Jan promptly committed the unpardonable sin of “bullying” by smacking the head of “a boy not half your size.” It was no use his repeating in his own defence what the small boy had said to him. “And so you are!” cried his poor Aunt Alice, mixing hysterical tears with her first-born’s passionate flood. And coming from those gentle lips, the words cut Jan to the heart, for he could not see that the poor soul was not a reasonable being where her children were concerned; he only saw that it was no use his trying to justify his conduct for a moment. Everybody was against him. His grandfather threatened him with a horse-whipping; his grandmother said it was “high time school began again”; and Jan broke his sullen silence to echo the sentiment rudely enough. He had to spend the rest of that day in his own room, and to support a further period of ostracism until the military uncle’s return from a country-house visit. The military uncle, being no admirer of his younger nephews and nieces, took a seditious view of the heinous offence reported to him by the ladies, and backed it by tipping the offender a furtive half-sovereign at the earliest opportunity. “I’m afraid you’ve been having a pretty poor time of it,” said Captain Ambrose; “but take my advice and don’t treat little swabs spoiling for school as though you’d actually got ’em there. They’ll get there in time, thank the Lord, and I wouldn’t be in their little breeches then! Found something good to read?” “I’m not reading,” said Jan, displaying the book which had occupied him in his disgrace. “I’m learning 'The Burial-March of Dundee.’” “That sounds cheerful,” remarked the captain. “So they give you saying-lessons for holiday tasks at your school?” “I can’t say what they do,” replied Jan. “There’s no holiday task these holidays; this is something special.” And he explained what without much hesitation, and likewise why and wherefore under friendly pressure from the gallant captain, whose sympathetic attitude was making another boy of Jan, but whose views were more treasonable than ever on the matter of the vindictive punishment meted out by Haigh. “But I never heard of such a thing in my life!” cried he. “A master spoil a boy’s holidays for something he’s done at school? It’s perfectly monstrous, if not illegal, and if I were you I wouldn’t learn a line of it.” “I doubt I’ve learnt very near every line already,” responded Jan, shamefacedly. “And there’s a hundred and eighty-eight altogether.” “A hundred and eighty-eight lines in the Christmas holidays! I should like to have seen any of our old Eton beaks come a game like that!” “He said he’d tell Jerry if either of us makes a single mistake when we get back.” “Let him! Thrale’s an O.E. himself, and one of the very best; let your man go to him if he likes, and see if he comes away without a flea in his ear. Anyhow you shan’t hang about the house to learn another line while I’m here; out you come with me, and try a blow at a bird!”