Alas! I
say, for the boys and girls who had to learn these proofs, called texts
of Scripture, but too frequently only morsels torn bleeding and
shapeless from "the lovely form of the Virgin Truth!" For these tasks,
combined with the pains and penalties which accompanied failure, taught
them to dislike the Bible as well as the Catechism, and that was a
matter of altogether different import.
Every Saturday, then, Murdoch Malison's pupils had to learn so many
questions of the Shorter Catechism, with proofs from Scripture; and
whoever failed in this task was condemmed to imprisonment for the
remainder of the day, or, at least, till the task should be
accomplished. The imprisonment was sometimes commuted for
chastisement--or finished off with it, when it did not suit the
convenience of the master to enforce the full term of a school-day.
Upon certain Saturdays, moreover, one in each month, I think, a
repetition was required of all the questions and proofs that had been,
or ought to have been, learned since the last observance of the same
sort.
Now the day in question was one of these of accumulated labour, and
Alec Forbes only succeeded in bringing proof of his inability for the
task, and was in consequence condemned "to be keepit in"--a trial hard
enough for one whose chief delights were the open air and the active
exertion of every bodily power.
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