d. His _man_ apparently was not very old yet.

And he did try; and the master seemed to appreciate his endeavours, and
to accept them as a peace-offering, thus showing that he really was the
better for the punishment he had received.

It would be great injustice to Mr Malison to judge him by the feeling
of the present day. It was the custom of the time and of the country to
use the tawse unsparingly; for _law_ having been, and still, in a great
measure, being, the highest idea generated of the divine by the
ordinary Scotch mind, it must be supported, at all risks even, by means
of the leather strap. In the hands of a wise and even-tempered man, no
harm could result from the use of this instrument of justice; but in
the hands of a fierce-tempered and therefore changeable man, of small
moral stature, and liable to prejudices and offence, it became the
means of unspeakable injury to those under his care; not the least of
which was the production, in delicate natures, of doubt and hesitancy,
sometimes deepening into cowardice and lying.

Mr Malison had nothing of the childlike in himself, and consequently
never saw the mind of the child whose person he was assailing with a
battery of excruciating blows. A _man_ ought to be able to endure grief
suffering wrongfully, and be none the worse; but who dares demand that
of a child? Well it is for such masters that even they are judged by
the heart of a father, and not by the law of a king, that worst of all
the fictions of an ignorant and low theology. And if they must receive
punishment, at least it will not be the heartless punishment which they
inflicted on the boys and girls under their law.

Annie began to be regarded as a protegee of Alec Forbes, and as Alec
was a favourite with most of his schoolfellows, and was feared where he
was not loved, even her cousins began to look upon her with something
like respect, and mitigate their persecutions. But she did not
therefore become much more reconciled to her position; for the habits
and customs of her home were distasteful to her, and its whole
atmosphere uncongenial. Nor could it have been otherwise in any house
where the entire anxiety was, first, to make money, and next, not to
spend it. The heads did not in the least know that they were unkind to
her. On the contrary, Bruce thought himself a pattern of generosity if
he gave her a scrap of string; and Mrs Bruce, when she said to
inquiring gossips "The bairn's like ither bai