“Hear her, girls,” said Kitty Merrydew; “you are witnesses to her dreadful words.”
“You’d better be quick, Kitty,” said Sophy, who in her heart of hearts hated this scene, “the bell will ring in no time for us to go back to school.”
The Imp glanced at a small jewelled watch which she wore in a bracelet round her wrist.
“There’s a quarter of an hour,” she said, “plenty of time for our purpose. Now then, Peggy Desmond, you have got to go right down on your knees and fold your hands so and look up in my face and say, ‘Kitty Merrydew, I beg your pardon from the bottom of my heart, and I’ll let you laugh and laugh and laugh every bit of the ugly Irish out of me.’ That’s what you’ve got to say, Peggy, and if you don’t, why——”
“Why what?” asked Peggy. “I’m mighty curious to know what’ll happen if I don’t do what ye’re requirin’ o’ me.”
“This is what is going to happen. We four girls are going to force you down on the ground, and one of us will sit on your shoulders, and another on your legs, and the other two will give you a little taste of a small riding-whip which we happen to have by us. That’s the alternative. You beg my pardon, or Anne and Grace Dodd take turn about to whip you, and whip you well, too.”
“Yes,” said Grace Dodd, “we can’t have our friend abused the way you abused her last night, Peggy Desmond. You’ve got to know your place in the Lower School, so now on to your knees, or we must set to work.”
“On to me knees! Never!” said Peggy. “Afraid of yez, ye cowards! not me. Let me go, Anne Dodd, don’t ye dare to touch me. What’s yer name, ye little spalpeen there, ye look as frightened as anything. Kape out o’ me reach, or I’ll scratch yer face. There, there! Oh my, but it’s shameful! One to four, I say—one to four!—Whinsie, me beauty—Whinsie, come along! Whinsie, come an’ help—come an’ help!”
The poor child was not frightened, nothing living could make her that; but with four strong pairs of arms against her one pair, with the judicious aid of the hockey-sticks, one of which tripped her up violently when she tried to run away, she was at last defeated to the extent of being stretched on the ground.
“Oh, oh, do stop!” said Sophia. “Don’t go on! Oh it’s horrid! And see how white she is! I think that hockey-stick hurt her, I do really. Oh do stop, Kitty! I’d never have come out with you if I’d known it was like this. Oh what am I to do? I won’t sit on her legs—no, I won’t!”