img Alec Forbes of Howglen  /  Chapter 9 No.9 | 9.78%
Download App
Reading History

Chapter 9 No.9

Word Count: 2612    |    Released on: 30/11/2017

an' gang to the schuil wi' the l

had been duly observed; and having just risen from his knees, his voice, as he stooped over the child, retained al

, smoothed her hair, put on her bonnet, and had been waiting a long time at the door when her comp

le manner. But they had gone half the distance and not a word had bee

ad been brooding upon the fact for

imidly, for his tone had alrea

till his canine teeth were fully disclosed, as if he gloated in a

Johnnie, following his

as used to sinking now. But she said nothing, resolved

l, but on this occasion no one happened to have gone to his house to fetch the key, and the scholars had therefore to wait in the street. None of them took any notice of Annie; so she was left to study the outside of the school. It was a long, low, thatched building, of one story and a garret, with five windows to the lane, and some behind, for she could see light through. It h

heels by the troop of boys, big and little, and lastly by the girls-last of all, at a short distance, by Annie, like a motherless lamb that followed the flock, because she did not know what else to do. She found she had to go down a step into a sunk passage or lobby, and then up another step, through a door on the left, into the school. There she saw a double row of desks, with a clear space down the middle between the rows. Each scholar was hurrying to his place at one of the desks, where, as he arrived, he stood. The master already stood in solemn posture at the nearer end of the room on a platform behind his desk, prepared to commence the extempore prayer, which was printed in a kind of blotted stereotype upon every one of their brains. Annie had hardly succeeded in reaching a vacant place among the girls when he began. The boys were as still

arriving late, had stood outside the door till the prayer was over, and then entered unperceived during the subsequent confusion. Some little ones on the opposite form, howev

ds of the master, ringing through the roo

k. Each read a verse-neither more nor less-often leaving the half of a sentence to be taken up as a new subject in a new key; thus perverting what was intended as an assistance to find the truth int

till less reverence for humanity than they had for Scripture. It was a good thing that they were not the sacred fountains of the New Testament that

ed by the master, even if she had understood them herself sufficiently to set them out before him. For, besides her aunt, who had taught her to read, and nothing more, her only instructors had been Nature, with her whole staff, including the sun, moon, and wind; the grass, the corn, Brownie the cow, and her own faithful subject, Dowie. Still, it was a great mortification to her to be put into the spelling-book, which excluded her from the Bible-class. She was also condemned t

ad and spell. The master stood before them, armed with a long, thick strap of horse-hide, prepared by steeping i

cry, and his tears blinded him so that he could not even see the words which he had been unable to read before. But he still attempted to go on, and still the instrument of torture went swish-swash round his little thin legs,

ufferings and repressed weeping, or he saw that he was compelling the impo

had she been left to herself, would have been to take the little boy in her arms and cry too. As it was, she struggled mightily with her tears, and yet she did not read to much better purpose than the poor boy, who was still busy wi

ayed with David-"Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great; and let us not f

ismissed, and went home to

with a severe, if not an altogether cruel temper, and a quite savage sense of duty. The punishment was mostly in the form of pandies,-blows delivered with varying force, but generally with the full swing of the tag, as it was commonly called, thrown over the master's shoulder, and brough

st out crying, but managed to choke her

doubt whether the discovery of a boy's innocence was not a disappointment to him. Without a word of expostulation or defence, the boy held out his hand, with his arm at full length, received four stinging blows upon it, grew very red in the face, gave a kind of grotesque smile, and returned to his seat with the suffering hand sent into retirement in his trowsers-pocket. Annie's admiration of his courage as well as of his looks, though perhaps unrecog

e of strife, suffering, and deliverance. Birth and death, with the life-struggle between, were shadowed out in it-with this difference, that the God of a corrupt Calvinism, in the person of

e all about her still. She had but one comfort left-that no one would prevent her from creeping up to her own desolate garret, which was now the dreary substitute for Brownie's stall. Thither the persecuting boys were not like

img

Contents

Chapter 1 No.1 Chapter 2 No.2 Chapter 3 No.3 Chapter 4 No.4 Chapter 5 No.5 Chapter 6 No.6 Chapter 7 No.7 Chapter 8 No.8 Chapter 9 No.9 Chapter 10 No.10 Chapter 11 No.11
Chapter 12 No.12
Chapter 13 No.13
Chapter 14 No.14
Chapter 15 No.15
Chapter 16 No.16
Chapter 17 No.17
Chapter 18 No.18
Chapter 19 No.19
Chapter 20 No.20
Chapter 21 No.21
Chapter 22 [sic, should be XXII.]
Chapter 23 No.23
Chapter 24 No.24
Chapter 25 No.25
Chapter 26 No.26
Chapter 27 No.27
Chapter 28 No.28
Chapter 29 No.29
Chapter 30 No.30
Chapter 31 No.31
Chapter 32 No.32
Chapter 33 No.33
Chapter 34 No.34
Chapter 35 No.35
Chapter 36 No.36
Chapter 37 No.37
Chapter 38 No.38
Chapter 39 No.39
Chapter 40 No.40
Chapter 41 No.41
Chapter 42 No.42
Chapter 43 No.43
Chapter 44 No.44
Chapter 45 No.45
Chapter 46 No.46
Chapter 47 No.47
Chapter 48 No.48
Chapter 49 No.49
Chapter 50 No.50
Chapter 51 No.51
Chapter 52 No.52
Chapter 53 No.53
Chapter 54 No.54
Chapter 55 No.55
Chapter 56 No.56
Chapter 57 No.57
Chapter 58 No.58
Chapter 59 No.59
Chapter 60 No.60
Chapter 61 No.61
Chapter 62 No.62
Chapter 63 No.63
Chapter 64 No.64
Chapter 65 No.65
Chapter 66 No.66
Chapter 67 No.67
Chapter 68 No.68
Chapter 69 No.69
Chapter 70 No.70
Chapter 71 No.71
Chapter 72 No.72
Chapter 73 No.73
Chapter 74 No.74
Chapter 75 No.75
Chapter 76 No.76
Chapter 77 No.77
Chapter 78 No.78
Chapter 79 No.79
Chapter 80 No.80
Chapter 81 No.81
Chapter 82 No.82
Chapter 83 No.83
Chapter 84 No.84
Chapter 85 No.85
Chapter 86 No.86
Chapter 87 No.87
Chapter 88 No.88
Chapter 89 No.89
Chapter 90 No.90
Chapter 91 No.91
Chapter 92 No.92
img
  /  1
img
Download App
icon APP STORE
icon GOOGLE PLAY