"I'll thrash this mean spirit
of lying and cowardice out of you, or kill you in the attempt." Swish,
swish. "What sort of a man do you think you'll make?" Swish, swish.
"Telling lies just to save your miserable skin!" Swish, swish,
swish, swish.
"You've killed me--oh, you've killed me! I know you have!" yelled
the wretched child, squirming all over the floor. "'Twasn't me,
'twasn't my fault--hit the others some."
Swish, swish, swish. "Do you think the others would lie so
contemptibly? Philip never lied to me. Judy would cut her tongue out
first." Swish, swish, swish. "Going to a picnic, are you? You can
picnic in your room till to-morrow's breakfast." Swish, swish, swish.
"Pah--get away with you!"
Human endurance could go no further. The final swish had been actual
agony to his smarting, quivering shoulders and back. He thought of
the others, happy and heedless, out in the sunshine, trudging merrily
off to the river, without a thought of what he was bearing, and his
very heart seethed to burst in the hugeness of its bitterness and
despair. "Judy's home!" he said, in a choking, passionate voice.
"She lives in the old shed in the cow, paddock.
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