Mister Henry & Zelamir

The Village

Book Two

The Annual Pony Boy Race

Chapter 3

"There are surely more than when I was here last," Mark remarked glancing behind him and seeing the number of small brown bodies crouched together on the drive.

"Yes," Jack laughed, a little embarrassed, "it's a small thing really but I feel I've been given a lot in this world and I should try and make the lives of those less fortunate than me easier if I can. And Mark there are so many decent caring parents now seeing that the best thing for their brats is to make them charity boys 3;well supply is really in danger of exceeding demand. There's no problem in placing boys when they get bigger. The farmers are keen enough to take eleven or twelve year olds provided they're reasonably sturdy and Mr Patel will take them a couple of years younger for his factory but there's not a great demand for the seven to nine year olds. But there's an awful lot of them being offered and inducted. Now can you think of anything worse? You're a respectable couple; probably both working and your stuck with a snivelling newly entered pauper brat you can't get rid of. Those brats need constant watching and disciplining, especially in the early years and you can't provide either not without one or other of you giving up work or something. But you either do that or you keep the little turd tied up all day and try to beat some sense into the brute in the evenings or at weekends and that's not at all satisfactory."

"Well I can take any number here. There's plenty of work for them. I've got three gangs weeding the paths and a similar number on the flowerbeds and vegetable gardens. Once that lot we've just passed reach the end of the drive they turn round and start back again sixteen hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days in the year, snow, frost rain or sunshine and the other gangs work in a similar way."

"Everybody gains. The parents are freed of the responsibility of schooling their brat when they can't afford the time to do the job properly. The community is preserved from the disruption that would be caused by a the appearance of a group of unruly, ill disciplined, pauper brats and you know that could have serious consequences and corrupt the whole system. I get my grounds kept tidy. The brats benefit from being toughened up and disciplined."

"I think it's very good of you but it must cost you a bit."

"Hardly costs me a thing I pay sixpence a brat a month and I only take them from within a six mile [10km] radius so they are fed at home and can easily make it here before their working day begins at five in the morning. They work through till nine in the evening and even the ones living six miles [10km] away should be able to get home by ten thirty to eat, if there is anything for them to eat, and sleep and be ready for the next days work."

"I get the mothers to sign the normal indentures but I make it clear I won't stand on the letter of it if they get a better offer for their brats. And a lot do. The farmers seem especially keen to take boys who have done a spell working here. They're better disciplined and better workers than the general run of brats. Mister Brown from the Home Farm tells me the ones he's taken from here were the only ones out of his brutes he didn't have to use the whip on to get them out on the fields after the big snow last year."

"I do take the opportunity to try to influence and improve the quality of brats being offered for service. I make it clear that I give preference to brats that haven't been to school. In my view you might as well teach a monkey to read and write as a pauper boy. What's the point? The brutes aren't put in the world to loll about reading books."

"It's different with stock like Daniel who are entered at nine or ten. It's almost unavoidable that they've been to school. All you can do is to flog them hard if you suspect them of reading anything. The danger is of them picking up ideas that would make them discontented and make their lives more difficult."

The drive swung sharp the left and the trap suddenly emerged from the shade of the avenue of trees on to a wide sweep of gravel. Before them now stood the house itself and the formal gardens ablaze with flowers.

"We'll go straight round to the stables Mark. I expect you'd like to see the pair I'm putting up for the Baron Corvo Cup tomorrow and I've got to ask you William Smythe to take a trap down to collect your cases. I'm sure he'll be there. He spends all his spare time helping on the yard. He's very keen. The best type of boy."

They swept round the front of the house with its well-tended flowerbeds. Charity boys, some wearing ragged shorts but many quite naked, stopping for a brief instant from their labours to kneel and press their heads to the ground as they passed.

By the archway leading to the kitchen yard Mark saw that a single brat was expiating some minor offence on the Vale of Dingle equivalent of the pillory. He was Mark judged about ten years old and was performing his enforced penance naked, standing on a wooden bench, his hands bound tight behind his back. The chain securing him to the cross bar above his head had been drawn tight forcing him up onto his toes. Alerted by the rattle of the trap's wheels over the cobbles that had replaced the well raked gravel of the drive the little brute lifted it's head to stare at them an expression of terror, comical in its intensity, contorting its face.

There was no escape. All he could do was to watch as the trap carrying the two grinning men approached closer. Just as they drew opposite the whimpering slut Jack judging the distance and timing to a nicety flicked the whip into his crutch the sharp snap of the lash blending with the boy's piercing howl.

"Well done," Mark said congratulating Jack on his accuracy, "especially as it seemed to me the tyke's balls didn't offer as good a target as usual."

"You noticed that," Jack said reigning in the pony boys. "That's because Jean came up with a new way of securing the brats to the cross bar."

"Here, turd," he snapped addressing Daniel, "hold the ponies."

"I'll show you," he continued speaking to Jack and jumping down to the ground.

"The problem with the old method was with the youngest boys in particular with small tight ball sacks it was difficult to loop the chain round the slut's balls, especially as fear often made its balls almost disappear into its body. I was often reduced to trying to dig the things out of the boy with my finger tips."

"Anne was watching one day when I had a problem and she asked why didn't we use a hook. We could insert it into the back of the scrotum thus avoiding any danger of leaving a permanent visible mark on the boy. Provided we kept away from its balls, used a clean hook and cleaned up the wound when we took the animal down it wouldn't do any real lasting damage."

He turned and began to walk back to the boy who promptly peed himself in terror.

"Disgusting brute, no self control," Jack remarked contemptuously. "Oh well it's emptied its bladder now so there's no danger of it doing so over us."

"There," he said walking up close to the brat and pointing. "You can see we use a stainless steel hook. The only problem is that the hook draws the ball sack up rather than forcing it out as happened when a cord was looped round its base. As a result it doesn't present, as you noticed, such a good target."

"Bled a bit," Mark said looking down at the boy's scrotum, already swelling and turning a deep purple where the end of the lash had nicked it, with a stream of dried blood flowing from the wound where the hook had been sunk into it.

"He'll bleed a good bit more when we get the hook out of him," Jack remarked cheerfully, "but he's a healthy young brute and it'll heal fast enough. Come on lets get round to the stables."

The two men turned away leaving the pauper boy to suffer. Neither of them thought to enquire as to why the lad had been strung up in this way or for how long he would be required to endure the agony of his punishment.

A minute or two later the trap dashed through the gateway under the white painted wooden clock tower and into the stable yard. Jack reined in the two pony boys. Daniel ran round to the front of the trap to hold the boys. A groom in breeches and leather gaiters hurried over followed at a respectful distance by a couple of bare footed stable boys.

"Get these brutes out from the shafts Tom," Jack ordered, "and get them watered and groomed. You'll need to dress the cuts on their legs and don't let them bloat themselves on the water. They haven't drunk anything from this morning and they've been worked hard so they'll be sure to do so if you give them half a chance."

"Very good Mr Wardle," the groom said touching his cap.

"And where is young William Smythe, Tom?"

"Down by the loose boxes Sir grooming the pair we're racing tomorrow."

"Good we'll go and find him."

As they moved off Mark heard behind him the groom shouting shortly followed by the sound of blows landing on bare flesh and shrill squeals of pain, the usual sounds that accompany the setting of charity boys to work.

Mark spotted William Smythe before Jack had a chance to point him out. A stocky dark haired boy, the quality of the youth made him stand out from the pauper brats about him. It was not his clothes that distinguished him from such animals for, as many free boys did when the opportunity offered, he had chosen to shed them. Nor was it the absence of a brand on his left flank or a collar about his neck for, when Mark first caught sight of him, he was too far off for him to see whether the boy wore those marks of servitude. He was hardly if at all less deeply tanned than the brats that laboured in the yard and he was better built and more physically developed than a pauper boy of his age would be that again was not obvious at a distance.

Even the task he was engaged on, sponging down a choice pony boy with soapy water could easily be one allocated to a charity boy. Yet anyone looking at him and the young brat standing near by would have no difficulty in distinguishing between master and slut, although the slut was wearing shorts, all be it ragged threadbare and about three sizes too small. It seemed to Mark that the two boys together, the free boy and the pauper brat simultaneously illustrated and confirmed the basic truth on which old Hiram's charity was founded. That some were born to rule and others to serve and that it was best for all both, rulers and ruled, that this should be recognised and enforced. Who seeing young William Smythe, relaxed confident convinced of his own worth and superiority, and contrast him with pauper brat acquiescing even content in his humiliation and servitude could doubt this truth or doubt that each had been correctly assigned their roll.

William was so intent on his task that he did not hear the two men approach.

"Hello William. This is Mr Legg he's staying with me for the races."

The boy startled turned sharply. Mark noticed, he could hardly fail to do so, for the lad made no attempt to hide the fact, that he had an erection.

"How do you do Sir?" William asked holding out his hand wand Mark shook it gravely.

"I thought Richard would be helping you. Is he about somewhere? Richard is William's young bother and our jockey for tomorrow," Jack explained to Mark.

"He's down at the exercise yard trying to get little Xerxes to trot properly. I don't think he's getting on too well. I tried to tell him how it should be done but he doesn't like me telling him things."

"Younger brothers are like that sometimes. I'll go and sort things out in a minute or two. And you are getting Merlin ready for tomorrow?" Jack asked. It was the convention to give pony boys rather fancy names.

"Yes Uncle Jack," he replied, "I've done Lucifer," "I've tethered him in the sun to dry. Once I've finished Merlin they'll just need their hides oiled and they'll be ready for tomorrow."

He turned back to his work. Placing one hand between the pony boy's shoulders he pushed so that the boy bent forward.

"Get your legs apart," he ordered reinforcing his command with a series of sharp slaps on the inside of Merlin's thighs. The pony boy obediently shifted his feet apart and William began to sponge between his legs, white soapy water running down the inside of the brute's strong brown thighs.

"Be careful he doesn't cum," Jack said warningly and indeed Lucifer's prick was rock hard, "we don't want him wasting his energy before tomorrow."

William hastily dropped the sponge back in the bucket. William put his right hand between Merlin's legs and pressed his fingertips hard into the pony boy's perineum. Merlin whimpered softly and a few seconds later his erection was gone.

"Sorry Uncle Jack," William grinned, "lucky you spotted it."

He picked up a cutthroat razor from the low stone wall beside him and began to shave the inside of Merlin's thighs at the junction of his legs just behind his ball sack. The pony boy flinched at the touch of cold steel against his tender flesh and then stood still.

"I don't know why we have to do this really," William remarked biting his lips in concentration, "the brute has hardly any hair on its body."

"Well it's the rules and you know it is particularly important this time that there should be no hair on them at all anywhere."

Mark hoped that some explanation would emerge as to why this should be important on this particular occasion but William simply nodded in agreement and continued scraping away at Merlin's legs removing non-existent hair.

"It's funny," he remarked as he worked, "Merlin is three years older than me and yet he has less hair on his body than I have."

"It's just another way that pauper boys are different from us and talking of pauper brats what's this little tyke here?" Jack asked clipping the brat who had been standing a silent witness to their conversation none too gently on the ear. "He's not one of mine."

Mark who had been aware the boy was there but up to then had not taken much notice of him, after all there were dozens of charity boys about the place and one brown skinned slut is very much like another, glanced at the brat. And really there was nothing remarkable about it. About ten years old, a skinny little animal, even for a charity boy, closely cropped fair hair, longish legs, narrow hips, tight deeply dimpled rump, thin shoulders and arms, there were dozens of others just like him. He was wearing a pair of threadbare shorts, so small that they started a quarter of the way down his hips, that might once have been, well, any colour so faded were they, were now an indeterminate pale grey. It was clear from the livid bruises that marked the back of his thighs where they emerged from his shorts and the exposed upper slopes of his bottom that someone had recently given him a severe flogging but that hardly served to distinguish him from his fellows.

"That's David. He's my brat Uncle Jack," William said and then added, "well he's really Mr Henry's but he asked my Dad to take charge of the little turd because he's away so much on business. Mr Henry dropped him off with us yesterday and Dad said I should have the slut so I can learn how to handle filth like him."

"It looks as though he's done something wrong already," Mark remarked prodding one of the boy's bruised thighs.

"Oh no he hasn't; not anything special, beyond getting born and burdening the community with his existence and that sort of thing. It's just that Dad takes every new brat the moment it arrives down the bottom of the garden and flays its bottom. Dad says it teaches it whose boss and what to expect if it steps an inch out of line and anyway he enjoys doing it. But this time since the brat was to be mine Dad said I had to beat it."

"You thrashed him yourself did you William?" Jack asked.

"Yes, Dad just held him down for me while I took the strap to his bottom. Mum said she could hear him screaming in the sitting room," William added with evident pride.

Jack reached out for the slut and, without speaking, took hold of one thin shoulder turning David so that the boy's back was towards him. He hooked a finger in the waste band of the David's shorts and pulled downwards so that the boy's bottom was bared to view. The boy's rump was striped with angry red weals with here and there darker patches where the belt had torn the skin and the brat had bled. The stripes were overlaid on a background of deep purple bruising with a pen-umbra of yellowy green flesh where the deeper bruising was coming out.

"Well you have done a good job on the slut and I don't expect Peter was any softer on him either. He isn't a man to stand any nonsense from a piece of pauper shit like it."

He reached out and grabbed hold of one bruised buttock digging his fingers hard into the tortured flesh.

"Stop making that stupid noise," he ordered raising his voice to be heard over the brat's squeal of pain. "You ought to be grateful to your young Master for flogging you so hard and trying to help you become a good obedient hardworking slut. I am sure you need all the help you can get you useless lump of pig shit. Don't you think you're a lucky slut to have two such caring masters as Mister Peter and Master William?"

"Oh yes Mister Jack Sir," Mark realised that William must have told the slut the name of the owner of the property they were visiting or he had picked the information up from another charity boy. "I am grateful to Mister Peter and Master William for trying so hard to make me a better more useful slut and I hope Master William will beat me as hard as he can when ever I make a mistake or am slow or stupid because that's the only way stupid little animals like me will ever learn and 3; 3; 3;"

"When you've finished Merlin William," Jack said cutting across the brat's whining, "would you like to put Pegasus and Orion in the light gig and pick up Mr Legg's case the station in Muggleton."

"And on the way down give that gate boy of mine, Nicky, a good thrashing for me."

"Certainly Uncle Jack. Could William take a turn beating Nicky? He's been in a strop all day cos he wasn't allowed to join in flogging David. Dad said David was now my brat and I had to do it."

"Provided Nicky finishes up with a raw bum I don't care which of you gives it to him but I do want the little turd's bottom thoroughly bloodied."

"Don't worry Uncle Jack it will be," William promised cheerfully.

"I've every confidence in you William and now Mr Legg and I had better go and have a chat with Richard. It sounds as though he'll need a bit of help with teaching Xerxes to trot."

"Uncle Jack before you go and see Richard. Mrs Willis from Rose Cottage is here with her young son Bobbie. She would like you to take him in as a colt. I asked her to wait in the tack room."

"I'll have a look at the animal now. Perhaps you could come along William. I'd be glad of your opinion. It won't take a moment and you can finish grooming Merlin afterwards."

The tack room was at the end of the range of loose boxes and was part a store for saddlery and other related items and part an office. The room was a large one and rather gloomy except at one end where there was a large window. It was at that end that Mrs Willis, a large motherly woman, was sitting patiently on a wooden chair beside a roll top desk. On the floor at her feet huddled a naked seven-year-old boy.

"Mrs Willis, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. I've only just this moment got back here from Muggleton where I was meeting my old friend Mark Legg," Jack said, in his kindly courteous way that set everybody at ease.

"You know young William Smythe I am sure," he continued as he pulled a chair out from the desk and, turning it so it faced Mrs Willis, sat down.

"That's all right Mr Wardle. I've only been here a few minutes and its nice and cool here out of the sun. What it is, is I wonder if you would like my Bobbie for your yard."

"Stand up now Bobbie and let the gentleman take a look at you," she snapped in a tone quite different from the ingratiating one that she had used speaking to Jack and reinforcing the command with a sharp clip on the side of the head. "Quickly don't keep everybody waiting you stupid little tyke."

The boy scrambled hastily to his feet and stood quietly in the light of the window with his head bowed. So far as Mark could see the child was a healthy looking little beast. His slim young body tanned a deep nut brown all over told of a life spent naked in the open air. The two dark purple welts that ribbed the smooth curve of his bottom were clear evidence that Mrs Willis believed in the efficacy of the traditional methods of disciplining the young. But how one could judge whether the small seven-year-old would in nine years time have grown into a strong pony boy endowed with endurance and speed he did not know.

Jack sat back in his chair his head tilted slightly to one side a faint almost quizzical smile on his face. Mark glanced at William Smythe and saw that he was holding his head at almost the same angle and had a similar expression on his face. Jack made a gesture with his hand.

"Just don't stand there Bobbie," his mother snapped, "turn round slowly. The gentlemen want to make up their minds as whether you're worth training as a pony boy. How can they do that if you stand still like a lump of useless lard."

The boy turned slowly exhibiting as Jack and William Smythe eyed him critically.

"What do you think William," Jack asked reaching out and pulling the child to him.

"Well Uncle Jack," William said judiciously, "the beast's confirmation isn't bad long legs, strong thighs, a deep chest for it's age and generally it's nicely put together. And," William dropped his voice confidentially, "his big brother's a twelve year old pony in Sir Robert's stable and I just happened to be up there yesterday afternoon when he was put between the shafts of a racing trap for the first time with another brat and put to run on the practice course. He went well for a beginner. Seven miles [11km] before they pulled the pair up and going at a good clip the whole time. The pair of them had their shoulders torn a bit from the whip but you expect that and he certainly could go. So this one here's out of good stock."

All the time William was speaking Jack was methodically examining the little slut. Checking the soles of his feet, running his hands over the brat's shins, prodding his thighs, checking between the legs and especially around the balls for ring worm, and so on.

Whether it was the mention of the whip or something Jack did something frightened Bobbie and he began to sob. Jack took no notice of this. He was after all too used to sobbing pauper brats to be bothered by such behaviour. He just continued his inspection of the slut; tipping it over his knee and parting its buttocks, no doubt to check that its sphincter was undamaged and that it was not infested with roundworm. The child's cries did however enrage its mother.

"You ungrateful little turd," she shouted, "after all the trouble and care your father and I have taken of you, trying to help you to make something worth while of your life by getting you selected as a pony boy and you start whimpering and making a fuss when kind Mr Wardle is checking you over. To think of the trouble we have taken toughening you up, keeping you naked and outside in the coldest wettest weather, seeing you had only one meal a day, your father making you run for hours a day, thrashing you when you slowed down, keeping you away from school so you haven't learnt to read and write and now you do this. I hope Mr Wardle whips you so hard that the skin is flayed from your miserable ungrateful carcass."

While this was going on Jack continued calmly with his examination of the naked boy. He sounded his chest, pinched his arm, squeezed the back of his neck, and checked, his teeth, behind his ears and the state of his scalp. Then gripping the child's chin in his left hand he tipped his head back and stared long and hard into his eyes.

"William?" he said and William stepped forward and in his turn spent a couple of minutes staring into Bobbie's eyes. Then Jack and William glanced at each other and nodded.

"Well Mrs Willis," Jack said seriously, "I've looked the little brute over and I think it's got the potential to make an adequate pony boy. If you like we can complete the formalities now."

"Oh thank you Mr Wardle my husband and I are most grateful." Mrs Willis gushed. Bobby's redoubled wailing suggested he was less enthused by Jack's decision.

"William," Jack said speaking briskly now business was in hand, "would you call up the standard indenture form for a pony boy on the computer and insert Mrs Willis's and Bobbie's names in the appropriate places and print it out for me. I showed you what to do a couple of days ago."

"Mrs Willis the other formalities, the branding and cutting, can take place a week this Sunday and the Sunday after but it is usual for the parent offering a boy for training as a pony to assist in the initial preparation of the brat. If you would just take Bobby onto your knee and get a firm grip of his hands. Thank you."

Jack opened the desk and took a long stainless steel needle like instrument from it together with a jar of iodine. While Mrs Willis drew her young son onto her lap and got a firm grip of his wrists Jack unscrewed the cap of the bottle and dipped the point of the instrument in the anti-sceptic. Then taking the sobbing boy's chin in his left hand he tipped his head to the right. He peered into the child's left ear and then very delicately inserted the point of the needle and jabbed. The volume Bobby's cries increased considerably. Unfazed by this Jack repeated the process with the child's right ear.

"One more thing Mrs Willis," he said reassuringly, "and then we are done."

He made no attempt to speak to Bobby for he knew the boy would not be able to hear him.

Jack turned back to the desk and took out of it a small flat case from this he extracted a scalpel. Bobby catching sight of it redoubled his screams and began to struggle desperately. Laughing Mark hurried to Mrs Willis's assistance as the naked boy squirmed and fought on her lap. The child was no match for two adults and soon he was firmly held in place. Jack gripped either side of his jaw with his left hand forcing his mouth open. Squinting in concentration he pushed the scalpel down into the boy's throat and made a small cut.

The boy's screams were joked into silence as blood momentarily flooded his throat.

"You can both let him go now," Jack said himself releasing his grip on the boy's jaws.

Bobby fell in a tumbled heap to the floor and lay there whimpering in distress.

"Now Mrs Willis if you would sign the indenture document here and William if you would put the slut in the small loose box on your way back to finish off Merlin Mark and I will set about finding your young brother."

Richard Smythe was a smaller slimmer version of his big brother. They found him standing in the middle of exercise yard lashing furiously at shins of a small pony boy. The pony boy, a long legged little beast looking to be no more than nine years old, was clearly panic stricken. He plunged desperately struggling against the long ribbon reigns that kept him within reach of the whip. Saliva bubbled round the bit in the brat's mouth and flecked his chest while blood streamed down the front of his shins where the skin had been torn by the whip. Richard was red in the face with rage and was shouting, as he jerked at the ribbon reigns with one hand and plied the long handled whip with the other.

"Having problems?" Jack asked quietly.

"The brute just won't do what I want. It's either stupid or stubborn or both. I'm not going to give up though."

"And what do you want it to do?"

"I want to teach it to trot properly and I've been trying for hours but it just won't."

"All right there's a trick to it. I'll show you. Let me have the reigns and the whip for a moment."

The boy surrendered the reigns and whip willingly enough. Indeed Mark suspected that he was getting tired of trying to fight the pony boy into submission and was glad to be rid of them. Anyway as there was a trick to the whole thing and he did not know it there was no dishonour in handing the problem over to somebody who did. Mark could only admire his old friend's tact and skill. Jack seemed to know instinctively how to handle boys whether it was a high spirited lad like Richard or a pauper slut. And now Jack was to exhibit his skill in dealing with the latter.

For a moment he stood absolutely still while the pony boy jerked at the reigns and tossed his head. Finding he was getting nowhere and no longer subjected to the torment of the lash across his shins the brat began slowly to quieten. Eventually he was standing, head bowed, trembling and panting but otherwise still. Jack spoke to him quietly and then gently shook the reigns. The boy's head came up and turned towards him.

"You must remember Richard that the brutes normally can't hear well enough to make out what we are saying but they can hear the tone we are using and they can pick up a great deal from that."

"Now you can see we have the animals attention. What do we want him to do? Trot forward? Very well.

Jack clicked his tongue loudly and jerked his head slightly to the left, which was the way the boy was facing, at the same time giving the reigns a further sharp shake. The boy began to move of in a rather reluctant trot.

"You see it can't understand what you're saying so you have to find other ways of telling it what you want it to do. Now I think we want to make it go a bit faster. Very well."

The whip snaked out its tip nipping at the boy's bottom raising a deep red welt on the smooth brown skin. The boy picked up his pace considerably.

"He isn't raising his knees high enough," Richard said.

"No, he isn't. So how do we make him? I'll show you."

Again the whip snaked out catching the boy on the back of the thighs a short distance above his knee at the same time calling out a sharp "hup".

"Hup," he cried again and the whip nipped at the back of the other thigh. "Hup" and the whip snapped again. "Hup" 3; 3; "Hup" 3; 3; "Hup" 3; 3; Soon the pony boy was trotting smartly round the ring lifting his knees high at every step.

"You want to have a go now Richard?"

"Take over from me then 3; 3; 3; That's right very good 3; 3; 3; 3; 3; He's slowing down a bit giving him a cut on the rump to speed him up 3; 3; 3; Now he's going faster but he's not lifting his knees as high 3; 3; 3; What do you do.

"That's right at the back of the thighs above the knees."

"Speed him up a bit more 3; 3; Now his knees again higher 3; higher 3; 3; damn."

The boy crashed to his knees and the rolled onto his side.

"Cut him across the shoulders, the back, anywhere," Jack shouted urgently, "and again and again, lash him, lash him hard, you must get him back on his feet."

Again and again Richard brought the whip cracking down across the pony boy's body. The boy struggled back to his feet and began bent almost double to move forward in a staggering run.

"Don't let the runt get away with that. Straighten him up. Flick at his chest 3; 3; and again 3; 3; All right now speed him up give him it across the bum 3; 3; 3; Good now get his knees up 3; 3; 3; Very good you've got him moving again."

"What happened Uncle Jack."

"The brute went down because you cut too high up one thigh and the whip curved round the inside of it and its tip nipped the back of his balls."

"Remember Richard if ever a brat goes down, for whatever reason, you must use the whip on him and get him back on his feet as quickly as you can. Otherwise he'll always be doing it. The brat must know that if he goes down he'll be hurt a great deal more than if he stays on his feet. And the way you teach him that is you hit him with the whip as often as you can and as hard as you can till he gets back up."

"Do you think you can manage all right on your own now Richard 3; 3; 3; Good then Mr Legg and I will be off. William will be taking the gig into town shortly to pick up Mr Legg's case from the station. You could go along with him for the trip and I think he wants you to help him give that gate boy of mine a thrashing for me."

"Oh thanks great Uncle Jack," a broad grin of delight at the prospect of inflicting a beating split the child's face.

"The best type of boys, Richard and William, both of them," Jack remarked as they walked from the stable yard. "I had thought 3; 3;" He glanced back at Daniel padding along behind them and shook his head.

Jack led the way to the drawing room. It was a large sunny room with French-windows onto the terrace. These were open and through them came the scent of roses and the sound of birdsong.

Anne was sitting in an easy chair by a low table. It was clear to Mark that she had very much made the room her own. Previously the place, although always clean and usually tidy, Mrs Thomas saw that this was so, had a rough and ready rather masculine air, about it. If Anne had not been living in the house there would have been no flowers in the room, nor would there have been a lace cloth on the table and the tea service would have been something rather more mundane than the set of Royal Worcester porcelain that stood on the silver tray at her side.

The serving boys were different too. When Jack had had the house to himself there were just two serving boys dressed in old but spotlessly clean shirts cut off at the waist in the front and nothing else. The identity of the serving brats changed over the years, for Jack followed the traditional practice of selling such sluts to local farmers wanting well grown boys for their field gangs, as soon as they began to get hair on their bodies, but the shirts remained the same being passed on from boy to boy. Indeed it had amused Mark to see how over a period of years his shirt covered less and less of a boy's body. When a boy first began service in the house it might well hang down the back of his thighs almost to his knees. By the time his time in the house was drawing to an end it might well hardly cover his bottom. As the boys were taken into the house as need arose there was often great disparity in the size of the two sluts. It was not uncommon to have a ten year old whose spell of domestic service was just beginning paired with one five years older whose time was drawing to an end.

All now was different. Now there were four choice twelve-year old sluts carefully matched in size and colouring. They were all dressed alike in loose sleeveless tunics cut to fall just below the crutch and the crease of the bottom when standing erect. When a brat moved however the tunic would ride up his body affording tantalising glimpses of the more intimate parts of their bodies. Split on each side to the hip the tunics were white with thick blue vertical stripes that accentuated the length of the brats' legs and the jut of their round little rumps. All together the four pretty boys, their hair brushed until it shone, their slim young bodies oiled and scented were fitting ornaments to a lady's drawing room. The only concession to Jack's interests was that their skimpy tunics were in his racing colours.

One thing however apparently remained constant. The discipline under which the brats served appeared to be as strict and as direct as ever. For on the silver tray beside the porcelain tea pot, ready to Anne's hand, Mark saw an elegant ivory handled martinet with perhaps nine or a dozen thin leather thongs tightly knotted towards their ends designed to seek out and sting the tenderest parts of an erring sluts body.

"Anne," Jack said as they entered the room, "this is my old school friend Mark Legg that I have spoken to you about so often in the past."

"I am very pleased to meet you Mark. Please sit down and have a cup of tea, milk and sugar? It is Earl Grey."

"In that case neither milk nor sugar thank you," Mark replied seating himself.

"Jack has indeed spoken a great deal about you" Anne continued as she poured the tea. "I do hope you will undertake the first penetration of that slut of mine. From what Jack has told me about you, you are just the sort of person I would wish to undertake that chore. I am sure that being penetrated by you will be marked as indelibly on his mind as the charity boy brand is burnt into his hip. And while the brute is lazy and stupid he's quite a pretty little whore and is I am sure depraved enough to be longing for man's cock inside him."

"I am looking forward to it," Mark assured her.

Anne finished pouring the tea and one of the serving boys took it from the tray, while bending down to do so affording a brief glimpse of his sweet little, bottom. A second boy approached Mark with a side plate while the remaining two moved forward, one offering a plate of sandwiches, the other a sponge cake. They moved without apparent instruction in what appeared to be a carefully practised and choreographed series of movements. But it was not it seemed sufficiently thoroughly practised. Mark placed two cucumber and two egg and cress sandwiches on his plate, he did not usually eat much at tea time but he found the presence of the brats gazing hungry eyed at the food did wonders for his own appetite. Then the slut holding the sandwich plate stepped backwards and knocked into the boy holding the plate of cakes. A small cup cake with white butter icing was knocked from the plate. It fell to the floor landing on the carpet the icing side downwards.

There was a moment of total silence and then the luckless brat carrying the plate of cakes began to sob.

"You clumsy little turd," Anne shouted angrily, "pick that cake up and bring it here."

"Not with your fingers," she snarled in a cold rage as the boy picked the cake from the floor the tunic riding up the back of his body to just short of his waste affording the watching adults a clear view of his deeply tanned tight little bottom. "I don't want to hold something that has been soiled by your filthy fingers you stupid lump of cat's shit."

"Put the cake plate down on the table," Anne's voice was crackling with impatience and anger.

"Pick up a side plate."

"Put the cake on that."

"Pick the lumps of icing off the carpet with your fingers."

"God they're stupid ignorant little brutes. You have to tell them what to do all the time. No initiative, no sense, not a thought or an idea in their heads."

"Now come here and bring the plate with you."

"Daisy, Daisy," Anne called.

A fat Golden Labrador wandered into the room and stood looking about itself expectantly. Anne snatched the plate from the trembling brat and tipped the cake onto the floor in front of the dog. The Labrador wolfed the delicacy down in one gulp and then hopefully sniffed the carpet in search of crumbs.

"Give her your fingers to lick you know how she likes icing," Anne commanded impatiently adding speaking to the adults. "I've got to make sure the brat doesn't get a crumb of the cake or the thieving tyke will be 'accidentally' dropping food all the time just to fill it's worthless guts – there's no limit to the greed of these animals."

"And now that the mess that your criminal carelessness created has been cleaned up we must make sure that you are more careful in future."

Anne picked up the ivory handled scourge from the tray beside her. Holding it in her right hand she ran the knotted thongs through her left hand as she spoke. The boy whimpered softly.

"Well take off your tunic, fold it up neatly, and put it on the chair by the door."

The boy pulled his tunic off over his head and padded on bare feet across the room. Mark watched him wondering at how something so mean and debased as a pauper boy could contrive to look so attractive. The brat looked nice enough in his tunic but naked his lithe young body seemed almost to sing. The slut was beautiful and, and this knowledge filled the room with tension and excitement, he was utterly and completely vulnerable. Mark could tell they were all touched by this. Anne whose eyes glittered cruelly as she played with the scourge in her hands. Jack sitting bolt upright his lips twisted in a tight mirthless smile. The other three serving boys and Daniel, awaiting their fellow slut's punishment with uneasy excitement. His own mouth was dry with excitement and he felt his cock begin to stiffen.

The boy placed his tunic, neatly folded as he had been ordered on the chair against the wall. He turned and began to make his reluctant way towards his nemesis. He was a little unsteady on his feet. It seemed that his knees were not working properly and his movements lacked co-ordination. Why, Mark wondered, does a boy always look more attractive with tears in his eyes?

"Get a move on you miserable little runt," Anne commanded impatiently, "I've got other things to do apart from thrashing you."

Jack, helpful as ever jumped from his chair. He landed a hefty kick on the brat's bum sending him staggering forward the last few feet.

Anne lent forward. She flicked the martinet upwards so that the tips of its leather thongs painfully caressed the wretched boy's testicles.

"You know what you have to do don't you turd?" she demanded raising her voice to be heard over the child's whimpering.

"Yes Missis Anne Ma'am" the boy whimpered.

"Then do it."

The snivelling slut moved his feet well apart. Then, bending slightly forward he reached behind himself and placing a hand on either buttock pulled the cheeks of his bottom as far apart as he could. Mark could see the washer at the top of his plug protruding from his anus.

"Hang on Anne," Jack said, "I'll just get the plug out of him for you."

He stepped forward and placing his left hand flat on one cheek of the boy's bottom took hold of the ring at the top of the plug and pulled it out of brat's bum.

"Have to get that out of the brute," he explained to Mark, "to allow the tongues of the martinet to touch him up in there."

"Anne I'll hold the tyke while you hit him," Jack said being his usual helpful self and slipping his hand inside the brat's collar at the back of his neck.

"Thank you and could you just check that he's holding his bottom as wide open as possible. You know how the cowardly little animals always try to cheat."

"It looks all right to me this time," Jack reported leaning back to check.

"Can you imagine," he continued straightening and speaking over his shoulder to Mark, "either of the Smythe boys allowing themselves to be treated in this way? They'd die first. It's only charity scum like this that would submit to it."

Mark was sitting almost directly behind the boy. Through his spread legs he could see Anne preparing to deliver the first stroke of the scourge. She lowered it until its leather thongs were resting on the floor and then she struck viciously upwards. The blow was well judged. The tongues of the scourge curled about the boy's balls tearing and biting at their backs and the tender flesh at the top of his legs on either side of them. Letting out a shrill screech the brat leapt into the air as though his body had been convulsed by a massive electric shock.

Laughing Jack kept a firm hold of the boy's collar as he twisted and squirmed in his grasp his bare feet scrabbling on the floor. In time the child's stilled and he was left bent double supported by Jack's grip on his collar.

"Come on filth back on your feet now," Jack ordered hauling on the slut's collar and helping the boy to straighten up by driving his knee into his face.

Anne waited until the boy was back in position and then she struck again. This time the knotted thongs struck further back between the boy's legs nipping at his perineum and his inner thighs. Once again the boy screamed and would have fallen were it not for Jack's supporting hand grasping his collar.

Mark realised with a sense of sick fascination what was to come next.

"Just check again he's holding his bottom open for me would you Jack please?" Anne asked confirming his suspicions.

"Yes I don't think he could pull it wider apart," Jack replied after leaning back to check.

"Missis Anne, Ma'am please," the boy whined showing that he too suspected what was to come although what grounds he had for hoping so stern and upright a disciplinarian as Anne would be deflected from doing her duty by the pleas of a mere charity boy Mark could not imagine. Indeed so comical was the idea that she would in anyway relent that Mark and shortly afterwards Anne and Jack began to laugh heartily.

Then as she was still laughing Anne lashed upwards once again. This time the tips of the scourge licked down into the brat's crack. The boy's cries and the contortions of his body as the individual tongues bit deep were more frenzied than ever.

Anne cut upward with the scourge six further times striking in turn at the slut's balls, perineum and hole, before she brought its punishment to an end.

"It looks as though someone's forced a freshly boiled egg up the stupid brute's hole," Anne remarked as she watched the boy drag himself splay legged across the room to recover his tunic. The three adults all burst out laughing again. The boy was indeed a comical sight with his odd walk, tear and snot stained face, and the twin smears of blood on the inside of his thighs from the flesh torn by the scourge. While the idea of stuffing a boiling hot egg into a slut struck them as hilariously funny.

"The thoughtless brute has bled on my trousers," Jack said still laughing, "if you'll both excuse me I'll go and change them. I'll be back in a moment."

"Certainly Jack," Anne said pouring herself a refreshing cup of tea after her recent exertions, "but tell me before you go how that slut of mine made out this afternoon."

"What Daniel," Jack said pausing on his way to the door, "well enough really dear, except the stupid lump of pig's shit with criminal carelessness left Mark's Times behind on the train."

"You stupid slug," Anne raged starting to her feet and still holding the tea pot in her right hand, advanced on the cowering boy, "Can't you do anything right. I and your kind Uncle Jack take infinite pains trying to beat some sense into your idle ignorant carcass and all you do you putrid little turd is to disgrace us both with your utterly self indulgent behaviour. I wish I had smothered you at birth and fed you to the pigs. At least you would have been some use then and you wouldn't now be alive to plague us both with your useless existence."

"I'm sorry Mummy," Daniel wailed.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Anne screamed, "What's the point of being sorry. You 3;"

She paused lost for words and then clearly deciding that this was a time for action not words. She smashed the teapot down on the top of the sobbing boy's head. The fine porcelain shattered. Tea leaves and near boiling water flowed down over the boy's head and bare shoulders. A shard of broken china tore the child's scalp. Daniel stood in the centre of the room, wailing as the scalding water tinged with blood from the cut in his head flowed down over his shoulders and chest.

Jack quick as ever to help when a crisis arose leapt on the boy.

"Good God you selfish brute," he shouted, "don't stand there feeling sorry for yourself. Just think of the mess you're making on the carpet."

He grabbed the brat by his collar and gripping the boy between the legs with his other hand he lifted him from the floor and hurled him bodily out through the open French window. There was a soft thud as Daniel landed on the paved terrace followed by renewed and ever louder screaming.

"Mrs Thomas, Mrs Thomas," Jack shouted at the top of his voice, "that stupid turd Daniel has broken the Royal Worcester tea pot with his head. He's out on the terrace. Can you collect him from their his screams are disturbing us. You needn't beat him much. Mr Legg will look after that for us when he fucks the slut this evening. Just clean the whore up and put him in the blue bedroom ready for Mr Legg to enjoy."

"Oh Jack," Anne cried "I'm so sorry spoiling your mother's wonderful tea service."

"Don't think about it Anne dear. Of course you hit that useless lump of excrement with the nearest thing to hand. He is so ungrateful and lazy. He brought it on himself. If he hadn't been so criminally negligent to have forgotten Mark's Times you wouldn't have been obliged to hit him. It's he not you that is responsible for breaking the teapot. We must rely on Mark here to thrash some sense into the turd because our best efforts seem to have failed."

"Yes," Anne said turning to look up into Mark's face with a sweetly appealing expression, "we are relying on you. Please do your best. Flay every square inch of skin from my son's carcass if you can. It is clear Jack and I have been far too lenient and soft with him up to now."

"Well," Jack said, "you must excuse me for the moment. I'll just go and change my trousers."

"I might as well take this slut to Mrs Thomas while I'm at it," he added, "it's bleeding so much from being scourged it'll get on the carpet as well unless we get her to do something to stem the blood. You've no need for him for the moment Anne?"

"Yes take him away Jack," Anne replied.

"Come on. You won't need your tunic you stupid little tart," Jack said grabbing the still naked boy by the arm and dragging him roughly from the room.

It seemed to Mark listening to the receding sound of the child's sobs as he was hauled away that he was not looking forward to receiving first aid from Jack's excellent house keeper.

"Such a nice man and so kind," Anne remarked smiling fondly after Jack had left the room. "You noticed Mark how quickly he reassured me about breaking the tea pot on Daniel's head? And so reticent too. He's going to fuck that slut but he was too modest to say so."

"I thought he was taking him to Mrs Thomas."

"Oh that was just an excuse. He gets so excited when he sees me use the scourge on a slut. It always gets him going and he says fucking a boy whose anus and hole has been nipped by the knotted thongs is an unforgettable experience. The pain from the cuts as the brat is penetrated livens him up like nothing else."

A series of loud shrieks sounded from the depths of the house.

"There you are," Anne remarked with a smile, "Jack's entering the slut now. You should try the same thing when you fuck Daniel tonight."

Chapter 4

As he opened the door to his bedroom he heard a slight rustle of movement from within. He pushed the door full open. The brat pen, in this case a simple square of green matting made of hundreds of short, dagger sharp plastic blades, was situated against the wall opposite the window. On this mat knelt Daniel in the somewhat rigid and stylised position required of such filth, hands down at his sides, knees spread wide, balls and bottom pressed down onto the plastic spikes, back straight, shoulders strained back, head bowed. He gave the impression that he had been there ever since he had been brought to the room by Mrs Thomas, after having his cuts and scalds dressed, some four hours ago. But Mark knew that pauper brats were sly, dishonesty came naturally to them and there was that rustle of movement as he opened the door. He strongly suspected the little tyke had been out of the brat pen up to goodness knows what sort of mischief even, perhaps, stealing a drink of water from the tap in the bath room. The day was hot enough in all conscience and no doubt the slut would have been thirsty after having to run the six miles [10km] into Muggleton and back behind the pony boy trap.

This was only a suspicion but that would have been usually enough to get the boy a bloody bottom, for it was the universal and wholly sensible practice to act on an assumption of guilt when dealing with pauper trash. Furthermore it was generally accepted in the Vale of Dingle that for every time a brat was beaten for something it hadn't done it was certain that there must be half a dozen occasions when it had escaped being beaten for something it had done.

However circumstances were somewhat exceptional on this occasion. Mark had only a limited amount of time available to change for dinner and it would be the height of discourtesy to turn up late for that meal for such a trivial reason as beating a charity boy. In addition he was looking forward to first flogging and then fucking the brat after dinner. To give it the thrashing it deserved now would only detract from its ability to endure abuse after dinner and thus from Mark's enjoyment then. It would be, he decided, best simply to ensure for the moment that the little brute behaved itself properly and to postpone its thrashing until he had time to do the job in a leisurely and enjoyable manner.

Anyway Mark was hot and sticky after his journey and the first thing he was going to do was to have a shower. He pulled his clothes off and leaving them heaped on the floor strolled naked over to the bathroom door. Although Daniel remained kneeling with bowed head Mark was sure the temptation to get a glimpse of the shaft that his bottom was going soon to have to accommodate would be too much for the slut. He was also sure that to a young boy facing the imminent prospect of having it hammered into his rump, his man's cock, rooted in its forest of coarse red hair, would looked a formidable enough weapon although in reality nothing out of the ordinary in size. He deliberately passed close to the Daniel on his way to the bathroom. The boy shivered, feeling the draft of Mark's passing and getting wind of the rank bodily odours from his unwashed crutch. Mark left the door open while he was having his shower so that the brat would have more opportunity to appreciate the size and length of his prick, now semi-tumescent from excitement.

He dried himself off, standing less than a foot away from Daniel's face, using his towel vigorously on his genitals, giving the boy a further opportunity to see what he would eventualy have to take up his bum. Then ignoring the selection of canes resting against the side of the fireplace he turned his attention to the wooden tray on the mantelpiece. Placed there, with typical thoughtfulness for the convenience of guests, were a variety of restraints, manacles straps and other disciplinary aides. Choosing a plastic tie he stood a moment looking down at the kneeling boy.

Mrs Thomas had done a good job of patching the slut up, which was only to be expected from one with so much experience in dressing torn and broken brat flesh. There was some dried blood in Daniel's hair from the tear in his scalp. His body, as was usual with pauper boys, was marked with a number of angry welts, while only the passage of time would allow the dark bruises that mottled the light chocolate of his skin to fade to nothing. In addition his shoulders and chest were blotched with scarlet scald marks. But over, all considering the blows and kicks and general ill treatment that had been inflicted on the little brute that day so far, he was in remarkably good shape. This was partly, no doubt, attributable to Mrs Thomas's skills but mainly to the tough but wholesome regime imposed on Daniel and the rest of the pauper scum by their responsible and caring guardians, for young healthy flesh heals fast and bruises fade quickly from it.

Grabbing Daniel by his ear and twisting it viciously Mark forced the boy to his feet. Transferring his grip to one thin wrist he twisted the brat's arm behind his back. Reaching forward he got hold of Daniel's other wrist. He pulled them together behind the boy's back and with a sharp tug secured them with the plastic tie. Daniel caught his breath as the tie bit into his flesh. Mark smile grimly, the sudden pain, he thought, would serve as a useful reminder to the little turd as to who was the master. Stepping back he landed a sharp back handed flip across the boys taught little rump.

"Get back down on the mat filth," he ordered. These were the first words he had said to Daniel that day. You did not waste your breath talking to pauper trash when blows and kicks would serve to make your wishes known and would be better understood and more quickly obeyed.

"I want your bottom and balls right down on the ground shit bag," Mark grated, grasping the boy by his shoulders forcing his bottom down onto the sharp plastic blades of the mat. He deliberately dug his fingertips into the scalded flesh of the boy's bare shoulders while he ground the slut's rump and balls on the sharp spikes of the plastic carpet. Then, still gripping Daniel's shoulders, he kicked at the inside of his knees spreading the child's legs even further apart.

Mark checked that the carafe on the bedside table was full of water. Holding Daniel's head by the chin he made sure the boy's head was properly bowed before carefully balancing the carafe on its crown. With his hands tied tightly behind his back it was impossible for Daniel to move without dislodging the carafe precariously balanced on his head and once dislodged it was impossible for him to replace it there. Mark did not bother to tell the boy what he would do to him if he came back after dinner and found the carafe gone. That detail could safely, he thought, be left to the brat's imagination. It was enough that the boy now had to maintain his strained posture on the cruel mat as rigidly as a guardsman on duty outside Buckingham Palace until he returned to the room after dinner. That would be at the least two and a half hours away and it was easy to imagine what agonies of cramp would be racking the little brute's body by then. Daniel would probably long before then be praying for him to return and release him from his suffering, although the slut would know that Mark's return would only mark the beginning of another phase his martyrdom.

Smiling at this thought Mark dressed while Daniel knelt silent and motionless apart from the gentle movement of his chest as he breathed. As Mark closed the bedroom door behind himself on the way downstairs for dinner he though he heard a slight noise come from the boy something halfway between a moan and a whimper.

"Anne will be down in a minute," Jack said rising as he entered the drawing room, "what would you like to drink Whisky, G and T, sherry, glass of beer 3; 3;? We'll sit down a little later than usual as I've asked some people in so we can take our time."

"Whisky with just a dash of water please Jack. You know how I like it. Who are your guests? Anyone I know?"

"I don't think so. Though you may know of one of them – a boy called Nicky – there was a good deal of publicity about him in the press recently. He had been wrongly sent to Ovingdean the Home of Correction that our Home Secretary, Mister Plonkit, set up for delinquent boys under the age of fourteen. I met his stepfather while having a pint in the Duke one night last week and got chatting. Excellent fellow with a sensible robust attitude to bringing up boys. Which was what started the trouble in the first place. Interfering social workers (this refers back to my story Into care that can be found in this archive) took the boy into care and then somehow or other he finished up in Ovingdean. Would be there still were it not for the press, first his local paper The Clarion and then the national press took the matter up."

"I read about it. Ovingdean is pretty tough I understand?"

"Yes I believe it is. It's not a prison. We're a civilised country and don't put children in prison. It's a home and rehabilitation centre for boys with anti-social tendencies. So any youngster that causes problems can be sent there. He doesn't have to have committed any specific offence and it's tough because boys of that sort respond to such treatment."

"I don't always agree with Mr Plonkit's ideas. His plan to discourage asylum seekers coming to the UK by leaving them to starve in the streets was perhaps not fully thought through but his Houses of Correction for delinquent children seem an excellent idea. A bit hard on the boy Nicky though being sent there when he had done nothing wrong."

"Oh I don't know, a bit of rough treatment doesn't do a boy any harm. Toughens him up. I want to find out as much as I can about the regime in Ovingdean. I think we maybe spoiling our Charity boys."

"But how does the boy and his step-father come to be in Muggleton?"

"I asked him that. Apparently there is a sort of mentoring system in place for boys on their release from Ovingdean. Makes sense really, after spending all that time and effort knocking some sense into them it doesn't make sense just to turn them loose on the community and have them go back to their old ways in short order. Boys memories are very short and the mentors are supposed to be there to remind them what will be done to them if they fall out of line again. I got the impression though from Brian, he's Nicky's stepfather, that really the main concern of the mentors is not with the boys but with the parents, to give them the confidence to impose discipline on their young. I must say though it didn't seem to me that Brian had any need of any encouragement in that area. Anyway he and his wife got on so well with Nicky's mentor, an excellent young lady called Angela Thompson that they've come down to the Vale of Dingle with her and her brother and his family for a holiday. They've rented the old game keepers cottage behind the eighty acres wood for a fortnight."

"That's a pretty small place for such a large party isn't it?" Mark remembered the keeper's cottage from his boyhood visits when old Mr Campbell was the keeper and in the summer sometimes took Jack and himself rabbiting. "Five grown ups I assume and however many children they all have."

"Five children, all boys I understand, ranging from six to fourteen years, but they sleep in the old gun-dog kennels. There's a good sound concrete floor and the boys squash in together to keep warm. I gather they're even allowed a blanket between them to lie on so they're very comfortable. A lot of the locals make their own boys sleep out in the summer and of course most pauper boys are outside the whole year round. Good for them – mustn't spoil the brutes – only leads to trouble."

"I remember the cottage as only one up and one down."

"It was but when old Campbell died on us we built an extension to it for holiday lettings and it's worked quite well. The Vale of Dingle seems to be quite a popular place for people to take holidays and we get a lot of repeat bookings. The only problem is with the pauper brats sneaking down there and begging for food. We've put notices up asking the visitors not to feed the sluts and to beat any who bother them but it doesn't always work."

"Ah here's Jane and I think our guests are arriving as well.

Because of the number of individuals involved and the modern habit of referring to people by their first names and of dispensing with formal introductions Mark expected to find the next few minutes rather confusing. Indeed so far as the adults were concerned this was so. It was only after five minutes or so of loud talk, laughter and confused introductions that he had them more or less sorted out. There were two married couples Mary and Brian Roberts and Brenda and John Thompson. That at least was clear but which of the two dinner jacketed males was Brian Roberts and which John Thompson and which of the two ladies in evening dresses were Mary and which Brenda he was still a trifle unsure. There was also an extremely pretty younger woman Angela, sister to John Thompson.

The boys though presented no such problem. They filed, the oldest and tallest first, quietly into the room and lined themselves up against the wall just inside the door. They stood waiting silently as the grown ups talked and laughed and shook hands with each other.

"Now" one of the men said loudly over the social hubbub "we'd better introduce the boys to you."

This had the effect of making all the grown ups in the room fall silent and turn to look at the boys who shuffling their bare feet hung their heads bashfully. Mark thought the contrast between the adults, in their formal clothes the men in black dinner jackets and stiff white shirts, the woman in their long evening dresses, with the five bare-footed boys dressed only in the skimpiest of skimpy white cotton shorts extremely piquant. Their shorts, spotless and brilliant white as they were, although they tightly hugged their slim hips, were vastly superior to the rags that were the best for which a pauper boy could hope.

The man paused perhaps to give them all an opportunity of inspecting the boys and indeed they were well worth looking at. Mark ran his eyes down the line of obviously nervous boys from the small six-year-old furthest from the door to the well-grown fourteen-year-old standing just inside the room. Their slim deeply tanned bodies spoke of hours spent outside in all weathers engaged in active play or work. Apart from the scraped knees and the bramble torn shins, the normal badges of an active boyhood, the occasional dark bruise that marred their lithe young bodies spoke of a firm but not excessive disciplinary regime. The only exception to this was the fair-haired lad standing second from the door. His shins and firm young thighs, the tightly drawn skin of his chest, were all ribbed with dark weals and marked with deep bruising that stained his nut brown skin with colours ranging from blue through dark purple to a sickly yellowish green at their edges. These marks apart from one or two at the top of his thighs just below his shorts looked fairly old. This, thought Mark, must be Nicky still bearing evidence on his body of his stay at the Ovingdean boys' home.

"The boy just inside the door is my son Adam Roberts," the man said confirming to Mark both his own identity and that of the dark haired boy. "He is fourteen years old and not a bad lad provided he gets an occasional clout on the side of his head."

"Say how do you do to our host and hostess and to Mr Legg Adam."

Adam stepped smartly forward.

"How do you do Mrs Wardle Miss?"

"How do you do Mr Wardle Sir?"

"How do you do Mr Legg Sir?"

He said in what seemed to Mark to be a well-drilled routine. He held out his hand to each in turn accompanying each handshake with an open but respectful smile while looking the person he was addressing straight in the eye.

"The next one is mine," Mrs Roberts said, "Nicholas Roberts he's a bit nervous since he's come back from a spell at Ovingdean but I must say he is a much more humble and biddable child since he has been there. Nicky step forward and say how do you do?"

There was a few seconds pause while Nicky hung his head shifting from foot to foot. For a moment Mark wondered if the child was going to funk his duty and what then would happen to him but a firm push on his bottom from Adam made him step forward and he managed to mumble out his greetings in an embarrassed and frightened whisper. Mark felt a small warm hand briefly touch his and he looked down onto the top of the boy's fair head as Nicky kept his gaze resolutely fixed on the ground.

The ordeal over the boy returned to his place in the line and sidled up as close as he could to Adam.

"Now my three," John Thompson said cheerfully, "Tommy nine years old, Neal seven and the smallest Peter six."

"I may be the smallest but I'm big enough to get the cane," Peter piped up drawing a roar of laughter from the grown-ups.

"And you're due for a thrashing tomorrow," his father replied sharply. Peter's face crumpled at this news and the grown ups laughed even louder, amused by the child's obvious distress.

The three Thompson boys then paid their respects, with Peter getting a good deal of good-natured teasing about his promised beating. Anne asked him if his Daddy beat him on his bare bottom and when the boy replied that he did she asked if she might come to watch. John Thompson interrupted his youngest son to say that they were all welcome to attend the performance and it was arranged that they should call at the Game Keepers Cottage after breakfast the next day on their way to the races to watch the boy being caned. Jack in his usual jolly way asked whether the cane was a special light one or the standard heavy duty one that was used on the pauper boys. Mark wanted to know how many strokes Peter thought he was going to get and whether he was going to be a brave boy and not cry. These and other similar questions soon reduced the little fellow to tears increasing still further the merriment of his elders and betters. It was so far as the adults at least were concerned a very good humoured and light-hearted group that a few minutes later seated themselves around the great mahogany table in the manor's dining room.

The serving boys set finger bowls in front of the adults and brought them plates piled with langoustines. Mark glanced down the table to the far end where the boys were. They sat silent, straight backed, in their chairs, neither their hands nor elbows on the table, their eyes cast modestly down. He thought he caught Adam casting a quick hungry glance at his own plate.

"The boys aren't getting anything then?" he asked as he pealed the skin from a langoustine noting with approval that the flesh was not watery. Trust old Jack to get them fresh and not to put up with deep frozen supplies he thought.

"No, such delicacies as these would only be wasted on them," Mary Roberts said. "Mind you they must be pretty hungry by now. They usually have their tea at five thirty but we didn't give them anything today in case it spoiled their appetite for later."

"Good discipline making them wait," Jack remarked approvingly from his place at the top of the table.

"Mind you," he added "they won't be as hungry as this little turd here," catching a passing serving boy a hard open handed slap on the side of one firm young thigh. "Had its last meal at six in the morning and will have its next if it's lucky sometime about eleven this evening. Else it'll have to wait till tomorrow morning. The great danger with brats is that you over feed them. The greedy little sods'll eat anything you put in front of them. I suspect tough we're spoiling our brutes even now 3; 3; 3; less food and more stick is what they need I think."

"Nicky," Jack called down the table, "you've just been to Ovingdean what was it like."

Nicky looked up the table at the group of grinning adult faces and panicked. He tried to reply but could only manage a hoarse inarticulate whisper.

"Speak up Nicky," his mother said sharply, "it's rude to whisper."

Under the table Adam's hand brushed against the side of his thigh. Encouraged by his friend's touch Nicky tried again.

"It was horrible Sir. They beat us a lot and worked us very hard and we had very little to eat."

"Sounds ideal for a bunch of anti-social brats," Jack said heartily. "How many meals a day did you get Nicky and at what times in the day."

"Just one Sir, sometime in the afternoon."

"And the charity scum get two meals the greedy little animals." Jack remarked. "I always thought we were spoiling the brutes. That decides it, its one meal a day from now on for my brats and I'll suggest that should be applied to all charity stock at the next meeting of trustees."

"So you didn't enjoy your time at Ovingdean?" Jack asked turning his attention back to Nicky.

"No Sir," Nicky replied in a voice just over a whisper. He remembered the long days spent working naked in the fields, the constant beatings, the hunger, the cold and the filth. He began to shiver uncontrollably.

Jack looked down the table and grinned wolfishly at the trembling boy.

"Then you'd better behave yourself Nicky," he said softly, "because if you don't your Mummy will send you straight back there."

"Yes," Angela chimed in; "once you've been there they can take you back any time. I've got the principal's telephone number, Mr Adams, you remember him I am sure Nicky? Very few boys who go to Overdean ever forget Mr Adams. One telephone call to him and he'll send a couple of his guards round to collect you."

"Mummy you wouldn't send me back there would you?"

"Oh yes I would Nicky like a shot. You just step out of line and I'll be asking Angela to make that telephone call."

"Mister Ellis would be glad to see you back there I'm sure," Angela, said naming Nicky's chief persecutor during the time he was in care, with a smile.

Nicky burst into tears.

"They're only teasing you Nicky," Adam whispered.

Unfortunately Brian Roberts spotted him doing so.

What did you say Adam," he roared at his son.

"Just that you were only teasing him Dad."

"Whispering is very bad manners. Furthermore I'm not going to tolerate you having secrets behind my back and who do you think you are, you insolent boy, to comment on the behaviour of your elders and betters. Take your shorts off and get up on that chair with your hands behind your head. I'll deal with you after I've had my dinner."

"Dad," Adam protested. He was fourteen now. Almost grown up himself. He was used to running around naked with Brian and Mary and it just seemed natural to continue doing so when they went off on holiday with the Thompsons and their boys. But to be made to strip in front of three strangers, Mister Wardle, Mister Legg, and worst of all Mrs Wardle, and the charity boys, though he knew they didn't count and goodness knows who else, it just wasn't right.

"Adam," Brian roared again rising to his feet.

"The cane's by the fire place," Jack said helpfully.

Brian snatched it up and advanced on his son.

"Dad please," Adam said beginning to get up to meet his father.

Brian seized the boy by his ear and twisting it viciously yanked him out of his chair. Adam scrambled to his feet forced to bend double by his father's grip on his ear. Still keeping a tight hold of his son Brian cut him hard across the shins with the cane.

"Get your shorts off now and then get up on the chair as I told you," Brian ordered releasing the boy's ear and cutting him again hard across the shins.

Adam's hands scrabbled desperately at his shorts while his father towered over him the cane raised threateningly. He dragged the waste band of the shorts down over his hips and let them fall about his ankles. Naked, for none of the boys were allowed underpants, he began to scramble up onto the seat of the chair. In doing so his bottom presented an irresistible target to his father who brought the cane slashing down across it.

Brian directed the cut into the crease of Adam's rump. A stripe there would burn for a long time and would serve as a constant reminder to the boy of what he was to expect at the end of dinner.

Adam was now standing unsteadily on the chair.

"Get your hands behind your head," Adam snapped and reinforced his order by cracking the cane across the front of the boy's thighs scoring an angry red wheal across the smooth brown skin.

"I can't imagine what the boy is fussed about. He's got very little to hide down there," Anne remarked in a loud clear voice causing all the grown ups to hoot with laughter.

Brian waited for the noise to die away.

"You," he said addressing the naked boy who stood on the chair his hands clasped behind his head, red faced with shame and embarrassment, "will stay up there while the rest of us have our dinners. Then I will beat you. I will beat you very hard. You will get nothing to eat but you can spend your time until then considering and, I hope, regretting your appalling behaviour. You have behaved disgracefully. You have shown no respect to me. You have set an appalling example to the younger boys. You are a sly deceitful ill-mannered boy. I will not put up with you whispering behind my back."

"Dad I didn't 3; 3; 3;," Adam began but was cut short by Brian brining the cane hissing down across the front of his thighs once again.

"Be quiet," Brian commanded, "don't you dare argue with me."

Adam choked back his tears. He loved his father and wanted to please him. He hadn't meant to argue with him only to tell him that he hadn't meant any harm certainly not to deceive him.

"How many strokes are you going to give the boy?" Jack asked.

"Quite a few I hope," Angela said, "I don't take kindly to being told I'm 'only joking' by a mere boy. Insolent little brute."

"Gross impertinence," Mary Roberts chimed in, "he said the same of me and that's worse because I am his step mother. No respect at all. If you don't give him a bloody bottom I most certainly will."

Brian thought for a moment.

"Insolent," he said thoughtfully, "impertinent, deceitful, all serious character faults that require vigorous correction. Being the eldest boy the others look to him for an example and he has failed them badly. Four strokes for insolence, four strokes for impertinence, four strokes for deceitfulness and a further four for setting a bad example. I hope that doesn't strike you as excessively lenient but I don't want to overdo things either."

"Only sixteen cuts," Mary exclaimed. "He's a big boy. He could take twice as many and still be able to walk. That's letting him off a bit lightly I think."

"I think so too," Angela said, "but then we can always give him a few as well. And maybe it'd be better done back at the cottage. We don't want to get blood on the car seats. Though he'll bleed anyway with sixteen."

Nicky who knew only too well from his own experience the scorching lung-emptying pain that a cane biting into tender boy's flesh inflicts reached out and under cover of the table and placed his hand on Adam's bare foot. There was nothing more he could do to support or comfort his friend.

"Talking about bleeding," John Thompson said braking into the conversation, "someone's given that gate boy of yours a good hiding. His shoulders and bottom have been really shredded."

"That'll be Doctor Smythe's boys," Jack explained with a benevolent smile. "I asked them to thrash the little brute for me. I'm glad to hear they did the job so thoroughly. I was sure I could rely on them. I must remember to see that whoever is sent down to unlock the boy from the gate takes a tube of wound powder with him to treat the open cuts."

"What do you use on your brats after they have been beaten?" Angela asked.

"Oh wound powder on the open cuts. Similar to the powder you use on horses. It stanches the bleeding and acts as an anti-sceptic at the same time and we lso use some sort of salve for the bruising but we don't usually bother about that very much. Just let nature take its course. They're healthy young animals and the bruising fades fast enough," Jack replied.

"I ask because the Matron at Ovingdean uses a special ointment a chemist friend of hers has invented, a mixture of iodine, strong mustard and horse liniment. It seems to work very well and the brats squeal in a most entertaining way when it is applied to their stripes. I wonder which works better, your wound powder or the Ovingdean ointment. It would be interesting to know."

"Our brats howl a bit when the wound powder is put on them," Jack remarked in an off hand sort of way and then continued in a keener manner. "It would be interesting to see which worked best though."

"I've got some of the ointment in the car," John Thompson remarked. "Always carry it about to use on any of the boys we happen to thrash. We could try an experiment. Thoroughly cut up a couple of sluts' rumps with the cane, apply ointment to one, powder to the other, and see which heals quicker. But there's a problem. To make the experiment valid we'd need to start with two boys with bottoms in a similar condition, really I suppose totally unmarked."

"That would indeed be a problem," Jack said judiciously, "I doubt if there's a single indentured brat in the Vale of Dingle with a bum that doesn't have a bruise or two on it and the same applies to free boys as well. I suppose if anyone knows where one or rather two such rare birds could be found it's my house keeper Mrs Thomas, excellent woman as she is."

"You," he snapped at a serving boy, "go and find Mrs Thomas and ask her if she would be good enough to come and see me here. Quickly you idle little brute."

Mrs Thomas was a plump rather motherly looking woman dressed in black with a spotless white apron covering her ample bosom. She stood just inside the dining room door listening deferentially as Jack explained about their proposed experiment. As the explanation progressed a smile flickered across her face.

"Why Sir," she said when Jack had finished speaking, "this is most fortunate. I know exactly where I can get just the things you want. My youngest sister married an American and they had twin sons. Now her husband has run off with another woman and left her stuck with the two boys. Naturally she wanted to get rid of them and I advised her to bring them over here and offer them to the trustees."

"She would have no problem in getting them accepted. Lovely little pets they are. Six coming on for seven years old, little blond angels. Perhaps a little plump and rather spoilt but that would be fun for someone to knock out of them."

"They arrived at Heathrow this evening and she brought them straight to the Duke. She telephoned me as they arrived. She said the two boys were exhausted poor little mites after their journey. I told her to put them to bed before they had any chance to see anything of the place so they didn't get alarmed and start playing up. Then when they were rested and looking their best she could present them before the trustees for acceptance. I am sure though that if you want them Sir she'd be very pleased to bring them up here now. Shall I telephone her and ask her to do so?"

"Please do so straight away Mrs Thomas."

A few minutes later Mrs Thomas returned to the room.

"I've spoken to my sister Sir. She's ordered a taxi to bring them up here and when it arrives at the hotel she'll get the two boys out of bed an bring them up here. I told her to bring them in their pyjamas just as they are. They should be here in about twenty minutes."

The serving boys had just brought the puddings to the table, strawberry shortcake and cream, when a crunch of wheels on gravel announced the arrival of the taxi. Soon afterwards Mrs Thomas appeared in the dining room with another lady very similar in appearance to her but looking about ten years younger. The younger woman was holding the hands of two small boys. They were pretty little creatures with hair the colour of ripe corn, their peaches and cream complexions still flushed from sleep. Thumbs stuck in their mouths, wrapped in pale blue dressing gowns with the lags of spider man pyjamas showing beneath their hems, they trotted unsteadily along behind their mother their small feet encased in slippers shaped like rabbit heads.

Mark saw the two boys hesitate when they entered the room and took in the crowd of adults all staring at them, Adam standing naked on his chair, the other children and the serving boys in their skimpy striped tunics. Their mother tightened her grip on their hands and jerked them forward. Angela, with what he was to come to regard as typical of her skill and tact in dealing with children, acted quickly to distract their attention.

"What pretty little cherubs," she cooed softly. "What are the little beauties names?"

"This little brute is called Ian," the woman replied savagely jerking forward the boy to her right, "the other is Duncan."

"Oh come here Ian, come here my pretty," Angela said leaning forward held out her arms to the boy.

Mary Roberts quickly issued a similar invitation to Duncan. The two children thankfully abandoned their hold on their suddenly hostile and unloving Mummy and eagerly went to their two new friends.

"Well I'm glad to be rid at last of those two little turds," their mother announced loudly. "Their bloody father spoilt them rotten and then when a new and younger bit of skirt came along he forgot all about them. Just buggered off and left the useless lumps of shit with me."

"Do you want to stay and watch?" Jack asked her.

"I would love to see the turds getting the cane across their bums but the taxi is outside waiting for me," the twins loving Mummy replied regretfully."

"Stay the night," Jack suggested.

"I'll make up a bed straight away and put a slut in to air it," Mrs Thomas said quickly. "Don't worry Megan I'll see it is spotlessly clean."

While the woman was talking Angela lifted Ian onto her lap and began to pet him.

"Do you like strawberries my sweet?" she asked.

The boy stared up into the face of his new friend and nodded his head vigorously. Angela took a strawberry from her plate and holding it between her finger and thumb popped it into the little fellow's mouth. Even as she did so her left hand was busy untying the cord of the child's dressing gown, fumbling with buttons and parting cloth. The child stirred uneasily but she quieted him whispering into his ear and feeding him further strawberries. Soon the dressing gown was undone and drawn from his shoulders, his pyjama jacket followed and then Angela tipped him for a moment from her lap to allow the Spiderman trousers to join the rest of his clothes on the floor. Meanwhile Mary Roberts had been working on Duncan and both boys were now undressed.

Before Angela drew the now naked Ian back onto her lap Mark caught a brief glimpse of the child's unclothed body. He was a nicely proportioned little thing with just a touch of puppy fat. His body was a light golden brown. Not the deep tan of a pauper boy which comes from constant exposure to the elements throughout the year but a lighter gentler colour that came from the occasional afternoon at the pool or on the beach. A band of pale flesh ran round his hips where his bathing trunks had shielded his body from the sun. His small round bottom on which the cane was soon to etch its cruel and bloody message was egg white.

"I tell you what," John Thompson remarked, "we ought to validate this experiment to have some sort of control. A boy whose bottom we do bloody but don't treat so that we can see if the ointment and powder do make any difference at all. Maybe the boys heal fast simply because they're young and healthy. We need to have some check to see if that is so."

"Well we won't be able to find another brat like these two. I can tell you that," Jack remarked.

"That's not necessary. With the control we will not be comparing the progress of healing as between two boys' rumps but that of one boy's bottom over a period of time, if you see what I mean. With the control we will want to establish if his untreated cuts and bruises have healed appreciably slower than those of the boys whose bottoms have been treated."

"Ideally though I admit we want a boy roughly about the same age as Ian and Duncan and with a reasonably unmarked bottom. You could use my Peter if you want. He's less than a year older than these two and what with packing the car and driving down here I haven't had the time or opportunity to use the strap much on him over the last couple of days. That's partly why I am going to take the cane to him tomorrow morning. If you don't give boys fairly frequent tastes of the rod they loose their fear of it."

All the adults so far as Mark could judge thought this was an excellent idea. Peter though appeared to be less than enthused by the prospect of being actively involved in the experiment in the manner proposed.

"Oh Dad," he protested and then brightening a little he added. "I spose if I catch it now I won't get it tomorrow as well."

"The two things are quite unrelated and you must not try to muddle them up," his father said firmly. "Your morning beating is a disciplinary one. This one is purely experimental and I would have thought, as a responsible intelligent boy, you would want to be involved in it. Anyway we have invited our new friends round to watch your morning thrashing. We can't disappoint them. For heaven's sake boy don't be so selfish. Think of other people for once. Now strip ready for the cane."

This adjuration drew a murmur of approval from the assembled adults. Brenda Thompson told her youngest son to "think of other people for a change." Mary Roberts looked up from her fondling of the naked little slut nestling in her lap to say that her son, Nicky, was also totally self centred.

Mark however noticed that Peter continued to look far from happy as he stood up and slipped his shorts down over his hips. His lips trembled and moisture glinted in his eyes. If he had been a charity brat he would already have been crying. A free boy's pride prevented him from doing so, so he bit his lower lip and blinked the tears away. He felt it was unfair but argument would only bring harsher punishment and he knew from experience pleas for mercy would be pointless. He folded his shorts neatly and stood naked waiting for his thrashing to begin. To Mark the boy looked wretchedly self conscious and acutely aware of the seven pairs of adult eyes observing his naked body

His father though was an experienced disciplinarian and knew that a beting was more effective if it was not hurried. The boy should be given time for reflection increasing his terror and the amusement of those observing him.

"Well don't just stand there Peter. Get over to the wall by the door and stand facing it. I want the tip of your nose pressed against the wall and your hands up on the top of your head. And stay there out of the way till I call you."

Obediently Peter took up station as instructed. The boy had to lean forward slightly so that the tip of his nose was touching the wall exaggerating the provocative jut of his bottom in the most delightful way. His tight little bum seemed almost to demand the biting kiss of the cane. Mark reflected that it would not be long before that request, if request it indeed was, was satisfied in full.

John Thompson had been right about the relatively unmarked condition of his youngest son's bottom. Apart from a single broad angry weal across the back of the child's thighs, such bruises as there were on his body were clearly several days old and amounted to no more than faint discolorations of his sun tanned skin. Mark lounged back in his chair and feasted his eyes on the Peter's taught young body. He always found the prospect of a boy being beaten a very stimulating one. He wondered how the boy had come by the fresh stripe that cut across the back of his firm young thighs just below his bottom. A word out of place, a failure to obey an order with sufficient speed, whatever the offence retribution had been swift, the boy's fault corrected and the adult's anger simultaneously assuaged. So much better, Mark thought, than the long drawn out admonitions with the consequent arguments and lingering resentments that result from the application of liberal theories and practices to the rearing of boys. No wonder the free boys of the Vale of Dingle were healthy young rascals with ready cheerful smiles in contrast to the sulky overweight yobs that were the norm in the rest of the United Kingdom.

"And there's another thing," John Thompson said bringing Mark's reflections to a sharp halt, "the two sluts are as like as two peas in a pod. Their Mummy may be able to tell them apart but I certainly can't. We could easily muddle them up and then our experiment would be ruined."

"Mrs Thomas?" Jack said.

"I'll tag the pair of them Sir if you'll give me a minute," that good lady said hurrying from the room.

While Mrs Thomas was away the serving boys under Jack Wardle's supervision set up the two flogging stools by the fire place where the brats suffering on them could easily be observed by the people sitting round the dining room table. These stools were low broad-based pieces of furniture with thickly padded leather tops. Flaps in the carpet were raised and the legs secured by bolts to brackets in the floorboards. Other flaps were raised and stout canvass bands with brass buckles were similarly secured. The brief tunics of the serving boys rode up their backs as they bent to bolt the stools and restraints in place affording the watching adults pleasing glimpses of the slut's juvenile charms.

It was not long before Mrs Thomas bustled back into the room carrying a large plastic box. Placing this on the table she extracted what looked like a spring loaded metal punch and a couple of brightly coloured diamond shaped plastic tags one yellow the other blue.

"They're the same sort of tags that are used to identify cattle," she explained. "Now which one shall I do first?" However this was clearly a rhetorical question for she immediately advanced on Ian who was sitting on Angela's lap.

Ian not knowing what was going to be done to him but sensing that it was something unpleasant and painful whimpered in fear and huddled closer to the woman. Angela slipped an arm round the child's waste and hugged him tight.

"There, there my sweetie," she soothed the child. "I won't let her hurt you my dear." Angela had no compunction about lying to the child. It was after all soon to be entered as a charity boy and being lied to would be the least of the abuses inflicted on it.

"How do you want the brat?" she asked Mrs Thomas.

"Just get a firm grip of his chin Miss and turn the slut's head so its left side is towards me."

Mrs Thomas, bending down over the boy, took the yellow diamond shaped plastic tag and bent it in half so that it sandwiched the top of his ear. Taking the spring loaded punch she bent the points of the diamond inwards and sunk them into either side of the child's ear. Mark saw a small bubble of blood well from where the outer point was anchored. Ian howled, thrashing his bare legs and throwing his naked body about in Angela's lap.

"You said it wouldn't hurt," he screamed moving his hand to tear at the tag fastened in the gristle of his ear.

Angela grabbed Ian's left wrist preventing him from getting at the tag. Laughing at the child's distress she held the desperately wriggling boy firm in her lap with an arm around his waste. Suddenly the boy ceased to struggle. He hunched forwards his small body racked with sobs. He had realised that he was alone unloved and helpless.

Megan leapt to her feet and snatching up a heavy silver ladle from the sideboard advanced on her sobbing son.

"For God's sake stop that stupid noise you ungrateful little brute," Ian's loving Mummy screamed at the hapless child as she brought the ladle cracking down hard on the crown of the boy's head. "I arrange for you to be indentured to one of the most respected and strict Masters in the whole of the Vale of Dingle and all you do dog shit is howl."

Megan raised the ladle to hit Ian for a second time. The boy cowered away from his mother raising his right arm to ward off the blow. Angela grabbed hold of his arm and pulled it down, pinioning both the child's thin wrists behind his back in her left hand. Her right arm she wrapped again around the brat's waste holding him steady so that his mother could hit him.

Meanwhile Mrs Thomas was performing the same task on Duncan. He, having seen his twin suffer, knew what was coming to him and put up a stronger resistance but a weak six year old had no chance against a couple of full grown adults and he was soon quelled and reduced to the same miserable condition as his brother. The only difference being that the tag in his ear was blue instead of yellow.

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