CHAPTER XIV
THE HANKY SCHOOL
The Dovecot was a prim little cottage standing back from the steepestbrae in Thrums and hidden by high garden walls, to the top of whichanother boy's shoulders were, for apple-lovers, but one step up.Jargonelle trees grew against the house, stretching their arms round itas if to measure its girth, and it was also remarkable for several"dumb" windows with the most artful blinds painted on them. Miss Ailie'sfruit was famous, but she loved her flowers best, and for long a noticeboard in her garden said, appealingly: "Persons who come to steal thefruit are requested not to walk on the flower-beds." It was that oldbachelor, Dr. McQueen, who suggested this inscription to her, and shecould never understand why he chuckled every time he read it.
There were seven rooms in the house, but only two were of public note,the school-room, which was downstairs, and the blue-and-white roomabove. The school-room was so long that it looked very low in theceiling, and it had a carpet, and on the walls were texts as well asmaps. Miss Ailie's desk was in the middle of the room, and there wasanother desk in the corner; a cloth had been hung over it, as one coversa cage to send the bird to sleep. Perhaps Miss Ailie thought that a birdhad once sung there, for this had been the desk of her sister, MissKitty, who died years before Tommy came to Thrums. Dainty Miss Kitty,Miss Kitty with the roguish curls, it is strange to think that you aredead, and that only Miss Ailie hears you singing now at your desk in thecorner! Miss Kitty never sang there, but the playful ringlets were oncethe bright thing in the room, and Miss Ailie sees them still, and theyare a song to her.
The pupils had to bring handkerchiefs to the Dovecot, which led to itsbeing called the Hanky School, and in time these handkerchiefs may besaid to have assumed a religious character, though their purpose wasmerely to protect Miss Ailie's carpet. She opened each scholastic day byreading fifteen verses from the Bible, and then she said sternly,"Hankies!" whereupon her pupils whipped out their handkerchiefs, spreadthem on the floor and kneeled on them while Miss Ailie repeated theLord's Prayer. School closed at four o'clock, again with hankies.
Only on great occasions were the boys and girls admitted to theblue-and-white room, when they were given shortbread, but had to eat itwith their heads flung back so that no crumbs should fall. Nearlyeverything in this room was blue or white, or both. There were whiteblinds and blue curtains, a blue table-cover and a white crumb-cloth, awhite sheepskin with a blue footstool on it, blue chairs dotted withwhite buttons. Only white flowers came into this room, where there wereblue vases for them, not a book was to be seen without a blue alpacacover. Here Miss Ailie received visitors in her white with the bluebraid, and enrolled new pupils in blue ink with a white pen. Somelaughed at her, others remembered that she must have something to loveafter Miss Kitty died.
Miss Ailie had her romance, as you may hear by and by, but you would nothave thought it as she came forward to meet you in the blue-and-whiteroom, trembling lest your feet had brought in mud, but too much a ladyto ask you to stand on a newspaper, as she would have liked dearly todo. She was somewhat beyond middle-age, and stoutly, even squarely,built, which gave her a masculine appearance; but she had grown so timidsince Miss Kitty's death that when she spoke you felt that either herfigure or her manner must have been intended for someone else. Inconversation she had a way of ending a sentence in the middle which gaveher a reputation of being "thro'ither," though an artificial tooth wasthe cause. It was slightly loose, and had she not at times shut hermouth suddenly, and then done something with her tongue, an accidentmight have happened. This tooth fascinated Tommy, and once when she wastalking he cried, excitedly, "Quick, it's coming!" whereupon her mouthsnapped close, and she turned pink in the blue-and-white room.
Nevertheless Tommy became her favorite, and as he had taught himself toread, after a fashion, in London, where his lesson-books were chieflyplacards and the journal subscribed to by Shovel's father, she ofteninvited him after school hours to the blue-and-white room, where he saton a kitchen chair (with his boots off) and read aloud, very slowly,while Miss Ailie knitted. The volume was from the Thrums Book Club, ofwhich Miss Ailie was one of the twelve members. Each member contributeda book every year, and as their tastes in literature differed, all sortsof books came into the club, and there was one member who invariablygave a ro-ro-romance. He was double-chinned and forty, but theschool-mistress called him the dashing young banker, and for months sheavoided his dangerous contribution. But always there came a black daywhen a desire to read the novel seized her, and she hurried home with itbeneath her rokelay. This year the dashing banker's choice was a lady'snovel called "I Love My Love with an A," and it was a frivolous tale,those being before the days of the new fiction, with its grand discoverythat women have an equal right with men to grow beards. The hero hadsuch a way with him and was so young (Miss Ailie could not stand them aday more than twenty) that the school-mistress was enraptured and scaredat every page, but she fondly hoped that Tommy did not understand.However, he discovered one day what something printed thus, "D--n,"meant, and he immediately said the word with such unction that MissAilie let fall her knitting. She would have ended the readings then hadnot Agatha been at that point in the arms of an officer who, Miss Ailiefelt almost certain, had a wife in India, and so how could she rest tillshe knew for certain? To track the officer by herself was not to bethought of, to read without knitting being such shameless waste of time,and it was decided to resume the readings on a revised plan: Tommy tosay "stroke" in place of the "D--ns," and "word we have no concern with"instead of "Darling" and "Little One."
Miss Ailie was not the only person at the Dovecot who admired Tommy.Though in duty bound, as young patriots, to jeer at him for having beenborn in the wrong place, the pupils of his own age could not resist thecharm of his reminiscences; even Gav Dishart, a son of the manse,listened attentively to him. His great topic was his birthplace, andwhatever happened in Thrums, he instantly made contemptible by citingsomething of the same kind, but on a larger scale, that had happened inLondon; he turned up his nose almost farther than was safe when theysaid Catlaw was a stiff mountain to climb. ("Oh, Gav, if you just sawthe London mountains!") Snow! why they didn't know what snow was inThrums. If they could only see St. Paul's or Hyde Park or Shovel! hecouldn't help laughing at Thrums, he couldn't--Larfing, he said atfirst, but in a short time his Scotch was better than theirs, thoughless unconscious. His English was better also, of course, and you had tospeak in a kind of English when inside the Hanky School; you got yourrevenge at "minutes." On the whole, Tommy irritated his fellow-pupils agood deal, but they found it difficult to keep away from him.
He also contrived to enrage the less genteel boys of Monypenny. Theirleader was Corp Shiach, three years Tommy's senior, who had never beeninside a school except once, when he broke hopefully into Ballingall'sbecause of a stirring rumor (nothing in it) that the dominie had hangithimself with his remaining brace; then in order of merit came BirkieFleemister; then, perhaps, the smith's family, called theHaggerty-Taggertys, they were such slovens. When school was over Tommyfrequently stepped out of his boots and stockings, so that he no longerlooked offensively genteel, and then Monypenny was willing to let himjoin in spyo, smuggle bools, kickbonnety, peeries, the preens, suckerspilly, or whatever game was in season, even to the baiting of thePainted Lady, but they would not have Elspeth, who should have beencontent to play dumps with the female Haggerty-Taggertys, but couldenjoy no game of which Tommy was not the larger half. Many times hedeserted her for manlier joys, but though she was out of sight he couldnot forget her longing face, and soon he sneaked off to her; heupbraided her, but he stayed with her. They bore with him for a time,but when they discovered that she had persuaded him (after prayer) toput back the spug's eggs which he had brought home in triumph, then theydrove him from their company, and for a long time afterwards his deadlyenemy was the hard-hitting Corp Shiach.
Elspeth was not invited to attend the readings of "I Love My Love withan A," perhaps because there were so many wor
ds in it that she had noconcern with, but she knew they ended as the eight-o'clock bell began toring, and it was her custom to meet Tommy a few yards from Aaron's door.Farther she durst not venture in the gloaming through fear of thePainted Lady, for Aaron's house was not far from the fearsome lane thatled to Double Dykes, and even the big boys who made faces at this womanby day ran from her in the dusk. Creepy tales were told of what happenedto those on whom she cast a blighting eye before they could touch coldiron, and Tommy was one of many who kept a bit of cold iron from thesmithy handy in his pocket. On his way home from the readings he neverhad occasion to use it, but at these times he sometimes met Grizel, wholiked to do her shopping in the evenings when her persecutors were moreeasily eluded, and he forced her to speak to him. Not her lonelinessappealed to him, but that look of admiration she had given him when hewas astride of Francie Crabb. For such a look he could pardon manyrebuffs; without it no praise greatly pleased him; he was always on theoutlook for it.
"I warrant," he said to her one evening, "you want to have some man-bodyto take care of you the way I take care of Elspeth."
"No, I don't," she replied, promptly.
"Would you no like somebody to love you?"
"Do you mean kissing?" she asked.
"There's better things in it than that," he said guardedly; "but if youwant kissing, I--I--Elspeth'll kiss you."
"Will she want to do it?" inquired Grizel, a little wistfully.
"I'll make her do it," Tommy said.
"I don't want her to do it," cried Grizel, and he could not draw anotherword from her. However he was sure she thought him a wonder, and whennext they met he challenged her with it.
"Do you not now?"
"I won't tell you," answered Grizel, who was never known to lie.
"You think I'm a wonder," Tommy persisted, "but you dinna want me toknow you think it."
Grizel rocked her arms, a quaint way she had when excited, and sheblurted out, "How do you know?"
The look he liked had come back to her face, but he had no time to enjoyit, for just then Elspeth appeared, and Elspeth's jealousy was easilyaroused.
"I dinna ken you, lassie," he said coolly to Grizel, and left herstamping her foot at him. She decided never to speak to Tommy again, butthe next time they met he took her into the Den and taught her how tofight.
It is painful to have to tell that Miss Ailie was the person whoprovided him with the opportunity. In the readings they arrived oneevening at the scene in the conservatory, which has not a single Strokein it, but is so full of Words We have no Concern with that Tommy reeledhome blinking, and next day so disgracefully did he flounder in hislessons that the gentle school-mistress cast up her arms in despair.
"I don't know what to say to you," she exclaimed.
"Fine I know what you want to say," he retorted, and unfortunately sheasked, "What?"
"Stroke!" he replied, leering horridly.
"I Love My Love with an A" was returned to the club forthwith (whetherhe really did have a wife in India Miss Ailie never knew) and "Judd onthe Shorter Catechism" took its place. But mark the result. The readingsended at a quarter to eight now, at twenty to eight, at half-past seven,and so Tommy could loiter on the way home without arousing Elspeth'ssuspicion. One evening he saw Grizel cutting her way through theHaggerty-Taggerty group, and he offered to come to her aid if she wouldsay "Help me." But she refused.
When, however, the Haggerty-Taggertys were gone she condescended to say,"I shall never, never ask you to help me, but--if you like--you canshow me how to hit without biting my tongue."
"I'll learn you Shovel's curly ones," replied Tommy, cordially, and headjourned with her to the Den for that purpose. He said he chose the Denso that Corp Shiach and the others might not interrupt them, but it wasElspeth he was thinking of.
"You are like Miss Ailie with her cane when she is pandying," he toldGrizel. "You begin well, but you slacken just when you are going tohit."
"It is because my hand opens," Grizel said.
"And then it ends in a shove," said her mentor, severely. "You shouldclose your fists like this, with the thumbs inside, and then play dab,this way, that way, yon way. That's what Shovel calls, 'You want it,take it, you've got it.'"
Thus did the hunted girl get her first lesson in scientific warfare inthe Den, and neither she nor Tommy saw the pathos of it. Other lessonsfollowed, and during the rests Grizel told Tommy all that she knew aboutherself. He had won her confidence at last by--by swearing dagont thathe was English also.