household at Remote was so excited over finding the baby in Mause's
kennel that they all forgot to inquire till some time afterwards, how in
the world he had got there without the knowledge of his nurse. Robina
did not consider it necessary to mention her conversation with Sandie,
and beyond a moderate amount of cavilling on the part of Elsa, very
little had been said.
One afternoon, during the same week, she took the small boys for a walk
along the highroad leading to Edinburgh; and as she, with stately mien,
was pushing the perambulator on the pathway, a young man, driving a
light spring cart, overtook her and pulled up and hailed her with the
inquiry, "Well, Robiny, hoo's a' wi' ye the day?"
Robina stopped and pretended to be absorbed in settling Edmund in his
perambulator; for the moment the baby spied the trap, he began to
wriggle out of the strap that bound him in his seat, waving his arms and
shouting, "Me go 'ide in caht."
"I would like a ride, too," Montagu remarked in his usual deliberate
fashion, and he smiled up at Sandie engagingly.
Sandie saw the little boy and smiled back broadly, but he was mostly
looking at Robina.
"Is they wee things Piskeys tae?" Sandie asked, nodding his head toward
the children.
"Na, na," Robina replied, shaking her head emphatically, "there's noan
o' the wee leddy's flesh and blood's Piskeys, I'se warrant. They'll
gang tae the kirk wi' their auntie like ither Christian folk."
"What's a Piskey?" asked Montagu of the inquiring mind.
"I'm no very sure," the girl said slowly. "It's a new-fangled kin' o'
kirk--is't no?" she added, looking up at Sandie.
Sandie grinned broadly and drew himself up. "I once went into one o'
they kirks in Edinbory--" he said with the air of one who has passed
through many strange adventures, "on a Sabbath evening," he continued
hastily, as Robina looked disapproving. "I gang no place else than oor
ain kirk in the mornin'."
"And what like was it?" asked Robina, somewhat reassured by this
assertion of orthodoxy.
"Dod' an' it's more than I can say. Ye was aye hoppin' up an' sittin'
doon, wi' a wee thing singin' here an' a wee bit prayin' there, an' a
wee sma' readin'. Ma certy! there was sae monny preeleeminaries 'at I
never thocht we'd reach the sairmon. An' when we did it was just as
scampit as a' the rest. An' what wi' human hymns an men i' their sarks
jumpin' up here an' there, it was mair like play-actin' than a kirk.
Nae mair Piskeys for me, I can tell ye!"
"But what is a Piskey?" Montagu again demanded.
"The auld gentleman wha' lives wi' us is a Piskey, so I've heard,"
Robina said in a low voice.
"I can well believe that," Sandie remarked meaningly, and tapped his
forehead.
"Me go jive in caht!" Edmund exclaimed for about the thirtieth time,
this time with an ominous warning of tears in his voice.
Sandie looked up the road and down the road. There was not a soul in
sight.
"Wull I gie them a wee bit hurrl?" he asked Robina.
"The wee stoot yen couldna' sit wi'oot some person to hold him," Robina
said irresolutely, "an' I daurna' let them oot o' my sight. Mine's is a
poseetion o' great responsibeelity." And once more she lifted the
struggling Edmund back into his seat, from which he instantly wriggled
so that he was hung up under the arms by the strap.
"Pit the pram inside yon gate," suggested the ready Sandie, "and come
tae. No harm'll happen it, an' I'll gie ye a bit hurrl doon the rod."
"Me go jive in caht!" Edmund shouted joyfully, and held out his arms to
Sandie. Edmund looked upon mankind in general as a means specially
provided for his quick transit from place to place. "Uppie! Uppie!"
the baby cried impatiently.
"Let the bairn have his hurrl," pleaded Sandie.
Montagu as yet found it somewhat difficult to follow the Scots tongue,
but he realised that Sandie was inviting them to go for a drive, and
forthwith declared his own intention of accepting the invitation without
Robina if she declined to avail herself of it.
Finally the perambulator was put inside a field, well out of sight. The
two small boys were lifted into the cart, where Robina, with much
display of white-stockinged substantial ankles, followed them. Away
went the butcher's cart with four "precious souls and all agog" seated
abreast upon the wooden seat. Robina firmly clutched the "wee stoot
yen" who chattered incessantly, giving the loudest expression to his
satisfaction.
They had gone about half a mile along the Edinburgh road when a gray
bobtailed sheepdog was seen trotting along towards them, followed by a
small pony tub driven by an old lady.
"Megsty me!" Robina exclaimed in great consternation, "if yon's no the
wee leddy hersel', and I thocht she was up at the hoose. Turn man,
turn! and get back afore she comes."
Sandie tried to turn, but "Moggie," the butcher's mare, knew that she
was on the homeward way and had no wish to defer her arrival. Moggie
was fresh and frisky and very obstinate, and the more Sandie tried to
turn her the more did she back into the side of the road, finally
starting to rear and plunge, with an occasional rattle of hoofs on the
splash-board.
Robina screamed with terror, and had it not been that the four on the
seat were a pretty tight fit, the little boys would undoubtedly have
been thrown out.
Miss Esperance was jogging slowly homeward in her little pony tub with
only a village boy in attendance. She generally picked up some stray
urchin as she drove through Burnhead to hold the pony while she paid
visits or did her shopping. As she drew nearer she perceived Moggie's
antics, and pulled up.
"That seems a very restive horse," she remarked anxiously. "I hope the
young man is able to manage it, for I see he has children in the cart.
It would be terrible to have a collision. I think, Davie, you had better
get out and hold Jock's head--and I," added the intrepid little lady,
"will go and speak to that horse and see if I can catch hold of its
head."
Davie looked at her admiringly. "It's the flesher's mare, Moggie," he
murmured shyly, "an' she's awfu' flechty. Tak heed, mem, that she does
na fell ye."
Miss Esperance carefully descended from her little trap and walked
towards the mare who was getting a little tired of fighting with Sandie,
although she had no intention of giving in. Sandie had a firm hand, but
he did not dare to beat his steed while Robina and the children were in
the cart. He sawed at Moggie's mouth and roared directions at her, and
was so busily engaged in trying to get her round that he did not see the
little old lady till she was close upon him, then he nearly dropped his
reins in his consternation, and was stricken absolutely dumb.
This was just what Miss Esperance wanted. All her life she had been used
to horses, and she stepped up to the sweating, trembling, plunging mare,
laid a small, firm hand fearlessly upon her bridle, and spoke so
soothingly and gently that Moggie ceased to plunge and in a few minutes
was standing quiet, though trembling, with the cart still blocking the
road.
"Which way do you want her to go and I'll turn her for you," she called
to Sandie.
"_He_ wants to go home, Aunt Espa'nce, but we don't. We'd much rather
go on. D'you mind if we go on for a little more drive?"
And the amazed Miss Esperance looked up to perceive her great-nephews
and Robina perched up in Sandie's cart.
Sandie was crimson and confused: Robina, pale and tearful: the little
boys bright-eyed and rosy with excitement.
"Robina!" Miss Esperance ejaculated, in deepest displeasure. "What are
you doing there with the children? Come down at once while the horse is
quiet."
Hastily and ungracefully Robina scrambled out of the cart and the little
boys were handed down by Sandie, both deeply disappointed that their
"hurrl" had come to this untimely end. Edmund was not one to conceal his
feelings at any time, and he forthwith began to roar so lustily that
further discussion was impossible, especially as Mause considered it
incumbent upon her to bark loudly in joy at this unexpected reunion.
Miss Esperance packed all three into her pony tub, dismissing Davie to
walk home and bring the perambulator.
Moggie was the only one who scored, for she was driven off without delay
in the direction she had all along wanted to go, and she went like the
wind.
"What," asked Montagu of his aunt some days later, "is a Piskey?"
Miss Esperance drew her delicate eyebrows together. "Where have you
heard the word?" she inquired in her turn.
"Robina said Mr. Wycherly's a Piskey, and I want to know what it is."
"Robina," said Miss Esperance, "is rather apt to talk about things she
does not understand. 'Piskey,' my dear Montagu, is a vulgar way of
saying Episcopalian, and the English form of worship is called by that
name in Scotland. I beg that you will not let me hear the word,
'Piskey,' again."
"I think it's rather a nice little word," Montagu retorted; "short and
cheerful-sounding. I suppose we're Presbeys?"
"Abbreviations," said Miss Esperance, "are nearly always foolish and
often in bad taste. I have never heard of a Presbey in my life."
"Piskey and Presbey were two pretty men," Montagu murmured dreamily,
with a hazy recollection of some nursery rhyme, "though I think Piskey's
far prettier than Presbey, just like Mr. Wycherly's prettier than Mr.
Gloag."
"That will do, Montagu."
"D'you love Sandie, Aunt Esp'ance?" Montagu asked with an abrupt change
of subject.
"Certainly not," Miss Esperance answered hastily, "though I believe him
to be a well-doing young man on the whole."
"I love him," said Montagu, "but we don't see him very often now.
Robina's taken the huff at him--he told me so. It's a pity isn't it?"
"The less Robina sees of Sandie, the more likely is she to attend to her
duties," Miss Esperance remarked austerely. Then suddenly, her whole
face beaming, she added softly, as though to herself, "The lassie's full
young for that sort of thing yet awhile."
If Robina had escaped lightly when Edmund was lost, Nemesis was by no
means leaden-footed as regarded her latest escapade. She very nearly
lost her situation, and only by the combined and reiterated entreaties
of herself and her mother was Miss Esperance prevailed upon to give the
girl another trial. Therefore did Robina, with the unreason of her sex,
lay the whole blame upon Sandie; and considered that he, and he alone,
was responsible for the mistrustful attitude of the authorities with
regard to her. She declined to speak to him or even to look at him for
a whole fortnight. Morning and evening she passed him by, till at last
he threatened that if she remained so obdurate he would forsake the
church of his fathers and become a Piskey. Then, and only then, did
Robina relent. "I couldna hae that on my conscience," she reflected.
But all the same, although she condescended to speak to Sandie "whiles,"
he found that he had to do most of his wooing all over again; and Robina
would smile to herself from time to time as she reflected that "it's an
ill wind blows nobody good."
Robina was one of those who believed that what a man wants he will ask
for over and over again; and that the harder a thing is to obtain the
more it is valued. So she was very niggardly in the matter of her
favours to Sandie, and her work prospered in consequence.
*CHAPTER VI*
*THE AWAKENING OF MR. WYCHERLY*
Ay; you would gaze on a wind-shaken tree
By the hour, nor count time lost.
PARACELSUS.
Montagu's education was taken in hand at once, and a very curious course
of instruction it proved to be. Mr. Wycherly taught him to read, and to
read Latin at the same time that he learned to read English. He also,
which Montagu very much preferred, told him endless stories, historical
and mythological, and in illustration thereof gave him for himself his
own two precious oblong folios of Flaxman's "Compositions," on the very
first birthday the little boy spent with Miss Esperance. These books
were for Montagu the only nursery picture books he knew, and Ulysses and
Hector were as real and familiar to him as "Jack the Giant Killer" or
"Bluebeard" to the ordinary child. He treasured them and treated them
always with the greatest care and tenderness. They were the one
possession he declined to share with Edmund, who was careless, and tore
things, to whom wide margins and spacious pages made no appeal. He
pored over the pictures for hours at a time, arriving at a very clear
conception of the beauty of pure line.
When the children first came Mr. Wycherly might have been seen, during
all such time as those energetic young people left to him, immersed in
the study of a serviceable sheepskin volume, the Wrexham edition of
Roger Ascham's "Schoolmaster," making notes on the margins of the same,
and marking such passages as seemed to him especially applicable to the
matter under consideration.
Years after the owner's death Montagu found and read the wise old book,
and realised how humbly and patiently Mr. Wycherly had set himself to
follow out whatever he considered most valuable in the teaching of one
whose mental attitude toward youth was certainly centuries in advance of
his age. On the flyleaf he had written in his small, delicate
handwriting: "In all my life, if I have done but little harm, I have
done no good or useful thing. God help me that I may do this thing
well," and Montagu, with an almost rapturous remembrance of his
teaching, could testify that the prayer had not been made in vain.
It was no doubt a good thing for Montagu that his tutor had such a
common-sense standard of teaching always before him, for Mr. Wycherly's
own inclination was apt to draw him away from the grind of grammar to
discourse with enthusiasm on the beauties and solemnities of the authors
he so loved. Montagu was quick and receptive, with considerable power
of concentration, and because he loved his teacher, he speedily grew to
love the subjects that he taught, so that he might truly have said with
Lady Jane Grey: "My book hath been so much my pleasure, and bringeth
daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it all other
pleasures, in very deed, be but trifles and troubles unto me."
Mr. Wycherly's sitting-room was much the largest in the little house.
It was on the first floor and of a cheerful aspect, having two windows
facing east and south, respectively. Here, for Montagu's own special
use, were placed a little square oak table with stout, stumpy legs, of a
solid steadiness that even the most fidgety of little boys could not
shake, and a three-legged stool that had once served Elsa as a
milking-stool. These were set sideways in the window looking on to the
kitchen garden, as being a view less likely to distract the learner than
that of the other, from which one beheld the front garden with the green
railings, and the village street with all its possible excitements. The
little table possessed a drawer with bright handles, and in this drawer
Montagu kept his own exercise books, his pen with the pebble handle that
Elsa had given him, his box of pencils, and every scrap of paper
suitable for drawing on, that he could collect--generally half sheets
torn off letters by the careful hand of Miss Esperance. The table
itself, in imitation of Mr. Wycherly's, was piled with books, but they
were in orderly piles, and never set open, one on the top of the other,
as was the older scholar's habit.
There was another reason why Mr. Wycherly chose that window for Montagu:
the morning sun shone straight through it, and the scholar, always
something of a stranger in this chill north, craved all the sunshine he
could get for the child. He liked to lean back in his own deep-seated
revolving chair, set by the big knee-hole table in the centre of the
room, and watch the little stooping figure in the patch of sunshine in
the window, laboriously tracing the Greek characters so neatly and
carefully. A large-eyed thin-faced boy was Montagu, somewhat sallow,
with the round shoulders got during those early studies which he never
lost in later life.
It was not only during lessons that Montagu sat at his little table:
long hours did he spend there on wet days while the wind howled round
the little house like a hungry wolf, and the rain battered on the panes
like shot--making drawings for himself of the battle in the "great
harbour of Syracuse," which he had read about in Thomas Hobbes's
translation. For Mr. Wycherly's shelves abounded in translations as
well as in the "original texts," and although, like most translators, he
disagreed with all accepted renderings, yet he encouraged Montagu's use
of them, perhaps that he, himself, might the better, by-and-by, point
out where he considered that they failed.
These drawings were afterwards bestowed upon Edmund, who would listen to
Montagu's classic stories when they dealt with battles or ships, but who
otherwise infinitely preferred Elsa's more homely legends regarding the
doings of "Cockie Lockie and Henny Penny."
But there was more than the garden to be seen from Montagu's window: far
away, sharp against the sky line, lay the lion back of Arthur's Seat,
and whenever Montagu raised his eyes from his work to look out, it was
there that they rested. And inasmuch as at that time the Odyssey and
its hero filled all his thoughts, the great gaunt hill became for him
actually that Ithaca long sought and longed for by the many-counselled
one: till every sight of it would thrill him with a sense of personal
possession and delighted recognition.
Sometimes Montagu, looking back into the room, would find his old friend
watching him, and the little boy would nod gaily without speaking,
smiling the while the confident, comrade smile of childhood, and
thinking that, failing Achilles, he would like to look like Mr. Wycherly
when he was old.
There is always something pleasantly surprising in the conjunction of
white hair and very dark eyes and eyebrows, and in Mr. Wycherly's case
the expression of the dark eyes was extremely gentle, the features
sharply cut and refined, the whole face of that clean-shaven, regular,
aristocratic type, which the Reverend Peter Gloag--half in admiration,
half in derision--described as so "intensely Oxfordish."
"He has got such a tidy face," Montagu said to his aunt one day.
"My dear, Mr. Wycherly is always considered a man of great personal
attractions," she replied, rather shocked at his choice of an adjective.
"Yes, aunt, dear, I know, but it's a tidy sort of handsomeness; not a
bit like Noah and Jacob and those hairy prophets in the parlour."
The walls of his aunt's sitting-room were adorned by many engravings
illustrative of the Scriptures, and Montagu, fresh from the study of his
beloved Flaxman, would compare these bearded Hebrew prophets, so
hampered by heavy draperies, with his airily attired and clean-limbed
Greeks, always to the advantage of the latter. Yet he was forced to
acknowledge to himself that his adored Mr. Wycherly resembled them
equally little both in appearance and manner of life: for nothing could
savour less of the adventurous than his existence. So Montagu "put the
question by" as one to be answered in that wonderful, grown-up time that
children think will solve so many riddles. Mr. Wycherly was immensely
happy in this new work and approached his task with a certain tender
reverence, rare among teachers, for he agreed with wise old Roger Ascham
in thinking that "the pure, clean wit of a sweet, young babe is like the
newest wax, most able to receive the best and fairest printing, and like
a new bright silver dish never occupied to receive and keep clean any
good thing that is put in it."
One morning in early October, Montagu was sitting, as usual, at his
little table copying the Greek alphabet, while Mr. Wycherly sat watching
him with pleased, dreamy eyes. As the little boy completed his task he
raised his head with a sigh of satisfaction and happened to look down
into the garden.
"Do you think?" he suddenly asked Mr. Wycherly, "I might go out and help
Aunt Esperance dig the potatoes? The ground seems so heavy this
morning."
Mr. Wycherly rose hastily, crossed over to Montagu's window and looked
out.
"Good God!" he exclaimed, and fled from the room.
Much astonished at this outburst from his usually serene tutor, Montagu
tore downstairs after him.
What Mr. Wycherly had seen to cause him such consternation was what he
might have seen any time during the last fifteen years--namely, the
tiny, stooping figure of Miss Esperance digging the potatoes for the
day's dinner. But if it ever happened that he did look out he had never
chanced to look down into the homely garden below, or if he had his eyes
were holden, and he was wrapped in his dreams. So that he beheld only
the things of the spirit, nor did he know how often the palms of those
little hands, so ready to help others, were hard and blistered by their
labours.
Since the days when he ran shouting along the towing path at Oxford Mr.
Wycherly had never run as he ran that morning to the potato patch at
Remote. Montagu was hard put to it to catch him, but just managed it,
and they arrived together before the astonished eyes of Miss Esperance,
who saw them coming in such hot haste, and rested on her spade in fear
and trembling as to what could have happened.
When Mr. Wycherly did reach her he could not speak, so breathless was
he: but he looked beseechingly at her and gently took the spade out of
her hands.
"Why?" he gasped, "Why?" His face worked strangely and he could say
nothing more. Montagu stood watching him with solemn, puzzled eyes.
But Miss Esperance understood. "You have come to help me," she said
gently, "that is very kind of you. Montagu! away and get your wee spade
and dig too."
The little boy needed no second bidding, and flew to the tool-house.
Mr. Wycherly hadn't the faintest notion how to dig potatoes. He had
never held a spade in his hands before, and held this much as a nervous
person unaccustomed to firearms might hold a loaded gun. He looked
helplessly at Miss Esperance, and still the lines were deep about his
mouth and his eyes full of that new, dumb pain.
"Watch Montagu!" she whispered reassuringly, "he's a famous digger."
Between them they dug quite a lot of potatoes, and Mr. Wycherly,
himself, carried the heavy basket to Elsa at the back door. She took it
from him without comment of any kind, but when he had gone round through
the garden to get into the house by the front, she looked into the
basket, exclaiming, "Now what put sic' a whigmalerie as this in his
head?" And it seemed as if the potatoes must have thrown some light
upon the question, for in another minute she said softly, "Yon's no a
bad buddy."
When Montagu went back to his lessons he found his tutor, with earthy
hands clasped behind him, restlessly pacing up and down his room.
"I think you've done enough this morning," said Mr. Wycherly. "You'd
better go out and play while it is so fine and nice."
"It's not twelve o'clock yet," Montagu objected, "and I generally do
lessons till twelve."
"We shall have plenty of wet days by-and-by," Mr. Wycherly answered.
"Go out now, and make the most of it while it is fine."
"But Robina and Edmund's gone, and Aunt Esperance is busy--won't you
come?"
"Yes, I'll come." But yet Mr. Wycherly made no move to get ready.
"I've washed my hands," Montagu remarked virtuously.
Mr. Wycherly started, unclasped his hands and held them out in front of
him. "I fear," he said sadly, "that nothing will wash mine." A remark
which puzzled Montagu extremely, for in a few minutes Mr. Wycherly
returned from his bedroom with perfectly clean hands.
It was a very silent walk at first, and what conversation there was
Montagu made. At last he grew rather tired of this one-sided
intercourse and gave his companion's hand a tug as he demanded: "Are you
asleep, that you don't never answer?"
Mr. Wycherly started. "No, my dear son," he said very gently; "I think
that I am just beginning to be awake."
"Will you talk to me then, like you generally do, and tell me things?
Shall we go on about Jason? I do love stories where people do things."
Mr. Wycherly stood still in the middle of the road, and looked down into
the little eager face uplifted to his. "You are right, Montagu," he
said very gravely; "it is of little use to think things if you don't do
them." And then it seemed as though Mr. Wycherly gave himself a mental
shake, for he devoted his whole attention to Montagu for the rest of
their walk.