“Silence!” thundered the master, with a frown that caused the small boy to quake down to the points of his toes.

“Asia!” answered dux.

“Next?”

“Turkey!”

“Next, next, next?  Hallo!  John Ward,” cried the master, starting up in anger from his seat, “what do you mean by that, sir?”

“What, sir?” said John Ward, tremulously, while a suppressed titter ran round the class.

“Your face, sir!  Who blacked your face, eh?”

“I—­I—­don’t know,” said the boy, drawing his sleeve across his face, which had the effect of covering it with sooty streaks.

An uncontrollable shout of laughter burst from the whole school, which was instantly followed by a silence so awful and profound that a pin might have been heard to fall.

“Martin Rattler, you did that!  I know you did,—­I see the marks on your fingers.  Come here, sir!  Now tell me; did you do it?”

Martin Rattler never told falsehoods.  His old aunt had laboured to impress upon him from infancy that to lie was to commit a sin which is abhorred by God and scorned by man; and her teaching had not been in vain.  The child would have suffered any punishment rather than have told a deliberate lie.  He looked straight in the master’s face and said, “Yes, sir, I did it.”

“Very well, go to your seat, and remain in school during the play-hour.”

With a heavy heart Martin obeyed; and soon after the school was dismissed.

“I say, Rattler,” whispered Bob Croaker, as he passed, “I’m going to teach your white kitten to swim just now.  Won’t you come and see it?”

The malicious laugh with which the boy accompanied this remark convinced Martin that he intended to put his threat in execution.  For a moment he thought of rushing out after him to protect his pet kitten; but a glance at the stern brow of the master, as he sat at his desk reading, restrained him; so, crushing down his feelings of mingled fear and anger, he endeavoured to while away the time by watching the boys as they played in the fields before the windows of the school.

CHAPTER III

THE GREAT FIGHT

“Martin!” said the school-master, in a severe tone, looking up from the book with which he was engaged, “don’t look out at the window, sir; turn your back to it.”

“Please, sir, I can’t help it,” replied the boy, trembling with eagerness as he stared across the fields.

“Turn your back on it, I say!” reiterated the master in a loud tone, at the same time striking the desk violently with his cane.

“Oh, sir, let me out!  There’s Bob Croaker with my kitten.  He’s going to drown it.  I know he is,—­he said he would; and if he does aunty will die, for she loves it next to me; and I must save it, and—­and, if you don’t let me out—­you’ll be a murderer!”

At this concluding burst, Martin sprang forward and stood before his master with clenched fists and a face blazing with excitement.  The schoolmaster’s gaze of astonishment gradually gave place to a dark frown strangely mingled with a smile, and, when the boy concluded, he said quietly—­“You may go.”