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One sultry Saturday forenoon, in August, about half an hour before
closing the school, Dominie Spankie sat upon his throne which was
an arm chair placed upon a platform, raised two steps above the floor.
Before him, rising one behind the other, were the ranges of benches
filled with the boys, the biggest in the back seats, and the littlest,
down to three years old and under, on the front forms, immediately
beneath his terrible eye, and only seaprated from him by the area between
his desk and their seats. The huge fireplace upon the right
of his throne, was garnished with a young pine tree and other ever-greens,
and on the broken hearth before it, as the coolest spot was
placed a stone pitcher of water, with a tin cup floating upon its surface.
It was a very warm day; and scarcely did the light air that came in
at the windows lift the leaves of the numerous open books, for every
book was laid open before its owner, and the whole school, under the
viligant observance of the Dominie, appeared to be studious. Many
of the younger boys, in truth, were hard at work, from fear of the
birch, which was laid upon the desk before their eyes, in terrorem;
and buzz, buzz, buzz went their little lips for very life. Others held
their books perpendicularly before their faces, and with one eye fixed
desperately upon the page, kept the other askance upon the master,
for the Dominie had a way doubtless learned in his wars against the
savages, of flinging his oaken ferule through the air, like a tomahawk,
so that would unerringly light, (so true was his arm from long practice,)
on the desk in front of any idler, without exactly hitting him
on the head, but giving him a good start at the time, with a sure
promise of flagellation: for the flight of the ruler was sure to be followed
in a voice stern, and loud, by

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`Bring me that ferule, young master!' when the instrument was
duly put to its more legitimate use.

The boys had just come in from recess, when the Dominie cast his
eye sternly over the schoolroom, to see if he could single out any unlucky
juvenile inattentive to his task, his ferule balanced across the
palm of his left hand, with the two fingers and thumb of the right,
gently dallying with its extremity. Instantly every soul went to work,
and lips moved mechanically in the sound of study, though, so far as
what was repeated from the page before most of them, was underderstood,
they might have been reading Chinese as well as the king's
English. The Dominie wore spectacles, (a pair of massive iron ones,)
that oddly reminded you of the crusading knights, or Don Quixote
in armour, which combined with the obliquity of his vision, put the
shrewdest boy at fault in guessing, when he happened to lift his face
from the desk and look over the school, on which point exactly his
gaze rested; each one, therefore, supposed himself as likely to be the
victim as any of his fellows. So when the Dominie, from time to
time, looked up, and gravely surveyed the array of boys, he always
gazed upon a praiseworthy scene; when apparently satisfied at the
diligent aspect of his schoolroom, he would ejaculate a gratified hem,
and turn again to his task of ruling copy-books, or setting copies for
the ensuing week. Although so strict a disciplinarian, the Dominie,
like most men, especially schoolmasters, had fallen into certain habits
and methods, all of which were well understood by his more saga-cious
pupils, who governed themselves accordingly. One of these
habits was, while ruling copy-books, always to lift his eye when he
got the end of the page, and in setting a copy, when he had given
the finishing hair stroke to the line. So, calculating on these periodical
inspections of the school-room, the elder and more observing
boys, would cleverly manage to time their idle moments to tally with
his busy ones: and by this politic arrangement much room was given
for play and mischief making. The Dominie wrote very slowly, and
with great method; for he prided himself greatly on the beauty of his
penmanship, deeming the art of calligraphy as important to the
schoolmaster as the knowledge of figures and other mysteries, invented
to puzzle boy's brains.

On the afternoon in question, after having ruled a page for `fine
hand,' he looked up, as was his custom, and chanced to decry an abortive
attempt to suppress a laugh, on the faces of all the boys in the
back forms, and the best part of those on the second row of desks.

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He paused, and his brow darkened; but wilily pretending not to observe
this unseemingly merriment, well assured that the cause would
soon show itself, he husbanded his wrath, and resolved patiently to wait
until the treason was ripe. Therefore, he turned himself once more
to his copy; and as in the alphabetical arrangement it should begin
with D, he commenced penning his own euphonious name and designation,
and both having great favor in his eye, he speedily lost the
sense of the outrage that had been offered to his authority and magisterial
presence, in the pride of exercising his penmanship on
the flowing letters that compose Dominie Spankie, A. M. Scarcely
had he termined the serpentine flourish that indicated the initial of
`Spankie,' than a stifled burst of choking laughter, from some unlucky
urchin, caused him to erect his ears and bend his brows; nevertheless
he continued to write on; but scarce had he finished the
final e, turning the tail therefore gracefully back, over the k, like a
canopy, than a suppressed titter from the a, b, c bench at his feet,
caused him to start up, with a growl of astonishment and wrathful indignation.
He glared about the schoolroom and beheld one universal
grin on every visage, while the little tremblers at his feet kept up
a tittering and giggling they in vain tried to suppress by stuffing their
sponges and handkerchiefs into their mouths, two or three in the attempt,
even forcing tears from their eyes; while fear of the Dominie's
wrath, mingling with the cause of their mirth, caused other little
wretches both to laugh and to cry at one and the same moment.

Sounds so strange as laughter in the school-room, a place where a
smiling, happy, and cheerful face, seems to be regarded by most `masters'
as treasonable to their tyrannical rule, had never been heard before
within those old walls. The Dominie was thunderstruck. He
could scarcely believe that he heard what he did hear, saw what he
did see! Boys daring to langh in his presence! Grinning visages
surrounded him on all sides! He shoved back his spectacles from
his forehead, as was his wont at such times; lowered his thunder-cloud
looking brows; balanced his ferule, preparatory to a cast, and
began to squint horribly around in search of the ringleader. At this
movement and disposition of his person, there bust one universal
uncontrollable shout of laughter, from every juvenile throat, so
long and so loud was it, that it was heard even in the midst of the
village, to the infinite wonder and alarm of the adult pupils of Dominie
Spankie, who could not divine the meaning of so strange a
sound coming from such a source.

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`It's te boys let out o' school,' says one of a group of villagers
gathered about the inn.

`Nay,' said another, shaking his head, `'tis na twal o' the clock,
an' the Doominie e'er stickes to the minnit o't. The lads be unco
fay.'

`Mercy me! what has come up o'er at the school house, ayond?
D' ye not hear the childer, Maggy?' asked one gossip, seated knitting
in the door of her neighbor across the way.

`Gracious, and 'deed do I! and it's a merry laugh the dears give.
Where can the Dominie be away, and it's not noon,' answered the
other, giving a knowing look at the sun as she ended.

`Mony's the dee I've heard the skreel when the brecken were doon
from that awa, but it's the first time I heard laughter,' said an old
Scotch woman, stopping her wheel, and taking a pinch of snuff;
`Fech! there's somethin' in it a' ye may depend! cummers!'

Suddenly Dominie Spankie recovered his voice and his presence of
mind. `Silence!' he shouted, in a voice of thunder, bringing
his ferule down on his desk and his foot on the floor, at the same time
with terrible emphasis. Instantly the merriment, save one or two
faint note from the smaller boys, ceased, and a portentous silence followed.

`What means this outrage upon my authority?'—who caused this
laughter?' be demanded, in a voice that made the little boys shake
in their trowsers, and the larger ones look sufficiently sober. The
only reply was a general direction of eyes towards the red brick chimney,
which protruded into the room, followed instantly by a suppressed
titter from many of the boys, and a loud guffaw, in the back
form, from a thick set, clownish, lad, about sixteen years old, who almost
suffocated himself with his fist to keep from giving vent to his
cachinations. But they were suddenly checked by the `ruler,' which
whizzed through the air, glanced by his ear, and buried itself half an
inch in the plastering of the wall behind him. The Dominie was
foaming with rage and could not even articulate the words commanding
him to bring the ruler. The lad, however, from habit, took the
instrument in his hand, and leaving his form descended the steep alley
between the seats and the desk, and held it forth. For a few
seconds the Dominie paced the floor, without taking it or noticing
him; at length, having in some degree conquered his surprise at the
events he had witnessed, he laid his hand on the boy's shoulder, with
a gripe that caused him to roar with pain.

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`Tell me, Davy Dow,' he cried, in a voice that made the stoutest
boy's heart quake, `who and what is the cause of this uproar? Tell
me truly, or I will not leave a bone whole in your body!' and he shook
him as if he would even then fulfil his threat.

`I didn't do it, master,' said the boy as well as he could speak.

`What—do what? you scape gallows! do what? you wretched
little villain!' shouted the Dominie, lifting him from his feet, and
shaking him at arm's length.

`Make um laugh, sir. Haw, haw, haw!'

`He, he, he!' tittered the school.

`What! do I hear laughing again?' almost yelled the Dominie,
and his eye followed that of the culprit, in the direction of the chimney.

Instantly a change came over his spirit. He beheld, affixed to the
chimney, facing him and the whole school, what no man could mistake—
an admirable, half-length likeness of himself, caricatured with
surpassing skill. His spectacles were pictured, thrown up to the top
of his forehead; his ruler was in his hand, as if in the act of being
cast at some unruly boy, and he was represented in the act of frowning
most terribly. It was the exact image of Dominie Spankie. The
likeness ludricrously correct, and he himself, even if he had never
looked into a mirror, could not but have recognized it. He did recognize
it, and saw at once what had excited the risible muscles of
his slaves, (for what were pupils twenty years ago, but slaves, for six
hours in a day!) and he trembled with passion. He turned slowly
round, and as he did so, the titter, which, as he detected the caricature,
had begun to revive, was suddenly suppressed. Every face encountered
his dark looks, and a portentous silence filled the room.
Each eye was fixed on his, and histo all appearance, was fixed on those
of each one. There was a long and portentous silence. At length
he spoke.

`Davy Dow, you may return to your seat. Henry Irvine, come
here!' The permission and command were both given in the calm
tones of settled and resolute revenge.

The clown obeyed with alacrity; but as he passed the other on his
way towards the desk, he whispered to him, `I'll be dom'd if he shall
strike you, Henry.' The boy gave him a reproving yet grateful
glance, and said, `hush, good Davy, I deserve it now.'

The youth who was called, had left his seat with a fearless smile.
With a firm, light tread, he descended the alley and stood before the

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Dominie. He was about sixteen years of age, with a high, white
forehead, about which brown hair clustered in the utmost profusion;
his eyes were large, black, and sparkling with genius. His face was
strikingly handsome, his figure elegant, and his manners graceful. He
was evidently far superior to his fellows in birth and mental culture,
as well as in person.

Henry Irvine was, in the beautiful language of Scripture, `the only
son of his mother, and she was a widow.' His father had been the
village pastor, until his death, a few years before and his successor
taking the parsonage, the widow, with scarce a pittance, (for country
clergymen can seldom do more than make both ends meet,) retired to
a lowly dwelling, the residence of a widow in humble life, but better
circumstances, than herself, who, for a trifling sum, rented her and
her son, part of her tenement. But Henry soon lost his remaining parent,
and to the widow Dow he looked up as to a second mother, and
between himself and her son, though nature had given them
minds of a different order there existed the ardent love of twin brothers.
Davy was rough in person, and blunt in manners, but he possessed
a kind heart, and was capable of strong attachments; and,
though a clown, had a breast full of generous feelings to counterbalance
his want of refinement. The more cultivated and intellectual
Henry, appreciated his warm attachment, though Davy's was an affection
more like the shaggy Newfoundland entertains towards a beloved
master, than that between two beings whom fortune, not nature, had
placed on the same social level.

`Thee sha'n't be struck, Henry I'll be dom'd if thee shall,' were
words that forcibly illustrated the nature and the strength of the attachment
of the faithful peasant. Dominie Spankie drew up his lengthy
figure to its full longitude, and bent a withering look upon Henry,
who met it with a steady and fearless bearing. There was a dead,
expecting silence throughout the room. The humming of fleas that
circled above the Dominie's head, was the only thing to be heard. At
length he moved to his throne and seat ed himself with direful solemnity.

`Henry Irvine stand before me!'

He silently obeyed. `I need not ask,' continued he, pointing to
the caricature, `if that be thy handy work, for none else in this school
hath that gift of the devil's art, save thyself. Confess and deny it not,
stripling, that it was thyself who hast vilified thy preceptor: thy pater
of learning and letters; the teacher of the humanities to a horde of

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gracelings like thyself; who hath inducted thee into Zenophon,
taught thee the beauties of Cicero, and led thee not a little way into
the Hebrew tongue. Say, is it not thou, ungrateful lad, that hast
done this thing?' Here the indignant Dominie pointed with his ferule
towards the painting, which looked so very like himself in his proper
person, that he started at the wonderful likeness, and with his bony
hands, stroked his long visage to ascertain, if indeed it was present
with him and not in the chimney.

`I disdain a falsehood, sir,' replied the boy; `I did do it.'

`Ha! you confess, graceless,' he cried, clutching his ferule tightly.
`So, now will I make an ensample of thee to the whole school. Hold
out your right hand.'

The boy, for a moment, held his breath, and compressed his lips
as if collecting firmness to undergo the torture, and coolly extended
his hand with the open palm upward. It was a soft, elegantly shaped
member, and seemed to quiver instinctively at the pain it was about to
endure. The ferule of Dominie Spankie was an oaken slab, two feet
in length, three inches wide, the thickness of a man's finger and full
three pounds in weight. At one extremity it was made concave, like
a spoon, for the purpose of raising blisters on the part it came in contact
with. By long handling, this instrument of torture, (which is
still in vogue in most American country schools,) was highly polished
and had become as hard and nearly as dark as ebony. When the offence
was not of the first order, or the offender was young, the smooth
end of the ferule was graciously used upon his palm; but when the
punishment was to be great, the Dominie was seen to turn the ferule
end for end, and balance it in his fingers with a gratified look, and
more than usual dexterity. There was a vein of cruelty, whether natural,
or acquired by a long reign of tyranny, is uncertain, running
through the Dominie's composition, and there is no doubt that he delighted
in the shrieks of the little victims, and in the blisters and blood
that followed his blows as truly as ever did a Spanish Inquisitor, in
the sufferings of those that had fallen into his merciless grasp Dominie
Spankie screwed up his visage into a devilish expression of malignant
triumph as he passed his fingers gently along the ferule, like
an executioner feeling his whip, before inflicting the lash, then suddenly
up went the heavy weapon, and the next instant it descended
upon the hand, with that sharp, peculiar ringing rap, which all my
male readers will remember, some, I doubt not, feelingly, while others
will not only recognise the ruler in question, but also Dominie

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Spankie himself, or I have painted his portrait far less skilfully with
my pen than the luckless Henry did with the pencil.

A second blow, after an interval long enough for the victim to feel
the full smart of the pain of the first, fell upon the outstretched palm,
now no longer white and soft, but glowing with inflammation. A
third, a fourth, and fifth followed, till twelve most cruel and inhuman
strokes had lacerated the hand, till both blood and water broke from
it, and trickled through its fingers to the ground. The brave boy
bore it like a martyr—a martyr he sure was to a system of education
disgraceful even to a pagan people, and endurable only in a nation of
serfs—yet a system upheld in a Christian land, by ignorant pedagogues
and sustained and strengthened by the indifference and fears
of parents. What right, moral, social, legal—yea, what right so ever
had this man to punish and lacerate this boy? Interrogation crowds
upon interrogation, all alike unanswerable. But this is no place to
discuss the question, though a volume that would come home to the
hearts and feelings of every parent might be written on the subject.

`Now the other hand!' said the implacable Dominie, after refreshing
himself by drinking the dipper full of water, handed to him by
one of the little boys. Not a groan had yet escaped the manly sufferer.
He bore this species of bastinado with a fortitude that should
have put to blush the savage cruelty that inflicted it. He held forth
his left hand and it was in like manner blistered.

`Nay, I have not done with you yet, sir,' said the monster, taking
a bunch of willow-rods down as the youth turned to go to his seat after
the infliction of the last blow. `Take off your jacket.'

Hitherto the whole school had looked on with trembling sympathy;
one alone, Davy Dow, betraying by his clenched fist, set teeth, and
flushed face, his resentment at the cruelty inflicted upon his friend,
for whom, had he not been forbidden by him, he would have done battle
even with the Dominie: he now impulsively started to his feet,
leaned forward over the desk, and shook his fists at him, shouting,

`Dom thee, if thou touch 'um again, I'll knock the doon, and be
doom'd to thee, if thee 'rt the Dominie!'

Without speaking, Dominie Spankie advanced in three strides to
the seat of this rebel, seized him by the collar with irresistible force,
dragged him across the benches to his desk, and flung him upon the
floor with such violence, that for a moment he lay there stunned; then
casting a glance of mingled threat and definance over the school, he

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turned towards Henry Irvine, and repeated his command to take off
his coat.

`Never, tyrant!' cried Henry, roused rather at his friend's treatment,
than on account of his own injuries; `I have borne shame
enough. My punishment has already exceeded my offence. I have
submitted thus far to corporal chastisement, because it is in conformity
to the vile discipline of schools, but I will bear no more, not even
on my hand. My back, sir, shall never be bared to the cat! I am
no slave, to be whipped with stripes. Custom has made a distinction
between blows on the hand and those on the body, and I have hitherto
submitted to the least degrading. But I shall do so no longer.'

He stepped back as he spoke, and proudly folded his arms.

`Strip, sir!' thundered the infuriated Dominie.

`Never!' was the quiet and firm reply.

`Then I will tear thy garments from thy shoulders, strip thee to the
skin, and give thee a castigation that thy upstart pride will not stomach.
'

`Touch me at your peril,' said the boy, in a determined tone, as
the Dominie advanced to seize him.

Heedless of the warning and never dreaming of the resistance from
a pupil, the furious pedagogue placed his hand upon the shoulder of
the spirited lad, and instantly received a blow in the breast that between
surprise and pain, caused him to start back. But, recovering
himself, he made a second and more furious attempt to seize upon
him, when a heavier and well directed blow on the side of the head,
from Davy Dow, who had got to his feet, knocked him heavily against
the chimney. Before he could recover himself the gallant fellows
followed up their success and inflicted upon his sacred person the
soundest pummelling ever a magister of a village school received, and
one certainly that was most richly deserved. The uproarious shouts
of the tiny boys when they saw their master hors du combat; the cries
of the terrified little ones; the mingled shouts and hurrahs, who can
describe? The terrible ferule was broken in two; the bunch of rods
scattered to the winds, by willing hands; and the school-room, save
by a few chicken hearted urchins, who, by remaining, hoped to avert
the Dominie's wrath when he should recover, was instantly deserted,
and the disfranchised boys, half frantic with tremulous joy, were seen
flying and shouting in every direction over the green.