Читать книгу A Dominie Dismissed - Alexander Sutherland Neill - Страница 7

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I lay on a bank this afternoon smoking. Janet and Jean and Annie came along the road, and they sat down beside me.

"I'm tired of the school," said Annie wearily; "Aw wish Aw was fourteen!"

"What's wrong now?" I asked.

"Oh, we never get any fun now, the new mester's always so strict, and we get an awful lot o' home lessons now."

"Annie got the strap on Friday," explained Jean. "Mester Macdonald's braces broke Aw think, at least something broke when he was bending doon and he took an awful red face … and he had to keep his hands in his pouches till night time to keep his breeks up."

"Did Annie pull them down?" I asked.

Jean tittered.

"No, but she laughed and he gave her the strap."

"Aye," cried Annie in delight, "and they nearly cam doon when he was strappin' me!"

"Why do awkward incidents occur to dignity?" I said, more to myself than to the bairns, "my braces wouldn't break in fifty years of teaching." Then I laughed.

Margaret Thomson came down the road on her way to Evening Service, and she reddened as she passed.

"Eh!" laughed Janet, looking up into my face, "did ye see yon? Maggie blushed! Aw wudna wonder if she has a notion o' the Mester!"

"How could she help it, Jan?" I said. "Why, you'll be hopelessly in love with me yourself in a couple of years, you besom!"

She stared before her vacantly for a little.

"Aw did have a notion o' you when ye cam first," she said slowly.

I put my arm round her neck.

"You dear kid!" I said.

She smiled up in my face.

"Ye had that bonny striped tie on then," she said artlessly.

I pulled her hair.

"Ye shud marry Maggie Tamson," she said after a pause.

"Aye," added Jean, "and syne ye'll get the farm when her father dies. He's troubled wi' the rheumatics and he'll no live very long. And she wud be a gran worker too."

"Dinna haver, Jean," said Annie scornfully, "the Mester will want a gran lady for his wife, one that can play the piano and have ham and egg to her breakfast ilka morning."

"No extravagant wife like that for me!" I protested.

"Aweel, an egg ilka day and ham and egg on Sundays onywye," compromised Annie.

"An egg every second morning, Annie," I said firmly, "and ham and egg every second Sunday."

"Ladies dinna mak good wives," said Janet. "Willie Macintosh along at Rinsley married a lassie that was a piano teacher, and she gets her breakfast in her bed and has a wumman to wash up. Aye, and she's ay dressed and oot after dinnertime. Aye, and she sends a' his collars to the laundry … and he only wears a clean dicky on Sawbath."

"Ah!" I said, "I'm glad you told me that, Janet; I won't risk marrying a lady. But tell me, Janet, how am I to know what sort of woman I am marrying?"

"It's quite easy," she said slowly, "you just have to tear a button off your waistcoat and if she doesna offer to mend it ye shouldna tak her."

"And speer at her what time she gets up in the mornin'," she added; "Maggie Tamson rises at five ilka mornin'."

"Why are you so anxious that it should be Margaret?" I asked with real curiosity.

Janet shook her head.

"Aw just think she's in love wi' ye," she said simply; "she blushed."

* * *

I went out with my bugle to-night, and I sounded all the old calls. I finished up with "Come for Orders," and I walked slowly down the brae to the farm. Jim Jackson and Dickie Gibson came running up to me.

"Ye played 'Come for Orders!'" panted Jim as he wiped his sweating face with his bonnet.

"We'll soon remedy matters," I laughed, and I played the "Dismiss."

Jim perched himself on a gate.

"We'll hae to fall oot, Dick," he said with mock resignation, "come on and we'll sit here till we get oor wind back." And Dick climbed up beside him.

"How are the lies getting on, Jim?" I asked.

He shook his head dolefully.

"We got an essay the day on The Discovery of America … and ye canna tell mony lies aboot that. Aw just said that Columbus discovered America, and wrote aboot his ships. The new Mester says we must stick to the truth."

"It is difficult to associate the truth with America," I said. "But there is a true side to this discovery business. To say that Columbus discovered America is a half-truth; the whole truth is that America isn't quite discovered yet. Andrew Carnegie was fairly successful, and Charlie Chaplin is another discoverer of note, but—"

Jim clearly did not understand; he thought that I was pulling his leg.

"How's the pond?" I asked, and was grieved to find that neither of the boys had any interest in it. "The Mester taks us oot and gies us object lessons on the minnows," said Dickie, and I groaned.

"And the pigeons?"

"Object lessons too," said Jim with evident disgust. "What family did he say doos belonged to, Dick?"

Dick had no idea.

"The word dove comes from the Latin columba," I said sententiously. "Hence the name Columbus who was named after the dove that was sent out of the Ark. When he learned this as a boy he resolved to live up to his name … hence the American Eagle, which of course has transformed itself into a dove during Woodrow Wilson's reign."

Dick listened open-mouthed, but Jim's eyes twinkled.

"The Mester gives us derivations ilka day. He telt us the derivation of pond when he was giein' us the object lesson, but I canna mind what it was."

"A weight!" cried Dickie suddenly, and I complimented him on his industry.

"Aye," giggled Jim, "he shud mind it, for he had to write it oot a hunder times."

I made a cryptic remark about ponds and ponderosity, and then I told them of the boy who had to stay in and write the phrase "I have gone" many times in order that he might grasp the correct idiom. He filled five pages; then he wrote something at the bottom of the last page, a message to his teacher. The message read "Please, sir, I have went home." Dickie immediately asked whether the boy got a lamming next morning, and Jim looked at him scornfully. Dickie has not got an alert mind.

To-night I am doubting whether I was wise to return to the village. I seem to become sadder every day. My heart is down in the old ugly school, and I am jealous of Macdonald. I know that he is an inferior, but he has my bairns in his control. I confess to a sneaking delight in the knowledge that he is not liked by the bairns. In this respect I think I am inferior to him; I don't think he is jealous of my popularity but of course he may be after all.

Jim's answering my bugle call makes me want to cry. I can sit out the most pathetic drama unemotionally; when the hero says farewell for ever to the heroine I sit up cheerfully. It is sweetness that affects me; when the hero clasps his love in his arms I snivel. In the cinema when little Willie is dying to slow music and the mother is wringing her hands I smile, but if Willie recovers and sits up in bed to hug his teddy bear I blow my nose. I am unaffected when Peter Pan returns to find his mother's window shut against him, but when the fairies build a house over the sleeping lost girl I have to light my pipe and cough sternly.

I wish I hadn't gone out with my bugle to-night.

* * *

Macdonald is an ass. He came to me this afternoon. "Look here," he began, "I wonder if you've any objection to my making a few alterations in the school live stock?"

"Want to introduce a cow?" I asked. "You believe in utilitarianism in education I fancy."

"It's the pigeons and rabbits," he went on; "I was wondering if you would object to my getting rid of one or two."

"What's wrong?"

"It's the sex matter," he said hurriedly. "I don't like the thing; I don't so much mind the infants asking awkward questions, but why the deuce should they keep them till I am speaking to the infant mistress?"

"Refer them to the lady," I said with a chuckle.

He looked troubled.

"I must get rid of one sex," he said.

"Macdonald," I said severely, "I don't know that you can do that without the permission of the children. The rabbits and doos are their's; they bought them with their own money."

"That's no great difficulty," he said lightly.

"Possibly not … not for you, Macdonald. If you use authority the bairns will hardly question it. But I don't see that you have the right to be an autocrat in this affair."

"It is my duty to protect the children," he said with dignity.

"Protect yourself, you mean!" I cried; "you have just confessed that your one aim is to get rid of awkward questions."

"But what can I do?" he stammered.

"Do! Do nothing, just as I did. Let the creatures breed as much as they darned well please; that's what they are there for. You can't very well make sex an object lesson; the logical thing to do is to give a lesson on pollination of plants and then go on to fertilisation of the bird's egg, but if you do that you'll get the sack at once. But there's quite enough of prudery in the world already without your turning a rabbit-hutch into a sultanless harem."

"There are things that children shouldn't know," he said with a touch of aggression.

"And there are things that grown-ups should know and don't," I said. "They ought to know that the sex conspiracy of silence is idiotic and criminal."

"Anyway," he said sullenly, "I'll tell them to-morrow that there are too many in the house and that I mean to get rid of a few."

"All right," I said resignedly, "you can lie to them if you want to." Then I added: "Although, mind you, Macdonald, I feel like telling the bairns the real reason for your action."

He looked startled.

"Don't be alarmed," I said with a smile, "I won't do it," and he looked relieved.

"Why not look in at the school some afternoon?" he said amiably when we parted, "but perhaps you feel that you've shaken off the dust from your feet down there?"

"I'll be delighted to come down," I said; "I didn't shake off the dust from my feet when I left … there was quite enough dust there already."

I think I'll go down to-morrow afternoon; it was decent of Macdonald to ask me after all that I have said to him.

* * *

A man spends his life wishing he had done certain things and wishing that he had not done certain things. I half wish that I had not accepted Macdonald's invitation; I feel lonely up here now: on the other hand I am glad that I went. I think now that Macdonald's real idea was to show me how he has improved the school.

From his point of view he has improved it. He showed me exercise books that were models of neatness and care; he showed me classes swotting up subjects laboriously; the rooms were as silent as the grave.

When I went in Macdonald shook hands with me formally, and I noticed that his school voice and manner were prim and professional. I turned to the bairns and said: "Hullo, kids!" and they rose in a body and said: "Good afternoon, sir!"

"Ah!" I whispered to Macdonald, "I see I ought to have said: 'Good afternoon, children!' eh?" and he smiled professionally.

The higher classes were drawing. The model was a vase. I walked round the class … and swore silently. I had spent two years persuading these bairns that there is no boundary line in nature; a white vase appears to have lines as boundaries simply because it usually stands in front of a dark background. I made them work in the background to show up the model, although I never gave them vases or pails; my drawing was all outside sketching of trees and houses. He was making them "line in" the drawing.

"I am not much good at drawing," he explained apologetically, "as a matter of fact I know nothing about it."

"In that case," I said, "why not let them go on with the methods I gave them? I know something about the subject."

He asked what my methods were and I explained them in a few minutes. He expressed his gratitude and seemed honestly glad to learn something about the subject.

"I won't take them out drawing though," he said; "an inspector might come to the school in my absence."

"You conscientious devil!" I said, "let's have a squint at their exercise books."

As he moved to the cupboard a boy whispered to his neighbour and Macdonald turned like a flash; the lad visibly quailed before his fixing eye. I fancied that the next inspector's report would commence with the words: "The discipline of this school is excellent."

The books were much neater than mine had been. I began to look for blots, but the search was hopeless.