Everything--sun, wind, clouds--was busy out of doors, and calling to them to come and join the fun; and activity at the same moment excited and restrained naturally turns to mischief.

Most of them had already learned the obnoxious task--one quarter of an hour was enough for that--and now what should they do next?
The eyes of three or four of the eldest of them fell simultaneously upon Shargar.
Robert was sitting plunged in one of his day-dreams, for he, too, had learned his catechism, when he was roused from his reverie by a question from a pale-faced little boy, who looked up to him as a great authority.
'What for 's 't ca'd the Shorter Carritchis, Bob ?' ''Cause it's no fully sae lang's the Bible,' answered Robert, without giving the question the consideration due to it, and was proceeding to turn the matter over in his mind, when the mental process was arrested by a shout of laughter.

The other boys had tied Shargar's feet to the desk at which he sat--likewise his hands, at full stretch; then, having attached about a dozen strings to as many elf-locks of his pale-red hair, which was never cut or trimmed, had tied them to various pegs in the wall behind him, so that the poor fellow could not stir.

They were now crushing up pieces of waste-paper, not a few leaves of stray school-books being regarded in that light, into bullets, dipping them in ink and aiming then at Shargar's face.
For some time Shargar did not utter a word; and Robert, although somewhat indignant at the treatment he was receiving, felt as yet no impulse to interfere, for success was doubtful.

But, indeed, he was not very easily roused to action of any kind; for he was as yet mostly in the larva-condition of character, when everything is transacted inside.
But the fun grew more furious, and spot after spot of ink gloomed upon Shargar's white face.