Chapter 4

"Peter McGuffie, ye're aye meddlin' wi' what doesna concern ye, and ye seem to think that Providence gave Nestie into yir chairge. One day ye pull him oot o' the river, and anither ye take him oot o' the hands o' Robert Cosh. But ye've done your wark sae neatly this time that I havena the heart to thrash ye. Ye may go to your seat, too; and, Peter, ma man, just one word of advice. Yir head is thick, but yir heart is richt; see that ye always use yir fists as well as ye did that day.

"Robert Cosh, ye've had a fair trial, and ye have been convicted of three heinous sins. First, ye miscalled a good man--for that three strokes with the cane; next, ye ill-used the quietest laddie in the whole school--for that three strokes; and, lastly, being moved of the devil, ye went home and told lies to a magistrate--for that six strokes. Three on each hand to-day and to-morrow will just settle the count. Right hand first."

"Mr. MacKinnon, I protest...."

"What?" and Bulldog turned on the magistrate; "would ye interfere with the course o' justice in another man's jureesdiction, and you a magistrate?" And Bulldog's eyes began to rotate in a fearsome manner.

The Bailie allowed it to be understood that he had changed his mind, and Robert, who had expected great things from the magistrate's protection, abandoned himself to despair and walked humbly for many days to come.

Next day Nestie was not in his place, and Bulldog, growing uneasy, called on his way home.

"Aye, aye," and the landlady's voice sank into the minor key of Scots sympathy, "Maister Mollynoox (for such an outlandish name was ever a trial) is far through wi't; the doctor says he never had much to come an' go on, and noo this whup o' inflammation is the feenish.

"The doctor doesna expect him to see mornin', an' he's verra sober (weak); but his head's clear, an' the laddie's wi' him. Ma hert is wae (sorry) for him, for the twa hev been that bund up thegither that a'm dootin' Nestie 'ill never get ower the pairtin'."

The gentle little minister was not far from his end, and Nestie was nursing him as best he could. He sponged his father's face--threatening to let the soap get into his eyes if he were not obedient--and dried it with a soft towel; then he brushed the soft, thin brown hair slowly and caressingly, as he had often done on Sundays when his father was weary. Turning round, he saw Bulldog, and instead of being afraid, Nestie smiled a pathetic welcome, which showed either what a poor actor the master was, with all his canings, or that his English scholar was a very shrewd little man.

"Th-thank you f-for coming to see father, sir; he was n-naughty and got cold, and he has been so ill; but he must get better, for you know there are ... just the two of us, and ... I would be ... lonely without the pater."

"Nestie does not wish to part with me, Mr. MacKinnon, for we h-have been ... dear friends, that's how it was, and we loved ... mother; but he is a ... brave little man, as you know, and mother and I will not forget him ... you came to ask for Nestie, and it was God's will, for I h-have a f-favour to ask of you."

Bulldog went over and sat down by the bed, but said nothing. Only he took the minister's hand in his and waited. He also put his other arm round Nestie, and never did he look fiercer.

"I have no relatives, and his m-mother's family are all dead; there is nobody to be g-guardian to Nestie, and he cannot live alone. C-could you get some family who would be ... where he might be at ... h-home?

"You know we are not rich, but we've s-saved a little, for Nestie is a famous little house-k-keeper; and maybe there's enough to keep him ... till he grows big; and I'll give you the receipt at the bank, and you'll ... manage for him, won't you?"

Bulldog cleared his throat to speak, but could not find his voice--for a wonder, but his hand tightened on the minister's, and he drew Nestie nearer to him.

"Of course, Mr. MacKinnon, I know that we have no c-claim on you, for we are strangers in Muirtown, and you ... have many boys. But you've been kind to Nestie, and he ... loves you."

The minister stopped, breathless, and closed his eyes.

"Mr. Molyneux," began Bulldog in a stern voice, "I'm willing to manage Nestie's estate, big or small, and I'll give an account of all intromissions to the Court, but I must decline to look out a home for Nestie.

"Nestie and me" (bad grammar has its uses, and some of them are very comforting) "are good freends. My house has just an auld schoolmaster and an housekeeper in it, and whiles we would like to hear a young voice."

Bulldog paused and then went on, his voice sterner than ever--in sound.

"Now Bell's bark is worse than her bite, and maybe so is mine (Nestie nodded), so if the wee man wouldna be feared to live wi' ... Bulldog--oh, I know fine what the rascals call me--he 'ill have a heart welcome, and ... I'll answer to ye baith, father and mother, for yir laddie at the Day o' Judgment."

"'What shall I render ... unto the Lord ... for all His benefits?' I cannot thank you ... (the minister was now very weak); but you will not ... miss your reward. May the God of the orphan.... Kiss me, Nestie."

For a short while he slept, and they watched for any sign of consciousness.

"It was too soon"--he was speaking, but not to them--"for Nestie ... to come, Maud; he must stay ... at school. He is a good boy, and ... his master will ... take care of him ... Nestie will grow to be a man, dear."

The minister was nearing the other side, and seeing the face he loved and had lost awhile.

"It's mother," whispered Nestie, and a minute later he was weeping bitterly and clinging with all his might to the schoolmaster, who came perilously near to tears himself.

"They're together now, and ... I'll be father and mother to ye, Nestie," said Mr. Dugald MacKinnon, master of mathematics in Muirtown Seminary, and known as Bulldog to three generations of Muirtown lads.

A FAMOUS VICTORY

IV

The Seminary perfectly understood that, besides our two chief enemies, the "Pennies" and McIntyres, there were, in the holes and corners of the town, obscure schools where little companies of boys got some kind of education and were not quite devoid of proper spirit. During a really respectable snow-storm--which lasted for a month and gave us an opportunity of bringing affairs to a temporary settlement with our rivals, so that the town of Muirtown was our own for the next seven days--a scouting party from the Seminary in search of adventures had an encounter with a Free Kirk school, which was much enjoyed and spoken about for weeks beside the big fire. Speug began, indeed, to lay out a permanent campaign by which the boys going home southwards could look in from time to time on the Free Kirkers, and he indicated his willingness to take charge of the operation. It was also said that an Episcopal or Papist school--we made no subtile direct distinctions at the Seminary--in the northern district might afford some sport, and the leadership in this case was to be left to Duncan Robertson, the other captain of the commonwealth. Snow did not last the whole year round even in a Scots town; but it was wonderful what could be done in summer by the use of book-bags, well stuffed out with Cæsar and Lennie's English Grammar, and at the worst there always remained our fists. The pleasure of planning these forays is still a grateful recollection, for it seemed to us that by spreading our forces we might have perpetual warfare from January to December and over the length and breadth of the town, so that no one would be compelled to return to his home of an evening without the hope of a battle, and every street of the town would be distinguished by conflict. Nothing came, however, of those spirited enterprises that year, because our two rivals, laying aside their mutual quarrels, which, we understood, were very bitter, and entering into a covenant of falsehood--their lying filled us with holy indignation--attacked us front and rear while we were having an innocent game of Russians and English on the North Meadow. Although taken unawares and poorly provided with weapons we made a good fight; but in the end we were scattered so completely that Speug never reached the school again that day, for which he was thrashed by Bulldog next morning, and Dunc came in with a front tooth gone and one black eye, for which he was soundly thrashed at once.

During all that summer we denounced the amazing meanness of the other side, and turned over plans for splitting the alliance, so that we might deal with each power separately and finally. Speug even conducted a negotiation--watchfully and across the street, for the treachery of the other side was beyond description--and tried to come to terms with the representative of our least hated opponent. He even thought, and Peter was not guileless, that he had secured their neutrality, when they suddenly burst forth into opprobrious language, being a very vulgar school indeed, and exposed Peter's designs openly. His feelings were not much hurt by the talk, in which, indeed, he scored an easy victory after he had abandoned negotiation and had settled down to vituperation, but Seminary boys whose homeward route took them past the hostile territories had to be careful all that summer. It was, indeed, a time of bitter humiliation to the premier school of Muirtown, and might have finally broken its spirit had it not have been for the historical battle in the beginning of November, when McGuffie and Robertson led us to victory, and the power of the allies was smashed for years. So great, indeed, was their defeat that in early spring Peter has been known to withdraw himself from marbles in the height of the season and of his own personal profit, for the simple purpose of promenading through the enemies' sphere of influence alone and flinging words of gross insult in at their gates.

One of the schools must have been a charity for the education of poor lads, since it was known to us as the "Penny School," and it was a familiar cry ringing through the yard of the Seminary, "The Pennies are coming!" when we promptly turned out to give them the welcome which, to do them justice, they ardently desired. Whether this was a penny a week or a penny a month we did not know, or whether, indeed, they paid a penny at all, but it pleased us to give this name, and it soon passed beyond the stage of correction. Our enemies came at last to wear it proudly, like many other people who have been called by nicknames and turned the nickname into an honour, for they would follow up a particularly telling snowball with the cry, "There's a penny for ye!" They were sturdy varlets, quite indifferent as to boots and stockings, and equally so as to blows. Through their very regardlessness the Pennies would have been apt to rout the Seminary--whose boys had given pledges to respectability, and who had to answer searching questions as to their personal appearance every evening--had it not been for stalwarts like McGuffie, whose father, being a horsedealer, did not apply an over strict standard of judgment to his son's manners or exploits, and Robertson, who lived in lodgings and, being a soldier's son, was supposed to be in a state of discipline for the Army.

Our feeling towards the Pennies was hardly cordial, but it was as nothing to our hatred of McIntyre's school, which called itself an academy, and had a Latin master and held examinations and affected social equality with the Seminary. Everyone knew that the Seminary had existed in the time of Queen Mary, and some said went back to the days of William Wallace, although we had some doubts as to whether the present building was then in existence. Everyone also knew that McIntyre's whole concern belonged to himself, and that he collected the fees in every class on Friday morning, that he took home what was over after paying his assistants, and that butcher meat for the McIntyre family next week depended on the result. McIntyre drew his supplies from the small tradesmen, and a Seminary lad, going in to get a new pair of boots at Meiklewham's would have a fine sense of pride in being measured by an old opponent whose face had often looked out on him from the mist of battle. This pretentious and windy institution even attempted the absurdity of a yearly prizegiving, when, instead of the Provost sitting in state and glaring before him with a Horace in his hands upside down, McIntyre's minister would hold forth on diligence and tidiness and courtesy and such like contemptible virtues. Had a Seminary boy been offered the painful choice, he would almost as soon have gone to the Pennies as to McIntyre, for in that case he had not been an impostor and a fraud.

For a week the weather had been hovering on frost, and on Wednesday afternoon the snow began to fall with that quiet and steady downpour which means a lasting storm. Speug went home in great spirits, declaring to an admiring circle of junior boys that if Providence were kind and the snow continued there would be something worth living for at the dinner hour on Friday. As the snowball war was a serious affair, and was conducted after a scientific fashion, it never commenced until there was a good body of snow upon the ground and pure snow could be gathered up without earth and stones. The unpardonable sin of our warfare was slipping a stone into a snowball: this was the same as poisoning the wells, and the miscreant who perpetrated this crime was cast out from every school. There was a general understanding between parties that the mercies were not to be wasted, and that the schools were to refrain themselves until there was a fair and lasting supply of ammunition. It was still snowing on Thursday morning, and there were some who said that war might now be declared; and Jock Howieson, ever a daring and rash spirit, declared we should repent it if we were not ready against one o'clock. Speug and Dunc were however of opinion that nothing was likely to take place that day except desultory skirmishes, and that the whole day ought to be spent in accumulating a store of snowballs against Friday, when there was no question that we should have to face the united schools in a decisive battle. This was the only instance where our captains ever made a mistake, and they atoned for their error of judgment by the valour and skill with which they retrieved what seemed a hopeless defeat.

As the hours wore on to one o'clock Speug could be seen glancing anxiously out at the window, and he secured an opportunity with Dunc for a hasty conference during the geometry lesson. About a quarter to one he turned from his slate and cocked his ear, and in two minutes afterwards every boy in Bulldog's class-room understood that the war had begun and that we had been taken by surprise. Scouts from McIntyre's, as we afterwards learned, had risked the danger of playing truant, which in a school like theirs cost nothing, and had visited our playground. They had carried back news that we were not yet prepared for battle, and our firm opinion was that the authorities of Penny's and McIntyre's had allowed their schools out at half-past twelve, in order to take us at a disadvantage. Before the bell rang and the senior classes were dismissed the Seminary knew that our enemies had seized the field of battle, but we did not know until we came out the extent of the disaster.

The Pennies had come down the back street and had established themselves opposite the narrow entrance between two sheds through which three only could walk abreast from our playground to the street. They had also sent a daring body of their lighter and more agile lads to the top of the sheds which separated our playground from the street, and they had conveyed down an enormous store of ammunition, so that the courtyard was absolutely at their mercy, and anyone emerging from the corridor was received with a shower of well-made and hard snowballs against which there was no standing. Even if we ran this risk and crossed the open space we could then be raked by the fire from the shed, and a charge through the narrow passage to the street would be in the last degree hazardous. There were twelve feet of passage, and there were not many who would care to face a stream of snowballs driven by the vigorous hands of the Pennies down this passage as through a pipe. Instead of meeting our enemies on the street, we had been penned up within our own school. McIntyre's had come down the terrace and seized an excellent position behind two Russian guns which stood opposite our school and about twenty feet from our front entrance. They had made these guns into a kind of fort, from behind whose shelter, reinforced by a slight barricade of jackets, they commanded our entrance, and had driven in the first boys who emerged, in hopeless discomfiture. It came upon us that we had been shut up back and front, and shut up with the poorest supply of snowballs and very little snow with which to repair our resources.

While the younger boys raged and stormed in the safety of the corridors, Dunc and Speug retired for consultation. In two minutes they came out and gave their orders to the mass of boys gathered together round the "well" and in the "well," and on the stairs and along the corridors. It was at this moment that Nestie Molyneux obtained a name which he covered with glory before the close of the day. As he had no class between twelve and one, he had been observing events, and with the aid of two or three other little boys had done what he could to repair the neglect of yesterday. In spite of a rain of snowballs he had availed himself of a sheltered corner in the playground and had worked without ceasing at the preparation of the balls. Every ball as it was made was dipped into a pail of water and then, half frozen, was laid in a corner where it was soon frozen altogether. "There'll be the feck o' two hundred balls ready. Ma certes! Nestie has a head on his shoulders. Now," said Speug, speaking from halfway up the stair, "we'll start with thae balls for a beginnin', and wi' them we'll fecht our way out to the open. As soon as we've cleared the background every ane o' the two junior classes is to mak' balls as hard as he can lick and bring them forward to the fighting line.

"We'll divide the senior school into three divisions; Dunc will take thirty of ye and drive McIntyre frae the guns and along the terrace till ye turn them into Breadalbane Street. Thirty o' ye--and I want nae Dowbiggins--'ll come with me, and we'll bring the Pennies aff the shed quicker than they got up, and drive them up the back streets till we land them wi' the rest in Breadalbane Street; and the juniors 'ill keep us well supplied with balls, else Dunc and me will ken the reason at two o'clock.

"Jock Howieson, ye're to tak' thirty swank fellows that can run and are no 'feart to be left alane. Ye'll rin round by the North Street and the Cathedral and come down the top of Breadalbane Street till ye cut off McIntyre's and the Pennies frae their schools. Dae nothin' till ye see Dunc and me drivin' the lot up Breadalbane Street, then come down from the back end of them wi' all your might, and I'm thinkin' they'll be wanting to be inside their ain yard afore a' be done."

Dunc assembled his corps inside the front porch, each boy supplied with two balls and with twenty youngsters behind bringing up more. McIntyre's balls were falling on the front wall and coming in through the porch. One of them struck Dunc on the side of the head, but he forbade any return fire.

"They're wastin' their balls," he said; "it'll be the better for us"; and then, looking round, "Are ye ready? Charge!" and shouting "Seminary! Seminary!" he led his division across the terrace and fell upon McIntyre's behind the guns. It was a short, sharp scrimmage, during which Dunc levelled the leader of McIntyre's, and then the enemy began to retreat slowly down the terrace, with many a hand-to-hand encounter and scuffle on the snow. As soon as Dunc's division had cleared the front, Jock Howieson collected his lads and started along the terrace in the opposite direction at a sharp run, carrying no balls, for they intended to make them on the scene of operation. When the other two divisions were off, Speug addressed his faithful band. "MacFarlane, take six birkies, climb up the waterspout, and clean the richt-hand shed, couping the Pennies into the street. Mackenzie, ye're no bad at the fightin'; tak' anither sax and empty the roof o' the left-hand shed, and 'gin ye can clout that Penny that's sittin' on the riggin' it'll teach him to keep in the street next day.

"Noo, that leaves eighteen, and me and Bauldie and Jamie Johnston 'ill lead ye down the passage. We'll need six balls each, as hard as ye mak' 'em, and the rest o' ye tak' two in yir arms and one in yir hand. Pit yir bonnits in yir pocket--they'll no be muckle use--button yir jackets, and when the three o' us gae down the passage for ony sake follow close in behind. Just ae thing more," said Speug, who was in his glory that day. "I'll need a laddie to keep me gaein' with balls, and I want a laddie that has some spunk, for he'll hae a rough time." Below thirty of the junior school were waiting and looking at Speug like dogs for a biscuit. He threw his eye over the group, any one of which would have given his best knife and all his marbles, and thrown in a cricket bat and his last kite, to have been chosen.

"Nestie," said Speug, "ye're little and ye're white and ye're terrible polite, but there's a sperit in ye. Ye'll carry ma balls this day, and noo, you juniors, aff to the ball-making, and see that Nestie's bonnet's well filled, and there's no any of us wanting for a ball when we drive the Pennies down the back road." Then Speug moved to the back corridor and arranged his division, with Nestie behind him, and Bauldie and Jamie Johnston on the right hand and on the left, Mackenzie's and MacFarlane's detachments close behind, who were to turn off to the right hand and the left as they emerged from the corridor; the rest were to follow Speug through the passage of danger. Speug took two balls and placed them in the hollow of his left arm, feeling them carefully to see that they would leave a mark when they struck a Penny. The third he took in his right hand, and Nestie had the reserve.

"Noo," he said, "gin anybody be feared he'd better gae in and sit doun beside the fire with the Dowbiggins," and since nobody responded to this genial invitation Speug gave one shout of "Seminary!" and in a minute was across the playground and at the mouth of the passage, while Mackenzie and MacFarlane were already scrambling up the walls of the sheds. Covering his face with his left arm and sending his first ball direct into the face of the foremost Penny, and following it up with a second and a third driven with unerring aim and the force of a catapolt, and receiving anything from twelve to twenty balls between him and Bauldie and Johnston, the three led the way down the passage, Nestie close behind Speug and handing him a new supply of balls. They met at the outer end of the passage--the Pennies and Speug's lot--and for about thirty seconds they swayed in one mass of struggling, fighting, shouting boy life, and then, so steady was the play of Speug's fists, so able the assistance of the other two, so strong the pressure from behind, and so rapid the shower of balls sent over Speug's head among the Pennies, the Pennies gave way and Speug and his band burst into the back street, the leader with his jacket torn off his back, and his face bearing the scars of conflict, but full of might, and Nestie with the balls behind him.