[Illustration: "NESTIE WAS STANDING IN THE CENTRE OF THE LARGE ENTRANCE
HALL."]
YOUNG
BARBARIANS
_By_
IAN MACLAREN
Author of "_Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush_"
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
Dodd, Mead and Company
1910
Copyright, 1899 and 1900,
By The Curtis Publishing Company,
as
A SCOTS GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
Copyright, 1900,
By The Curtis Publishing Company.
Copyright, 1901,
By Dodd, Mead and Company.
_First Edition, Published October, 1901_
CONTENTS
I
PAGE
"SPEUG" 1
II
BULLDOG 21
III
NESTIE 39
IV
A FAMOUS VICTORY 59
V
HIS PRIVATE CAPACITY 85
VI
THE DISGRACE OF MR. BYLES 103
VII
THE COUNT 121
VIII
A TOURNAMENT 139
IX
MOOSSY 163
X
A LAST RESOURCE 183
XI
A PLEASANT SIN 205
XII
GUERILLA WARFARE 223
XIII
THE FALL OF GOLIATH 245
XIV
THE BAILIE'S DOUBLE 261
XV
THE TRIUMPH OF THE SEMINARY 281
XVI
BULLDOG'S RECOMPENSE 305
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"Nestie was standing in the centre of the large
entrance hall." Frontispiece
"Peter dared not lift his head." 36
"'You are an ill-bred c-cad.'" 50
"Seized an excellent position behind two Russian
guns." 66
"Nestie whispered something in Speug's ear." 92
"Speug was dragged along the walk." 96
"They were so friendly that they gathered
round the party." 114
"They were brought in a large spring cart." 118
"Watching a battle royal between the tops." 134
"Before the hour the hall was packed." 158
"Thomas John next instant was sitting on the floor." 170
"The school fell over benches and over another." 174
"His hand closed again upon the sceptre of authority." 202
"They drank without any cup." 218
"Before him stood London John bearing the seductive
advertisement." 240
"A bottle of ferocious smelling-salts was held
to the patient's nose." 252
"SPEUG"
I
Muirtown Seminary was an imposing building of the classical order,
facing the north meadow and commanding from its upper windows a fine
view of the river Tay running rapidly and cleanly upon its gravel bed.
Behind the front building was the paved court where the boys played
casual games in the breaks of five minutes between the hours of study,
and this court had an entrance from a narrow back street along which, in
snow time, a detachment of the enemy from the other schools might steal
any hour and take us by disastrous surprise. There were those who wished
that we had been completely walled up at the back, for then we had met
the attack at a greater advantage from the front. But the braver souls
of our commonwealth considered that this back way, affording
opportunities for ambushes, sallies, subtle tactics, and endless
vicissitudes, lent a peculiar flavour to the war we waged the whole
winter through and most of the summer, and brought it nearer to the
condition of Red Indian fighting, which was our favourite reading and
our example of heroism. Again and again we studied the adventures of
Bill Biddon, the Indian spy, not only on account of his hairbreadth
escapes when he eluded the Indians after a miraculous fashion and
detected the presence of the red varmint by the turning of a leaf on the
ground, but also in order to find out new methods of deceit by which we
could allure our Indians into narrow places, or daring methods of attack
by which we could successfully outflank them on the broader street and
drive them into their own retreats with public ignominy.
Within the building the glory of the Seminary was a massive stone stair,
circular in shape, and having a "well" surrounded on the ground floor by
a wall some three feet high. Down this stair the masters descended at
nine o'clock for the opening of the school, with Bulldog, who was the
mathematical master and the awful pride of the school, at their head,
and it was strictly forbidden that any boy, should be found within the
"well." As it was the most tempting of places for the deposit of
anything in the shape of rubbish, from Highland bonnets to little boys,
and especially as any boy found in the well was sure to be caned, there
was an obvious and irresistible opportunity for enterprise. Peter
McGuffie, commonly called the Sparrow, or in Scotch tongue "Speug," and
one of the two heads of our commonwealth, used to wait with an
expression of such demureness that it ought to have been a danger
signal till Bulldog was halfway down the stair, and a row of boys were
standing in expectation with their backs to the forbidden place. Then,
passing swiftly along, he swept off half a dozen caps and threw them
over, and suddenly seizing a tempting urchin landed him on the bed of
caps which had been duly prepared. Without turning his head one-eighth
of an inch, far less condescending to look over, Bulldog as he passed
made a mental note of the prisoner's name, and identified the various
bonnetless boys, and then, dividing his duty over the hours of the day,
attended to each culprit separately and carefully. If any person, from
the standpoint of this modern and philanthropic day, should ask why some
innocent victim did not state his case and lay the blame upon the
guilty, then it is enough to say that that person had never been a
scholar at Muirtown Seminary, and has not the slightest knowledge of the
character and methods of Peter McGuffie. Had any boy of our time given
information to a master, or, in the Scotch tongue, "had clyped," he
would have had the coldest reception at the hands of Bulldog, and when
his conduct was known to the school he might be assured of such constant
and ingenious attention at the hands of Speug that he would have been
ready to drown himself in the Tay rather than continue his studies at
Muirtown Seminary.
Speug's father was the leading horsedealer of the Scots Midlands, and a
sporting man of established repute, a short, thick-set, red-faced,
loud-voiced, clean-shaven man, with hair cut close to his head, whose
calves and whose manner were the secret admiration of Muirtown. Quiet
citizens of irreproachable respectability and religious orthodoxy
regarded him with a pride which they would never confess; not because
they would have spoken or acted as he did for a king's ransom, and not
because they would have liked to stand in his shoes when he came to
die--considering, as they did, that the future of a horsedealer and an
owner of racing horses was dark in the extreme--but because he was a
perfect specimen of his kind and had made the town of Muirtown to be
known far and wide in sporting circles. Bailie McCallum, for instance,
could have no dealings with McGuffie senior, and would have been
scandalised had he attended the Bailie's kirk; but sitting in his shop
and watching Muirtown life as it passed, the Bailie used to chuckle
after an appreciative fashion at the sight of McGuffie, and to meditate
with much inward satisfaction on stories of McGuffie's exploits--how he
had encountered southern horsedealers and sent them home humbled with
defeat, and had won hopeless races over the length and breadth of the
land. "It's an awfu' trade," McCallum used to remark, "and McGuffie is
no' the man for an elder; but sall, naebody ever got the better o' him
at a bargain." Among the lads of the Seminary he was a local hero, and
on their way home from school they loitered to study him, standing in
the gateway of his stables, straddling his legs, chewing a straw, and
shouting his views on the Muirtown races to friends at the distance of
half a street. When he was in good humour he would nod to the lads and
wink to them with such acuteness and drollery that they attempted to
perform the same feat all the way home and were filled with despair. It
did not matter that we were fed, by careful parents, with books
containing the history of good men who began life with 2_s._ 11_d._, and
died leaving a quarter of a million, made by selling soft goods and
attending church, and with other books relating pathetic anecdotes of
boys who died young and, before they died, delighted society with
observations of the most edifying character on the shortness of life. We
had rather have been a horsedealer and kept a stable.
Most of us regarded McGuffie senior as a model of all the virtues that
were worthy of a boy's imitation, and his son with undisguised envy,
because he had a father of such undeniable notoriety, because he had the
run of the stables, because he was on terms of easy familiarity with his
father's grooms, and because he was encouraged to do those things which
we were not allowed to do, and never exhorted to do those things which
he hated to do. All the good advice we ever got, and all the examples of
those two excellent young gentlemen, the sons of the Rev. Dr.
Dowbiggin, were blown to the winds when we saw Speug pass, sitting in
the high dogcart beside his father, while that talented man was showing
off to Muirtown a newly broken horse. Speug's position on that seat of
unique dignity was more than human, and none of us would have dared to
recognise him, but it is only just to add that Peter was quite unspoiled
by his privileges, and would wink to his humble friends upon the street
after his most roguish fashion and with a skill which proved him his
father's son. Social pride and the love of exclusive society were not
failings either of Mr. McGuffie senior or of his hopeful son. Both were
willing to fight any person of their own size (or, indeed, much bigger),
as well as to bargain with anybody, and at any time, about anything,
from horses to marbles.
Mrs. McGuffie had been long dead, and during her lifetime was a woman of
decided character, whom the grooms regarded with more terror than they
did her husband, and whom her husband himself treated with great
respect, a respect which grew into unaffected reverence when he was
returning from a distant horse-race and was detained, by professional
duties, to a late hour in the evening. As her afflicted husband refused
to marry again, in decided terms, Peter, their only child, had been
brought up from an early age among grooms and other people devoted to
the care and study of horses. In this school he received an education
which was perhaps more practical and varied than finished and polite. It
was not to be wondered, therefore, that his manners were simple and
natural to a degree, and that he was never the prey, either in any
ordinary circumstances, of timidity or of modesty. Although a motherless
lad, he was never helpless, and from the first was able to hold his own
and to make his hands keep his head.
His orphan condition excited the compassion of respectable matrons, but
their efforts to tend him in his loneliness were not always successful,
nor even appreciated to the full by the young McGuffie. When Mrs.
Dowbiggin, who had a deep interest in what was called the "work among
children," and who got her cabs from McGuffie's stable, took pity on
Peter's unprotected childhood, and invited him to play with her boys,
who were a head taller and paragons of excellence, the result was
unfortunate, and afforded Mrs. Dowbiggin the text for many an
exhortation. Peter was brought back to the parental mansion by Dr.
Dowbiggin's beadle within an hour, and received a cordial welcome from a
congregation of grooms, to whom he related his experiences at the Manse
with much detail and agreeable humour. During the brief space at his
disposal he had put every toy of the Dowbiggins' in a thorough state of
repair, and had blacked their innocent faces with burnt cork so that
their mother did not recognise her children. He had also taught them a
negro melody of a very taking description, and had reinforced their
vocabulary with the very cream of the stable. From that day Mrs.
Dowbiggin warned the mothers of Muirtown against allowing their boys to
associate with Speug, and Speug could never see her pass on the street
without an expression of open delight.
When Mr. McGuffie senior brought his son, being then ten years old, to
the Seminary for admittance, it was a chance that he was not refused and
that we did not miss our future champion. Mr. McGuffie's profession and
reputation were a stumbling-block to the rector, who was a man of
austere countenance and strict habits of life, and Peter himself was a
very odd-looking piece of humanity and had already established his own
record. He was under-sized and of exceptional breadth, almost flat in
countenance, and with beady black eyes which on occasion lit up his face
as when one illuminates the front of a house, but the occasions were
rarely those which would commend themselves to the headmaster of a
public school. How the dealer in horses removed the rector's
difficulties was never accurately known, but boys passing the door of
the rector's retiring-room when he was closeted with Mr. McGuffie
overheard scraps of the conversation, and Muirtown was able to
understand the situation. It was understood that in a conflict of words
the rector, an absent-minded scholar of shrinking manner, was not
likely to come off best, and it is certain that the head of the school
ever afterwards referred to Mr. McGuffie as "a man of great resolution
of character and endowed with the gift of forcible speech." As regards
the son, his affectionate father gave him some brief directions before
leaving, and in the presence of his fellow-scholars, of which this only
was overheard, and seemed, indeed, to be the sum and substance: "Never
give in, ye de'il's buckie." With these inspiriting words Mr. McGuffie
senior departed through the front door amid a hush of admiration,
leaving Peter to his fate not far from that "well" which was to be the
scene of many of his future waggeries.
With the progress of civilisation school life in Scotland has taken on a
high degree of refinement, and rumour has it--but what will people not
say?--that a new boy will come in a cab to the Seminary and will receive
a respectful welcome from the generation following Peter, and that the
whole school will devote itself to his comfort for days--showing him
where to hang his cap, initiating him into games, assisting him with his
lessons, and treating his feelings with delicate respect. It has been my
own proud satisfaction, as a relic of a former barbarian age, to read
the rules, which, I believe, are now printed in black letters with red
capitals and hung in the rooms of Muirtown Seminary. My feelings will
not allow me to give them all, but the following have moved me almost to
tears:--
Rule 1.--That every boy attending this school is expected to behave
himself in speech and deed as a gentleman.
Rule 2.--That anyone writing upon a wall, or in any way marking the
school furniture, will be considered to have committed an offence, and
will be punished.
Rule 3.--That every boy is exhorted to treat every other with courtesy,
and anyone guilty of rudeness to a fellow-scholar is to be reported to
the headmaster.
Rule 4.--That it is expected of every boy to cultivate neatness of
appearance, and especially to see that his clothes, collars, cuffs, and
other articles of clothing be not soiled.
These admirable rules suggest a new atmosphere and one very different
from that in which we passed our stormy youth, for no sentiment of this
kind softened life in earlier days or affected our Spartan simplicity.
The very sight of a newcomer in a speckless suit, with an irreproachable
tie and both tails on his glengarry bonnet, excited a profound emotion
in the school and carried it beyond self-control. What could be expected
of a fellow so bedecked and preserved as if he had just stepped out of a
bandbox or a tailor's shop? Left alone in his pride and perfection--the
very beginning of a Pharisee--he would only go from bad to worse and
come at last to a sad end. We hardly claimed to be philanthropists, but
we did feel it was our duty to rescue this lad. It might be, of course,
that we could not finally save him, but he ought at least to have a
chance, and Speug had a quite peculiar satisfaction in at once removing
the two offensive tails by one vigorous pull, while the rumpling of a
collar was a work of missionary zeal. No system of philanthropy is
successful with all cases, and we had our failures, which we think about
unto this day, and which have only justified our sad predictions. Boys
like the two Dowbiggins never improved, and were at last given up in
despair even by Speug, their tails being renewed day by day and their
faces remaining in all circumstances quite unmoved; but within a month
the average boy had laid aside the last remnant of conventionality, and
was only outdone by Peter himself in studied negligence of attire.
Peter's own course of discipline was sharp, but it did not last long,
for certain practical reasons.
"What business have you here, ye son of a horse-couper?" was the
encouraging salutation offered by a solicitor's son to the stumpy little
figure bereft of its father and left to fight its battles alone.
"Mair business than you, spindleshanks, ye son o' a thievin' lawyer,"
and although Peter was four years younger and small for his age, he
showed that he had not learned boxing from his father's grooms without
profit, and his opponent attended no more classes that day. This
encounter excited the deepest interest and revived the whole life of the
school. One lad after another experimented on Peter and made as much of
it as drawing a badger. He was often hurt, but he never uttered any cry.
He gave rather more than he got, and lads going home in the afternoon
could see him giving an account of the studies of the day to an admiring
audience in the stable-yard. By-and-by he was left severely alone, and
for the impudence of him, and his courage, and his endurance, and his
general cockiness, and his extraordinary ingenuity in mischief, he was
called "Speug," which is Scotch for a sparrow, and figuratively
expressed the admiration of the school.
It would be brazen falsehood to say that Peter was a scholar, or,
indeed, gave any voluntary attention to the course of learning laid down
by the authorities of Muirtown Seminary. He sat unashamed at the foot of
every class, maintaining a certain impenetrable front when a question
came his length, and with the instinct of a chieftain never risking his
position in the school by exposing himself to contempt. When Thomas John
Dowbiggin was distinguishing himself after an unholy fashion by
translating Cæsar into English like unto Macaulay's History, Speug used
to watch him with keen interest, and employ his leisure time in
arranging some little surprise to enliven the even tenor of Thomas
John's life. So curious a being, however, is a boy, and so inconsistent,
that as often as Duncan Robertson answered more promptly than Thomas
John, and obtained the first place, Speug's face lit up with unaffected
delight, and he was even known to smack his lips audibly. When the
rector's back was turned he would convey his satisfaction over Thomas
John's discomfiture with such delightful pantomime that the united class
did him homage, and even Thomas John was shaken out of his equanimity;
but then Duncan Robertson's father was colonel of a Highland regiment,
and Duncan himself was a royal fighter, and had not in his Highland body
the faintest trace of a prig, while Thomas John's face was a standing
reproof of everything that was said and done outside of lesson time in
Muirtown School.
Peter, however, had his own genius, and for captivating adventures none
was to be compared with him. Was it not Speug who floated down the
tunnel through which a swift running stream of clean water reached the
Tay, and allured six others to follow him, none of whom, happily, were
drowned? and did not the whole school, with the exception of the
Dowbiggins, await his exit at the black mouth of the tunnel and reward
his success with a cheer? Was it not Speug, with Duncan Robertson's
military assistance, who constructed a large earth-work in a pit at the
top of the Meadow, which was called the Redan and was blown up with
gunpowder one Saturday afternoon, seven boys being temporarily buried
beneath the ruins, and Peter himself losing both eyebrows? And when an
old lady living next the school laid a vicious complaint against Speug
and some other genial spirits for having broken one of her windows in a
snowball fight, he made no sign and uttered no threat, but in the
following autumn he was in a position to afford a ripe pear to each boy
in the four upper forms--except the Dowbiggins, who declined
politely--and to distribute a handful for a scramble among the little
boys. There was much curiosity about the source of Peter's generosity,
and it certainly was remarkable that the pear was of the same kind as
the old lady cultivated with much pride, and that her fruit was gathered
for her in the course of one dark night. Speug was capable of anything
except telling a lie. He could swim the Tay at its broadest and almost
at its swiftest, could ride any horse in his father's stable, could
climb any tree in the meadows, and hold his own in every game, from
marbles and "catch the keggie," a game based on smuggling, to football,
where he was a very dangerous forward, and cricket, where his batting
was fearsome for its force and obstinacy. There was nothing he could not
do with his hands, and no one whom he was not ready to face.
Speug was a very vigorous barbarian indeed, and the exact type of a
turbulent Lowland Scot, without whom the Seminary had missed its life
and colour, and who by sheer force of courage and strength asserted
himself as our chief captain. After many years have passed, Speug stands
out a figure of size and reality from among the Dowbiggins and other
poor fleeting shadows. Thomas John, no doubt, carried off medals,
prizes, certificates of merit, and everything else which could be
obtained in Muirtown Seminary by a lad who played no games and swatted
all evening at next day's work. The town was weary of seeing Thomas John
and his brother--each wearing the same smug expression, and each in
faultlessly neat attire--processing up in turn to receive their honours
from the hands of the Lord Provost, and the town would cheer with
enthusiasm when Duncan Robertson made an occasional appearance, being
glad to escape from the oppression of the Dowbiggin _régime_. Nor was
the town altogether wrong in refusing to appreciate the Dowbiggins at
their own value, and declining to believe that the strength of the
country was after their fashion. When Thomas John reached the University
he did not altogether fulfil the expectations of his family, and by the
time he reached the pulpit no one could endure his unredeemed dulness.
When last I heard of him he was secretary to a blameless society which
has for its object the discovery of the lost Ten Tribes, and it occurs
to me that it would have been a good thing for Thomas John to have been
blown up in the destruction of the Redan: he might have become a man.
After the Seminary had done its best for Speug he retired upon his
laurels and went to assist his father in the business of horsedealing,
to which he brought an invincible courage and a large experience in
bargaining. For years his old fellow-scholars saw him breaking in young
horses on the roads round Muirtown, and he covered himself with glory in
a steeplechase open to all the riders of Scotland. When Mr. McGuffie
senior was killed by an Irish mare, Peter sold the establishment and
went into foreign parts in search of adventure, reappearing at intervals
of five years from Australia, Texas, the Plate, Cape of Good Hope,
assured and reckless as ever, but always straightforward, masterful,
open-handed, and gallant. His exploits are over now, and all England
read his last, how he sent on in safety a settler's household through a
narrow pass in Matabele Land, and with a handful of troopers held the
savages in check until pursuit was vain.
"From the account of prisoners we learn," wrote the war correspondent,
"that Captain McGuffie, of the Volunteer Horse, fought on after his men
had been all killed and his last cartridge fired. With his back to a
rock in a narrow place he defended himself with such skill and courage
that the Matabele declared him the best fighting man they had ever met,
and he was found with a mound of dead at his feet." Only last week two
Seminary men were reading that account together and recalling Peter, and
such is the inherent wickedness of human nature, that the death (from
apoplexy) of Thomas John Dowbiggin would have been much less lamented.
"That is just how Speug would have liked to die, for he dearly loved a
fight and knew not fear." They revived the ancient memories of Peter's
boyhood, and read the despatch of the commanding officer, with his
reference to the gallant service of Captain McGuffie, and then they
looked at Peter's likeness in the illustrated papers, the eyes as bold
and mischievous as ever. "Well done, Speug!" said a doctor of
divinity--may he be forgiven!--"well done, Speug, a terrier of the old
Scots breed."
Peter's one rival in the idolatry of the school was Duncan Ronald
Stewart Robertson, commonly known as Dunc, and Dunc was in everything
except honesty, generosity, and courage, the exact opposite of Peter
McGuffie. Robertson's ancestors had been lairds of Tomnahurich, a moor
in Rannoch, with half a dozen farms, since the Deluge, as they believed,
and certainly since history began. For hundreds of years they had been
warriors, fighting other clans, fighting among themselves, fighting for
Prince Charlie, and for more than a century fighting for England as
officers in the Highland regiments. The present laird had been in the
Crimean war and the Mutiny, besides occasional expeditions, and was
colonel of the Perthshire Buffs. When he came to our examination in full
uniform, having first inspected the local garrison on the meadow, it was
the greatest day in our time. We cheered him when he came in, counting
the medals on his breast, amidst which we failed not to notice the
Victoria Cross. We cheered him in the class-rooms, we cheered him when
he mounted his horse outside and rode along the terrace, and Peter led a
detachment by the back way up to Breadalbane Street to give him one
cheer more. Robertson was a tall, well-knit, athletic lad, with red
hair, blue eyes, and a freckled face, not handsome, but carrying himself
with much dignity and grace. Speug always appeared in tight-fitting
trousers, as became Mr. McGuffie's son, but Robertson wore the kilt and
never looked anything else but a gentleman, yet his kilt was ever of the
shabbiest, and neither had his bonnet any tails. His manners were those
of his blood, but a freer and heartier and more harum-scarum fellow
never lived. It is a pleasant remembrance, after many years, to see
again a group of lads round the big fire in the winter time, and to hear
Duncan Robertson read the stirring ballad, "How Horatius kept the bridge
in the brave days of old," till Peter can contain himself no longer, and
proposes that a select band shall go instantly to McIntyre's Academy and
simply compel a conflict. Dunc went into his father's regiment and fell
at Tel-el-Kebir, and there is one Seminary man at least who keeps the
portraits of the two captains--Peter McGuffie, the Scot, the
horsedealer's son, and a very vulgar varlet indeed, and Duncan
Robertson, the Celt, a well-born man's son, and a gentleman himself from
head to foot--in remembrance of a school which was rough and
old-fashioned, where, indeed, softness and luxury were impossible, but
where men were made who had the heart in them to live and die for their
country.
BULLDOG
II
The headmaster of a certain great English school is accustomed to
enlarge in private on the secret of boy management, and this is the sum
of his wisdom--Be kind to the boy, and he will despise you; put your
foot on his neck, and he will worship you. This deliverance must, of
course, as its eminent author intends, be read with sense, and with any
modification it must be disappointing to philanthropists, but it is
confirmed by life. Let a master, not very strong in character and
scholarship, lay himself out to be a boy's friend--using affectionate
language, overseeing his health, letting him off impositions, sparing
the rod, and inciting him to general benevolence--and the boy will
respond, without any doubt, but it will be after his own fashion. The
boy will take that master's measure with extraordinary rapidity; he will
call him by some disparaging nickname, with an unholy approximation to
truth; he will concoct tricky questions to detect his ignorance; he will
fling back his benefits with contempt; he will make his life a misery,
and will despise him as long as he lives. Let a man of masculine
character and evident ability set himself to rule and drill boys,
holding no unnecessary converse with them, working them to the height of
their powers, insisting on the work being done, not fearing to punish
with severity, using terrible language on occasion, dealing with every
boy alike without favour or partiality, giving rare praise with
enthusiasm, and refraining always from mocking sarcasm--which boys hate
and never forgive--and he will have his reward. They will rage against
him in groups on the playing-fields and as they go home in companies,
but ever with an intense appreciation of his masterliness; they will
recall with keen enjoyment his detection of sneaks and his severity on
prigs; they will invent a name for him to enshrine his achievements, and
pass it down to the generation following; they will dog his steps on the
street with admiration, all the truer because mingled with awe. And the
very thrashings of such a man will be worth the having, and become the
subject of boasting in after years.
There was a master once in Muirtown Seminary whose career was short and
inglorious, as well as very disappointing to those who believed in the
goodness of the boy. Mr. Byles explained to Mrs. Dowbiggin his idea of a
schoolmaster's duty, and won the heart of that estimable person,
although the Doctor maintained an instructive silence, and afterwards
hinted to his spouse that Mr. Byles had not quite grasped the boy
nature, at least in Muirtown.
"Yes, Mrs. Dowbiggin, I have always had a love for boys--for I was the
youngest of our family, and the rest were girls--seven dear girls,
gentle and sweet. They taught me sympathy. And don't you think that
boys, as well as older people, are ruled by kindness and not by force?
When I remember how I was treated, I feel this is how other boys would
wish to be treated. Muffins? Buttered, if you please. I dote on muffins!
So I am a schoolmaster."
"You are needed at the Seminary, Mr. Byles, I can tell you, for the
place is just a den of savages! Will you believe me, that a boy rolled
James on the ground till he was like a clay cat yesterday--and James is
so particular about being neat!--and when I complained to Mr. MacKinnon,
he laughed in my face and told me that it would do the laddie good?
There's a master for you! Thomas John tells me that he is called
'Bulldog,' and although I don't approve of disrespect, I must say it is
an excellent name for Mr. MacKinnon. And I've often said to the Doctor,
'If the masters are like that, what can you expect of the boys?'"
"Let us hope, Mrs. Dowbiggin, that there will soon be some improvement;
and it will not be my fault if there isn't. What I want to be is not a
master, but the boys' friend, to whom the boys will feel as to a mother,
to whom they will confide their difficulties and trials," and Mr. Byles'
face had a soft, tender, far-away look.
It was only for one winter that he carried on his mission, but it
remains a green and delectable memory with old boys of the Seminary. How
he would not use the cane, because it brutalised boys, as he explained,
but kept Peter McGuffie in for an hour, during which time he
remonstrated with Peter for his rude treatment of James Dowbiggin, whom
he had capsized over a form, and how Peter's delighted compatriots
climbed up one by one to the window and viewed him under Mr. Byles'
ministrations with keen delight, while Speug imitated to them by signs
that they would have to pay handsomely for their treat. How he would
come on Jock Howieson going home in a heavy rain, and ostentatiously
refusing even to button his coat, and would insist on affording him the
shelter of an umbrella, to Jock's intense humiliation, who knew that
Peter was following with derisive criticism. How, by way of
conciliation, Mr. Byles would carry sweets in his coat-tail pocket and
offer them at unsuitable times to the leading anarchists, who regarded
this imbecility as the last insult. It is now agreed that Mr. Byles'
sudden resignation was largely due to an engineering feat of Peter's,
who had many outrages to avenge, and succeeded in attaching no less
than three squibs to the good man's desk; but it is likely that an
exhortation from Bulldog, overheard by the delighted school, had its due
effect.
"Humanity or no humanity, my man, it's no peppermint drops nor pats on
the head that'll rule Muirtown birkies; their fathers were brought up on
the stick, and the stick'll make the sons men. If ye'll take my advice,
Mr. Byles, adverteese for a situation in a lassies' school. Ye're ower
dainty for Muirtown Seminary."
This was not a charge which his worst enemy could bring against Mr.
Dugald MacKinnon, and because he was the very opposite--a most
unflinching, resolute, iron man--he engraved himself on the hearts of
three generations of Muirtown men. They were a dour, hard-headed,
enterprising lot--a blend from the upland braes of Drumtochty and the
stiff carse of Gowrie and the Celts of Lock Tay, with some good south
country stuff--and there are not many big cities on either side of the
Atlantic where two or three Muirtown men cannot this day be found. They
always carry in their hearts the "Fair City"--which lieth in a basin
among the hills, beside the clean, swift-running river, like a Scots
Florence; and they grow almost eloquent when they start upon their home,
but the terminus of recollection is ever the same. When they have
dallied with the swimming in the Tay, and the climbing of the hill which
looks down on the fair plain as far as Dundee, and the golf on the
meadows, and the mighty snow fights in days where there were men (that
is, boys) in the land, and memory is fairly awake, some one suddenly
says, "Bulldog." "Ah!" cries another, with long-drawn pleasure, as one
tasting a delicate liquor; and "Bulldog," repeats the third, as if a
world of joy lay in the word. They rest for a minute, bracing
themselves, and then conversation really begins, and being excited, they
drop into the Scots tongue.
"Man," hurries in the first, "a' see him stannin' at his desk in the
mornin' watchin' the laddies comin' in ower the top o' his spectacles,
an' juist considerin' wha wud be the better o' a bit thrashin' that
day."
"Sax feet high gin he wes an inch," bursts in the second, "an' as
straight as a rush, though a'm thinkin' he wes seventy, or maybe eighty,
some threipit (insisted) he was near ninety; an' the een o' him--div ye
mind, lads, hoo they gied back an' forward in his head--oscillatin'
like? Sall, they were fearsome."
"An' the rush to get in afore the last stroke o' nine"--the third man
cannot be restrained--"an' the crack o' his cane on the desk an'
'Silence'; man, ye micht hae heard a moose cross the floor at the
prayer."
"Div ye think he keekit oot atween his eyelids, Jock?"
"Him? nae fear o't," and Howieson is full of contempt. "Ae day I pit a
peen into that smooth-faced wratch Dowbiggin, juist because I cudna
bear the look o' him; an' if he didna squeal like a stuck pig. Did
Bulldog open his een an' look?"
The audience has no remembrance of such a humiliating descent.
"Na, na," resumes Jock, "he didna need; he juist repeated the first
sentence o' the prayer ower again in an awfu' voice, an' aifter it wes
dune, doon he comes to me. 'Whatna prank wes that?'"
"Wes't nippy?" inquires Bauldie with relish, anticipating the sequel.
"Michty," replies Jock; "an' next he taks Dowbiggin. 'Who asked you to
join in the prayer?' an' ye cud hae heard his yowls on the street.
Bulldog hed a fine stroke." And the three smoked in silent admiration
for a space.
"Sandie, div ye mind the sins in the prayer? 'Lord deliver the laddies
before Thee from lying----'"
"'Cheating,'" breaks in Bauldie.
"'Cowardice,'" adds Sandie.
"'And laziness, which are as the devil,'" completes Jock.
"An' the laist petition, a' likit it fine, 'Be pleased to put common
sense in their heads, and Thy fear in their hearts, and----'"
"'Give them grace to be honest men all the days of their life,'" chant
the other two together.
"It wes a purpose-like prayer, an' a' never heard a better, lads; he
walkit up to his words, did Bulldog, an' he did his wark well." And as
they thought of that iron age, the railway president and the big banker
and the corn merchant--for that is what the fellows have come to--smack
their lips with relish and kindly regret.
It may be disappointing, but it remains a fact, that the human history
of the ages is repeated in the individual, and the natural boy is a
savage, with the aboriginal love of sport, hardy indifference to
circumstances, stoical concealment of feelings, irrepressible passion
for fighting, unfeigned admiration for strength, and slavish respect for
the strong man. By-and-by he will be civilised and Christianised, and
settle down, will become considerate, merciful, peaceable--will be
concerned about his own boys having wet feet, and will preside at
meetings for the prevention of cruelty to animals; but he has to go
through his process of barbarism. During this Red Indian stage a
philanthropist is not the ideal of the boy. His master must have the
qualities of a brigand chief, an autocratic will, a fearless mien, and
an iron hand. On the first symptom of mutiny he must draw a pistol from
his belt (one of twenty), and shoot the audacious rebel dead on the
spot. So perfectly did Bulldog fulfil this ideal that Bauldie, who had
an unholy turn for caricature, once drew him in the costume and arms of
Chipanwhackewa, an Indian chief of prodigious valour and marvellous
exploits. This likeness was passed from hand to hand, to be arrested
and confiscated by its subject when in Jock Howieson's possession, and
although Jock paid the penalty, as was most due, yet it was believed
that Bulldog was much pleased by the tribute, and that he kept the
picture in his desk.
His achievements in his own field, which extended from the supervision
of handwriting to instruction in mathematics, were sustained and
marvellous. When a boy was committed to his care at or about the age of
eight, before which age he attended a girls' school and fed his
imagination on what was in store for him under Bulldog, the great man
wrote at the head of his copy-book, in full text and something better
than copper-plate, "He that spareth his rod hateth his son." With this
animating sentiment the neophyte made a fearful beginning, and his
master assisted him to transcribe it for years to come through half text
and small text, till he could accomplish it with such delicate
up-strokes and massive down-strokes, such fine curves and calculated
distances, that the writing could hardly be distinguished from the
original, and might be exhibited to the Lord Provost and bailies at the
annual examination. It is said now that no school of any name in the
land would condescend to teach writing, and that boys coming from such
high places can compass their own signatures with difficulty, and are
quite illegible after a gentlemanly fashion; but it was otherwise in one
old grammar school. So famous was the caligraphy produced at the
Seminary that Muirtown bankers, lawyers, and other great personages used
to drop in of an afternoon, and having snuffed with the master, would go
over the copy-books and pick out suitable lads for their offices. And it
is a solemn fact that one enterprising Muirtown clerk went up to London
without a single introduction and obtained a situation in the great firm
of Brancker, Copleston, Goldbeater & Co., on the strength of a letter
and sheet of figures he sent to old Fyler, the manager, whose reason was
giving way under the scrawling of the junior clerks. Bulldog considered
that his pupils' handwriting steadily deteriorated from the day of their
departure. When they came to see him at school from Glasgow, London, and
beyond the sea, as they all did, on their visits to Muirtown, besides
giving them an affectionate welcome, which began at the door and ended
at the desk, he never failed to produce their letters and point out the
decadence in careful detail, while the school rejoiced greatly.
Any lad who showed some aptitude, or whose father insisted on the higher
education, was allured into geometry and raised to the dignity of the
blackboard, where he did his work in face of the school with fear and
trembling. This was public life, and carried extremes of honour and
disgrace. When Willie Pirie appeared at the board--who is now a
Cambridge don of such awful learning that his juniors, themselves
distinguished persons, can only imagine where he is in pure
mathematics--the school, by tacit permission, suspended operations to
see the performance. As Willie progressed, throwing in an angle here and
a circle there, and utilising half the alphabet for signs, while he
maintained the reasoning from point to point in his high, shrill voice,
Bulldog stood a pace aside, a pointer in one hand and in the other a
cloth with which at a time he would wipe his forehead till it was white
with chalk, and his visage was glorious to behold. When the end came,
Bulldog would seize the word out of Pirie's mouth and shout, "Q. E. D.,
Q ... E ... D. Splendid. Did ye follow that, laddies?" taking snuff
profusely, with the cloth under one arm and the pointer under the other.
"William Pirie, ye'll be a wrangler if ye hae grace o' continuance.
Splendid!"
It was otherwise when Jock Howieson tried to indicate the nature of an
isosceles triangle and confused it with a square, supporting his
artistic efforts with remarks which reduced all the axioms of Euclid to
one general ruin. For a while the master explained and corrected, then
he took refuge in an ominous silence, after which, at each new
development, he played on Jock with the pointer, till Jock, seeing him
make for the cane, modestly withdrew, but did not reach his place of
retreat without assistance and much plain truth.
"It's a shame to take any fee from your father, Jock Howieson, and it's
little use trying to give ye any education. Ye've the thickest head and
the least sense in all the schule. Man, they should take you home and
set ye on eggs to bring out chickens; ye micht manage that wi' care. The
first three propositions, Jock, before ye leave this room, without a
slip, or _ma certes_!" and Jock understood that if he misused his time
his instructor would make good use of his.
It was Bulldog's way to promenade the empty schoolroom for ten minutes
before the reassembling at two, and it was rare indeed that a boy should
be late. When one afternoon there were only nineteen present and
forty-three absent, he could only look at Dowbiggin, and when that
exemplary youth explained that the school had gone up to the top of the
Meadow for a bathe, and suggested they were still enjoying themselves,
Bulldog was much lifted.
"Bathing is a healthy exercise, and excellent for the mind, but it's
necessary to bring a glow to the skin aifterwards, or there micht be a
chill," and he searched out and felt a superior cane kept for the
treatment of truants and other grievous offenders.
It was exactly 2.15 when the door opened and a procession of forty-two
entered panting and breathless, headed by Dunc Robertson, who carried
his head erect, with a light in his eye, and closed by Peter, whose hair
was like unto that of a drowned rat, and whose unconcealed desire was
for obscurity. The nineteen could only smack their lips with
expectation and indicate by signs the treat awaiting their comrades.
"I've had chairge of the departments of writing, arithmetic, and
mathematics in the Muirtown Seminary," began Bulldog, "for fifty-five
years laist Martinmas, and near eighteen hundred laddies hae passed
through my hands. Some o' them were gude and some were bad"--Mr.
MacKinnon spoke with a judicial calmness that was awful--"some were yir
grandfathers, some were yir fathers; but such a set of impudent,
brazen-faced little scoundrels----" Then his composure failed him as he
looked at the benches. "What have ye got to say for yirselves, for it
will be three weeks afore I'm over ye all?"
For a while no one moved, and then Dunc Robertson rose in his place and
made speech for his fellows like a gentleman's son.
"We are sorry for being late, sir, but it was not our blame; we had been
bathing in the golfers' pool, and were dressing to run down to school in
good time. Little Nestie--I mean Ernest Molyneux, sir--had stayed in a
little longer, and someone cried, 'Nestie's drowning!' and there the
little chap was, being carried away by the current."
"Is 'Nestie'--drowned?" and they all noticed the break in Bulldog's
voice, and remembered that if he showed indulgence to anyone it was to
the little English lad that had appeared in Muirtown life as one out of
due place.
"No, sir, Nestie's safe, and some women have taken him home; but he was
very nearly gone," and Dunc was plainly shaken. "He's a good ween man,
and--and it would have been terrible to see him die before our eyes."
"Who saved Nestie?" Bulldog's face was white, and Jock swore afterwards
the tears were in his eyes--but that we did not believe.
"It was one of the boys, sir"--Robertson's voice was very proud--"and it
was a gallant deed; but I can't give his name, because he made me
promise not to tell."
The master looked round the school, and there was a flush on his cheek.
"John Howieson," with a voice that knew no refusal, and Jock stood in
his place.
"Give me the laddie's name who savit Nestie."
"It was Speug, sir, an'--it wes michty; but a' wudna hae telt had ye no
askit, an'--it's no my blame," and Jock cast a deprecatory glance where
Peter was striving to hide himself behind a slate.
"Peter McGuffie, come out this moment," and Peter, who had obeyed this
order in other circumstances with an immovable countenance, now
presented the face of one who had broken a till.
"Tell the story, Duncan Robertson, every word of it, that each laddie in
this room may remember it as lang as he lives."
"We had nearly all dressed, and some of us had started for school ...
and when I got back McGuffie had jumped and was out in the current
waiting for Nestie to come up. We saw his face at last, white on the
water, and shouted to Peter, and ... he had him in a minute, and ...
made for shore; big swimming, sir; not one of us could have done it
except himself. A salmon-fisher showed us how to rub Nestie till he came
round, and ... he smiled to us, and said, 'I'm all right; sorry to
trouble you chaps.' Then we ran down as hard as we could lick, and ...
that's all, sir."
"Ye're a leear, Duncan Robertson," suddenly broke out Speug, goaded
beyond endurance; "ye helpit oot Nestie yirself, an' ye're ... as muckle
tae blame as me."
"All I did, sir"--and Robertson's face was burning red--"was to meet
Peter and take Nestie off his hands quite near the bank; he had the
danger; I ... did nothing--was too late, in fact, to be of use."
Speug might have contested this barefaced attempt at exculpation, but
Bulldog was himself again and gripped the reins of authority.
"Silence!" and his emotion found vent in thunder; "no arguing in my
presence. You're an impudent fellow, Peter McGuffie, and have been all
your days, the most troublesome, mischievous, upsetting laddie in
Muirtown School," and the culprit's whole mien was that of a dog with a
bad conscience.
"Ye've fought with your fists, and ye've fought with snowballs; ye've
played truant times without number; and as for your tricks in school,
they're beyond knowledge. And now ye must needs put the capper on the
concern wi' this business!
"There's no use denying it, Peter, for the evidence is plain"--and now
Bulldog began to speak with great deliberation. "Ye saw a little laddie
out of his depth and likely to be drowned." (Peter dared not lift his
head this time; it was going to be a bad case.)