Indeed, although she afterwards passed many more
sorrowful days, she never had to pass one so utterly miserable. The
spirits of the pit seemed to have broken loose and filled Murdoch
Malison's school-room with the stench of their fire and brimstone.
As she sat longing for school to be over, that she might follow a plan
which had a glimmer of hope in it, stupified with her labouring
thoughts, and overcome with wretchedness, she fell fast asleep. She was
roused by a smart blow from the taws, flung with unerring aim at the
back of her bare bended neck. She sprang up with a cry, and, tottering
between sleep and terror, proceeded at once to take the leather snake
back to the master. But she would have fallen in getting over the form
had not Alec caught her in his arms. He re-seated her, and taking the
taws from her trembling hand, carried it himself to the tyrant. Upon
him Malison's fury, breaking loose, expended itself in a dozen blows on
the right hand, which Alec held up without flinching. As he walked to
his seat, burning with pain, the voice of the master sounded behind
him; but with the decree it uttered, Alec did not feel himself at
liberty to interfere.
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