centre of the school-room a reiterated call of "Sirs!" "Trustees!" "Mr.
Trustee!" "Board!"

It was Archie McLeod, standing up on the backs of two seats, waving a
white paper, and trying frantically to make himself heard. The face of a
man galloping for life and death, coming up at the last second with a
reprieve for one about to be shot, could hardly be fuller of intense
anxiety than was Archie's as he waved his paper and shouted.

Little Bel gazed bewilderingly at him. This was not down on her
programme of the exercises. What could it be?

As soon as partial silence enabled him to speak, Archie proceeded to
read a petition, setting forth, to the respected Board of Trustees, that
the undersigned, boys and girls of the Wissan Bridge School, did hereby
unanimously request that they might have no other teacher than Miss
McDonald, "as long as she lives."

This last clause had been the cause of bitter disputing between Archie
and Sandy,--Sandy insisting upon having it in; Archie insisting that it
was absurd, because they would not go to school as long as Miss McDonald
lived. "But there's the little ones and the babies that'll be growin'
up," retorted Sandy, "an' there'll never be another like her: I say, 'as
long as she lives'"; and "as long as she lives" it was. And when Archie,
with an unnecessary emphasis, delivered this closing clause of the
petition, it was received with a roar of laughter from the platform,
which made him flush angrily, and say, with a vicious punch in Sandy's
ribs: "There, I told ye, it spoiled it a'. They're fit to die over it;
an' sma' blame to 'em, ye silly!"