The boys laughed aloud, and there was a tittering among the girls, which made Cipher very angry. “Silence!” he roared, and stamped upon the floor so savagely that the windows rattled. “Come out here, Sir. I'll give you a drawing-lesson of another sort.” He seized Paul by the collar, and threw him into the space in front of his own desk. “Hold out your hand.”
Paul felt that he was about to receive a tremendous thrashing; but he determined that he would not flinch. He held out his right hand, and spat! came the blow from a heavy ferule. His hand felt as if he had been struck by a piece of hot iron.
“The other, sir.”
Whack! it fell, a blow which made the flesh purple. There was an Oh! upon his tongue; but he set his teeth together, and bit his lips till they bled, and so smothered it. Another blow,—another,—another,—which were hard to bear; but his teeth were set like a vice. There was a twitching of the muscles round his lips; he was pale. When the blows fell, he held his breath, but he did not snivel.
“I'll see if I can't bring you to your feeling, you good-for-nothing scape-grace,” said the master, mad with passion, and surprised that Paul made no outcry. He gave another round, bringing the ferule down with great force. Blood began to ooze from the pores. The last blow spattered the drops around the room. Cipher came to his senses. He stopped.
“Are you sorry, sir?”
“I don't know whether I am or not. I didn't mean any harm. I suppose I ought not to have drawn it in school; but I didn't do it to make fun. I drew you just as you are,” said Paul,—his voice trembling a little in spite of his efforts to control it.
The master could not deny that it was a perfect likeness. He was surprised at Paul's cleverness at drawing, and for the first time in his life saw that he cut a ridiculous figure wearing that long, loose, swallow-tailed coat, with great, flaming brass buttons, and resolved upon the spot that his next coat should be a frock, and that he would get a longer pair of pants.
“You may take your seat, sir!” he said, puzzled to know whether to punish Paul still more, and compel him to say that he was sorry, or whether to accept the explanations, and apologize for whipping him so severely.
Paul sat down. His hands ached terribly; but what troubled him most was the thought that he had been whipped before the whole school. All the girls had witnessed his humiliation. There was one among them,—Azalia Adams,—who stood at the head of Paul's class, the best reader and speller in school. She had ruby lips, and cheeks like roses; the golden sunlight falling upon her chestnut hair crowned her with glory; deep, thoughtful, and earnest was the liquid light of her hazel eyes; she was as lovely and beautiful as the flower whose name she bore. Paul had drawn her picture many times,—sometimes bending over her task, sometimes as she sat, unmindful of the hum of voices around her, looking far away into a dim and distant dream-land. He never wearied of tracing the features of one so fair and good as she. Her laugh was as musical as a mountain-brook; and in the church on Sunday, when he heard her voice sweetly, softly, and melodiously mingling with the choir, he thought of the angels,—of her as in heaven and he on earth.