Now, with all his seeming dislike to use the rod, David had turns of severity, and then he was far more brutal than any man I have ever known. Therefore it did not surprise us next morning that the earlier scholars were looking with wonder and alarm at the sentence on the wall, when Dove, appearing behind us, ordered us to enter at once. Going to his desk, he put on his spectacles, which then were worn astride of the nose. In a minute he set on below them a second pair, and this we knew to be a signal of coming violence. Then he stood up, and asked who had written the opprobrious epithet on the wall. As no one replied, he asked several in turn, but luckily chose the girls, thinking, perhaps, that they would weakly betray the sinner. Soon he lost patience, and cried out he would give a king’s pound to know. When he had said this over and over, I began to reflect that, if he had any real idea of doing as he promised, a pound was a great sum, and to consider what might be done with it in the way of marbles of Amsterdam, tops, and of certain much-desired books, for now this latter temptation was upon me, as it has been ever since. As I sat, and Dove thundered, I remembered how, when one Stacy, with an oath, assured my father that his word was as good as his bond, my parent said dryly that this equality left him free to choose, and he would prefer his bond. I saw no way to what was for me the mysterious security of a bond, but I did conceive of some need to stiffen the promise Dove had made before I faced the penalty. Upon this I held up a hand, and the master cried, “What is it?” I said, “Master, if a boy should tell thee wouldst thou surely give a pound?” At this a lad called “Shame!” thinking I was a telltale. When Dove called silence and renewed his pledge, I, overbold, said, “Master, I did it, and now wilt thou please to give me a pound--a king’s pound?” “I will give thee a pounding!” he roared; and upon this came down from his raised form, and gave me a beating so terrible and cruel that at last the girls cried aloud, and he let me drop on the floor, sore and angry. I lay still awhile, and then went to my seat. As I bent over my desk, it was rather the sense that I had been wronged, than the pain of the blows, which troubled me. After school, refusing speech to any, I walked home, and ministered to my poor little bruised body as I best could. Now this being a Saturday, and therefore a half-holiday, I ate at two with my father and mother. Presently my father, detecting my uneasy movements, said, “Hast thou been birched to-day, and for what badness?” Upon this my mother said softly, “What is it, my son? Have no fear.” And this gentleness being too much for me, I fell to tears, and blurted out all my little tragedy.