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We never saw Peg again; but before the winter had passed, the old Squire bought another small flock of sheep from a neighbor. The school committee finally decided that Master Brench's curious methods of punishment were not actually dangerous. He was advised, however, to discontinue them; and school went on again Monday morning.
Master Brench's attention was chiefly directed to keeping order and devising punishments for violations of school discipline. School studies appeared to be of minor importance with him. It was on Tuesday of that week, while we were at home, that the following incident occurred. Owing to our long winters, sheep raising, in Maine, has often been an uncertain business.
Hold it out straight, full stretch, and keep it there till I tell you to lower it." Oh, how heavy that book soon got to be! And when Czar Brench calmly went on hearing lessons and apparently forgot you there, the discomfort soon became torture. Your arm would droop lower and lower, until Czar Brench's eye would fall on you, and he would say quietly, "Straight out, there!"
It had been impossible longer to remain blind to the fact that he was gaining no glory at Cambridge, where Brench's own college had for a year tempered its tone to him as for Brench's own sake. Therefore why renew the vain form of preparing him for the impossible? The impossible it had become clear was that he should be anything but an artist. 'Oh dear, dear! said poor Peter.
I know whereof I speak, for I "sat on nothing" three times that winter. Czar Brench's most picturesque, not to say bizarre, punishment was for buzzing lips. Many of us, studying hard to get our lessons, were very likely to make sounds with our lips, and in the silence of that schoolroom the least little lisp was sure to reach the master's ear.
There were many terribly tired arms at our school that winter! But holding books at arm's length was a far milder penalty than "sitting on nothing," which was Czar Brench's specially devised punishment for those who shuffled uneasily on those hard old benches during study hours. "Aha, there, my boy!" he would cry. "If you cannot sit still on that bench, come right out here and sit on nothing."
They formed, like the Mallows themselves, poor Brench's own family having at least to such a degree the note of familiarity. The occasion was one of those he had long ago learnt to know and to name short flickers of the faint flame, soft gusts of a kinder air. Twice a year regularly the Master believed in his fortune, in addition to believing all the year round in his genius.
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