Thus Annie was forsaken,
and Bruce had what he wanted.
He needed not have been so full of scheming, though. Annie never said a
word to her aunt about their treatment of her. It is one of the marvels
in the constitution of children, how much they will bear without
complaining. Parents and guardians have no right to suppose that all is
well in the nursery or school-room, merely from the fact that the
children do not complain. Servants and tutors may be cruel, and
children will be silent--partly, I presume, because they forget so
soon.
But vengeance of a sort soon overtook Robert Bruce the younger; for the
evil spirit in him, derived from no such remote ancestor as the king,
would not allow him a long respite from evil-doing, even in school. He
knew Annie better than his father, that she was not likely to complain
of anything, and that the only danger lay in the chance of being
discovered in the deed. One day when the master had left the room to
confer with some visitor at the door, he spied Annie in the act of
tying her shoe. Perceiving, as he believed, at a glance, that Alec
Forbes was totally unobservant, he gave her an ignominious push from
behind, which threw her out on her face in the middle of the floor.
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