Nevertheless, this letter affected none so much as the writer of it. His first rough sketch became so damp as he wrote that he had to abandon his pen and take to pencil; while he was revising he had often to desist to dry his eyes on the coverlet of Aaron"s bed, which made Elspeth weep also, though she had no notion what he was at. But when the work was finished he took her into the secret and read his letter to her, and he almost choked as he did so. Yet he smiled rapturously through his woe, and she knew no better than to be proud of him, and he woke next morning with a cold, brought on you can see how, but his triumph was worth its price.
Having read the letter in an uncanny silence, Mr. Cathro unbottled Tommy for the details, and out they came with a rush, blowing away the cork discretion. Yet was the Dominie slow to strike; he seemed to find more satisfaction in surveying his young friend with a wondering gaze that had a dash of admiration in it, which Tommy was the first to note.
"I don"t mind admitting before the whole school," said Mr. Cathro, slowly, "that if these letters had been addressed to me they would have taken me in."
Tommy tried to look modest, but his chest would have its way.
"You little sacket," cried the Dominie, "how did you manage it?"
"I think I thought I was Betsy at the time," Tommy answered, with proper awe.
"She told me nothing about the weeping-willow at the grave," said the Dominie, perhaps in self-defence.
"You hadna speired if there was one," retorted Tommy, jealously.
"What made you think of it?"
"I saw it might come in neat." (He had said in the letter that the weeping-willow reminded him of the days when Janet"s bonny hair hung down kissing her waist just as the willow kissed the grave.)
"Willows don"t hang so low as you seem to think," said the Dominie.
"Yes, they do," replied Tommy, "I walked three miles to see one to make sure. I was near putting in another beautiful bit about weeping-willows."
"Well, why didn"t you?"
Tommy looked up with an impudent sn.i.g.g.e.r. "You could never guess," he said.
"Answer me at once," thundered his preceptor. "Was it because--"
"No," interrupted Tommy, so conscious of Mr. Cathro"s inferiority that to let him go on seemed waste of time. "It was because, though it is a beautiful thing in itself, I felt a servant la.s.sie wouldna have thought o"t. I was sweer," he admitted, with a sigh; then firmly, "but I cut it out."
Again Cathro admired, reluctantly. The hack does feel the difference between himself and the artist. Cathro might possibly have had the idea, he could not have cut it out.
_But_ the hack is sometimes, or usually, or nearly always the artist"s master, and can make him suffer for his dem"d superiority.
"What made you snivel when you read the pathetic bits?" asked Cathro, with itching fingers.
"I was so sorry for Peter and Mrs. Dinnie," Tommy answered, a little puzzled himself now. "I saw them so clear."
"And yet until Betsy came to you, you had never heard tell of them?"
"No."
"And on reflection you don"t care a doit about them?"
"N-no."
"And you care as little for Betsy?"
"No now, but at the time I a kind of thought I was to be married to Andrew."
"And even while you blubbered you were saying to yourself, "What a clever billie I am!""
Mr. Cathro had certainly intended to end the scene with the strap, but as he stretched out his hand for it he had another idea. "Do you know why Nether Drumgley"s sheep are branded with the letters N.D.?" he asked his pupils, and a dozen replied, "So as all may ken wha they belong to."
"Precisely," said Mr. Cathro, "and similarly they used to brand a letter on a felon, so that all might know whom _he_ belonged to." He crossed to the fireplace, and, picking up a charred stick, wrote with it on the forehead of startled Tommy the letters "S.T."
"Now," said the Dominie complacently, "we know to whom Tommy belongs."
All were so taken aback that for some seconds nothing could be heard save Tommy indignantly wiping his brow; then "Wha is he?" cried one, the mouthpiece of half a hundred.
"He is one of the two proprietors we have just been speaking of,"
replied Cathro, dryly, and turning again to Tommy, he said, "Wipe away, Sentimental Tommy, try hot water, try cold water, try a knife, but you will never get those letters off you; you are branded for ever and ever."
CHAPTER x.x.xVI
OF FOUR MINISTERS WHO AFTERWARDS BOASTED THAT THEY HAD KNOWN TOMMY SANDYS
Bursary examination time had come, and to the siege of Aberdeen marched a hungry half-dozen--three of them from Thrums, two from the Glenuharity school. The sixth was Tod Lindertis, a ploughman from the Dubb of Prosen, his place of study the bothy after lousing time (Do you hear the klink of quoits?) or a one-roomed house near it, his tutor a dogged little woman, who knew not the accusative from the dative, but never tired of holding the book while Tod recited. Him someone greets with the good-natured jeer, "It"s your fourth try, is it no, Tod?" and he answers cheerily, "It is, my lathie, and I"ll keep kick, kick, kicking away to the _n_th time."
"Which means till the door flies open," says the dogged little woman, who is the gallant Tod"s no less gallant wife, and already the mother of two. I hope Tod will succeed this time.
The compet.i.tors, who were to travel part of the way on their shanks, met soon after daybreak in Cathro"s yard, where a little crowd awaited them, parents trying to look humble, Mr. Duthie and Ramsay Cameron thinking of the morning when they set off on the same errand--but the results were different, and Mr. Duthie is now a minister, and Ramsay is in the middle of another wob. Both dominies were present, hating each other, for that day only, up to the mouth, where their icy politeness was a thing to shudder at, and each was drilling his detachment to the last moment, but by different methods; for while Mr. Cathro entreated Joe Meldrum for G.o.d"s sake to mind that about the genitive, and Willie Simpson to keep his mouth shut and drink even water sparingly, Mr.
Ogilvy cracked jokes with Gav Dishart and explained them to Lauchlan McLauchlan. "Think of anything now but what is before you," was Mr.
Ogilvy"s advice. "Think of nothing else," roared Mr. Cathro. But though Mr. Ogilvy seemed outwardly calm it was base pretence; his d.i.c.kie gradually wriggled through the opening of his waistcoat, as if bearing a protest from his inward parts, and he let it hang crumpled and conspicuous, while Grizel, on the outskirts of the crowd, yearned to put it right.
Grizel was not there, she told several people, including herself, to say good-by to Tommy, and oh, how she scorned Elspeth, for looking as if life would not be endurable without him. Knowing what Elspeth was, Tommy had decided that she should not accompany him to the yard (of course she was to follow him to Aberdeen if he distinguished himself--Mr. McLean had promised to bring her), but she told him of her dream that he headed the bursary list, and as this dream coincided with some dreams of his own, though not with all, it seemed to give her such fort.i.tude that he let her come. An expressionless face was Tommy"s, so that not even the experienced dominie of Glenquharity, covertly scanning his rival"s lot, could tell whether he was gloomy or uplifted; he did not seem to be in need of a long sleep like Willie Simpson, nor were his eyes glazed like Gav Dishart"s, who carried all the problems of Euclid before him on an invisible blackboard and dared not even wink lest he displaced them, nor did he, like Tod Lindertis, answer questions about his money pocket or where he had stowed his bread and cheese with
"After envy, spare, obey, The dative put, remember, pray."
Mr. Ogilvy noticed that Cathro tapped his forehead doubtfully every time his eyes fell on Tommy, but otherwise shunned him, and he asked "What are his chances?"
"That"s the laddie," replied Mr. Cathro, "who, when you took her ladyship to see Corp Shiach years ago impersona--"
"I know," Mr. Ogilvy interrupted him hastily, "but how will he stand, think you?"
Mr. Cathro coughed. "We"ll see," he said guardedly.
Nevertheless Tommy was not to get round the corner without betraying a little of himself, for Elspeth having borne up magnificently when he shook hands, screamed at the tragedy of his back and fell into the arms of Tod"s wife, whereupon Tommy first tried to brazen it out and then kissed her in the presence of a score of witnesses, including Grizel, who stamped her foot, though what right had she to be so angry? "I"m sure," Elspeth sobbed, "that the professor would let me sit beside you; I would just hunker on the floor and hold your foot and no say a word."
Tommy gave Tod"s wife an imploring look, and she managed to comfort Elspeth with predictions of his coming triumph and the reunion to follow. Grateful Elspeth in return asked Tommy to help Tod when the professors were not looking, and he promised, after which she had no more fear for Tod.
And now, ye drums that we all carry in our b.r.e.a.s.t.s, beat your best over the bravest sight ever seen in a small Scotch town of an autumn morning, the departure of its fighting lads for the lists at Aberdeen. Let the tune be the sweet familiar one you found somewhere in the Bible long ago, "The mothers we leave behind us"--leave behind us on their knees.
May it dirl through your bones, brave boys, to the end, as you hope not to be d.a.m.ned. And now, quick march.
A week has elapsed, and now--there is no call for music now, for these are but the vanquished crawling back, Joe Meldrum and--and another. No, it is not Tod, he stays on in Aberdeen, for he is a twelve-pound tenner.