was Wheatly) and Ben Overton, who was a Baptist, and Peter
McNab and Sandy Auld (who, as you can see by their names, were
Presbyterians, and hit anybody who called them Dissenters, being of the
Scotch kirk and good fighters).

Mr. Mustard taught us our duty, how to walk humbly in our sphere, and
so forth, with a supple cane, and he whipped the girls, too, till I
stopped him. But that comes after. He whipped us all that morning,
without forgetting one, and at every good shot of Ned Tiger's alley-taw
he would scowl worse than ever and discover one more unfortunate to
wallop.

Yet he was a good teacher, and made good scholars; kind, too--out of
school, that is. But as we only met him _in_ school, and with a black
frown running across-ways between his eyes, we declined to believe in
his kindness of heart, at any price.

"You are my subjects, great and little, bad or good," he used to preach
to us. "In Breckonside school only the king, the head of the Church,
is greater than I. Like him, I reward the virtuous, and I punish the
naughty!"

We thought within us that virtue must be s