On the vacant air, As Bill’s hand wan’t there!
The scholars roar again, and clap their little hands, and stamp their feet in the wildest ecstacy, when Shaw bellows like a rabid bull, and gesticulates fatality to the rebellious scholars, whose eyes fall quickly on their books, and all violently move their pallid lips, with pretense of study, while a terrible revenge rankles in their hearts, for Shaw’s cruel treatment of Bill, who has so many warts and a felon, with salt water still gurgling in his ocean belly. At Shaw’s wrathful behest, Bill again raises his trembling hand, and keeps his eye fastened on Shaw’s; and as the ruler nears his palm, he dodges, when Shaw flies to his scholastic throne for his cow-skin, and descends his ramparts with the pomposity of a king, calmly surveying his juvenile and affrighted subjects, and directs Bill to remove his jacket, who firmly declines. Shaw seizes him, and Bill cries murder; the girls weep and faint, and water is sprinkled on their cheeks and foreheads; the boys shake their fists, and dare each other to rush to Bill’s rescue, but Shaw threatens them with utter annihilation if they interfere, and the belligerent and affrighted boys leave poor Bill to his unhappy fate.—Fortunately for Bill, Shaw is short, and of very slender mould. Bill is stout, knows well the physical weakness of his adversary, and proves himself fully equal to the awful crisis before him. For, while Shaw strives to get Bill across his knees to switch and spank him, Bill, by a sudden and very elastic movement, gets between, and coils himself, like a snake, around Shaw’s legs, and pinches, and bites, and tears his pants, and finally trips him, and down they go, with Bill on Shaw, and with both hands so firmly and desperately clenched in Shaw’s white cravat, as to make his tongue protrude. The girls faintly titter, while the stoutest and bravest boys bang their desks, and wildly shout with joy. The panting combatants spring to the floor, and, like two roosters, have a moment’s respite; Shaw is pale, and trembles with shame, and relents, and in feeble and broken accents, directs Bill to take his seat; the silence of a Capulet pervades the school, when my tremendous horse laugh breaks the calm; the scholars scream again with frantic contortions; Shaw’s eyes roll like a demon’s, and his voice rises high above the universal clamor, which slowly subsides, and all is still again; Shaw then comes on tiptoe to my desk, and grabs and drags me to the aisle, with one hand clutched in my throat, and the other in my long hair, when I grab him in a tender spot, and make him squeal; and so severe and unrelenting is my grasp, that he gladly gives freedom to my throat and hair, and implores, in tones of excruciating agony, to release my hands.