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The ferule was a name given both to the bamboo and to the yellow cane, which grew plentifully both in the islands of the Greek Archipelago and in Southern Italy, as notably at Cannae in Apulia, where it gave a name to the scene of the great battle. The virga was also used, a rod commonly of birch, a tree the educational use of which had been already discovered.

"You shall ferule me in the good old-fashioned way; I seldom do it myself, but it may make you remember better to give me pain than to feel it yourself." "Strike you? Oh, I couldn't!" cried Nat. "Then mind that tripping tongue of thine. I have no wish to be hurt, but I would gladly bear much pain to cure this fault."

Dashing forward into the middle of the room, he struck me violently on the shoulders with his ferule, and snatching the rope out of my hand, exclaimed, with a stentorian voice, and genuine Yorkshire accent, "Prodigy of ignorance! dost not even know how to ring a bell? Must I myself instruct thee?"

No words of chastisement passed his lips; no rule and ferule maintained his discipline. Higher mathematics indeed were taught in these modest classrooms, and a chemistry of love absent from the textbooks. He spread his wisdom by spiritual contagion rather than impermeable precept.

Andreas had been grenadier Sergeant, and even regimental Schoolmaster under Frederick the Great; but now, quitting the halbert and ferule for the spade and pruning-hook, cultivated a little Orchard, on the produce of which he, Cincinnatus-like, lived not without dignity.

In fact, Bazin bounded up, carrying with him his little low chair, which the children tried to take away, with battles more fierce than those of the Greeks endeavoring to recover the body of Patroclus from the hands of the Trojans. Bazin did more than bound; he let fall both his alphabet and his ferule. "You!" said he, "you, Monsieur d'Artagnan?" "Yes, myself!

At last! the Prefetto di Palazzo sounded three loud strokes, with the ferule of his mace, upon the floor, the sound of voices ceased, the doors into the royal apartments were thrown open, the band struck up the royal march, and their Majesties entered, followed by the members of their suite. Every one made a deep reverence, and the Queen seated herself upon the gold chair.

"Just forty years ago," he said one day, "I was whipped at school for a slight offense whipped with a ferule right across my hands, so that I went home with a blue mark where the blood had settled, and for a fortnight my hands were stiff and swollen from the blows. The other day an old man called at my house and inquired for me. He was bent, and could just creep along.

No doubt all this was good boy's-play once; afterwards it did to laugh at for a while; then it ceased to be even a joke, and grew a weariness and an affliction; and at length we all rejoiced when the mighty world-pedagogue of Chelsea seized his ferule, and roared, over land and sea, "Silence, babblers!" If only Mr. Buckle had profited by the command!

Thus prepared, the pigment was applied to the tip or pointed ferule of a little metallic pencil, called, in Hebrew, Makachol, and made of silver, gold, or ivory; the eyelids were then closed, and the little pencil, or probe, held horizontally, was inserted between them: a process which is briefly and picturesquely described in the Bible.