onduct's this I hear ye've been up to?" was the next
question, with the same studied calm, seemingly passionless and pliable.
Still no answer from the boy, though when he looked at his father he
felt afraid. He turned his eyes appealingly to his mother, but her face
betrayed nothing, and a feeling of hopelessness entered Robert's heart.
There was nothing else but to go through with it.

"Tak' aff yer claes," quietly commanded the father, and the boy
reluctantly began to peel off his scanty garments one by one, till he
stood naked on the bare floor. He was glad that no one except the baby
was in to see his humiliation, his brothers and sisters being all out at
play.

The father rose and went to the corner where his working clothes lay in
a heap. Selecting the belt he wore round his waist at his work, he
grasped it firmly, and with the other hand took the boy by one arm,
saying:--

"Are ye going to answer my question noo', and tell me where ye ha'e
been?"

But Robert did not answer, so down came the hard leather belt with a
horrible crack across the naked little hips, and a thick red mark
appeared where the blow had fallen. A roar of pain broke from the boy's
lips, in spite of his resolution not to cry, as lash after lash fell
upon his limbs and across the little white back. Horribly, cruelly,
relentlessly the belt fell with sickening regularity, while the tender
flesh quivered at every blow, and an ugly series of red stripes
appeared along the back and down across the sturdy legs.

"Oh, dinna' hit me ony mair, faither," he pleaded at last, the firm
resolution breaking because of the pain of the blows. "Oh, dinna hit
me!" and he jumped as the blows fell without slackening. "Oh, oh, oh!
Mother, dinna' let him hit me ony mair!" roared the boy, while the grim,
set face of the parent never relaxed, and the belt continued to lash the
quivering flesh.

Mrs. Sinclair, who by this time was crying too, feeling every blow in
her mother-heart, began to fear this grim, cruel look on her husband's
face. He was mad, she felt, and there was murder in his eyes; and at
last, spurred to desperation, she jumped forward, tore at the belt with
desperate strength, and flung it into the corner, crying, as she gripped
the boy in her arms.

"In the name of Heaven, Geordie, are ye gaun to kill my bairn afore my
een?"

She tore the boy fiercely from his father's grasp and shielded him from
her husband, exclaiming at the same time with in