They all helped him in their different ways: Grizel, by declining his company; Corp, by being far away at Look-about-you, adding to the inches of a farm-house; Aaron Latta, by saying nothing but looking "college or the herding1;" Mr. McLean, who had settled down with Ailie at the Dovecot, by inquiries3 about his progress; Elspeth by—but did Elspeth's talks with him about how they should live in Aberdeen and afterwards (when they were in the big house) do more than send his mind a-galloping (she holding on behind) along roads that lead not to Aberdeen? What drove Tommy oftenest to the weary drudgery5 was, perhaps, the alarm that came over him when he seemed of a sudden to hear the names of the bursars proclaimed and no Thomas Sandys among them. Then did he shudder6, for well he knew that Aaron would keep his threat, and he hastily covered the round table with books and sat for hours sorrowfully pecking at them, every little while to discover that his mind had soared to other things, when he hauled it back, as one draws in a reluctant kite. On these occasions Aaron seldom troubled him, except by glances that, nevertheless, brought the kite back more quickly than if they had been words of warning. If Elspeth was present, the warper7 might sit moodily8 by the fire, but when the man and the boy were left together, one or other of them soon retired9, as if this was the only way of preserving the peace. Though determined10 to keep his word to Jean Myles liberally, Aaron had never liked Tommy, and Tommy's avoidance of him is easily accounted for; he knew that Aaron did not admire him, and unless you admired Tommy he was always a boor11 in your presence, shy and self-distrustful. Especially was this so if you were a lady (how amazingly he got on in after years with some of you, what agony others endured till he went away!), and it is the chief reason why there are such contradictory12 accounts of him to-day.
Sometimes Mr. Cathro had hopes of him other than those that could only be revealed in a shameful13 whisper with the door shut. "Not so bad," he might say to Mr. McLean; "if he keeps it up we may squeeze him through yet, without trusting to—to what I was fool enough to mention to you. The mathematics are his weak point, there's nothing practical about him (except when it's needed to carry out his devil's designs) and he cares not a doit about the line A B, nor what it's doing in the circle K, but there's whiles he surprises me when we're at Homer. He has the spirit o't, man, even when he bogles at the sense."
But the next time Ivie called for a report—!
In his great days, so glittering, so brief (the days of the penny Life) Tommy, looking back to this year, was sure that he had never really tried to work. But he had. He did his very best, doggedly14, wearily sitting at the round table till Elspeth feared that he was killing15 himself and gave him a melancholy16 comfort by saying so. An hour afterwards he might discover that he had been far away from his books, looking on at his affecting death and counting the mourners at the funeral.
Had he thought that Grizel's discovery was making her unhappy he would have melted at once, but never did she look so proud as when she scornfully passed him by, and he wagged his head complacently17 over her coming chagrin18 when she heard that he had carried the highest bursary. Then she would know what she had flung away. This should have helped him to another struggle with his lexicon19, but it only provided a breeze for the kite, which flew so strong that he had to let go the string.
Aaron and the Dominie met one day in the square, and to Aaron's surprise Mr. Cathro's despondency about Tommy was more pronounced than before. "I wonder at that," the warper said, "for I assure you he has been harder 'at it than ever thae last nights. What's more, he used to look doleful as he sat at his table, but I notice now that he's as sweer to leave off as he's keen to begin, and the face of him is a' eagerness too, and he reads ower to himself what he has wrote and wags his head at it as if he thought it grand."
"Say you so?" asked Cathro, suspiciously; "does he leave what he writes lying about, Aaron?"
"No, but he takes it to you, does he no'?"
"Not him," said the Dominie, emphatically. "I may be mistaken, Aaron, but I'm doubting the young whelp is at his tricks again."
The Dominie was right, and before many days passed he discovered what was Tommy's new and delicious occupation.
For years Mr. Cathro had been in the habit of writing letters for such of the populace as could not guide a pen, and though he often told them not to come deaving him he liked the job, unexpected presents of a hen or a ham occasionally arriving as his reward, while the personal matters thus confided21 to him, as if he were a safe for the banking22 of private histories, gave him and his wife gossip for winter nights. Of late the number of his clients had decreased without his noticing it, so confident was he that they could not get on without him, but he received a shock at last from Andrew Dickie, who came one Saturday night with paper, envelope, a Queen's head, and a request for a letter for Bell Birse, now of Tilliedrum.
"You want me to speir in your name whether she'll have you, do you?" asked Cathro, with a flourish of his pen.
"It's no just so simple as that," said Andrew, and then he seemed to be rather at a loss to say what it was. "I dinna ken20," he continued presently with a grave face, "whether you've noticed that I'm a gey queer deevil? Losh, I think I'm the queerest deevil I ken."
"We are all that," the Dominie assured him. "But what do you want me to write?"
"Well, it's like this," said Andrew, "I'm willing to marry her if she's agreeable, but I want to make sure that she'll take me afore I speir her. I'm a proud man, Dominie."
"You're a sly one!"
"Am I no!" said Andrew, well pleased. "Well, could you put the letter in that wy?"
"I wouldna," replied Mr. Cathro, "though I could, and I couldna though I would. It would defy the face of clay to do it, you canny23 lover."
Now, the Dominie had frequently declined to write as he was bidden, and had suggested alterations24 which were invariably accepted, but to his astonishment25 Andrew would not give in. "I'll be stepping, then," he said coolly, "for if you hinna the knack26 o't I ken somebody that has."
"Who?" demanded the irate27 Dominie.
"I promised no to tell you," replied Andrew, and away he went. Mr. Cathro expected him to return presently in humbler mood, but was disappointed, and a week or two afterwards he heard Andrew and Mary Jane Proctor cried in the parish church. "Did Bell Birse refuse him?" he asked the kirk officer, and was informed that Bell had never got a chance. "His letter was so cunning," said John, "that without speiring her, it drew ane frae her in which she let out that she was centred on Davit Allardyce."
"But who wrote Andrew's letter?" asked Mr. Cathro, sharply.
"I thought it had been yoursel'," said John, and the Dominie chafed28, and lost much of the afternoon service by going over in his mind the names of possible rivals. He never thought of Tommy.
Then a week or two later fell a heavier blow. At least twice a year the Dominie had written for Meggy Duff to her daughter in Ireland a long letter founded on this suggestion, "Dear Kaytherine, if you dinna send ten shillings immediately, your puir auld29 mother will have neither house nor hame. I'm crying to you for't, Kaytherine; hearken and you'll hear my cry across the cauldriff sea." He met Meggy in the Banker's Close one day, and asked her pleasantly if the time was not drawing nigh for another appeal.
"I have wrote," replied the old woman, giving her pocket a boastful smack30, which she thus explained, "And it was the whole ten shillings this time, and you never got more for me than five."
"Who wrote the letter for you?" he asked, lowering.
She, too, it seemed, had promised not to tell.
"Did you promise to tell nobody, Meggy, or just no to tell me," he pressed her, of a sudden suspecting Tommy.
"Just no to tell you," she answered, and at that.
"Da-a-a," began the Dominie, and then saved his reputation by adding "gont." The derivation of the word dagont has puzzled many, but here we seem to have it.
It is interesting to know what Tommy wrote. The general opinion was that his letter must have been a triumph of eloquent31 appeal, and indeed he had first sketched32 out several masterpieces, all of some length and in different styles, but on the whole not unlike the concoctions34 of Meggy's former secretary; that is, he had dwelt on the duties of daughters, on the hardness of the times, on the certainty that if Katherine helped this time assistance would never be needed again. This sort of thing had always satisfied the Dominie, but Tommy, despite his several attempts, had a vague consciousness that there was something second-rate about them, and he tapped on his brain till it responded. The letter he despatched to Ireland, but had the wisdom not to read aloud even to Meggy, contained nothing save her own words, "Dear Kaytherine, if you dinna send ten shillings immediately, your puir auld mother will have neither house nor hame. I'm crying to you for't, Kaytherine; hearken and you'll hear my cry across the cauldriff sea." It was a call from the heart which transported Katherine to Thrums in a second of time, she seemed to see her mother again, grown frail35 since last they met—and so all was well for Meggy. Tommy did not put all this to himself but he felt it, and after that he could not have written the letter differently. Happy Tommy! To be an artist is a great thing, but to be an artist and not know it is the most glorious plight36 in the world.
Other fickle37 clients put their correspondence into the boy's hands, and Cathro found it out but said nothing. Dignity kept him in check; he did not even let the tawse speak for him. So well did he dissemble that Tommy could not decide how much he knew, and dreaded38 his getting hold of some of the letters, yet pined to watch his face while he read them. This could not last forever. Mr. Cathro was like a haughty39 kettle which has choked its spout40 that none may know it has come a-boil, and we all know what in that event must happen sooner or later to the lid.
The three boys who had college in the tail of their eye had certain privileges not for the herd2. It was taken for granted that when knowledge came their way they needed no overseer to make them stand their ground, and accordingly for great part of the day they had a back bench to themselves, with half a dozen hedges of boys and girls between them and the Dominie. From his chair Mr. Cathro could not see them, but a foot-board was nailed to it, and when he stood on this, as he had an aggravating41 trick of doing, softly and swiftly, they were suddenly in view. A large fire had been burning all day and the atmosphere was soporific. Mr. Cathro was so sleepy himself that the sight of a nodding head
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CHAPTER 34 — WHO TOLD TOMMY TO SPEAK
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CHAPTER 36 — OF FOUR MINISTERS WHO AFTERWARDS BOASTED THAT THEY HAD KNOWN TOMMY SANDYS
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