After Duck had done bellowing, and the pain of the blow was gone off, he felt his back, but it was as smooth as the innumerable drubbings he'd got from one and another had left it. He then asked everybody if they'd seen a stick, with a big black head, hop into the window or go down the garden: but he only got laughed at; and when he tould a pair of his fellow-'prentices in confidence what had happened him, and why it was, they jeered him, and tried to persuade him he was telling lies, or going mad but he wouldn't believe them, for he had seen the switch with his own eyes, and felt the blow with his own back. The two 'prentices, however, reported the trick to the rest; and from that day, in imitation of Duck Davie, when they couldn't or wouldn't find a broken plate, they knocked a piece out of a sound one. Duck saw them do this often and often, but the switch didn't strike them; and he began to feel sorry that ever he'd tickled the rough nose of an ould witch with a straw. Time wint on, and ould Alice at last found out the trick of the broken crockery, and who it was put the 'prentices up to it; so poor Duck was in a worse pickle than ever, but didn't dare to indulge himself in mischief against his mistress, for fear of the switch. At last, however, he could bear her behaviour no longer, and resolved to terrify her out of three or four years of her natural life, happen what would after it. What brought him to this was a practice of her's, in the cold mornings of winter, which was now come on, of punishing him for the misdeeds of his companions. You'll hear how she managed it. An hour before day-break, without much disturbing her husband, who didn't get up for long after, she'd take a pole that stood by her bed-side, and strike the beam that wint across the ceiling with it, to wake up the boys that slept in a big room above. Sometimes they wouldn't wake; and then she'd go up to them herself, and feeling about in the dark, get hould of the nose that lay nearest the door; that nose she knew well enough was Duck Davie's; and when she had it in her horny fingers, she'd pull it till Duck roared with the pain loud enough to wake himself and all his fellow-'prentices. This way she got two or three of her ends at once:--she vented her spite on Duck, punished one of the delinquents, and awoke the rest. Duck didn't like it; and after he'd been served so twice, vowed revenge, in his own mind, if she did it again. Well, the very next morning, while Duck was dreaming of tickling the witch's nose, up came his ould mistress, and performed as before upon his. Let Duck be as bad as he would, this wasn't well of her, at any rate; and if he did play her a trick after that, I won't say she didn't more than half deserve it. One of the 'prentices said that he'd been awake, with a whitlow on his thumb, for an hour before, and he'd swear the mistress hadn't knocked at all that morning: so it was a piece of spite on her part, that day at