dickie gibson cut me dead to-night, and i think that jim jackson will one day look the other way when i pass. it is very sad, and i feel to-night that all my work was in vain. i cannot, however, blame macdonald this time, for dickie has left the school. i feel somewhat grieved at not being able to lay the fault at macdonald's door. i should blame myself if i honestly could, but i cannot, for dickie was a lad who loved the school.
i recollect the morning when we arrived to find a huge stone cast in the middle of the pond.
"it's been some of the big lads," said dickie.
"but why?" i asked. "why should they do a dirty trick like that? would you do a thing like that, dickie, after you had left the school?"
he thought for a minute.
"aye," he said slowly, "if aw was with bigger lads and they did it aw wud do it too."
i suppose that if i had been a really great man i might have conquered the spirit of the village. i was only a poor pioneer striving to make these bairns happier and better. dickie's cutting me proves that i was not good enough to lead him away from the atmosphere of the village. i used to forget about the homes; i used to forget that many a child[pg 74] had to listen to harsh criticisms of my methods. i marvel now that they were so nice at school. i wonder whether we could not form a board to enquire into the upbringing of children. we might call it the board of parental control. it would bring parents before it and examine them. parents convicted of stupidity would be ordered to hand over their children to a playyard school, and each child would be so taught that it could take in hand the education of its parents when it was seventeen.
my idea was to produce a generation that would be better than the present one, and i thought that i could successfully fight the environment of home. i failed.... dickie has cut me. the fight was unequal; the village won. after all i had dickie for two short years, and the village has had him for fourteen. poor boy, he has much good in him, much innate kindliness. but the village is stupid and spiteful. i am absolutely sure that dickie cut me because he wanted to follow the public opinion of the village.
am i magnifying a merely personal matter? am i merely piqued because i was cut? no one likes to be cut; it isn't a compliment at any time. no, i am not piqued: i am intensely angry, not at poor dickie, but at the dirty environment that makes him a cad. lucky is the dominie who teaches bairns from good homes. last summer when i spent half a day in the king alfred school in hampstead i envied john russell his pupils. they were[pg 75] all children of parents who were intellectual enough to seek a free education for their children in a land where the schools are barracks. "if i only had children like these!" i said to him, but a moment later i thought of my little school up north and i said: "no! mine need freedom more than these."
the king alfred school is a delightful place. there is co-education ... a marvellous thing to an englishman, but not noticeable by a scot who has never known any other kind. there is no reward and no punishment, no marks, no competition. a child looks on each task as a work of art, and his one desire is to please himself rather than please his teacher. the tone of the school is excellent; the pupils are frankly critical and delightfully self-possessed. and since parents choose this school voluntarily i presume that the education we call home-life is ideal. how easy it must be for john russell! if my dickie had been going home each night to a father and mother who were as eager for truth and freedom as i was, i don't think that dickie would have cut me to-night.
* * *
dickie came up for his milk to-night, and i hailed him as he went down the brae.
"here, dickie!" i called, "why have you given up looking at me?"
he grew very red, and he stood kicking a stone with his heel.
"i don't want you to touch your cap,[pg 76] dickie, but you might at least say hullo to me in the passing. some of the big lads who left school before i came look at me impudently, and i know that their look means: 'bah! i've left the school and i don't care a button for you or any other dominie!' but, dickie, you know me well; you never were afraid of me, and i know that you don't think me your enemy. why in all the earth should you pretend that you do?"
i held out my hand.
"dickie," i said, "are you and i to be friends or not?"
he hesitated for a moment, then he took my hand.
"friends," he said weakly, and his eyes filled with tears. then i knew that i had not been mistaken in thinking that there was much good in the boy.
having made it up with dickie i set off with a light heart to attend a meeting of the gifts for local soldiers committee. the chairman was absent and i was invited to take the chair. bill watson brought forward a motion that the committee should get up a concert to provide funds.
"mr. watson's proposal is that we arrange a concert," i said. "is there any seconder?"
"aweel," said andrew findlay, "aw think that a concert wud be a verra guid thing. the nichts is beginnin' to draw in, and it wud be best to hae it as soon as possible. the tatties will be on in twa three days."
[pg 77]
"the proposal is seconded. any amendment, gentlemen?"
"man," said peter macmannish the cobbler, "man, aw was just lookin' at lappiedub's tatties the nicht. man, yon's a dawmed guid crap."
"them that's in the wast field is better," said andrew.
"but the best crap o' wheat aw seen the year," said dauvid peters, "was torrydyke's."
"any amendment, gentlemen?"
"torrydyke ay has graund wheat," said peter. "d'ye mind yon year—ninety-sax ... or was it ninety-seeven?—man, they tell me that he made a pile o' siller that year."
"ninety-sax," growled william mackenzie the farmer of brigend, "it was ninety-sax, for aw mind that my broon coo dee'd that summer."
"aw mind o' her," nodded andrew, "grass disease, wasn't it?"
"aye," said mackenzie. "aw sent to lochars for the vet but he was awa frae hame. syne aw sent a telegram to the wanners vet, and when he cam he says to me, says he—"
"any amendment, gentlemen?" i said.
"goad, lads," said andrew sitting up in his chair, "we'll hae to get on wi' the business."
"no amendment," i said. "are we all agreed about this concert?" and they grunted their assent.
"and now we'll settle the date," i said briskly.
[pg 78]
peter macmannish looked over at mackenzie.
"when are ye thinkin' o' killin' that black swine o' yours, john?" he asked.
mackenzie growled and shook his head.
"she's no fattenin' up as aw cud wish to see her, peter," he replied. there followed an animated discussion of the merits and demerits of various feeding-stuffs. after a two hours' sitting the committee unanimously appointed me secretary and organiser of the concert. i was given authority to fix a date and arrange a programme.
attendance at many democratic meetings of this kind has led me to a complete understanding of parliament.
* * *
it is sunday to-day. i sat reading in the afternoon and a knock came at my bothy door.
"come in!" i shouted, and annie walked in.
"me and janet and ellen are going for a walk over the hill, and we thocht you might like to come too."
"certainly!" i cried, and i threw shaw's latest volume of plays into the bed.
"margaret's wi' us too," said annie as if it were an afterthought.
there was a fight for my arms.
"annie was first," i said, "and we'll toss up for the other arm."
"let margaret get it," said janet mischievously, and margaret's nose went almost imperceptibly higher in the air.
[pg 79]
"excellent!" i said, and i took her arm and placed it through mine. janet and ellen walked behind, and they sniggered a good deal.
"just fancy the mester noo!" said janet, "linkit wi' maggie! he'll hae to marry her noo, ellen!" and poor margaret became very red and began to talk at a great rate.
"g'wa, jan," i heard ellen say, "he's far ower auld. maggie's only twenty next month, and he's—he could be her faither."
"he's no very auld, ellen; he hasna a mootache yet!"
"aw wudna like a man wi' a mootache, jan; liz macqueen says that she gave up jock wilson cos his mootache was ower kittly."
"weel, she was tellin' a big lee," said janet firmly. "if she loved him she wud ha' telt him to shave it off."
we lay down in the wood at the top of the hill. annie was in a reminiscent mood.
"d'ye mind the letters we used to write to one another?" she asked.
i pretended that i had forgotten them.
"do ye no mind? one day when i wasna attendin' to the lesson ye wrote 'annie miller is sacked' on a bit paper and gave it to me?"
"ah, yes, i remember, annie, now that you come to mention it. but i can't remember your reply."
"aw took another bit o' paper, and aw wrote: 'mr. neill is sacked for not making me attend.'"
"yes, you besom, i remember now. i'll[pg 80] sack you!" and i rolled her over in the grass.
"there was another letter, annie," i said, "do you remember it?" and she said "no!" so quickly that i knew she did remember it.
i turned to margaret.
"annie came to school one day with her hair most beautifully done in ringlets," i explained, "and of course i fell in love with her at once. i wrote her a letter.... 'my dear annie, do you think yourself bonny to-day?' and the wee besom replied: 'no, i don't!' then i wrote her again.... 'do you ever tell lies?' and to this she answered: 'no, never!' then i calmly handed her the life of george washington."
"but aw never read it!" she cried with a gay laugh.
"i know ... and that's why you have never reformed, my dear kid," i said.
"ellen," said janet, "d'ye mind that day when you and me got up and walked oot o' the room?"
"what day was that?" i asked; "you two went out of the room so often that i gave up trying to see you."
"it was the day when a man cam to the schule and stood in the room when ye was teachin' us. there was a new boy, the caravan boy that had never been to schule in his life, and ye said that he was better than any o' us."
"so jan and me took the tig," said ellen, "and we went oot and sat on the dike."
janet hee-heed.
[pg 81]
"d'ye mind what we said, ellen? we said we werena to go back to the schule; we were to go up to rinsley schule to mester lawson."
"aye," said ellen, "and we said we wudna gie ye another sweetie ... no, never!"
"and i suppose you gave me sweeties next day?" i suggested.
"we gave ye a whole ha'penny worth o' chocolate caramels," said janet. her head rested on my knee and she smiled up in my face. "ye were far ower easy wi' us," she said seriously, "we never did half the lessons ye gave us to do."
"i know, jan, but i didn't particularly want you to do lessons; all i wanted was that you should be janet brown and no one else. i wanted you to be a good kind lassie ... and of course, as you know, i failed." and she pulled my nose at this.
"i didn't like the school when i was there," said margaret; "i never was so glad in my life as when i was fourteen."
"poor margaret," i said, "your schooling should be the pleasantest memory of your life. what you learned from books doesn't matter at all; what matters is what you were. and it seems that memory will bring to you a picture of an unhappy margaret longing to leave school. what a tragedy!"
"is being happy the best thing in life?" asked margaret.
"not the best," i answered; "the best[pg 82] thing in life is making other people happy ... and that's what the books mean by 'service.'"
* * *
margaret came over to my bothy to-night to ask if i would help nancy with her home lessons.
"she's crying like anything," said margaret.
i went over to the farmhouse. nancy sat at the kitchen table with her books spread out before her. she was wiping her eyes and looked like beginning to weep again.
"it's her pottery," explained frank, "she canna get it up at all."
macdonald had ordered the class to learn the first six verses of gray's elegy, and threatened dire penalties if each scholar wasn't word perfect.
"i'm afraid i can't help you much, nancy," i said. "you'll just have to set your teeth and get it up. don't repeat it line by line; read the six verses over, then read them again, then again. read them twenty times, then shut the book and imagine the page is before you, and see how much of the stuff you can say." i used to find this method very effectual when i got up long recitations in my younger days.
macdonald gives his higher classes long poems. they have learned up pages of marmion and pages of the lady of the lake; and now he is giving them the long and difficult elegy. i must ask him some day what his idea is. i made learning poetry optional when i was in[pg 83] the school. i eschewed all long poems, and i never asked a child to stand up and "say" a piece. my view was that school poetry should be school folk-song; i used to write short pieces on the board and the classes recited them in unison. i gave no hint of expression, for expression should always be a natural thing. i have been timid of expression ever since the day i heard, or rather saw, a youth recite the dream of eugene aram. when he came to the climax ... "and lo! the faithless stream was dry!" i suddenly discovered that i was dry too, and i did not wait until eugene was led away with "gyves upon his wrists." i once saw sir henry irving in the bells. i was a schoolboy at the time and i straightway spent all my pocket money on books dealing with elocution; i also would tear my hair before the footlights! looking back now i wonder why irving bothered with stuff of that sort; why his sense of humour allowed him to grope about the stage for the axe to kill the polish jew i don't understand. all that melodramatic romantic business is simply theatrical gush. it appeals to the classes that devour the police news.
expression when taught is gush. when i gave my bairns a bit of the ancient mariner the whole crowd brightened up and shouted when they came to the verse:—
i bit my arm, i sucked the blood
and cried: "a sail! a sail!"
[pg 84]
they understood that part, but they put no special expression into the stanza:—
all in a hot and copper sky,
the bloody sun at noon
right up above the mast did stand,
no bigger than the moon.
the boys used to emphasise the adjective in the second line, but that was perhaps natural in a community where strong language is the prerogative of grown-ups. i suppose that a teacher of expression would have pointed out that the right arm must be raised gracefully at the third line, and the voice lowered awfully to show the marvellous significance of the fact that the crudoric sun was no bigger than the moon.
all i tried to give my bairns was an appreciation of rhythm. they loved the trochaic rhythm of a poem, marsh marigolds, by g. f. bradby, that i discovered in a school anthology:—
slaty skies and a whistling wind and a grim grey land,
april here with a sullen mind and a frozen hand,
hardly a bird with the heart to sing, or a bud that dares to pry,
only the plovers hovering,
on the lonely marsh, with a heavy wing
and a sad slow cry.
and it used to make me joyful to hear them gallop through stevenson's delightful my ship and i:—
oh! it's i that am the captain of a tidy little ship,
of a ship that goes a-sailing on the pond,
and my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about,
but when i'm a little older i shall find the secret out
how to send my vessel sailing on beyond!
i never gave them a poem that needed any explanation. i picture macdonald painfully[pg 85] explaining the elegy.... "yes, children, the phrase 'incense-breathing morn' means...."
i'm gravelled; i haven't the faintest notion of what the phrase means. gray annoys me; he is far too perfect for me. i fancy that he rewrote each line about a score of times in his mania for the correct word. gray is milton with a dictionary.
i once read that stevenson studied the dictionary often, used to spend a rainy day reading the thing, and his prose does give me the impression that he cared more for how he said a thing than for the thing itself. i think george douglas a greater writer; indeed i should call him the greatest novelist scotland has produced. his style is inevitable; his whole attention seems to be riveted on the matter of his story, and his arresting phrases seem to come from him naturally and thoughtlessly. when you read of gourlay's agony in barbie market on the day that his son's disgrace is known to everyone, you see the great hulk of a man, you hear his great breaths ... you are one of the villagers who peep at him fearfully. every word is inevitable; the picture is perfect. i should be surprised if anyone told me that douglas altered a single word after he had written it.
when i want to feel humble i take up the house with the green shutters. i have read it a score of times, and i hope to read it a score of times again.
