Then he thought that he must take out a battledore and shuttlecock and play with it, or what he proposed doing would be suspected. He went to the cabinet, and opening it, there he saw on an upper shelf the very knife with which he had made the hole in his football.
A dreadful idea seized him, he took the knife and advanced with it towards poor Miss Lucy. Dragging her from the chair, he threw her on the ground and began to cut away at her wax neck with his knife. As the chief part of the edge was blunted, he did not at first make much impression; but, drawing it rapidly backwards till the sharp part towards the point reached the doll’s neck, in one instant off rolled the head. Others who do wicked deeds often injure themselves, so Norman, whose finger was under the point cut a deep gash in it. As he felt the pain, and saw the blood spurting forth, he jumped up, crying lustily for some one to come and help him, utterly regardless of the mischief he had done.
He gazed at his finger, and thought that all the blood in his body would run out.
“Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do?” he screamed out. “Is nobody coming to help me?” Then he looked at the doll.
“It was all your fault, you nasty thing,” he exclaimed kicking the doll’s body away from its head, “I wish that I had let you alone. What business had Fanny to leave you in the chair, looking so impudently at me, and if you had your head on, you would be laughing at me still?” then he again looked at his finger, which smarted very much, and as he saw the blood dropping down on the carpet, he bawled louder than ever.
Fanny, during a pause in her reading, heard him. “What can be the matter with Norman?” she exclaimed, “may I run down and see?”
“Yes, my dear, and call me if he has really hurt himself,” said Mrs Norton, “but from the way in which he is crying, I do not think there is anything very serious.”
Fanny ran downstairs. She entered the drawing-room. For a moment, she stood aghast, as the first
object which met her sight, was her dear, pretty Miss Lucy’s head, lying some way apart from her body, with a huge knife near it, and Norman standing not far off.