John Dobert [pp. 560-566]

y7OHN DOBERT.
er choked down; so the three knelt while
the mother prayed, in her simple, honest
fashion of the kirk, for such consolation
and support as they all needed. Too
sacred a scene, too intense an emotion
to be described further. Over the two
younger hearts broke as it were fathoms
deep this first great wave of sorrow since
their father's death. It was their first
parting, even for a day.
Then the lad caught up his books,
lifted the latch, and was gone, walking
fast toward Graypool. Walking fast,
for he had four miles to go, and it was a
quarter to seven by his father's old silver watch-removed once and forever
from his mother's girdle, and now feeling so queerly in the left-side pocket of
his vest-and school began at eight.
Early spring it was as well as early
morning, and the white blossoms of the
tall white-thorn hedges, each side of the
narrow road, glittered with dew and filled all the air with a familiar sweetness,
varied here and there by the languid but
powerful odor of great patches of woodbine. From time to time, red or blackbilled blackbirds shot out with a familiar clucking whir, flying straight and low
for a few perches, and then turning a
somersault over the hedge again, as if
from some aerial spring-board; while
thrushes in the tall ashl-trees piped away
in the most persistent manner, as if calling attention to the wonderful phenomenon of John Dobert walking off in such a
strange fashion, without his sister Jane.
The four miles seemed a mere nothing
to John that morning, and he entered
the door of the Royal Graypool Grammar-school only two minutes late. His
mother had already seen the head-master, Mr. Andrew Roman, or Lame Andy,
as he was familiarly though very secretly surnamed by his pupils-and after
half a dozen hurried questions, that awful dignitary stationed John at the foot
of a large class of boys, whom the lame
one was indoctrinating into the mystery
of certain Greek verbs ending in mi.
Now a course of study of the humanities, begun by his father and earnestly
kept up by John until that present moment, had made him, if not as accurately
and intimately acquainted with the principal authors of Greek and Latin classics as his teacher, at least a far more
widely read and appreciative scholar
than that individual. This stood him
now in good stead; and whereas the
whizzing cane of the redoubtable Andy,
as was the fashion of those days, left a
mournful wake of weals in its passage
down the class, it soon triumphantly
beckoned John to the uppermost place
there. A flush of pride mounted to our
hero's brow, and as the appreciative master pushed farther and farther into his
examination, passing from point to point
and from difficulty to difficulty of the
grammar, invading at last even the sacred mysteries of the digamma, his enthusiasm knew no bounds. "My bairn,"
he said, laying his left hand warmly on
the boy's shoulder, and shaking the awful cane in his right, "you are and will
be a credit to my school, while those
young idlers are nothing but a vexation
and a disgrace" -which vexation and
disgrace he then proceeded to wipe out
with such a tremendous application of
the bamboo as made that day corporally memorable for weeks in the black calendar of the youth of Graypool.
Noon came, almost too swiftly for
anybody to notice it, what with pleasure
and what with pain; and with it "recess for half an hour." But the delighted pedagogue kept his new scholar in,
talking to him, that he might still further assure himself of the accomplishments of his prodigy. The interview
was entirely to the satisfaction of both;
but when, at half-past twelve, the pupils
trooped in again, the black looks that
were bent on our poor John somewhat
disconcerted him. To the offensive and
significant gestures of a certain fair-hair
I874.]
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