one evening, a month later, eric marshall came out of the old, white-washed schoolhouse at lindsay, and locked the door—which was carved over with initials innumerable, and built of double plank in order that it might withstand all the assaults and batteries to which it might be subjected.
eric’s pupils had gone home an hour before, but he had stayed to solve some algebra problems, and correct some latin exercises for his advanced students.
the sun was slanting in warm yellow lines through the thick grove of maples to the west of the building, and the dim green air beneath them burst into golden bloom. a couple of sheep were nibbling the lush grass in a far corner of the play-ground; a cow-bell, somewhere in the maple woods, tinkled faintly and musically, on the still crystal air, which, in spite of its blandness, still retained a touch of the wholesome austerity and poignancy of a canadian spring. the whole world seemed to have fallen, for the time being, into a pleasant untroubled dream.
the scene was very peaceful and pastoral—almost too much so, the young man thought, with a shrug of his shoulders, as he stood in the worn steps and gazed about him. how was he going to put in a whole month here, he wondered, with a little smile at his own expense.
“father would chuckle if he knew i was sick of it already,” he thought, as he walked across the play-ground to the long red road that ran past the school. “well, one week is ended, at any rate. i’ve earned my own living for five whole days, and that is something i could never say before in all my twenty-four years of existence. it is an exhilarating thought. but teaching the lindsay district school is distinctly not exhilarating—at least in such a well-behaved school as this, where the pupils are so painfully good that i haven’t even the traditional excitement of thrashing obstreperous bad boys. everything seems to go by clock work in lindsay educational institution. larry must certainly have possessed a marked gift for organizing and drilling. i feel as if i were merely a big cog in an orderly machine that ran itself. however, i understand that there are some pupils who haven’t shown up yet, and who, according to all reports, have not yet had the old adam totally drilled out of them. they may make things more interesting. also a few more compositions, such as john reid’s, would furnish some spice to professional life.”
eric’s laughter wakened the echoes as he swung into the road down the long sloping hill. he had given his fourth grade pupils their own choice of subjects in the composition class that morning, and john reid, a sober, matter-of-fact little urchin, with not the slightest embryonic development of a sense of humour, had, acting upon the whispered suggestion of a roguish desk-mate, elected to write upon “courting.” his opening sentence made eric’s face twitch mutinously whenever he recalled it during the day. “courting is a very pleasant thing which a great many people go too far with.”
the distant hills and wooded uplands were tremulous and aerial in delicate spring-time gauzes of pearl and purple. the young, green-leafed maples crowded thickly to the very edge of the road on either side, but beyond them were emerald fields basking in sunshine, over which cloud shadows rolled, broadened, and vanished. far below the fields a calm ocean slept bluely, and sighed in its sleep, with the murmur that rings for ever in the ear of those whose good fortune it is to have been born within the sound of it.
now and then eric met some callow, check-shirted, bare-legged lad on horseback, or a shrewd-faced farmer in a cart, who nodded and called out cheerily, “howdy, master?” a young girl, with a rosy, oval face, dimpled cheeks, and pretty dark eyes filled with shy coquetry, passed him, looking as if she would not be at all averse to a better acquaintance with the new teacher.
half way down the hill eric met a shambling, old gray horse drawing an express wagon which had seen better days. the driver was a woman: she appeared to be one of those drab-tinted individuals who can never have felt a rosy emotion in all their lives. she stopped her horse, and beckoned eric over to her with the knobby handle of a faded and bony umbrella.
“reckon you’re the new master, ain’t you?” she asked.
eric admitted that he was.
“well, i’m glad to see you,” she said, offering him a hand in a much darned cotton glove that had once been black.
“i was right sorry to see mr. west go, for he was a right good teacher, and as harmless, inoffensive a creetur as ever lived. but i always told him every time i laid eyes on him that he was in consumption, if ever a man was. you look real healthy—though you can’t aways tell by looks, either. i had a brother complected like you, but he was killed in a railroad accident out west when he was real young.
“i’ve got a boy i’ll be sending to school to you next week. he’d oughter gone this week, but i had to keep him home to help me put the pertaters in; for his father won’t work and doesn’t work and can’t be made to work.
“sandy—his full name is edward alexander—called after both his grandfathers—hates the idee of going to school worse ‘n pisen—always did. but go he shall, for i’m determined he’s got to have more larning hammered into his head yet. i reckon you’ll have trouble with him, master, for he’s as stupid as an owl, and as stubborn as solomon’s mule. but mind this, master, i’ll back you up. you just lick sandy good and plenty when he needs it, and send me a scrape of the pen home with him, and i’ll give him another dose.
“there’s people that always sides in with their young ones when there’s any rumpus kicked up in the school, but i don’t hold to that, and never did. you can depend on rebecca reid every time, master.”
“thank you. i am sure i can,” said eric, in his most winning tones.
he kept his face straight until it was safe to relax, and mrs. reid drove on with a soft feeling in her leathery old heart, which had been so toughened by long endurance of poverty and toil, and a husband who wouldn’t work and couldn’t be made to work, that it was no longer a very susceptible organ where members of the opposite sex were concerned.
mrs. reid reflected that this young man had a way with him.
eric already knew most of the lindsay folks by sight; but at the foot of the hill he met two people, a man and a boy, whom he did not know. they were sitting in a shabby, old-fashioned wagon, and were watering their horse at the brook, which gurgled limpidly under the little plank bridge in the hollow.
eric surveyed them with some curiosity. they did not look in the least like the ordinary run of lindsay people. the boy, in particular, had a distinctly foreign appearance, in spite of the gingham shirt and homespun trousers, which seemed to be the regulation, work-a-day outfit for the lindsay farmer lads. he had a lithe, supple body, with sloping shoulders, and a lean, satiny brown throat above his open shirt collar. his head was covered with thick, silky, black curls, and the hand that hung down by the side of the wagon was unusually long and slender. his face was richly, though somewhat heavily featured, olive tinted, save for the cheeks, which had a dusky crimson bloom. his mouth was as red and beguiling as a girl’s, and his eyes were large, bold and black. all in all, he was a strikingly handsome fellow; but the expression of his face was sullen, and he somehow gave eric the impression of a sinuous, feline creature basking in lazy grace, but ever ready for an unexpected spring.
the other occupant of the wagon was a man between sixty-five and seventy, with iron-gray hair, a long, full, gray beard, a harsh-featured face, and deep-set hazel eyes under bushy, bristling brows. he was evidently tall, with a spare, ungainly figure, and stooping shoulders. his mouth was close-lipped and relentless, and did not look as if it had ever smiled. indeed, the idea of smiling could not be connected with this man—it was utterly incongruous. yet there was nothing repellent about his face; and there was something in it that compelled eric’s attention.
he rather prided himself on being a student of physiognomy, and he felt quite sure that this man was no ordinary lindsay farmer of the genial, garrulous type with which he was familiar.
long after the old wagon, with its oddly assorted pair, had gone lumbering up the hill, eric found himself thinking of the stern, heavy browed man and the black-eyed, red-lipped boy.
