"Now, Barker," he said, "we'll settle that little business of yours.
Just step up here."
Tim did not move. The school-room was as still as the grave. Not a
sound was to be heard, except occasionally a long-drawn breath.
"Mind me, sir, or it will be the worse for you. Step up here, and take
off your jacket!"
The boy did not stir any more than if he had been of wood. Lugare
shook with passion. He sat still a minute, as if considering the best
way to wreak his vengeance. That minute, passed in death-like silence,
was a fearful one to some of the children, for their faces whiten'd
with fright. It seem'd, as it slowly dropp'd away, like the minute
which precedes the climax of an exquisitely-performed tragedy, when
some mighty master of the histrionic art is treading the stage, and
you and the multitude around you are waiting, with stretch'd nerves
and suspended breath, in expectation of the terrible catastrophe.
"Tim is asleep, sir," at length said one of the boys who sat near him.
Lugare, at this intelligence, allow'd his features to relax from their
expression of savage anger into a smile, but that smile look'd more
malignant if possible, than his former scowls. It might be that he
felt amused at the horror depicted on the faces of those about him; or
it might be that he was gloating in pleasure on the way in which he
intended to wake the slumberer.
"Asleep! are you, my young gentleman!" said he; "let us see if we
can't find something to tickle your eyes open.
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