[Illustration: PAGE 1099-- Received a rather vigorous thwack on the ear]


The insurrection spread, the turf flew more thickly; his subjects closed
in upon him in a more compact body; every little fist itched to be
at him; the larger boys boldly laid in the facers, punched him in the
stomach, I treated him most opprobriously behind, every kick and cuff
accompanied by a memento of his cruelty; in short, they compelled him,
like Charles the Tenth, ignominiously to fly from his dominions.

On finding the throne vacant, some of them suggested that it ought to be
overturned altogether. Thady, however, who was the ringleader of
the rebellion, persuaded them to be satisfied with what they had
accomplished, and consequently succeeded in preventing them from
destroying the fixtures.

Again they surrounded the poor scholar, who, feeling himself the cause
of the insurrection, appeared an object of much pity. Such was his grief
that he could scarcely reply to them. Their consolation on witnessing
his distress was overwhelming. They desired him to think nothing of it;
if the master, they told him, should wreak his resentment on him, "be
the holy farmer," they would _pay_ (* pay) the masther. Thady's claim
was now undisputed. With only the injury of a black eye, and a lip
swelled to the size of a sausage, he walked home in triumph, the poor
scholar accompanying him.

The master, who feared, that this open contempt of his authority,
running up, as it did, into a very unpleasant species of retaliation,
was something like a signal for him to leave the parish, felt rather