Upon a
certain Saturday--some sidereal power inimical to boys must have
been in the ascendant--a Saturday of brilliant but intermittent
sunshine, the white clouds seen from the school windows indicating
by their rapid transit across those fields of vision that fresh
breezes friendly to kites, or draigons, as they were called at
Rothieden, were frolicking in the upper regions--nearly a dozen boys
were kept in for not being able to pay down from memory the usual
instalment of Shorter Catechism always due at the close of the week.
Amongst these boys were Robert and Shargar. Sky-revealing windows
and locked door were too painful; and in proportion as the feeling
of having nothing to do increased, the more uneasy did the active
element in the boys become, and the more ready to break out into
some abnormal manifestation. Everything--sun, wind, clouds--was
busy out of doors, and calling to them to come and join the fun; and
activity at the same moment excited and restrained naturally turns
to mischief. Most of them had already learned the obnoxious
task--one quarter of an hour was enough for that--and now what
should they do next? The eyes of three or four of the eldest of
them fell simultaneously upon Shargar.
Robert was sitting plunged in one of his day-dreams, for he, too,
had learned his catechism, when he was roused from his reverie by a
question from a pale-faced little boy, who looked up to him as a
great authority.
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