peasantry in the world--surrounded their teacher in a group quite
as pleasing as picturesque. The sway of the old man was paternal.
His rod was rather a figurative than a real existence; and when
driven to the use of the birch, the good man, consulting more
tastes than one, employed the switch from the peach or some other
odorous tree or shrub, in order to reconcile the lad, as well as
he could, to the extraordinary application. He was one of those
considerate persons, who disguise pills in gold-leaf, and if compelled,
as a judge, to hang a gentleman, would decree that a rope of silk
should carry out the painful requisitions of the laws.

Seated beneath his tree, in nearly the same spot and position in
which he had dismissed his pupils, William Calvert pored over the
pages of a volume as huge of size as it was musty of appearance.
It was that pleasant book--quite as much romance as history--the
"Knights of Malta," by our venerable father, Monsieur L'Abbe
Vertot. Its dull, dim, yellow-looking pages--how yellow, dim, and
dull-looking in comparison with more youthful works--had yet a
life and soul which it is not easy to find in many of these latter.
Its high wrought and elaborate pictures of strife, and toil, and
bloodshed, grew vividly before the old man's eyes; and then, to help
the illusion, were there not the portraits--mark me--the veritable
portraits, engraved on copper, with all their titles, badges, and
insignia, done to the life, of all those brave, grand, and famous
masters of the order, by whom the deeds were enacted which he
read, and who stared out upon his eyes, at every epoch, in full
confirmation of the veracious narrative? No wonder that the old
man became heedless of external objects. No wonder he forgot the
noise of the retiring urchins, and the toils of the day, as, for
the twentieth time, he glowed in the brave recital of the famous