When the lad entered, a murmur of pleasure and
welcome ran through the scholars, and joy beamed forth from every
countenance but that of his teacher. When the latter noticed this, his
irritability rose above restraint, and he exclaimed:--
"Silence! and apply to business, or I shall cause some of you to denude
immediately. No school ever can prosper in which that _hirudo_, called
a poor scholar, is permitted toleration. I thought, sarra, I told you
to nidificate and hatch your wild project undher some other wing than
mine."
"I only entrate you," replied our poor hero, "to suffer me to join the
class I left while I was sick, for about another year. I'll be very
quiet and humble, and, as far as I can, will do everything you wish me."
"Ah! you are a crawling reptile," replied the savage, "and, in my
opinion, nothing but a chate and impostor. I think you have imposed
yourself upon Mr. O'Brien for what you are not; that is, the son of an
honest man. I have no doubt, but many of your nearest relations died
after having seen their own funerals. Your mother, you runagate, wasn't
your father's wife, I'll be bail."
The spirit of the boy could bear this no longer; his eyes flashed, and
his sinews stood out in the energy of deep indignation.
"It is false," he exclaimed; "it is as false as your own cruel and
cowardly heart, you wicked and unprincipled tyrant! In everything you
have said of my father, mother, and friends, and of myself, too, you
are' a liar, from the hat on your head to the dirt undher your feet--a
liar, a coward, and a villain!"
The fury of the miscreant was ungovernable:--he ran at the still feeble
lad, and, by a stroke of his fist, dashed him senseless to the earth.
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