Part 12

"Aye," cried Jean with delight, "gie him back his ring!"

Margaret drew off her ring and handed it to me, and the girls clapped their hands gleefully.

"Very good," I said resignedly, "you girls will better cancel the orders for wedding frocks. And, Jean, just look in and tell Jim Jackson not to buy a new dickie, will you?"

The girls looked at each other doubtfully.

"Ye're just funnin'," said Jean with a forced laugh.

"Funning? My dear Jean, when a girl hands back the engagement ring, do you mean to tell me she is funning?"

Children live in two lands--the land of reality and the land of make-believe. A serious look will make them jump from the one to the other. They looked at my serious face and believed that Margaret had really given me up. Then they glanced at Margaret; she laughed, and their clouded faces cleared. I knew that they would try to make me believe that they still considered I was in earnest.

"Aw'll cry in and tell Jim aboot the dickie," said Jean.

"It's a pity ye ordered the weddin' cake," said Annie.

"Ye can gie it to the Mester to christen his bairn," suggested Janet.

"It'll be ower big," said Gladys.

"Aweel," retorted Janet, "he can gie the half o't to the Mester, and maybe the other half will do for Peter Mitchell's funeral."

"What!" I cried, "is Peter dead?"

"No exactly," said Janet hopefully, "but he's badly wi' the chronic, and he'll maybe dee."

"That settles the question of the cake," I said, "but you have still to settle the question of Margaret."

"She can marry Joe Simpson," suggested Ellen.

"Aye," said Jean, "and she'll hae to work oot, and feed the three black swine. She wud be better to tak Dave Young, for he has only twa swine to feed."

"Be an auld maid, Maggie," said Janet, "and keep a cat. A man's just a fair scutter onywve ... especially a delicate man that taks effielinza and lies in his bed. Ye'll be far better as an auld maid, Maggie. Ye'll no hae ony bairns, but bairns is just a nuisance."

"I'll be an old maid then," said Margaret.

"Now you've disposed of the cake and the lady," I said, "what is to become of me?"

"You!" said Janet. "You can be an auld bachelor and live next door to Maggie, and she'll send a laddie ower wi' a bowl o' soup when she has soup to her dinner."

"Aye," said Gladys, "and she'll wash yer sarks and mend yer socks for you."

"Sounds as if I am to have all the joys of matrimony without its sorrows," I said. "I'm afraid, Margaret, that we'll have to get married after all. The other way is too expensive: we should require to pay the rent of two houses."

"But," cried Annie, "if ye get married ye'll hae bairns to keep, and they'll cost mair than the rent o' two hooses!"

"Then in Heaven's name what am I to do?" I cried in feigned perplexity.

Janet took Margaret's hand and placed it in mine.

"Just tak Maggie," she said sweetly; "and by the time ye hae bairns Aw'll maybe be marrit mysell, and Aw'll mak my man send ye a ham when he kills the swine."

So I placed the ring on Margaret's finger and kissed her. Then I drew Janet's head down and kissed her too.

"Eh!" cried Annie, "that's no fair!"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Ye've kissed Jan," she laughed, "and she'll maybe tak effielinza and--and get a holiday."

Then I kissed Annie and the others three times, and they all went out laughing. The tears came into my eyes ... but then I was weak and ill.

XVII.

I object to the type of man who practises practical jokes. Young Mackenzie and Jim Brown have just played a nasty one on Willie Baffers, the village lunatic. Poor Willie invented a new aeroplane; he took an old solid-tyred boneshaker bicycle and fixed feathers to the spokes. Mackenzie and Brown inspected the invention, and told Willie that his fortune was as good as made.

Next morning the post brought a letter to Willie from the Munitions Ministry, offering him four million pounds and threepence hapenny for the patent rights, and asking Willie to meet a representative at the Royal Hotel in the town. Willie rode the old bike into town, and feathered it in the hotel yard. Mackenzie with a false beard on, handed him a cheque for the four millions, and Willie ran nearly all the eight miles home to tell of his good fortune.

Macdonald told me the yarn to-night as a rich joke, but I failed to find any humour in it. It was a low-down trick.

"Good Lord!" I cried, "neither of them is much more intelligent than Willie. Any man of average ability could take them in as easily as they took in poor Baffers."

"All the same," tittered Macdonald, "the joke is funny."

"There always is something funny in idiotic things, Macdonald. If I had seen Willie's invention I should probably have roared; but the glimpse would have satisfied me. I roar at Charlie Chaplin's idiotic actions, but I wouldn't be so ready to roar at them if Charlie were really an idiot. Any fool could spend a lifetime playing jokes on village lunatics. I could write Willie a letter offering him the command on the Western front, and signing it 'Lloyd George,' but that sort of fun doesn't appeal to me."

"I'm different," said Macdonald. "I would think that a good joke. You think Jim Jackson funny, on the other hand, and I think there's nothing funny about him."

"What has he been doing now?"

"I gave them an essay on their favourite pets yesterday, and he wrote one about his pet bee and elephant."

"What did he say about them?"

"Oh, the thing was just a piece of nonsense. He said the bee's name was Polly, and--I have the thing in my desk," he said, "you can read it for yourself."

I copied the essay out to-night. Here it is:--

POLLY AND PETER.

Polly is the name of my pet bee, and Peter is my elephant. They are very friendly, Polly often sits on Peter's ear but Peter never sits on Polly's. They eat out of the same dish. Peter ate Polly by mistake one day, but she stung him on the tongue and when he opened his mouth to roar she flew out. Polly used to sleep in Peter's trunk. One night he sneezed and Polly was lying a mile away next morning.

In the summer time Polly lives in a wood house in the garden and it is called a hive and that is where she keeps the honey. I take it away when she is not looking and she thinks it is Peter that does it, at least she kicks him for it. I have told her to watch for Zeps. She sits on the roof all night watching, she is to sting the Kaiser on the nose if he comes. She is an old maid. She had a lad called Archibald, but father sat on him one night and then he swore when he tried to sit down for weeks after. Archibald died.

Peter is a nice animal and he has a thousand teeth, but Polly only has twenty. Peter looks like he has two tails he wags them both but the front one is a trunk for eating. He is an awful big eater. He says his prayers every night and I hope he will go to heaven when he dies. He had pewmonia and Polly had pendisitis, and the doctor made an operation and put in nineteen stitches. Peter works all day, the road-roller man is at the war and Peter has to roll about on the road to bruise the metal. He fills his trunk with water and wets the road first. Polly tells him when the moters are coming.

"I don't see anything funny in that," said Macdonald.

"Possibly not," I said, "but Jim's idea of fun isn't the same as yours or mine. A bairn laughs at ludicrous things: I'm sure Jim laughed when he imagined the scene where his father sat on Archibald. The essay is full of promise."

Macdonald handed me Alec Henry's book.

"That's a better essay," he said.

I read the essay.

"Its English is better," I said, "the sentences are correctly formed, but there isn't an idea in the whole essay. Anybody can describe a pet rabbit."

"That's so, but composition is meant to teach a boy to write good English."

"What's the good of writing good English if you haven't any ideas to write about?" I cried. "Every member of Parliament can write good English, but there aren't half-a-dozen men of ideas in the House. Personally, I don't care a damn how a boy writes if he shows he is not an average boy. Jim Jackson has talent: Alec Henry is a mere unimaginative cram. You encourage Henry and you sit on Jim.... I wish he had Archibald's power to sting you!"

"But what is his nonsense to lead to?" he said.

"We don't know. As dominies our job is to encourage Jim in his natural bent. It is enough for us that he is different from the scholarly Henry. We have a good idea of what Alec will come to; we know nothing about Jim. You have tried to fit Jim into the Alec mould, and you have failed."

"Jim knew that you were on his side," growled Macdonald.

"I suppose he did, Macdonald. But you have got all the others; surely you don't grudge me Jim and the five girls?"

"That's all right," he said with a short laugh, "I've given up wooing them. I allow Jim to choose his own line now ... but I'll never like the laddie."

* * *

I have always disliked all the pomp and circumstance of weddings. Margaret wanted a quiet wedding before a registrar but her father was eager to make a fete of the occasion, and we allowed him to have his way. Besides Jim and the girls were expecting a great day.

I can't say that I enjoyed my wedding. The bairns seemed to have lost their identity when they donned their wedding garments. Jim sat on the dickey beside the driver; there was pride in his face but his smile was gone. The occasion was too great for him. The girls stood about the dining-room in awkward attitudes, and I noted the fine English of their speech.

And Jim failed at the wedding-feast. Part of his duty was to propose the health of the bridesmaids, and when the minister called upon him for his speech he fled from the room. Peter MacMannish proposed the toast instead.

Margaret and I set off in a hired motor in the afternoon. We were going to London. When we reached the station Margaret suddenly said: "If only we could have stayed for the dance to-night!"

"Yes," I said, "the bairns will be in form to-night."

"We should really be there," continued Margaret sadly, "it's our dance you know."

"And here we are going off to a hotel among strangers, Margaret!"

Margaret clutched my arm.

"Let's go back," she said eagerly, "we'll spend the first bit of our honeymoon in the dear old bothy!"

I beckoned to a taxi-driver.

As we drove up the brae to the farm Margaret laughed.

"Do you know what I am laughing at?" she said. "I was thinking about you coming back. It's a sort of habit of yours coming back, isn't it? You don't care for me one bit; you are in love with Janet and Annie."

"Who proposed coming back, madam?"

"I did," she cried in great glee: "I noticed that you didn't seem keen on buying the tickets, and I knew you didn't want to go."

When we walked into the dining-room there was consternation. Margaret's mother went very white.

"What's wrong?" she stammered.

"Goad! They've quarrelled already!" exclaimed Peter MacMannish in a hoarse whisper.

"Did ye miss the train?" asked Janet.

"No, Jan, we missed the supper, and we made up our minds that it was too good to miss. We're going to do an original thing; we're going to dance at our own wedding."

The blacksmith struck up a waltz, and my wife and I waltzed round the room. I don't think that a wedding party was ever so jolly as ours.

The bairns escorted us to our bothy at two in the morning, and Margaret insisted on giving them a cup of tea before they went home.

Janet looked round the wee room.

"Eh, Maggie, what an awfu' place to spend yer honeymoon in!"

"Yes," said Margaret, "that's what comes of marrying a mean man. It's disgraceful, isn't it, Jan?"

"What do ye ca' it when ye stop bein' married?" asked Annie.

"A divorce," I said.

"And is there a feed at a divorce?" asked Jim with an interested expression.

"No, Jim; you are fed up before the divorce proceedings."

"Aw wud divorce him, Maggie," said Annie.

"It's difficult," laughed Margaret.

"Ye cud say he wudna gie ye a proper honeymoon," put in Gladys.

Annie sat down on my knee.

"Why did ye come back?" she asked.

"I came back to find out how you performed your duties, Annie. I'll begin with the best man. Jim Jackson, give an account of your stewardship."

"Aw had three helpin's o' the plum-duff, twa o' the apple-pie, three o' the--"

"I'm not taking an inventory of your interior furnishings," I said severely; "what I want to know is whether you performed your duties. Did you kiss the bridesmaids?"

"Eh!" gasped Janet, "he'd better try!"

"Do you mean to tell me he didn't?" I demanded.

"Aw had a broken-oot lip," said Jim apologetically, "and Aw didna want to smit onybody."

"And the bairn next door to oor hoose has the measles," he added hastily.

"And Aw lookit at a book aboot etikquette and it didna say onything aboot kissin' the bridesmaids."

"The bridesmaids didna want to kiss yer dirty moo, onywye, Jim Jackson," said Janet.

"Aw've got a better moo than Tam Rigg, onywye," said Jim cheerfully.

Janet gazed at his mouth curiously.

"Your's is bigger, onywye."

"Now, now," I said, "don't you set a newly married couple a bad example by quarrelling."

I turned to Jean.

"What did you think of the wedding, Jean?"

"Jean grat," said Gladys, "and so did Jan. What was ye greetin' aboot?"

"Aw dinna ken," said Jean simply. "Aw saw Maggie's mother greetin' so Aw just began to greet too. What was yer mother greetin' for, Maggie?"

"I don't know, Jean."

"Aw think she had the teethache," said Jim, "cos Aw heard the minister say to her to try a drap o' whiskey."

"It wasna the teethache," said Annie scornfully, "but Aw ken why she grat."

"To mak fowk think she was so fond o' Maggie that she didna want her to ging awa," suggested Gladys.

"Na it wasna," said Annie, "she maybe was thinkin' o' Maggie's auldest sister Jean that dee'd when she was saxteen."

"G'wa," cried Jim, "it's the fashion to greet at a marriage and a burial, but ye dinna greet at a christenin'."

"Why no?" asked Jean.

"Cos ye wudna be heard: the bairn greets a' the time."

Janet glanced at Margaret.

"That'll be the next party," she said brightly, "the christenin'. Did ye keep the top storey o' the cake, Maggie?"

Margaret blushed at this.

Janet seized her by the shoulders.

"Ye needna tak a reid face, for Aw ken fine that ye did keep a bit o' the cake for the christenin'. Ye'll no need to keep it long or it'll get hard!"

"Jan," cried Jean, reprovingly "ye shud na say sic things!"

"Why no? The minister said something aboot a family when he was marryin' them."

"Aye," said Jean, "but a minister's no like other fowk. If Mester Gordon says 'Hell' or 'damnation' in the pulpit it's religion, but if you say it it's just a swear."

"Aw was at the manse when the minister fell over my barrow," said Jim, "and he said 'Hell!' Was that religion or a swear?"

"Aw wud ca' it a lee," said Jean with a sniff; "only ministers and married fowk shud speak aboot bairns, and ye shud ken better, Jan."

Janet looked at me timidly.

"Did Aw do any wrong?"

"Of course you didn't, you dear silly! Jean is a wee prude. Why shouldn't you talk about bairns if you want to? The subject of bairns is the only important subject in the world, Jan, and if you find anyone who thinks the subject improper you can bet your boots that they've got a dirty mind. Jean is simply trying to follow the conventions of all the stupid grown-ups in the village."

These bairns are all innocent. When I looked at Jim's composition book the other day I read an essay with the title "The Church." Jim did not describe the church: he described an event in the church--his own marriage. He was an officer on short leave from the Front. He described the ceremony, then he went on:--"I spent my honeymoon in Edinburgh and a wire came telling me to go back to the trenches. Three weeks later I was wounded and sent home and found that my wife had had a baby."

I wrote at the end of the essay "The speeding-up methods of America are bad enough when applied to industry, but...."

They are innocent souls, and already Jean is affected by the damnable conspiracy of silence. And the amusing thing is that there is nothing to be silent about.

* * *

The Educational Institute has sent a deputation to London to confer with the Secretary for Scotland on educational reform. The deputies dwelt on larger areas, the raising of the school age, and the raising of the salaries of the profession. Mr. Tennant answered them at length in guarded language. Part of _The Scotsman_ report runs thus:--

"Asked by Mr. MacGillivray for his views on the suggestion that the school age should be raised to fifteen, the Secretary for Scotland said that, however desirable that might be in the interests of the child, it was a highly controversial proposal, upon which employers and in many cases parents, and even the State, would have a great deal to say. The expenditure involved would, he was afraid, make such a proposal prohibitive at present."

It is significant to note that he places the employers first, just as in his previous remarks on education he places trade first.... "People realised that if we were going to compete in the great markets of the world, in ideas, in the progress of invention, and in the general progress of mankind and civilisation, we must improve our machinery for the training and equipment of the human being."

The Educational Institute of Scotland, like the Trade Unions, is very humble in its demands. Why, in the name of heaven, ask for larger areas? Mr. Tennant rightly replied that it was news to him that the County Council is a more progressive body than the small School Board. Introduce larger areas and your village pig-dealer and shoemaker give place to your county colonel and manufacturer ... the men who are interested in the maintenance of discipline and of wage-slavery. What the Institute should really do is to give up thinking and talking of education for this generation. The leading members come from our large city schools, and if they haven't yet realised that their damned schools are factories for turning out slaves they ought to be jolly well ashamed of themselves.

I visited a large city school a few days ago. It had nine hundred pupils, and it was four stories high. The playground was a small concrete corner; the discipline was like prison discipline; the rooms were dingy soul-destroying cages. How dare the teachers of Scotland ask that the school age be raised to fifteen when our city schools are barracks like that? I would have the age lowered to six if these prisons are to continue.

One of the delegates, Mr. Cowan, showed that he was looking at education in a broad light. "Education," he said, "if it is to be real, is bound up with the questions of housing, public health, medical treatment, and the like; ... hence education should be in the hands of some body that would view the matter as a whole ... viz., the County Council."

He might have added that education is primarily bound up with profiteering. Our city schools are necessarily adjuncts to our factories and our slums; the dominie is clearly the servant of the capitalist ... and the poor devil doesn't know it. It's absolutely useless to talk of larger areas and larger salaries and larger children; the fundamental fact is that capital calls the tune, and larger areas will do as much for education as tinkering with the saddle spring of a motor-bike will do for a seized engine bearing.

Larger salaries will attract better men and women to the profession, says the Institute representative, and I ask wearily: "What difference will that make? You'll merely get honours graduates to do the profiteer's dirty work more effectively. You can't reform the schools from within. The prisons are built, and you will merely tempt your highly specialised teacher into a soul-destroying hell. The slums and the sweating will go on as usual next door; your city children will be starved and ragged and diseased as of yore."

I think it a pity that this deputation ever went to the Scots Secretary at all. Why should the teaching profession go begging favours from the State? The wise business men who rule us will smile grimly and say:--"The blighters gave themselves away when they asked for larger salaries." They won't appreciate the fact that the deputies were honest men with a real desire for a better education.

I should like to suggest to the Institute that it might have written a nice letter to Mr. Tennant. Why, bless me, I'll have a shot at composing one myself! Here goes!

"Dear Mr. Tennant,

"We aren't asking any favours this time; we are simply writing you a friendly letter telling you what we are going to do.

"Firstly, we are now beginning to make a determined attempt to take over the control of Scots Education ... and we'll succeed even if we have to go on strike for our rights. Our Educational Institute will become the Scots Guild of Teachers ... a sort of polite Trade Union, you know, just like the Medicine Union and the Law Union--only more so. Is that quite clear?

"Well, our Guild, when it is strong enough, will come up to town one fine morning to see the Cabinet. Our words will be something like these: 'We are the Teachers' Guild of Scotland, old dears, and we've come to tell you that we're going to run the show now.'

"Of course the Cabinet will get a shock at first. Then they will laugh and say: 'We wish you luck! By the way how do you propose to get the money?' And when we answer that we expect to get it from the State they will roar with mirth. We shall wait politely till the laugh is over, and then we shall calmly tell them our proposal ... rather, our demand. We shall demand money from the State to carry on the whole thing. Education isn't a profiteering affair, and we must draw every penny from the people ... just as the State does now.

"Then a member (Lloyd George in all probability) will remark: 'Yes, yes, gentlemen, but don't you see that all your demand amounts to is a change of management? You want to abolish the Education Department and substitute your President for my friend Sir John Struthers.'

"We shall shout 'No!' very very viciously at this ... you've heard them shout 'No' when they sing 'For he's a jolly good fellow?' Well, then, we'll shout it just like that, and then we'll explain thus:--

"We aren't going in for a change of management: we are going to build a new house. We are done with grants and Form 9 B's and inspectors and Supplementary Classes for ever. We are going to spend.... Oh! such a lot of money. You'll be surprised when you know what we are going to do. You know Dundee? Mr. Churchill there made it famous.... well, Dundee, is one of the dirtiest slums in creation. At present it has lots of big grey schools. We are going to knock 'em down. After that we are going to build bonny wee schools out in the country; schools that won't hold more than a hundred pupils. There will be lovely gardens and ponds and rabbit-houses; there will be food and--.' At this stage the Cabinet will telephone for the lunacy experts.