aid Curly to Alec. "He's greitin'."

For Mr Malison had returned to his seat and had laid his head down on
the desk, evidently to hide his emotion.

"Haud yer tongue, Curly. Dinna leuk at him," returned Alec. "He's sorry
for poor Truffey."

Every one behaved to the master that day with marked respect. And from
that day forward Truffey was in universal favour.

Let me once more assert that Mr Malison was not a bad man. The
misfortune was, that his notion of right fell in with his natural
fierceness; and that, in aggravation of the too common feeling with
which he had commenced his relations with his pupils, namely, that they
were not only the natural enemies of the master, but therefore of all
law, theology had come in and taught him that they were in their own
nature bad--with a badness for which the only set-off he knew or could
introduce was blows. Independently of any remedial quality that might
be in them, these blows were an embodiment of justice; for "every sin,"
as the catechism teaches, "deserveth God's wrath and curse both in this
life and that which is to come." The master therefore was only a
co-worker with God in every pandy he inflicted on his pupils.

I do not mean that he reasoned thus, but that such-like were the
principles he had to act upon. And I must add that, with all his
brutality, he was never guilty of such cruelty as one reads of
occasionally as perpetrated by English schoolmasters of the present
day. Nor were the boys ever guilty of such cruelty to their fellows as
is not only permitted but excused in the public schools of England. The
taws, likewise, is a far less cruel instrument of torture than the
cane, which was then unknown in that region.

And now the moderation which had at once followed upon the accident was
confirmed. Punishment became less frequent still, and where it was yet
inflicted for certain kinds and degrees of offence, its administration
was considerably less severe than formerly; till at length the boys
said that the master never put on black stockings now, except when he
was "oot o' white anes." Nor did the discipline of the school suffer in
consequence. If one wants to make a hard-mouthed horse more responsive
to the rein, he must relax the pressure and friction of the bit, and
make the horse feel that he has got to hold up his own head. If the
rider supports himself by the reins, the horse will pull.

But the marvel was to see how Andrew Truffey haunted and dogged