It was all the same to Thomas. There were no words he could not spell, and he saw no reason why he should not do that verse as well as any other. So, with an extra knitting of his eyebrows, he set forth doggedly.
“An-hour-passed-on-the-Turk-awoke-that-bright-dream-was-his-last.”
Thomas's voice fell with the unvarying regularity of the beat of a trip-hammer.
“He-woke-to-hear-his-sentries-shriek-to-arms-they-come-the-Greek the-Greek-he-woke—”
“But, Thomas, wait a minute. You see you must speak these words, 'To arms! They come!' differently from the others. These words were shrieked by the sentries, and you must show that in your reading.”
“Speak them out, man,” said the minister, sharply, and a little nervously, fearing that his wife had undertaken too great a task, and hating to see her defeated.
“Now, Thomas,” said Mrs. Murray, “try again. And remember the sentries shrieked these words, 'To arms!' and so on.”
Thomas squared his shoulders, spread his feet apart, added a wrinkle to his frown, and a deeper note of desperation to his tone, and began again.
“An-hour-passed-on-the-Turk-awoke-that-bright-dream-was—”
The master shuddered.