Chapter 10

When that great dignitary, attended by the bailies and masters, together with the notables of Muirtown, appeared on the platform, the boys availed themselves of the license of the day, shouting, cheering, yelling, whistling and bombarding all and sundry with pellets of paper shot with extraordinary dexterity from little elastic catapults, till at last Bulldog, who in the helplessness of the Rector always conducted the proceedings, rose and demanded silence for the Provost, who explained at wide intervals that he was glad to see his young friends (howls from the boys) and also their respected parents (fresh howls, but not from the parents); that he was sure the fathers and mothers were proud of their boys to-day (climax of howls); that he had once been a boy himself (unanimous shout of "No" from the boys); that he had even fought in a snowball fight (loud expressions of horror); that he was glad the Seminary was flourishing (terrific outburst, during which the Provost's speech came to an end, and Bulldog rose to keep order).

One by one the prize-winners were called up from the side of their fond parents, and if they were liked and had won their prizes with the goodwill of their fellows, each one received an honest cheer which was heartier and braver than any other cheer of the day, and loud above it sounded the voice of Speug, who, though he had never received a prize in his life, and never would, rejoiced when a decent fellow like Dunc Robertson, the wicket-keeper of the eleven and the half-back of the fifteen, showed that he had a head as well as hands. When a prig got too many prizes there was an eloquent silence in the hall, till at last a loud, accurate and suggestive "Ma-a-a-a!" from Speug relieved the feelings of the delighted school, and the unpopular prize-winner left the platform amid the chorus of the farmyard--cows, sheep, horses, dogs, cats and a triumphant ass all uniting to do him honour. It was their day, and Bulldog gave them their rights, provided they did not continue too long, and every boy believed that Bulldog had the same judgment as themselves.

To-day, however, the whole gathering was hungering and thirsting for the declaration of the Count's prize, because there never had been such a competition in Muirtown before, and the Count was one of our characters. When he came forward, wonderfully dressed, with a rose in his buttonhole and waving a scented handkerchief, and bowed to everybody in turn, from the Provost to Mr. McGuffie, his reception was monumental and was crowned by the stentorian approbation of Speug's father. Having thanked the company for their reception, with his hand upon his heart, and having assured the charming mothers of his young friends of his (the Count's) most respectful devotion, and declared himself the slave of their sisters, and having expressed his profound reverence for the magistrates (at which several bailies tried to look as if they were only men, but failed), the Count approached the great moment of the day.

The papers, he explained upon his honour, were all remarkable, and it had been impossible for him to sleep, because he could not tear himself away from the charming reflections of his young friends. (As the boys recognised this to be only a just compliment to their thoughtful disposition and literary genius, Bulldog had at last to arise and quell the storm.) There was one paper, however, which the Count compared to Mont Blanc, because it rose above all the others. It was "ravishing," the Count asserted, "superb"; it was, he added, the work of "genius." The river, the woods, the flowers, the hills, the beautiful young women, it was all one poem. And as the whole hall waited, refusing to breathe, the Count enjoyed a great moment. "The writer of this distinguished poem--for it is not prose, it is poetry--I will read his motto." Then the Count read, "Faint Heart never Won Fair Lady," and turning to the Provost, "I do myself the honour of asking your Excellency to open this envelope and to read the name to this distinguished audience." Before the Provost could get the piece of paper out of the envelope, Speug, who was in the secret of the motto, jumped up on his seat and, turning with his face to the audience, shouted at the pitch of his voice through the stillness of the hall, "Nestie Molyneux." And above the great shout that went up from the throat of the Seminary could be heard, full and clear, the view-hallo of Mr. McGuffie senior, who had guessed the winner without ever seeing the paper.

MOOSSY

IX

If the eyes of an old boy do not light up at the mention of "Moossy," then it is no use his pleading the years which have passed and the great affairs which have filled his life; you know at once that he is an impostor and has never had the privilege of passing through Muirtown Seminary. Upon the genuine boy--fifty years old now, but green at heart--the word is a very talisman, for at the sound of it the worries of life and the years that have gone are forgotten, and the eyes light up and the face relaxes, and the middle-aged man lies back in his chair for the full enjoyment of the past. It was a rough life in the Seminary, with plain food and strenuous games; with well-worn and well-torn clothes; where little trouble was taken to give interest to your work, and little praise awarded when you did it well; where you were bullied by the stronger fellows without redress, and thrashed for very little reason; where there were also many coarsenesses which were sickening at the time to any lad with a sense of decency, and which he is glad, if he can, to forget; but, at least, there was one oasis in the wilderness where there was nothing but enjoyment for the boys, and that was the "Department of Modern Languages," over which Moossy was supposed to preside.

Things have changed since Moossy's day, and now there is a graduate of the University of Paris and a fearful martinet to teach young Muirtown French, and a Heidelberg man with several degrees and four swordcuts on his face to explain to Muirtown the mysteries of the German sentence. Indignant boys, who have heard appetising tales of the days which are gone, are compelled to "swat" at Continental tongues as if they were serious languages like Latin and Greek, and are actually kept in if they have not done a French verb. They are required to write an account of their holidays in German, and are directed to enlarge their vocabulary by speaking in foreign tongues among themselves. Things have come to such a pass it is said--but I do not believe one word of this--that the modern Speug, before he pulls off the modern Dowbiggin's bonnet and flings it into the lade, which still runs as it used to do, will be careful to say "_Erlauben Sie mir_," and that the modern Dowbiggin, before rescuing his bonnet, will turn and inquire with mild surprise, "_Was wollen Sie, mein Freund?_" and precocious lads will delight their parents at the breakfast-table by asking for their daily bread in the language and accent of Paris, because for the moment they have forgotten English. It is my own firm conviction, and nothing can shake it, that Muirtown lads are just as incapable of explaining their necessary wants in any speech except their own as they were in the days of our fathers, and that if a Seminary boy were landed in Calais to-day, he would get his food at the buffet by making signs with his fingers, as his father had done before him and as becomes a young barbarian. He would also take care, as his fathers did, that he would not be cheated in his change nor be put upon by any "Frenchy." Foreign graduates may do their best with Seminary lads--and their kind elsewhere--but they will not find it easy to shape their unruly tongues; for the Briton is fully persuaded in the background of his mind that he belongs to an imperial race and is born to be a ruler, that every man will sooner or later have to speak his language, and that it is undignified to condescend to French. The Briton is pleased to know that foreign nations have some means of communication between themselves--as, indeed, the lower animals have, if you go into the matter; but since the Almighty has put an English (or Scots) tongue in his mouth, it would be flying in the face of Providence not to use it. It is, however, an excellent thing to have the graduates, and the trim class-room, and the tables of the foreign verbs upon the wall, and the conversation classes--Speug at a conversation class!--and all the rest of it; but, oh! the days of long ago--and Moossy!

Like our only other foreigner, the Count, Moossy was a nameless man, for although it must have been printed on the board in the vestibule of the school, which had a list of masters and of classes, no one can now hint at Moossy's baptismal name, nor even suggest his surname. The name of the Count had been sunk in the nobility which we conferred upon him, and which was the tribute of our respectful admiration, but "Moossy" was a term of good-humoured contempt. We were only Scots lads of a provincial town, and knew nothing of the outside world; but yet, with the instincts of a race of Chieftains and Clansmen, we distinguished in our minds between our two foreigners and placed them far apart. No doubt the Count was womanish in his dress, and had fantastic manners, but we knew he was a gallant gentleman, who was afraid of nobody and was always ready to serve his friends; he was _débonnaire_, and counted himself the equal of anyone in Muirtown, but Moossy was little better than an abject. He was a little man, to begin with, and had made himself small by stooping till his head had sunk upon his chest and his shoulders had risen to his ears; his hair fell over the collar of his coat behind, and his ill-dressed beard hid any shirt he wore; his hands and face showed only the slightest acquaintance with soap and water, and although Speug was not always careful in his own personal ablutions, and more than once had been sent down to the lade by Bulldog to wash himself, yet Speug had a healthy contempt for a dirty master. Moossy's clothes, it was believed, had not been renewed since he came to the Seminary, and the cloak which he wore on a winter day was a scandal to the town. His feet were large and flat, and his knees touched as the one passed the other, and the Seminary was honestly ashamed at the sight of him shambling across the North Meadow. He looked so mean, so ill put together, so shabby, so dirty, that the very "Pennies" hooted at him and flung him in our faces. The Rector was also careless of his dress, and mooned along the road, but then everybody knew that he was a mighty scholar, and that if you woke him from his meditation he would answer you in Greek; but even Speug understood that Moossy was not a scholar. The story drifted about through Muirtown, and filtered down to the boys, that he was a bankrupt tradesman who had fled from some little German town and landed in Muirtown, and that because he could speak a little English, and a little French, as German tradesmen can, he had been appointed by an undiscriminating Town Council to teach foreign tongues at the Seminary. It is certain he had very little education and no confidence in himself, and so he was ever cringing to the bailies, which did him no injury, for these great men regarded themselves as beings bordering on the supernatural; and he was ever deferring and giving in to the boys, which was the maddest thing that any master could do, and only confirmed every boy in his judgment that Moossy was one of the most miserable of God's creatures.

His classes met in the afternoon, and were regarded as a pleasant relaxation after the labours of the day, and to escape from the government of Bulldog to the genial freedom of Moossy's room proved, as we felt in a vague way, that Providence had a tender heart towards the wants and enjoyments of boys. It goes without saying that no work was done, for there were only half a dozen who had any desire to work, and they were not allowed, in justice to themselves and to their fellows, to waste the mercies which had been provided. Upon Bulldog's suggestion, Moossy once provided himself with a cane, but it failed in his hands the first time he tried to use it, which was not at all wonderful, as Jock Howieson, who did not approve of canes, and regarded them as an invention of the Evil One, had doctored Moossy's cane with a horse-hair, so that it split into two at a stroke, and one piece flying back struck Moossy on the face.

"That'll learn him to be meddling with canes. It's plenty that Bulldog has a cane, without yon meeserable wretch"; and that was the last effort which Moossy made to exercise discipline.

Every afternoon he made a pitiable appeal that the boys would behave and learn their verbs. For about ten minutes there was quietness, and then, at the sight of Thomas John, sitting at the head of his form and working diligently upon a French translation, which he could do better than Moossy himself, Speug would make a signal to the form, and, leading off from the foot himself, the form would give one quick, unanimous, and masterful push, and Thomas John next instant was sitting on the floor; while if, by any possibility, they could land all his books on him as he lay, and baptise him out of his own ink-bottle, the form was happy and called in their friends of other forms to rejoice with them. Moossy, at the noise of Thomas John's falling, would hurry over and inquire the cause, that a boy so exemplary and diligent should be sitting on the floor with the remains of his work around him; and as Thomas John knew that it would be worth his life to tell the reason, Moossy and he pretended to regard it as one of the unavoidable accidents of life, and after Thomas John had been restored to his place, and the ink wiped off his clothes, Moossy exhorted the form to quietness and diligence. He knew what had happened, and would have been fit for a lunatic asylum if he had not; and we knew that he knew, and we all despised him for his cowardice. Had there been enough spirit in Moossy to go for Speug (just as Bulldog would have done), and thrash him there and then as he sat in his seat, brazen and unashamed, we would all have respected Moossy, and no one more than Speug, to whom all fresh exploits would have had a new relish. But Moossy was a broken-spirited man, in whom there was no fight, who held a post he was not fit for, and held it to get a poor living for himself and one who was dearer to him than his own life. So helpless was he, and so timid, that there were times when the boys grew weary of their teasing and disorder, and condescended to repeat a verb in order to pass the time.

When the spring was in their blood--for, like all young animals, they felt its stirring--then there were wonderful scenes in Moossy's class-room. He dared not stand in those days between two forms, with his face to the one and his back to the other, because of the elastic catapults and the sharp little paper bullets, which, in spite of his long hair, would always find out his ears; and if he turned round to face the battery, the other form promptly unmasked theirs, and between the two he was driven to the end of the room; and then, in his very presence, without a pretence of concealment, the two forms would settle their differences, while, in guttural and uncultured German, Moossy prayed for peace. Times there were, I am sorry to say, when at the sting of the bullet Moossy said bad words, and although they were in German, the boys knew that it was swearing, and Speug's voice would be loudest in horror.

"Mercy on us, lads! this is awful language to hear in the Seminary! If the Town Council gets word of this, there'll be a fine stramish. For masel'," Speug would conclude piously, "I'm perfectly ashamed." And as that accomplished young gentleman had acquired in the stables a wealth of profanity which was the amazement of the school, his protest had all the more weight. Poor Moossy would apologise for what he had said, and beseech the school neither to say it themselves nor to tell what they had heard; and for days afterwards Speug would be warning Thomas John that if he, Speug--censor of morals--caught him cursing and swearing like Moossy, he would duck him in the lake, and afterwards bring him before the Lord Provost and magistrates.

There was no end to the devices of the Seminary for enjoying themselves and tormenting Moossy; and had it not been for Nestie, who had some reserves of taste, the fun would have been much more curious. As it was, Moossy never knew when he might not light upon a frog, till it seemed as if the class-room for modern languages were the chosen home for the reptiles of the district. One morning, when he opened his desk, a lively young Scots terrier puppy sprang up to welcome him, and nearly frightened Moossy out of such wits as he possessed. He had learned to open the door of his class-room cautiously, not knowing whether a German Dictionary might not be ingeniously poised to fall upon his head. His ink-bottle would be curiously attached to his French Grammar, so that when he lifted the book the bottle followed it and sent the spray of ink over his person, adding a new distinction of dirtiness to his coat. Boys going up to write on the blackboard, where they never wrote anything but nonsense, would work symbols with light and rapid touch upon the back of Moossy's coat as they returned; and if one after the other, adding to the work of art, could draw what was supposed to be a human face upon Moossy, the class was satisfied it had not lost the hour. There were times when Moossy felt the hand even on the looseness of that foolish coat, and turned suddenly; but there was no shaking the brazen impudence of Muirtown, and Moossy, looking into the stolid and unintelligent expression of Howieson's face, thought that he had been mistaken. If one boy was set up to do a verb, the form, reading from their books and pronouncing on a principal of their own, would do the verb with him and continue in a loud and sonorous song, till Moossy had to stop them one by one, and then they were full of indignation at being hindered in their studies of the German language.

Moossy was afraid to complain to the Rector, lest his own incompetence should be exposed and his bread be taken from him; and of this the boys, with the unerring cunning of savages, were perfectly aware, and the torture might have gone on for years had it not been for the intervention of Bulldog and a certain incident. As the French class-room was above the mathematical, any special disturbance could be heard in the quietness below; and whatever else they did, the students of foreign languages were careful not to invite the attention of Bulldog. Indeed, the one check upon the freedom of Moossy's room was the danger of Bulldog's arrival, who was engaged that hour with the little boys and had ample leisure of mind to take note of any outrageous noise above, and for want of occupation was itching to get at old friends like Howieson. There are times, however, when even a savage forgets himself, and one spring day the saturnalia in Moossy's room reached an historical height. It had been discovered that any dislike which Moossy may have had to a puppy in his desk, and a frog in his top-cloak pocket, was nothing to the horror with which he regarded mice. As soon as it was known that Moossy would as soon have had a tiger in the French class-room as a mouse upon the loose, it was felt that the study of foreign languages should take a new departure. One morning the boys came in with such punctuality, and settled to their work with such demure diligence, that even Moossy was suspicious and watched them anxiously. For ten minutes there was nothing heard but the drone of the class mangling German sentences, and then Howieson cried aloud in consternation, "A mouse!"

"Vat ees that you say? Ah! mices! vere?" and Moossy was much shaken.

"Yonder," said Speug, pointing to where a mouse was just disappearing under the desk; "and there's another at the fireplace. Dod, the place is fair swarming, and, Moossy, there's one trying to run up your leg. Take care, man, for ony sake."

"A mices," cried Moossy, "vill up my legs go; I vill the desk ascend," and with the aid of a chair Moossy scrambled on to his desk, where he entrenched himself against attack, believing that at that height he would be safe from "mices."

Speug suggested that as this plague of mice had burst upon the French class-room the scholars should meet the calamity like men, and asked Moossy's permission to go out upon the chase. For once Moossy and his pupils had one mind, and the school gave itself to its heart's content, and without a thought of consequences, to a mouse hunt. Nothing is more difficult than to catch a mouse, and the difficulty is doubled when no one wishes to catch it; and so the school fell over benches, and over one another, and jumped over the desks and scrambled under them, ever pretending to have caught a mouse, and really succeeding once in smothering an unfortunate animal beneath the weight of half a dozen boys. Thomas John was early smeared with ink from top to bottom by an accident in which Howieson took a leading part, and the German Dictionary intended for a mouse happened to take Cosh on the way, which led to an encounter between that indignant youth and Bauldie, in which mice were forgotten. The blackboard was brought down with a crash, and a form was securely planted on its ruins. High above the babel Moossy could be heard crying encouragement, and demanding whether the "mices" had been caught, but nothing would induce him to come down from his fastness. When things were at their highest, and gay spirits like Speug were beginning to conclude that even a big snow fight was nothing to a mouse hunt, and Howieson had been so lifted that he had mounted a desk, not to catch a mouse, but to give a cheer, and was standing there without collar or tie, dishevelled, triumphant, and raised above all the trials of life, the door opened and Bulldog entered. And it was a beautiful tribute to the personality of that excellent man, that the whole room crystallised in an instant, and everyone remained motionless, frozen, as it were, in the act.

Bulldog looked round with that calm composure which sat so well upon him, taking in Moossy perched upon his desk, Howieson on his form, Speug sitting with easy dignity on the top of Thomas John, and half a dozen worthies still tied together in a scrimmage, as if this were a sight to which he was accustomed every day in Muirtown Seminary.

"Foreign languages," he began, after a pause of ten seconds, "is evidently a verra divertin' subject of study, and I wonder that any pupil is left in the department of mathematics. I was not aware, Jock, that ye needed to stand on a form before you could do your German, and I suppose that is the French class in the corner. I'm sorry to intrude, but I'm pleased to see a class in earnest about its work, I really am."