“Ah! s-sneak!” hissed one of the boys near him; “what for need you tell?”

“Now, now!” said the master quietly.  “None of that.  Get along with the lesson.”

He glanced along the row of faces before him.

“Thora Kinlay,” he said, “finish the conjugation where Jessie Grey left off.”

I was again at the window.

Mr. Drever looked towards a fair-haired, blue-eyed girl who stood directly opposite to him.  At her throat there was a cowslip—­a rare flower in Orkney.  She wore a rough, homespun frock, as all the other girls did; but, for some reason which I cannot explain, Thora Kinlay was quite unlike her companions.  Such was the refined gentleness of her nature that I can compare her only with the tern—­the most beautiful, I believe, of all our sea birds.

“Regerer, I might be ruled; regereris, thou mightst be ruled,” she began, and as she repeated the conjugation, I listened with attention not unmixed with envy, for she was the best scholar in the whole school.

As Thora concluded, the schoolmaster gave her a word of praise, and told her to go to the top of the class, while her brother, Tom, was ordered to the bottom.

Andrew Drever had given these directions, and was leaning with his elbow on the desk, his chin resting on his hand, when his eye was attracted by my moving shadow at the doorway; and amid a sudden silence I entered and took my place at the bottom of the class.

“Good morning, sir!” I said, looking fearlessly into Mr. Drever’s kind face.

“Good morning, Ericson!” said he.  “You take your proper place, I notice.  But what is the meaning of this lateness?  What excuse have you this time?”

“I was down at the shore side catching sillocks,” I boldly answered, “and I just stopped to make up the even number.”

Robbie Rosson here put his hand to his mouth in the form of a speaking trumpet, and whispered:  “How many did you catch, Hal?”

“Just two dozen,” I quietly replied, yet not so quietly but Mr. Drever heard me.

“Yes, Ericson,” said he sternly, “you stay to make up the number of your fish.  But why do you not remember that you have a duty in making up the number of your class at school?”

“I’m very sorry, sir,” I said; “but I’ll not do it again.”

“See that you do not.  I will excuse you this time, but only because you were at the fishing.”  Then he added more kindly, “I have myself lost count of time in the same way.  And now let me hear your Latin lesson.”

Fortunately I went through the lesson without mistake, and was rewarded by being told to go above Tom Kinlay.  As I took my place, however, the next boy to me, Robbie Rosson, gave a great shout of pain, as though a pin had been stuck into him.

“Hello, hello!  What’s wrong now?” exclaimed the schoolmaster.

“It’s nothing, sir,” said Robbie, looking extremely uncomfortable.