Old Donald drew forth his pipe, a pleased expectation upon his face, and after cutting enough tobacco from the black plug which he pulled from his trousers pocket, he rolled it fine, with deliberation, and packed it carefully into his briar-root pipe, from which dangled a tin cap; then drawing out some live coals from the fire, he with a quick motion picked one up, set it upon the top of the tobacco, and holding it there with his bare finger until Hughie was sure he would burn himself, puffed with hard, smacking puffs, but with a more comfortable expression than Hughie had yet seen him wear. Then, when it was fairly lit, he knocked off the coal, packed down the tobacco, put on the little tin cap, and sat back in his covered arm-chair, and came as near beaming upon the world as ever he allowed himself to come.
"Here, Jessac," he said to the little dark-faced maiden slipping about the table under the mother's silent direction. Jessac glanced at her mother and hesitated. Then, apparently reading her mother's face, she said, "In a minute, da," and seizing the broom, which was much taller than herself, she began to brush up the crumbs about the table with amazing deftness. This task completed, and the crumbs being thrown into the pig's barrel which stood in the woodshed just outside the door, Jessac set her broom in the corner, hung up the dust-pan on its proper nail behind the stove, and then, running to her father, climbed up on his knee and snuggled down into his arms for an hour's luxurious laziness before the fire. Hughie gazed in amazement at her temerity, for Donald Finch was not a man to take liberties with; but as he gazed, he wondered the more, for again the face of the stern old man was transformed.
"Be quaet now, lassie. Hear me now, I am telling you," he admonished the little girl in his arms, while there flowed over his face a look of half-shamed delight that seemed to fill up and smooth out all its severe lines.
Hughie was still gazing and wondering when the old man, catching his earnest, wide-open gaze, broke forth suddenly, in a voice nearly jovial, "Well, lad, so you have taken up the school again.
You will be having a fine time of it altogether."The lad, startled more by the joviality of his manner than by the suddenness of his speech, hastily replied, "Indeed, we are not, then.""What! what!" replied the old man, returning to his normal aspect of severity. "Do you not know that you have great privileges now?""Huh!" grunted Hughie. "If we had Archie Munro again.""And what is wrong with the new man?""Oh, I don't know. He's not a bit nice. He's--""Too many rules," said Thomas, slowly.
"Aha!" said his father, with a note of triumph in his tone; "so that's it, is it? He will be bringing you to the mark, I warrant you. And indeed it's high time, for I doubt Archie Munro was just a little soft with you."The old man's tone was aggravating enough, but his reference to the old master was too much for Hughie, and even Thomas was moved to words more than was his wont in his father's presence.
"He has too many rules," repeated Thomas, stolidly, "and they will not be kept.""And he is as proud as he can be," continued Hughie. "Comes along with his cane and his stand-up collar, and lifts his hat off to the big girls, and--and--och! he's just as stuck-up as anything!"Hughie's vocabulary was not equal to his contempt.
"There will not be much wrong with his cane in the Twentieth School, I dare say," went on the old man, grimly. "As for lifting his hat, it is time some of them were learning manners. When I was a boy we were made to mind our manners, I can tell you.""So are we!" replied Hughie, hotly; "but we don't go shoween off like that! And then himself and his rules!" Hughie's disgust was quite unutterable.
"Rules!" exclaimed the old man. "Ay, that is what is the trouble.""Well," said Hughie, with a spice of mischief, "if Thomas is late for school he will have to bring a note of excuse.""Very good indeed. And why should he be late at all?""And if any one wants a pencil he can't ask for it unless he gets permission from the master.""Capital!" said the old man, rubbing his hands delightedly. "He's the right sort, whatever.""And if you keep Thomas home a day or a week, you will have to write to the master about it," continued Hughie.
"And what for, pray?" said the old man, hastily. "May I not keep--but-- Yes, that's a very fine rule, too. It will keep the boys from the woods, I am thinking.""But think of big Murdie Cameron holding up his hand to ask leave to speak to Bob Fraser!""And why not indeed? If he's not too big to be in school he's not too big for that. Man alive! you should have seen the master in my school days lay the lads over the forms and warm their backs to them.""As big as Murdie?""Ay, and bigger. And what's more, he would send for them to their homes, and bring them strapped to a wheel-barrow. Yon was a master for you!"Hughie snorted. "Huh! I tell you what, we wouldn't stand that.
And we won't stand this man either."
"And what will you be doing now, Hughie?" quizzed the old man.
"Well," said Hughie, reddening at the sarcasm, "I will not do much, but the big boys will just carry him out.""And who will be daring to do that, Hughie?""Well, Murdie, and Bob Fraser, and Curly Ross, and Don, and--and Thomas, there," added Hughie, fearing to hurt Thomas' feelings by leaving him out.
"Ay," said the old man, shutting his lips tight on his pipestem and puffing with a smacking noise, "let me catch Thomas at that!""And I would help, too," said Hughie, valiantly, fearing he had exposed his friend, and wishing to share his danger.
"Well, your father would be seeing to that," said the old man, with great satisfaction, feeling that Hughie's discipline might be safely left in the minister's hands.
There was a pause of a few moments, and then a quiet voice inquired gently, "He will be a very big man, Hughie, I suppose.""Oh, just ordinary," said Hughie, innocently, turning to Mrs.
Finch.
