'
Neither of the lads had yet returned to his home; but the paternal
McKnight promised, like a good citizen, that immediately his son was
available he would be reduced to subjection with a length of belting, and
then handed over to the will of the scholastic authority without any
reservation. Mr. McKnight was commended for his public spirit; and it was
then agreed that a member of the Committee should wait upon Widow Haddon
to invite her co-operation, and point out the extent to which her son's
mental and moral development would be retarded by a display of weakness
on her part at a crisis of this kind?
Mr. Ephraim Shine volunteered for this duty. Ephraim was a tall gaunt
man, with hollow cheeks, a leathery complexion, and large feet. He walked
or sat with his eyes continually fixed upon these feet--reproachfully, it
seemed--as if their disproportion were a source of perennial woe; he
carried his arms looped behind him, and had acquired a peculiar stoop--to
facilitate his vigilant guardianship of his feet, apparently. Mr. Shine,
as superintendent of the Waddy Wesleyan Chapel, represented a party that
had long since broken away from the School Committee, which was condemned
in prayer as licentious and ungodly, and left to its wickedness when it
exhibited a determination to stand by Joel Ham, a scoffer and a drinker
of strong drinks, as against a respectable, if comparatively unlettered,
nominee of the Chapel and the Band of Hope.
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