How could he
punish failure who had himself so shamefully failed in the sight of
them all? And, to the praise of Glamerton be it recorded, never had
there been a quieter day, one of less defiance of law, than that day of
the master's humiliation. In the afternoon Andrew Truffey laid a
splendid bunch of cottage-flowers on his desk, and the next morning it
was so crowded with offerings of the same sort that he had quite a
screen behind which to conceal his emotion.
Wonderful, let me say once more, is the divine revenge! The children
would wipe away the humiliation of their tyrant. His desk, the symbol
of merciless law, the ark containing no pot of manna, only the rod that
never budded, became an altar heaped with offerings, behind which the
shamed divinity bowed his head and acknowledged a power greater than
that of stripes--overcome by his boys, who hated spelling and figures,
hated yet more the Shorter Catechism, could hardly be brought to read
the book of Leviticus with decency, and hated to make bricks without
straw; and yet, forgetting it all, loved the man beneath whose lashes
they had writhed in torture. In his heart the master vowed, with a new
love which loosed the millstone of many offences against the little
ones, that had for years been hanging about his neck--vowed that, be
the shame what it might, he would never leave them, but spend his days
in making up for the hardness of his heart and hand; vowed that he
would himself be good, and so make them good; that he would henceforth
be their friend, and let them know it.
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