“Poor man!  She sharn’t touch me Jimmy while I know.  Sure you’ve got no sense.  You’d had him dead if I hadn’t come in.”

I walked straight to my room and shut myself in, and did not teach any more that afternoon.  The children rattled on my door-handle and jeered: 

“She thought she’d hit me, but ma settled her.  Old poor Melvyn’s darter won’t try no more of her airs on us.”

I pretended not to hear.  What was I to do?  There was no one to whom I could turn for help.  M’Swat would believe the story of his family, and my mother would blame me.  She would think I had been in fault because I hated the place.

Mrs M’Swat called me to tea, but I said I would not have any.  I lay awake all night and got desperate.  On the morrow I made up my mind to conquer or leave.  I would stand no more.  If in all the wide world and the whole of life this was the only use for me, then I would die—­take my own life if necessary.

Things progressed as usual next morning.  I attended to my duties and marched my scholars into the schoolroom at the accustomed hour.  There was no decided insubordination during the morning, but I felt Jimmy was waiting for an opportunity to defy me.  It was a fearful day, possessed by a blasting wind laden with red dust from Riverina, which filled the air like a fog.  The crockery ware became so hot in the kitchen that when taking it into the dining-room we had to handle it with cloths.  During the dinner-hour! slipped away unnoticed to where some quince-trees were growing and procured a sharp rod, which I secreted among the flour-bags in the schoolroom.  At half-past one I brought my scholars in and ordered them to their work with a confident air.  Things went without a ripple until three o’clock, when the writing lesson began.  Jimmy struck his pen on the bottom of the bottle every time he replenished it with ink.

“Jimmy,” I gently remonstrated, “don’t jab your pen like that—­it will spoil it.  There is no necessity to shove it right to the bottom.”

Jab, jab, went Jimmy’s pen.

“Jimmy, did you hear me speak to you?”

Jab went the pen.

“James, I am speaking to you!”

Jab went the pen again.

“James,” I said sternly, “I give you one more chance.”

He deliberately defied me by stabbing into the ink-bottle with increased vigour.  Liza giggled triumphantly, and the little ones strove to emulate her.  I calmly produced my switch and brought it smartly over the shoulders of my refractory pupil in a way that sent the dust in a cloud from his dirty coat, knocked the pen from his fingers, and upset the ink.

He acted as before—­yelled ear-drum-breakingly, letting the saliva from his distended mouth run on his copy-book.  His brothers and sisters also started to roar, but bringing the rod down on the table, I threatened to thrash every one of them if they so much as whimpered; and they were so dumbfounded that they sat silent in terrified surprise.  Jimmy continued to bawl.  I hit him again.