Part 4

I am losing Jim Jackson. The battle for his soul is unequal. Macdonald has him all the day, while I only see him at intervals. He came up to the farm to-night, and he was morose in manner. His face is gradually assuming a sneering expression, and his repartee is less spontaneous and more biting. I managed to bring back his better self to-night, but I fear that a day will soon come when he will sink his better self for ever. His father and mother are people after Macdonald's own heart. They are typical village folk, stupid and aggressive. Oh, I loathe the village; it reminds me of George Douglas's Barbie in _The House with the Green Shutters_; it is full of envy and malice and smallness. There are too many "friends" in the village. Mrs. Bell is Mrs. Webster's sister, and they have lived next door to each other for twenty-five years, during which time they have not exchanged a single word. They quarrelled over the division of their mother's goods. When the father dies they will meet and weep together over his coffin; they will be inseparable for a few days ... then they will have a row over the old grandfather clock, and they won't speak to each other again.

Peter Jackson is a loud-mouthed fool, and his wife is a warrior. She has the jaw of a prize-fighter. Jim was dissecting the front wheel of his old bicycle the other night at the door, and I stopped to give him a hand with the balls. His mother came to the door.

"Jim!" she rasped, "come away to yer bed!"

"Wait till Aw get thae balls in, mother," he pleaded.

"Come away to yer bed this meenute!" she bawled, "or Aw'll gie ye the biggest thrashin' ye ever got in yer life!" And the poor boy had to leave his cycle and obey.

"What about this?" I said to the mother, and I pointed to the cycle.

"He'd no business takin' it to bits," she shouted and she slammed the door.

Poor lad! Between Macdonald and a mother like that he will live hardly. Each will break his will; each will insist on perfect obedience to arbitrary orders. I am honestly amazed at the small success I had with Jim. He was leaving my free school every night to go home to an atmosphere of anger and brutal stupidity. Now he is leaving his poor home every morning to go to the prison of Macdonald. No wonder the lad is lapsing. In a few years he will be a typical villager; he will stand at the brig of an evening and make caustic comments on the passers-by; he will sneer at everything and everybody. Macdonald is thinking about the answering Jim will do when the inspector comes; I was thinking of the Jim that would one day stand at the brig among his acquaintances. I didn't care a brass farthing what he learned or how much he attended; all I tried to do was to help him to be a fine man, a kindly man, a free man.

I recollect a young teacher who visited my school one morning.

"I should like to see you give a lesson," he said.

"With pleasure," I replied.

"What sort of lesson will it be?" he asked, "geography or history?"

"I don't know," I said, and I turned to my bairns.

"Why do rabbits have white tails?" I asked, and from that we wandered on through protective coloration and heredity to wolves and their fear of fire. We finished up with poetry, but I don't recollect how we got to it. When I had finished he pondered for a little.

"It's all wrong," he said. "That boy in the corner was half asleep; four of these girls weren't really attending to you, and two girls left the room."

"My fault," I said. "I took them to subjects they weren't interested in."

"No," he said decidedly, "it was only your fault in not forcing them to sit up and attend."

"But why should I?" I asked wearily. "Schooling is the beginning of the education we call life, and I want to make it as true to life as possible. In after life no one compels my attention or yours. We can sleep in church and we can sleep at a political meeting. We learn lots of things but we are interested in them. Tell me, what boy in this room answered best?"

He pointed to a boy of twelve.

"I agree," I said, and I called the boy to my desk.

"Hugh," I said, "kindly tell this gentleman how long you have been at school."

"A week, sir," he replied.

"What school did you come from?" asked the visitor.

"I never was at any school in my life," he said, "my father lives in a caravan and I never was long enough in a place to go to school."

I explained that Hugh had come voluntarily to me saying: "My father can't read or write, and I can't either, but I want to be able to read about the war and things like that."

"I don't know what to make of it," said my visitor.

"It is a great lesson on education," I said. "He feels that he wants to read ... and he comes to school seeking knowledge. And that's what I want to supersede compulsion. If I had my way no boy would learn to read a word until he desired to read; no boy would do anything unless he wanted to do it."

Then he brought forward the old argument that freedom like that was handicapping them for after life; they would not face difficulties.

"Hugh was up against a greater difficulty than most boys ever come up against," I said, "and he faced it bravely and confidently. When you are free from authority you have a will of your own; you know exactly what you want and you set your teeth and get it. You are on your own, you have acquired responsibility. Given a dictating teacher or parent a boy will do the minimum on his own responsibility. Good lord! if I make all these youngsters sit up and attend strenuously to my speaking I am not training them to face difficulties; I am simply bullying them, making them a subject race."

"You are training character."

"I would be training children to obey, and the first thing a child should learn is to be a rebel. If a man isn't a rebel by the time he is twenty-five, God help him! Character simply means a man's nature, and I refuse to change a man's nature by force; I leave the experiment to the judges and prison warders."

I want to ask every dominie who believes in coercion what he thinks of the results of many years' coercion. Obviously present-day civilisation with its criminal division of humanity into parasites and slaves is all wrong.

"But," a dominie might cry, "can you definitely blame elementary education for that?"

I answer: "Yes, yes, yes!"

The manhood of Britain to-day has passed through the schools; they have been lulled to sleep; they have never learned to face the awful truth about civilisation. And I blame the coercion of the teachers. Train a boy to obey his teacher and he will naturally obey every dirty politician who has the faculty of rhetoric; he will naturally believe the lies of every dirty newspaper proprietor that is playing his own dirty game.

* * *

I have been spending the week-end with a man I used to dig with in London. He is a great raconteur and we sat late swopping yarns.

"Did you ever hear a good yarn without a point?" he asked.

I said that I hadn't.

"Well, I'll tell you one," he said, and he trotted out the following.

In a small seaside town on the east coast an ancient mariner sits on the beach and yarns to visitors. When the Balkan War was going on my friend asked him if he had ever been to Turkey. My friend assured me that the man had never been farther than Newcastle in his life.

"Man," said the mariner reflectively, "Aw mind when an order cam from the Sultan o' Turkey to the sweetie works here for peppermints. The manager cam doon to me and he says to me, says he: 'Man, Jock, Aw wonder if ye would care to tak oot a cargo o' peppermints to the Sultan o' Turkey?'"

"Aweel, the 'Daisy' was lyin' in the harbour at the time, so Aw says that Aw wud tak them oot.

"Weel, we got them aboard, and awa we sailed, and a damned rough passage we had too; man, the Bay o' Biscay was as bad as Aw've ever seen it.

"Weel, we got to Constantinople, and here was the Sultan stannin' on the pier wi' his hands in his breek pooches. He cam aboard and said he wud like to hae a look o' the peppermints. He had a look o' them, and syne he comes up to me and he says: 'Look here, captain, Aw've been haein' a look o' yer crew, and ... weel, to tell the truth, Aw dinna like the look o' them; there's not wan that Aw wud like to trust up at the harem. So, captain, Aw was just thinkin' that Aw wud like ye to carry up thae peppermints yersel ... ye're a married man, are ye no?'

"Aw telt him that Aw was, and Aw started to carry up thae peppermints, and a damned hard job it was, man. They werena the ordinary pepperies, ye ken; they were great muckle things like curlin' stanes. Weelaweel, Aw got them a' carried up, and Aw was standin' wipin' the sweat frae my face when the Sultan comes anower to me.

"'Aye, captain,' says he, 'that'll be dry wark?'

"'Yes, sir,' says I, 'gey dry.'

"'Are ye a 'totaller?' says he.

"'No,' says I, and he taks me by the arm and says: 'C'wa and hae a nip!'

"Weel, we gaed into a pub, and he ordered twa nips ... aye, and damned guid whiskey it was too. We had another twa nips, and Aw'm standin' wi' the Sultan at the door, just aboot to shak hands wi' him, ye ken, and he says to me, says he: 'Captain, wud ye like to see the harem?' and Aw said Aw wud verra much. So he taks haud o' my arm and we goes up the brae. We cam to a great muckle hoose, and he taks a gold key oot o' his pooch, and opens the door.

"Man, Aw never saw the likes o' yon! The floor was a' gold, and the window-blinds was gold. And the wemen! (The mariner conveyed his admiration by a long whistle.)

"Weel, Aw was standin' just inside the door wi' my bonnet in my hand, when a bonny bit lassie comes up to me and threw hersell at my feet and took haud o' my knees and sang: 'Far awa to bonny Scotland!'

"Man, the tears cam into my een as she was singin'.

"Syne the Sultan turns to me.

"'Aye, man,' he says, says he, 'speakin' aboot Scotland: Scotland's the finest country on earth; but there's wan thing Aw canna stand aboot Scotland, and that's yer dawmed green kail. There's no a continental stammick will haud it doon.'"

My friend informed me that he never met an Englishman who appreciated that yarn.

* * *

I begin to wonder whether I am falling in love. Ever since Margaret blushed when she passed me on the brae I have been extremely conscious of her existence. I find that I am beginning to look for her, and I go to the dairy on the flimsiest of pretences. I was there three times this afternoon.

"What do you want this time?" she asked with a laugh at my third appearance.

"I hardly know," I said slowly, "but I think I wanted to see your bare arms again."

She hastily drew down her sleeves and reddened; then to cover her confusion she made a show of putting me out forcibly. How I managed to refrain from kissing her tempting lips I don't know. I nearly fell ... but it suddenly came to me that a kiss might mean so very much to her and so little to me and ... I resisted the temptation.

She is fast losing her shyness, and she talks to me with growing frankness. She has begun to read much lately, and she devours penny novelettes with avidity. She has a romantic mind, and my realism sometimes shocks her. I happened to meet her in town last Saturday, and I took her to the pictures. She was intensely moved by a romantic film story, and when I explained that the stuff was rank sentimentalism and rhetoric she seemed to be offended.

"You criticise everything," she cried angrily, "don't you believe that there is any good in the world?"

"You will never be happy," she added seriously, "you criticise too much."

"Surely," I cried, "you don't imagine that I criticise you!"

"I do," she said bitterly. "You criticise yourself and me and everybody. I am always in terror that I make a slip in grammar before you."

"Margaret!" I cried with real sorrow, "I hate to think that I have given you that impression."

I was silent for a long time.

"Kid," I said, "you are quite right. I do criticise everything and everybody, but a better word is analyse; I analyse myself and then I try to analyse you."

"As a boy," I added, "my chief pastime was buying sixpenny watches and tearing their insides out to see how they worked ... but I never saw how they worked."

"Yes," she said, "and that's what you would do if you had a wife; you would tear her to bits just to see how she worked ... and you would never find out how she worked either."

"Perhaps I might," I said with a smile. "When I dissected watches I was inexperienced; nowadays I could take a watch to pieces and find out how it worked. Perhaps I might manage to put my wife together again, Margaret."

"There would be one or two wheels left over," she laughed.

"I should like her better without them," said I.

"Oh!" she cried impatiently, "why can't you be like other men? What's the use of looking into the inside of everything? Look at father; he never bothered about what mother was; he just thought her perfect and look how happy he is!"

"Ah!" I said teasingly, "I understand! You don't want a man to analyse you in case he discovers that you aren't perfect!"

She looked at me frankly.

"I wouldn't like to be thought perfect," she said slowly. "I sometimes think that mother would think far more of father if he saw some faults in her."

"I am quite puzzled," I said; "you grumble because I analyse people and now you grumble because your father doesn't. What do you mean, child?" But she shook her head helplessly.

"Oh, I don't know," she cried, and she sat for a long time in deep thought.

As I sat by her side in the picture-house tea-room I recollected a saying of her's one day last week. I was sitting at the bothy door reading _The New Age_, and at my feet lay _The Nation_ and _The New Statesman_. She picked up _The Nation_ and glanced at its pages.

"I don't know why you waste your money on papers like that," she said petulantly. "You spend eighteenpence a week on papers, and father only gets _John Bull_ and _The People's Journal_."

It suddenly came to me that Margaret was not thinking of the money side of the question at all; what annoyed her was the thought that these papers were a symbol of a world that she did not know. And now I wonder whether woman is not always jealous of a man's work. It is a long time since I read _Antony and Cleopatra_, but I half fancy that Cleopatra was much more jealous of Antony's work than of his wife.

VI.

Dickie Gibson cut me dead to-night, and I think that Jim Jackson will one day look the other way when I pass. It is very sad, and I feel to-night that all my work was in vain. I cannot, however, blame Macdonald this time, for Dickie has left the school. I feel somewhat grieved at not being able to lay the fault at Macdonald's door. I should blame myself if I honestly could, but I cannot, for Dickie was a lad who loved the school.

I recollect the morning when we arrived to find a huge stone cast in the middle of the pond.

"It's been some of the big lads," said Dickie.

"But why?" I asked. "Why should they do a dirty trick like that? Would you do a thing like that, Dickie, after you had left the school?"

He thought for a minute.

"Aye," he said slowly, "if Aw was with bigger lads and they did it Aw wud do it too."

I suppose that if I had been a really great man I might have conquered the spirit of the village. I was only a poor pioneer striving to make these bairns happier and better. Dickie's cutting me proves that I was not good enough to lead him away from the atmosphere of the village. I used to forget about the homes; I used to forget that many a child had to listen to harsh criticisms of my methods. I marvel now that they were so nice at school. I wonder whether we could not form a Board to enquire into the upbringing of children. We might call it the Board of Parental Control. It would bring parents before it and examine them. Parents convicted of stupidity would be ordered to hand over their children to a Playyard School, and each child would be so taught that it could take in hand the education of its parents when it was seventeen.

My idea was to produce a generation that would be better than the present one, and I thought that I could successfully fight the environment of home. I failed.... Dickie has cut me. The fight was unequal; the village won. After all I had Dickie for two short years, and the village has had him for fourteen. Poor boy, he has much good in him, much innate kindliness. But the village is stupid and spiteful. I am absolutely sure that Dickie cut me because he wanted to follow the public opinion of the village.

Am I magnifying a merely personal matter? Am I merely piqued because I was cut? No one likes to be cut; it isn't a compliment at any time. No, I am not piqued: I am intensely angry, not at poor Dickie, but at the dirty environment that makes him a cad. Lucky is the dominie who teaches bairns from good homes. Last summer when I spent half a day in the King Alfred School in Hampstead I envied John Russell his pupils. They were all children of parents who were intellectual enough to seek a free education for their children in a land where the schools are barracks. "If I only had children like these!" I said to him, but a moment later I thought of my little school up north and I said: "No! Mine need freedom more than these."

The King Alfred School is a delightful place. There is co-education ... a marvellous thing to an Englishman, but not noticeable by a Scot who has never known any other kind. There is no reward and no punishment, no marks, no competition. A child looks on each task as a work of art, and his one desire is to please himself rather than please his teacher. The tone of the school is excellent; the pupils are frankly critical and delightfully self-possessed. And since parents choose this school voluntarily I presume that the education we call home-life is ideal. How easy it must be for John Russell! If my Dickie had been going home each night to a father and mother who were as eager for truth and freedom as I was, I don't think that Dickie would have cut me to-night.

* * *

Dickie came up for his milk to-night, and I hailed him as he went down the brae.

"Here, Dickie!" I called, "why have you given up looking at me?"

He grew very red, and he stood kicking a stone with his heel.

"I don't want you to touch your cap, Dickie, but you might at least say Hullo to me in the passing. Some of the big lads who left school before I came look at me impudently, and I know that their look means: 'Bah! I've left the school and I don't care a button for you or any other dominie!' But, Dickie, you know me well; you never were afraid of me, and I know that you don't think me your enemy. Why in all the earth should you pretend that you do?"

I held out my hand.

"Dickie," I said, "are you and I to be friends or not?"

He hesitated for a moment, then he took my hand.

"Friends," he said weakly, and his eyes filled with tears. Then I knew that I had not been mistaken in thinking that there was much good in the boy.

Having made it up with Dickie I set off with a light heart to attend a meeting of the Gifts for Local Soldiers Committee. The chairman was absent and I was invited to take the chair. Bill Watson brought forward a motion that the Committee should get up a concert to provide funds.

"Mr. Watson's proposal is that we arrange a concert," I said. "Is there any seconder?"

"Aweel," said Andrew Findlay, "Aw think that a concert wud be a verra guid thing. The nichts is beginnin' to draw in, and it wud be best to hae it as soon as possible. The tatties will be on in twa three days."

"The proposal is seconded. Any amendment, gentlemen?"

"Man," said Peter MacMannish the cobbler, "man, Aw was just lookin' at Lappiedub's tatties the nicht. Man, yon's a dawmed guid crap."

"Them that's in the wast field is better," said Andrew.

"But the best crap o' wheat Aw seen the year," said Dauvid Peters, "was Torrydyke's."

"Any amendment, gentlemen?"

"Torrydyke ay has graund wheat," said Peter. "D'ye mind yon year--ninety-sax ... or was it ninety-seeven?--man, they tell me that he made a pile o' siller that year."

"Ninety-sax," growled William Mackenzie the farmer of Brigend, "it was ninety-sax, for Aw mind that my broon coo dee'd that summer."

"Aw mind o' her," nodded Andrew, "grass disease, wasn't it?"

"Aye," said Mackenzie. "Aw sent to Lochars for the vet but he was awa frae hame. Syne Aw sent a telegram to the Wanners vet, and when he cam he says to me, says he--"

"Any amendment, gentlemen?" I said.

"Goad, lads," said Andrew sitting up in his chair, "we'll hae to get on wi' the business."

"No amendment," I said. "Are we all agreed about this concert?" and they grunted their assent.

"And now we'll settle the date," I said briskly.

Peter MacMannish looked over at Mackenzie.

"When are ye thinkin' o' killin' that black swine o' yours, John?" he asked.

Mackenzie growled and shook his head.

"She's no fattenin' up as Aw cud wish to see her, Peter," he replied. There followed an animated discussion of the merits and demerits of various feeding-stuffs. After a two hours' sitting the Committee unanimously appointed me secretary and organiser of the concert. I was given authority to fix a date and arrange a programme.

Attendance at many democratic meetings of this kind has led me to a complete understanding of Parliament.

* * *

It is Sunday to-day. I sat reading in the afternoon and a knock came at my bothy door.

"Come in!" I shouted, and Annie walked in.

"Me and Janet and Ellen are going for a walk over the hill, and we thocht you might like to come too."

"Certainly!" I cried, and I threw Shaw's latest volume of plays into the bed.

"Margaret's wi' us too," said Annie as if it were an afterthought.

There was a fight for my arms.

"Annie was first," I said, "and we'll toss up for the other arm."

"Let Margaret get it," said Janet mischievously, and Margaret's nose went almost imperceptibly higher in the air.

"Excellent!" I said, and I took her arm and placed it through mine. Janet and Ellen walked behind, and they sniggered a good deal.

"Just fancy the mester noo!" said Janet, "linkit wi' Maggie! He'll hae to marry her noo, Ellen!" And poor Margaret became very red and began to talk at a great rate.

"G'wa, Jan," I heard Ellen say, "he's far ower auld. Maggie's only twenty next month, and he's--he could be her faither."

"He's no very auld, Ellen; he hasna a mootache yet!"

"Aw wudna like a man wi' a mootache, Jan; Liz Macqueen says that she gave up Jock Wilson cos his mootache was ower kittly."

"Weel, she was tellin' a big lee," said Janet firmly. "If she loved him she wud ha' telt him to shave it off."

We lay down in the wood at the top of the hill. Annie was in a reminiscent mood.

"D'ye mind the letters we used to write to one another?" she asked.

I pretended that I had forgotten them.

"Do ye no mind? One day when I wasna attendin' to the lesson ye wrote 'Annie Miller is sacked' on a bit paper and gave it to me?"

"Ah, yes, I remember, Annie, now that you come to mention it. But I can't remember your reply."

"Aw took another bit o' paper, and Aw wrote: 'Mr. Neill is sacked for not making me attend.'"

"Yes, you besom, I remember now. I'll sack you!" and I rolled her over in the grass.

"There was another letter, Annie," I said, "do you remember it?" and she said "No!" so quickly that I knew she did remember it.

I turned to Margaret.

"Annie came to school one day with her hair most beautifully done in ringlets," I explained, "and of course I fell in love with her at once. I wrote her a letter.... 'My Dear Annie, do you think yourself bonny to-day?' and the wee besom replied: 'No, I don't!' Then I wrote her again.... 'Do you ever tell lies?' and to this she answered: 'No, never!' Then I calmly handed her the _Life of George Washington_."

"But Aw never read it!" she cried with a gay laugh.