Centre; and it was an understood thing that the young rebels meant to put
down the new master, if they could. It was natural that the two
prettiest girls in the village, called in the local dialect, as nearly as
our limited alphabet will represent it, Alminy Cutterr, and Arvilly
Braowne, should feel and express an interest in the good-looking
stranger, and that, when their flattering comments were repeated in the
hearing of their indigenous admirers, among whom were some of the older
"boys" of the school, it should not add to the amiable dispositions of
the turbulent youth.

Monday came, and the new schoolmaster was in his chair at the upper end
of the schoolhouse, on the raised platform. The rustics looked at his
handsome face, thoughtful, peaceful, pleasant, cheerful, but sharply cut
round the lips and proudly lighted about the eyes. The ringleader of the
mischief-makers, the young butcher who has before figured in this
narrative, looked at him stealthily, whenever he got a chance to study
him unobserved; for the truth was, he felt uncomfortable, whenever he
found the large, dark eyes fixed on his own little, sharp, deep-set, gray
ones. But he managed to study him pretty well,--first his face, then his
neck and shoulders, the set of his arms, the narrowing at the loins, the
make of his legs, and the way he moved. In short, he examined him as he
would have examined a steer, to see what he could do and how he would cut
up. If he could only have gone to him and felt of his muscles, he would
have been entirely satisfied. He was not a very wise youth, but he did
know well enough, that, though big arms and legs are very good things,
there is something besides size that goes to make a man; and he had heard
stories of a fighting-man, called "The Spider," from his attenuated
proportions, who was yet a terrible hitter in the ring, and had whipped
many a big-limbed fellow, in and out of the roped arena.