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Updated: June 2, 2025
As for Henderson, Walter thought he could have died for him, so much he loved him for his kindness in this hour of need; and Eden never left his side when he could creep there to console him by merry playfulness, or to be his companion when he would otherwise have been alone. The boys had been truly sorry to hear of Mr Paton's loss; it roused all their most generous feelings.
Mr Paton's attention was aroused; he pushed the lid off the desk, and saw at once that it had been broken open. "Who has broken open my desk?" No answer. He looked very grave, but said nothing, looking for his imposition-book. "Where is my imposition-book?" No answer. "And where is my ?" Mr Paton stopped, and looked with the greatest eagerness over every corner of the desk.
The master, Mr Paton's successor, thought it odd that Wilton could do his verses so much better than any of his other work, but he could not detect the cheating, and Wilton always assured him that the verses were entirely his own composition.
Conscious that the boys were watching with some amusement this little exhibition of temper and trial of wills, he then took out a sheet of paper, wrote on it, in large letters, the words Two Hundred Lines for Mr Paton, and, amid the tittering of the form, carried it up to Mr Paton's desk.
I said, "What nonsense; Teapolo is a spirit, and cannot be seen." But in mad excitement he persisted that he had killed him. And at Mrs. Paton's advice, I went with the man, and he led me to a great Sacred Rock of coral near our old hut, over which hung the dead body of a huge and beautiful sea-serpent, and exclaimed, "There he lies! Truly I killed him."
Many hairbreadth escapes fell to his lot, and at last he quitted the sea, as he states "to the no small joy of my parents." When about eleven he accompanied his elder brother, Alexander, to Mr. Paton's school at Falkirk. This school was for writing and book-keeping, but such as chose to pay received lessons in astronomy and geography after school hours.
The spirit of nationality, and zeal for national improvement, which pervades the population almost as one man, is strongly marked by many incidents related in Mr Paton's pages, and one is so remarkable that we cannot forbear quoting it.
David, Dr Burton's younger brother, was lovingly tended by them during part of the lingering illness of which he died, and the youngest of Eliza Paton's sons remained an inmate of Mrs Brown's house that he might continue his education in Aberdeen, when his mother removed to Edinburgh.
But he was spared this last drop in the cup of punishment. The mere sight of him showed the boys that he had suffered bitterly enough already. When they looked at him they had not the heart to hurt and shame him any more. Mr Paton's open forgiveness of that which had fallen most severely on himself changed the current of their feelings.
"Tongue cannot speak," he exclaims, in the spirit of Noel Paton's picture, before it was amended or spoilt, "the horrors that were done on the English by these mutinous hyaenas. Allow hyaenas to mutiny and strange things will follow." He never seems to have revolved the question as to the share of his admired Muscovy in instigating the revolt.
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