I shall then call you up
again; and if you don't tell the whole truth then, I will give you
something that'll make you remember Mr. Nichols's melons for many a
month to come:--go to your seat."
Glad enough of the ungracious permission, and answering not a sound,
the child crept tremblingly to his bench. He felt very strangely,
dizzily--more as if he was in a dream than in real life; and laying
his arms on his desk, bow'd down his face between them. The pupils
turn'd to their accustom'd studies, for during the reign of Lugare in
the village-school, they had been so used to scenes of violence and
severe chastisement, that such things made but little interruption in
the tenor of their way.
Now, while the intervening hour is passing, we will clear up the
mystery of the bag, and of young Barker being under the garden fence
on the preceding night. The boy's mother was a widow, and they both
had to live in the very narrowest limits. His father had died when he
was six years old, and little Tim was left a sickly emaciated infant
whom no one expected to live many months. To the surprise of all,
however, the poor child kept alive, and seem'd to recover his health,
as he certainly did his size and good looks. This was owing to the
kind offices of an eminent physician who had a country-seat in the
neighborhood, and who had been interested in the widow's little
family. Tim, the physician said, might possibly outgrow his disease;
but everything was uncertain. It was a mysterious and baffling malady;
and it would not be wonderful if he should in some moment of apparent
health be suddenly taken away.
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