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40 ROAMIN' IN THE GLOAMIN'
rage. Like Tarn O'Shanter's wife he had been nursing his wrath to keep it warm ! I was supposed to be the bravest of the boys who had "skulked the schule," and it was decided that I should be the first of the miscreants to enter the classroom. I didn't like the job at all, but I put as good a face on it as possible and made a dash for my desk. But "Stumpie," moving with unwonted alacrity, caught me before I got there or had time to utter a word. He gave me a tremendous clout on the jaw. Fortunately, it knocked me clean underneath a desk, otherwise I would have caught a swinging kick with his iron-heel and that might have been the end of me.
The master never uttered a word. His breath was going and coming in gasps, his eyes were glaring with fury. He tried several times to voice the anger which was consuming him, but he couldn't get the words out of his mouth. After settling my "hash" he went for several of the other boys. The class was in an uproar. Two or three of the younger pupils began to cry and others, thinking that Maister Bell had gone mad, made their escape from the room and the building. I cannot imagine a scene of such a turbulent nature to have taken place in any school anywhere since education of the young began. It was an epic contest. One of the fellows upset the master's desk in the struggle, while I emerged from my place of temporary security and threw a slate which just missed Bell's head by inches. Suddenly "Stumpie" shouted out, "We'll now take the Scripture lesson!" Peace was gradually restored. And if my recollection is trustworthy the lesson that morning began with the text, "Suffer the little children to come unto me!"
Dear old "Stumpie" Bell ! He had a difficult task with us half-timers, as wild and deil-may-care a bunch as you could have found in a day's march, but he left his imprint on our minds as well as on our bodies. Years after I went back to Arbroath as a "lion comique." Before going to the concert hall in the evening, I went out to hunt up my old schoolmas