"But, damn it all, the chap earned a bob!"
"He didn't; all he earned was your gratitude. The boy was doing a decent kindly thing for its own sake, and you want to shove a vulgar tip into his hand. If I had come along in a Rolls-Royce car and given you a lift, would you have offered to reward me? What's wrong with you southerners is that you always think in classes; your tipping isn't kindness; you tip to save your self-respect; you are afraid that any man of the lower orders should think you mean. The Scot is not as a rule hampered by class distinctions, and he often refuses to tip because he hates to insult a man. You Londoners put it down to meanness, but I would have felt myself the meanest of low cads if I had tipped that ploughboy. Scotland is comparatively free from the rotten tipping habit. A few gamekeepers get tips from English sporting gentlemen, and a few porters get tips from English travellers."
"You have spoilt that boy for the next unfortunate pedestrian," he said; "the next time he sees a man limping along the road he will say to himself: 'Never again!'" I knew then that he had not been listening to my argument.
If tipping is degrading to the man who tips and the man who holds out his palm, I cannot see that school prize-giving is any better. The kindly School Board members who are anxious to encourage the bairns to work for prizes have essentially the same outlook as my friend from town. I fancy that themodern interpretation of Christianity has something to do with this national desire for reward and punishment. To me the whole attitude is distasteful. Obviously I am what I am; I was born with a certain nature, and I was brought up in a certain environment. The making of my ego was a thing outside my direction altogether. To reward me in an after life for being a religious man is as unfair as to punish me for being a thief. We don't award a gold medal to an actress for being beautiful; we don't offer Shaw a peerage because he is Christlike enough to hate killing animals for sport. Shaw can no more help being humanitarian than Gladys Cooper can help being bonny. Down in the school there Ellen Smith can no more help being the best arithmetician than Dave Ramsay can help being the biggest coward.
Speaking of Dave ... when Macdonald was worrying over the allocation of prizes the other week, he asked me if Dave was good at anything.
"Well," I said, "he holds the record for spitting farther than any boy in the school; I think he deserves a prize for that. Believe me, Macdonald, every boy in the class would rather hold that record than carry off the prize for arithmetic ... and I don't blame them either."
The subject of Scots and tipping puts me in mind of what is probably the best "Scot in London" yarn.
A Scot, followed by his five children, entered the Ritz Hotel, and sat down in the lounge.
"Waiter! A bottle o' leemonade and sax tumblers!" he cried.
The waiter was too dumbfounded to do anything but bring the liquor. He stood in open-mouthed amazement as the Scot divided the bottle among the six glasses, but, when the Scot took a bag of buns from his pocket and proceeded to distribute them, the waiter set off blindly to find the manager.
The manager approached. He tapped the Scot on the shoulder, and in a stern voice he said: "Excuse me, but I'm the manager of this establishment."
The Scot looked up at him sharply.
"O, ye're the manager, are ye? Weel, why the hell's the band's no playin'?"
Macdonald had a sort of cookie shine to-night, and I was invited. The other guests were Mitchell, the assistant-manager of the railway construction department, and Willis, the head of the water department. We played Bridge, and I spent four hours of misery. I hate cards; I can't concentrate at all, and I never have the faintest idea what the man on my left has discarded. Willis and I won.
I always look upon cards as a veiled insult to guests. I want to know what a man is thinking when I meet him; on the few occasions on which I have brought out a pack of cards to entertain guests I have done so on the frank realisation that their conversation wasn't worth listening to.
Later when we sat round the fire to chat I grudged the time lost over the game. Mitchell had been for many years in India, and his stories of life there were of great interest to me. He did not theorise about India; he accepted without thought the attitude of the average Anglo-Indian ... the nigger is a beast that has to be knocked into shape; the Anglo-Indian mode of government was tip-top, couldn't be beat; asses like Keir Hardie ought never to be allowed to put their foot in India; what's wrong with India is what's wrong with theworking classes here—we give 'em too much education, make 'em discontented.
Willis was of a more intelligent type. He had been all over the world, and, although a Conservative to the backbone, he had made some study of modern problems. He had studied Socialism, thought it a fine thing, but.... "You've got to change human nature first," he said.
* * *
If I were writing a novel I should now head a chapter thus:—Chapter XXIV., in Which Macdonald and I become Brothers in Affliction.
He came up to see me to-night.
"You've put your foot in it this time," he began.
"What is it?" I cried in alarm.
"Old Brown—Violet's father—wants to slay you. His wife heard from Mrs. Wylie that you said to Wylie that he, Brown, had the intellect of a boiled rabbit."
"That's bad," I said in dismay. "The old fool was talking puerile rubbish about the wickedness of the working-classes. Wylie was there, and after Brown had gone I did make the impatient remark that he had the intellect of a boiled rabbit. But, Good Lord! I didn't want the thing to go back to his ears. How I can ever look the man in the face again I don't know."
"You should have thought of that before you spoke," said Macdonald with a smile.
"Oh," I replied, "I don't regret saying itin the least; at the time I felt it was the only thing to say. What I regret is the meanness of Wylie or his wife. Brown is a decent old chap, and I'm rather fond of him. Why the devil are people so dirty in mind, Macdonald? We all say things that we don't want carried to the person we are speaking about. I say things about you that I would hate you to hear, and I guess that you are in a similar position with regard to me. But the unpardonable social crime is to tell one man what another has said about him. It's the lowest down trick I know."
"What'll you do about it?"
"I'll go straight down to Brown and apologise for Wylie's bad taste."
"And your own!"
"Not at all. I'll tell him I've said worse things than that about him, but I'll implore him not to let them make any difference in our friendship."
"I've got a nasty little problem myself," said Macdonald. "You know that confounded committee of villagers that has charge of the Soup Kitchen Fund?"
"I do," I cried fervently.
"Well, I called a meeting for last night ... and I forgot to post Mrs. Wylie's invitation."
"Call that a nasty problem?" I cried; "my dear chap, you've raised a whirlwind and tempest combined ... and there won't be any still small voice at the end of 'em either. You've committed the Unforgivable Sin this time."
"She's in an awful wax," he continued; "says that she never was insulted like this before. She came up to-night and gave me beans ... told me that you were a perfect gentleman!"
"I took care never to omit her when I called the committee," I said modestly.
"She'll never forgive me," said Macdonald dolefully.
"Oh, yes she will ... if you play your cards well. Your game is to send a notice of the meeting to the local paper. Then commence a new paragraph thus:—The Convener, Mr. Macdonald, intimated that Mrs. Wylie's invitation to the meeting had been unintentionally overlooked, and he expressed his very earnest regret that his mistake had deprived the meeting of the always helpful advice of the injured lady.
"Publicity salves all wounds in the village, Macdonald. Do as I suggest and Mrs. W. will support you for all eternity."
"They are so small-minded," he said.
"They are hyper-sensitive," said I. "Mrs. Wylie is quite sure that you made a mistake. She can forgive you for that, but the thing that she will find it hard to forgive is the fact that you did not pay special attention to her letter, send it by registered post as it were. No one who knows me would accuse me of self-depreciation, but I tell you, Macdonald, every villager down there has more self-appreciation in his little finger than I have in mywhole body. Old Jake Baffers never had a bath in his life, and he would be secretly proud of his record if an urchin were to shout at him: 'G'wa and tak a wash!' Yet if the secretary forgot to send him a notice of the Parish Council Meeting Jake would hate the man for all eternity."
"What does it all mean?" asked Macdonald.
"The innate love of publicity lies at the root of all the village hate and narrowness. They spend their little lives looking for trouble, and the trouble they look for specially is a personal slight. The village is always full of this kind of trouble. They like to have a finger in every pie. You don't want them to run your Soup Kitchen; you could do it fifty times better yourself."
"Perhaps they think I'd sneak the cash, eh?"
"No! No, to give them their due, they don't think that. You may rob the Committee of all their cash if you like (think of the fine talk they would have over it!); what you mustn't do is to rob them of their publicity. Some of them will always hate you because you wear a linen collar and don't talk dialect. Also, you are an incomer. I once attended a public meeting in a Fife village. A man stood up to give his opinion about a public matter, and they shouted him down with the cry: 'Sit doon! Ye're an incomer!' The man had been resident in that village fortwenty-three years, but he had come from Forfarshire originally."
"And this is democracy!" exclaimed Macdonald.
"This is education," said I. "All the history and geography and grammar in the world won't produce a better generation in this village. What is really wrong is narrow vision due to lack of wide interest. Obviously the village thinks of small things, things that don't count to us. The villager left school at fourteen and he never had any training in thinking."
"Well, and what's the remedy?"
"Remedy be blowed!" I cried. "Come on, I'm going down with you and I'll have it out with old Brown."
* * *
Brown was in no mood to be friendly. Indeed he was quite nasty. He told me frankly that our friendship was at an end, and I felt pained about the matter. Suddenly a brilliant inspiration came to me. As I stood at the door I turned to him sharply.
"You've had your say, Mr. Brown," I said sternly, "and now it's my innings. I didn't mean to mention it, but you've forced me to do it."
I paused to note his sudden look of alarm.
"Yes," I went on, "I want to know what the devil you meant by saying that I suffered from swelled head?"
"When did I say that?" he stammered.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"I refuse to give away the man who told me," I said stiffly.
He was now in great excitement. He wiped his brow with his hand.
"Graham is a liar!" he cried passionately, "it washimthat said it tome!"
"But you agreed with him?" I insinuated.
Brown drew himself up stiffly.
"Well, damn you, I did!"
"Quits!" I cried, and I held out my hand.
Later as we sat together over a hot whiskey I tried hard to persuade him that Graham had never said a word to me; I told him again and again that I had made a lucky guess, and at last I managed to persuade him to believe me. Yet somehow I feel that he'll look askance at poor Graham the next time he meets him.
* * *
We were threshing to-day. During the dinner interval Margaret and I chanced to meet in the barn. I threw my arms round her and kissed her. A chuckle came from the straw. I looked up to find the eyes of Jim Jackson upon us.
"Aw'll no tell!" he cried, and Margaret fled blushing from the barn.
"Right, Jim! We'll trust you with the secret. Margaret and I are in love with each other."
"When is it to be?" he asked eagerly.
"You are thinking of the wedding feast I presume, my lad, what?"
He did not answer; he seemed to be thinking.
"Bob Scott has a' the luck," he said dolefully; "when he was ten his mither was married, when he was eleven his sister Bets dee'd, and syne when he was twel his father was married. Aw've only had a marriage and a daith. Aw like marriages better gyn daiths; ye get mair to eat, and ye dinna hae to look solemn. A christenin' doesna coont; ye jest get a wee bit o' cake, and the minister prays."
"Jim," I said suddenly, "will you be my best man?"
He gaped.
"Will Aw be yer—?" He was too much surprised to complete the sentence.
"Yes, and carry the ring," I said.
His eyes danced.
"And kiss the bridesmaids," I continued.
His face fell.
"No," he said slowly, "Aw'm ower young to be a best man." He considered for a while. "But Geordie Tamson wud kiss them for a hank o' candy," he said half aloud.
"No," I said, "you can't delegate your powers to another in a case of this sort. But of course if you think Geordie would be the better man to sit on the dickey of the carriage, and lead the bride to the wedding feast, and throw out the sweeties and pennies to the children, and—"
"Aw'll be yer best man!" he roared.
To-night I made up my mind to speak to Frank Thomson and his wife. I knew that Jim would be miserable as long as he carried so weighty a secret on him; I knew that he was itching to rush through the village shouting: "The Mester's gaein' to be married to Maggie Tamson ... and Aw'm to be his best man!"
I went over about eight o'clock. The children were in bed, and Margaret sat in the kitchen with her father and mother.
"I want to marry Margaret," I said when I entered.
Frank was readingThe People's Journal. The paper fluttered slightly, and that was the only sign of surprise that came from him.
"Yea, Mester?" he said slowly. "Man, d'ye tell me that na? Aw see that the Roosians are makin' some progress again." He buried his head in his paper after throwing a look to his wife. The look clearly meant: "This is a matter for you to tak up, Lizzie."
Mrs. Thomson laid down her knitting carefully; then she rubbed her glasses with her apron. She glanced at Margaret, and Margaret rose and left the room quietly. I knew that she left the door half-closed so that she might hear from the stair-foot.
Her mother looked at me over her glasses.
"She's gey young," she said.
"A year older than you were when you married," I said with a smile.
She sat in deep thought for a long time. Then she turned to her husband.
"Frank," she said in a matter-of-fact voice, "ye'll better bring oot the whiskey."
That was all. Neither of them asked a question about my financial position, or my hopes. Mrs. Thomson went to the door and called Margaret's name, and when she entered the kitchen her mother simply said: "Maggie, ye micht bring a few coals like a lassie."
A stranger from a foreign land looking on would have wondered at the unconcern of the whole thing. The family talked about everything but the subject of the moment, but I knew by the way in which they made conversation that they were striving to hide their real feelings.
When I rose to leave I turned to Frank.
"I don't know what plans I have," I said, "but the chances are that I'll go to live in London some day soon."
Frank waved a protesting hand.
"Never mind that ee'noo," he cried. "Maggie!... ye'll better see the Mester to the door, lassie!"
"They're awfu' pleased!" whispered Margaret at the door.
"Are they, Margaret?" I said tenderly.
"Yes! But it isn't because you are so clever, you know!"
"Rather because I am so handsome?"
"No. They're pleased because you are an M.A."
Then she laughed at my look of chagrin.
* * *
This morning I met Jim.
"Jim," I said, "you are free to speak now."
He made no reply; he sprang over a gate and flew towards the village.
The girls came up in a body at four o'clock.
"Is't true?" cried Janet as she ran up breathlessly.
"What? Is what true?"
"That you and Maggie are to be married?"
"The answer is in the affirmative," I said pompously.
Janet's face fell.
"Eh, if Aw had that Jim Jackson! He telt us that he was to be yer best man!"
"He was aye a big leer!" cried Ellen, then she saw that I was smiling.
"It's true after a'!" she cried.
"Yes," I said, "it's true, bairns," but to my surprise they rushed off and left me. I understood their action when I turned to look; they had seen Margaret emerge from the kitchen door. Poor Margaret! The whole crowd of them insisted on pinching her arms for luck. They seemed to have forgotten my existence; then suddenly they all came running towards me.
"Let me tell 'im, Jan!" I heard Annie cry,but Jan tore herself from restraining arms and was first to come up.
"The Mester's gotten a little baby!" cried Janet.
"Janet's wrang!" cried Annie; "it's no the Mester: it's his wife!"
I tried to look my surprise.
"And did you congratulate him, Jan?" I asked.
Janet tittered.
"He took an awfu' reid face when he cam in this mornin', did'n he, Jean?"
"Aye, and he was grumpy a' day. He was ay frownin' at a' body. We cudna help his wife haein' a bairn!"
"He looked as if he was angry at his wife haein' the bairn," said Barbara.
I recalled my conjecture that he would try to give the bairns the impression that he had nothing whatever to do with the affair, and I laughed uproariously.
I suddenly realised that Gladys was asking me a question.
"Eh? What's that, Gladys?"
"I was speerin' if you and Maggie are to hae a bairn?"
Janet gasped and cried: "Oh, Gladys!" and Jean cried: "Look at Maggie blushin'!"
"Certainly!" I said with a laugh, "a dozen of them, won't we, Margaret?"
"Bairns is just a scunner," said Sarah. "Ye'll hae to stop yer typewriter or ye'll waken them."
"That's awkward, Sarah," I said, "for if I stop my typewriter I'll starve them."
"The Mester'll hae a big hoose," said Jean, "and he'll type his letters in the parlour and Maggie'll rock the cradle in the kitchen, winna ye, Maggie?"
"Perhaps," I suggested, "Jim Jackson will be able to invent a patent that will enable me to rock the cradle as I strike the keys."
"Aye," said Janet with scorn, "and kill the bairn! Aw wudna trust Jim Jackson wi' ony bairn o' mine ... him and his inventions!"
"Ye'll mak a nice father," said Gladys, and she put her arm round my neck.
"Ye'll spoil yer bairns," said Ellen. She turned to Margaret. "Maggie, dinna let him tak chairge o' them, or he'll mak them catch minnows a' day instead o' learnin' their lessons."
"G'wa, Ellen," cried Sarah, "they're no married yet! And ye dinna get bairns till ye're married a gey lang time."
"Some fowk has them afore they get married," said Barbara thoughtfully, and I chuckled when I saw how the others looked at her. Disapproval was writ large on their faces.
"Ye shudna mention sic things afore Maggie!" said Janet in a stage whisper, and I had to hold my sides. Margaret could not keep her gravity either, and she laughed immoderately.
Later they pleaded with me to tell them when the wedding was to take place. I toldthem that I did not know, but that it would be soon, and I promised to invite them all.
"But no Mester Macdonald!" said Jean. "Aw wudna feel so free wi' him there."
I told them of the widower whose friends tried to persuade him to take his mother-in-law with him in the front funeral coach. After some persuasion he said resignedly: "Verra weel, then; but it'll spoil my day." Then I sent them home.
* * *
The story I told the girls set me thinking of funeral stories. I have heard dozens of them, but the only other one I can remember is the one about the farmer whose wife was to be buried. As the men carried the coffin along the passage they stumbled, and the coffin came into violent contact with the corner. The lid flew off, and the wife sat up and rubbed her eyes. She had been in a trance.
Twenty years later the wife died again. The men were carrying the coffin through the passage when the farmer rushed forward.
"Canny, lads!" he cried, "canny wi' that corner!"
* * *
"Look here," said Macdonald to me to-night, "the School Board election is coming off soon; why don't you stand?"
"I thought that I would be the last man on earth you would want on the School Board," I replied.
"Not at all," he said with a smile. "You and I differ about education, but our difference isn't so great as the difference between me and men like Peter Mitchell."
I thought to myself that the difference between his idea and mine was infinitely greater than the difference between his idea and Peter Mitchell's, but I said: "It's very decent of you to suggest it, old chap, but I'm not standing."
"But why not?"
"Possibly for the same reason that H. G. Wells and A. R. Orage and Bernard Shaw and G. K. Chesterton don't stand for Parliament."
"You place yourself in good company!" he laughed.
"I'm not claiming kindred, Macdonald; what I mean to suggest is that I stand to Peter Mitchell and Co. very much in the same relationship as Shaw and Orage stand to Lloyd George and Co. Roughly there are two types of mind, the thinkers and the doers. Orage has better ideas than Lloyd George, but I fancy that Lloyd George is the better man to run a Ministry of Munitions. I've got better ideas than Peter Mitchell (I think you'll grant that), yet Peter is probably the better man to arrange for the gravelling of the playground."
I smoked for a while in silence.
"The best men don't enter public life," I continued. "No man with a real passion for ideas could tolerate the jobbery and gabbleof the House of Commons. Public life is for the most part concerned with small things. The Cabinet settles mighty things like war and peace, but if you read Hansard you'll find that ninety-nine per cent. of the members' speeches deal with little things like Old Age Pensions or the working of the Insurance Act. So in the School Board you have to deal with the incidental things. The Scotch Education Department settles the broad lines of education, and the local School Boards simply administer the Education Act of 1908. What could I do on the Board anyway?... arrange for the closing of the school at the tattie holidays, discuss your application for a rise in screw, grant a certain amount of money for prizes. I couldn't persuade the Board to convert your school into a Neo-Montessorian Play-Garden; if I did persuade them the Department would very likely step in and protest. Besides I haven't the type of mind. I hate all the formalism of public meetings; I had enough of it at the 'varsity to last me a life time; the debating societies spent most of their time reading minutes and moving 'the previous question.' I'm not a practical man, Macdonald. In art I like pure black and white work, and I think in black and white; I see the broad effect without noting the detail. Detail gives me a headache, and the public man must have something like a passion for detail. Look at the Scotch Education Department; it is full of splendid officialswho will spend a week nosing out an error of ten attendances in an unfortunate dominie's registers. That's what should be; the official should have the mind of a ready-reckoner ... rather, he must have, else he would drown himself after a day in Whitehall."
Macdonald has a passion for detail, and I smiled to note a growing look of aggression on his face.
"Somebody's got to do the detail work," he growled.
"Most of it could very well be left undone," I suggested. "You have to calculate laboriously all the attendances for the year, how many have left school, how many are of such and such an age, and so on. What for? Simply to allow the busy officials of Whitehall to settle what grant should be paid."
"How could they settle it otherwise?" he asked.
"In fifty ways. The obvious way is to find out how much the school requires to run it each year. I would go the length of abolishing the daily register. You don't call the roll in a cinema house or a kirk or a political meeting. Why, man, in the big schools in the cities the headmaster is a junior clerk; his whole time is spent in making up statistical returns for the Department."
"You couldn't get on without the returns," said Macdonald.
"Possibly not at present," I said, "seeing that the system of grants obtains, but if anEducation Guild of Teachers controlled the education of Scotland most of the returns could be scrapped. All the returns needed for your school would be a list of expenditure on salaries, books, etc.; main headquarters would control the broad policy and pay the bills."
"And attendance wouldn't count?"
"Not if I had any say in the matter. To have an average attendance of 96 per cent. is about the lowest ideal a dominie can aim at. The teachers and the school boards aim at a high average because of the higher grant; the Department, with an eye on Blue Book statistics, encourages them to aim at a high average because a high average means a country with the minimum of illiteracy."
"Would you abolish compulsory attendance?"
"Certainly—so far as the children are concerned. Make their schools playgrounds instead of prisons, and you'll have no truancy. But I would have compulsion for parents. The State should have the power to say to parents: 'You are only the guardians of these children, and we can't allow you to keep them from education to do your work for you.'"
"You aren't consistent," he said, "here you are advocating Authority!"
"Macdonald," I said wearily, "you must have authority and law of a kind. You must have a law that you take the left side of the road when you are cycling for instance. You must give the community power to overpowera man like that lunatic who assaulted Mary Ramsay the other day, and if the community feels that it must protect children from assaults on their bodies, surely to goodness it must step in and protect little children when parents try to commit assaults on their souls. Compulsion should step in to destroy compulsion."
"Now, what in all the earth do you mean by that?"
"A man compels his son to stay from school; the compulsion of the State overrules the compulsion of the father. So with compulsion of men for military purposes; in theory at least the Military Service Act compels men to fight in order that they may overrule the compulsion that Germany is trying to force on Europe. The Fatherland and the father are interfering with human souls, but if a boy does not want to go to school he is a free agent choosing as he wills, and interfering with the soul of no one."
"What about his children coming after him?"
"A good point," I cried; "in other words you mean that no man liveth unto himself and no man dieth unto himself, eh? Yes, that's quite true, but we don't know what the boy is to turn out. Given a home of comfort and food ... as every boy would have in a well-ordered community ... I think that the lad who could resist the attraction of a play-garden school with its charms of social intercourse with other children would be either alunatic or a genius. Besides we have given up the idea in other departments. I expect that the community is of opinion that the teachings of Christianity are good for a man to hand on to his children, yet I don't think that the community would pass a law that every parent must send his family to a Sunday School. The whole trend of society is to recognise and provide for the conscientious objector, and society should certainly recognise the conscientious objector to school-going."
"A boy doesn't know his own mind."
"Neither do I," I sighed. "I can't make up my mind about anything; rather, I make up my mind to-day and change it to-morrow. And I don't want it to be otherwise; when my opinions become definite and fixed I shall be dead spiritually. The boy doesn't know his own mind! Well, how the deuce can I claim to help him to make it up when I can't make up my own? It's his mind, not mine. I don't mind telling him what I think of a subject, but I wouldn't compel him to do a blamed thing."
"You have a queer idea of education," he said with a dry laugh.
"Macdonald," I said, with real modesty, "I don't know that I have any idea of education. I am simply groping. I don't exactly know what I want, but I have a pretty definite notion of what I don't want ... and that is finality. I begin to think that what I wanteducation to do is to train men not to make up their minds about anything."
Macdonald rose to go.
"Matrimony does that, old chap," he said with a chuckle, "and you'll soon discover that you won't get the chance of making up your mind ever."
I feared that I was losing Jim and Janet and the others, but I have not lost them. They conform to Macdonald's reign of authority when they are in school, but they do it with their tongues in their cheeks. But only the select few have followed my banner. Jim is the only boy, and the only girls are Janet, Jean, Ellen, Annie, and Gladys. Barbara is of divided allegiance. The others are Macdonaldised. I find it a very difficult thing to define Macdonaldisation. Possibly its most distinguishing characteristic is what I might call a dour pertness. The bairns have lost their standard of values; they don't know limits. I pinched Mary's cheek when I met her this morning on her way to school, and she tossed her head in the air and looked at me with a cheeky expression which meant: "What do you think you're doing?" If I rag Eva she answers with brazen impudence. I have given up speaking facetiously to the boys, for they also were impudent. They were not like that when I had them; I could play with them, joke with them, rag them and they took it all with the best good humour; they teased me and played jokes on me, but they did it in the right spirit.
I have seen it again and again. Strict discipline destroys a child's values of goodtaste and bad taste. Naturally when freedom is denied them they do not know what freedom means. The atrocities committed by the super-disciplined German army are quite understandable to me; like Macdonaldised bairns they did not understand the freedom they suddenly found themselves enjoying, and they converted it into licence. I can tell the character of a village dominie when I stop to ask a group of boys the way to the next village when I am cycling.
Jimmy Young slouches past me now with a stare of hostility, and it isn't six months ago since he came running to me on the road one night for protection from the policeman who was after him for stealing a turnip from Peter Mitchell's field. The policeman came up and in a loud voice accused the laddie, while at the same time he threw in a hint or two that my lax discipline had something to do with the case.
"If they got a little mair o' the leather, things wud be different," he growled.
I do not like policemen; their little brief authority somehow manages to get my back up.
"What's the row?" I asked mildly.
"This young devil has been stealin' neeps," he roared, "and Mitchell's gaein' to mak a pollis court case o't."
I said nothing; I took Jimmy by the arm and walked towards the gate of Mitchell's field. I vaulted it and deliberately pulledup a turnip and peeled it and ate it, while the constable stood writing down notes voluminously.
"Understand," I said to him, "that I am not primarily encouraging Jimmy to steal turnips; my one aim is to appear in the police court with him if he is charged. I would rather a thousand times be with him in the dock than with you and your farmer in the witness-box."
Peter Mitchell did not prosecute.
In these days Jimmy realised that he and I were friends; we understood each other. Now he does not think of trying to understand me; I am an ex-dominie, and that's enough for him. Macdonald is the real dominie; Jimmy must be circumspect when he is about else there will be ructions. I don't count: I have no authority. I should like to hear Macdonald's remarks to Jimmy if the constable came to the school to tell of one of the laddie's escapades.
I have lost Jimmy and a hundred others, but I thank heaven for the bairns left to me. They come up nearly every night, and they spend Saturdays and Sundays with me.
Last Saturday Macdonald came into the field where we were playing. Janet and the other girls froze at once; all the fun went out of them, and they looked at him timidly. He tried to show that he also could be playful and he tried to romp with them for a while. The romp wasn't a success; they were acting all the time, and when a girl "tigged" him she did so with a woefully apologetic air as if shewould say: "Excuse my touching you, sir, but it's only a game, you know. I'll take care not to presume when we meet on Monday morning."
Luckily he did not stay long, and the girls resumed their attempt to tie my legs together with grass ropes, their motive being to stuff my mouth with brambles. I invited them down to the bothy for tea, and they rushed off to lay the table.
"And we'll look into a' yer drawers and places," cried Jean, "and read a' yer love-letters."
"If you could read I believe youwouldread them," I shouted after her.
"Eh! What an insult!" she cried. "Aw'll just go straucht doon to Maggie and tell her no to hae ye!"
After tea Gladys suddenly said: "Come on, we'll play at schules, eh?" The idea was hailed with delight, and Annie requisitioned the services of my new braces for a strap, and ranged us round the fire.
"Now," she said, "this is playtime and you are all outside, and when I blow the whistle you'll all come in."
"Blaw yer bugle," said Jean, "just to mak it like it was when ye were at the schule." So I played the "Fall In" and went out to play. I came in late.
"Why are you late?" demanded Annie.
I looked round the room vacantly.
"Yes!" I said with a nod of enlightenment.
The girls giggled, and Annie had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
"Where have you been, sir?"
"Oh, no!" I cried, "at least I don't think so!"
Annie had to sit down and laugh.
"That's no fair," she said, "there shud be nae funnin' in the schule."
I sat down on the fender and pulled a face that Alfred Lester might have envied. Annie went into fits of laughter.
"Tell ye what, Annie," said Ellen, "we'll put the Mester oot, and we'll play oorsells," and I was dismissed the school. After deliberation they agreed to allow me to be an inspector provided I did not say anything.
When bairns play school they always put on the fine English. The teacher's main duty is to call erring pupils out and punish them.
"Now, Ellen Smith, what is two and two?"
"Four."
"Very good. Now we'll have an object lesson. What animal do we get milk from, Janet?"
"The cow."
"Very good. Now we'll have some geography. Where is the town of—?"
"Give us spellin' instead," cried Gladys.
"Come out, girl!" and Gladys was punished severely. Then Jean was punished for laughing.
"It's my chance o' bein' teacher noo," cried Ellen and Janet at the same time, and a treblescuffle for the strap followed. Janet got it.
"Now," she began, "I'll be Mister Macdonald. Put yer hands behind yer backs, and the first one that moves will hear about it!" They sat up like statues.
"Now, Jean Broon, you stand up and recite theElegy Written in a Country Churchyard!" And Jean stood up and recited the first verse dramatically.
"That'll do. Sit down. Ellen Smith, I want you to say the first verse of Wordsworth'sOde to the Imitations of Immorality."
"P-Please, sir," tittered Gladys, "the inspector's laughin' like onything!"
I laughed immoderately, but it wasn't at Janet's malapropism that I laughed so much. I thought of Mrs. Wilks, the charwoman, who looked after the flat another man and I shared in Croydon. One morning she did not arrive to make the breakfast, and I went out to look for her. I found the old woman—she was sixty-three—standing at the foot of the stairs weeping.
"Great Scot!" I cried, "what's the matter?"
"My 'usband ain't goin' to allow me to char for you young gentlemen again."
"What for?" I asked in amazement.
"He ... he accuses me of 'avin' immortal relations wiv you," she sobbed.
I hasten to add that her relations with us were not immortal: we sacked her a week later for pinching the cream.
"Sorry, Janet," I said at length, "proceedwith your Imitations of Immorality, although personally I don't see the need for them; the real thing's good enough for me."
"Now," she said, "I'll be Mister Neill now."
Annie at once began to sing "Tipperary"; Ellen began to pull Gladys's hair; Jean pretended that she was biting a huge apple ... and the teacher Janet took a cigarette from the box on the table and lit it.
"You gross libellers!" I cried, and I chased them out of the bothy.
* * *
To-night I had a long walk with Margaret. I tried to make her talk, for I want so much to know her views on things.
"You talk," she said; "I like to listen."
"But," I protested, "I'm always talking to you, and you listen all the time. I want to know what is in that wee head of yours ... although I suppose that I ought to be satisfied with its exterior."
"You see," she said slowly and somewhat sadly, "I am not clever; I am only an ordinary farmer's daughter working in the dairy and the fields. If I told you what I was thinking you would not be interested."
We walked many yards in silence.
"It is all a mistake!" she suddenly burst out passionately. "I am not good enough for you, and when my bonny face is gone you will hate me. We have nothing in common, and if you met me in London you wouldn't be interested in me at all. You will bringclever women to the house and I—I will sit in a corner and say nothing, for I won't understand the things that you talk about. I am afraid to go to London with you."
"We'll stay here then," I said quietly.
"No!" she cried, "not that! I will stay here, but you must go to your work and your clever friends. O! it's all been a mistake!" She sat down on a fallen tree and wept silently. I sat down beside her and placed my arm round her shoulders.
"Margaret," I said softly, "we'll have a soul to soul talk about it. I'll tell you very very frankly what I think about the whole matter, and I'll try to deceive neither you nor myself.
"Intellectually you are not a soul-mate to me. That can't be possible seeing that you have never had the chance to develop your intellect. I know girls whose intellect is brilliant and whose sense of humour is delicious ... but I don't love them. I like them; I love a witty conversation with them, but ... I don't want to touch them. The touch of your hand sends a thrill through me, and there is no other hand in the world that can do that. I want to caress you, to hug you, to kiss your lips, to kiss your lovely neck. Margaret, I want you ... and you are not my soul-mate. Margaret, I must have you.
"You see, dear, love is a thing that cannot be reasoned with. I once wrote down on paper a list of the qualities I wanted in thewoman who should be my wife. She was to have blue eyes, a Grecian nose, auburn hair; she was to be tall and imperious; she was to be a fine pianist. Dear, your eyes are grey; your nose isn't Grecian; you aren't tall, and your limit as a pianist isI'm a Little Pilgrimplayed with one finger. You're hopeless, madam, but, dash it all!... I'll buy an auto-piano!
"According to all the rules I oughtn't to find any interest in you at all. Do you know that popular songYou Made Me Love You? That's the only popular song I ever struck that has any philosophy in it. It has more real pathos in it thanThe Rosaryand Tosti'sGoodbyerolled into one.
"'You made me love you; I didn't want to do it,' ... Margaret, that's the true story of love. Love is blind they say, but the truth is that love is mad. I didn't want to love you; my mind kept telling me that you were not the right woman ... and here I sit in paradise because your head is on my shoulder. The whole thing's absurd and irrational. I almost believe that there is a real Cupid who fires his arrows broadcast; of course the little fellow is blind and he hits the wrong people."
I turned her face towards mine.
"Margaret, do you love me?"
"I love you," she whispered and she nestled more closely into my shoulder.
"And I love you," I replied, and kissed her brow. "It may be all a mistake, darling,but you and I are going to be man and wife."
"Anyway," I added, "we have no illusions about it. We've looked at the thing frankly and openly. We are blind, but we are going into it with our eyes open."
"You are getting silly again," laughed Margaret, and we forgot all our doubts and fears, and became two children playing with the toy we call love.
* * *
Margaret came to me to-night.
"Mr. Macdonald's evening school opens to-night. Do you think I should join it?"
"Why should you?" I asked.
"Oh, I have no education, and I want to learn things."
"Well," I said consideringly, "you'll learn things all right down there. You'll learn how to measure a field, and how to analyse a sentence; you'll learn a few things about the Stuart kings, and a few things about the British colonies. But, my dear, do you specially want to learn things like that?"
"I don't know what things I want to learn," she said sadly. "I think I want to know about the things you used to speak about at your evening school. Things that I don't agree with when you say them."
She laughed shortly.
"You know," she continued, "you used to make me angry sometimes. When you said that you didn't object to girls smoking I waswild with you. And I remember how shocked I was when you said that swearing navvies were no worse than we were. When you said that the text 'Children, obey your parents' gave bad advice I nearly got up and left the room."
"I expect that Iwasa sort of bombshell," I laughed.
"You made me think about things that I had never thought about before."
"That was what I was paid for, Margaret; I was educating you."
"What is education?" she asked.
"Education is thinking, Margaret. Most people take things for granted; they won't face truth. You don't like your sister Edith; she is catty and jealous. But you won't confess to yourself that you dislike Edith. All your training tells you that brotherly love is the accepted thing, and if you confessed to yourself that you are fonder of Jean Mackay than you are of Edith, you would think yourself a sinner of the worst type. If you want to be educated you must be ready to question everything; you must doubt everything. You must be very chary of making up your mind. Do you believe in ghosts?" I asked suddenly.
"Of course not!" she said with a smile. "Do you?"
"I don't know," I answered. "Lots of people claim to have seen them, and for that reason I leave the question open. There may not be ghosts, but I don't know enough aboutthe subject to deny that they exist. I am quite ready to believe you if you tell me that you saw a ghost in the granary. I asked the question just to use it as an illustration. Popular opinion laughs at the idea of a ghost, but the thinking person won't accept the conventional view. Keep an open mind, Margaret, and believe when you are convinced.
"Education never stops; we are being educated every day of our lives. Why, only yesterday, I was up in the top field, and I heard a great squealing. I hurried to the place and was just in time to rescue a tiny rabbit from a weasel. I had seen a weasel kill a rabbit many a time before that, and I had never thought anything about it. But yesterday a sudden thought came to me. I remembered the words 'God is good,' and I began to think about them. Then I suddenly said to myself that the words were not true. The world is full of pain and terror; the great law of nature is: Eat or be eaten. I realised for the first time that every hedgerow is a horrid den of suffering and fear. Cruelty is Nature's name, Margaret."
"But," she cried in perplexity, "isn't there much good in the world too?"
"Yes, dear, there is much good in the world, but cruelty is much more powerful. You and I are cruel unthinkingly. We kill wasps before they sting us; we aren't good enough to give the poor brutes the benefit of the doubt. Your father is a very kind-hearted man, yet he neveronce thinks of the cruelty he perpetrates when he rears sheep and cattle and lambs for the butcher's knife. You and I dined on roast lamb often this summer, and we never thought of the poor wee creature's agony when the butcher cut its throat. Your mother is kind, yet she will kill a mouse without a thought, and the mouse is to me the bonniest creature that lives. Its great big glorious eyes fascinate me. Think of the kindly people who chase a poor half-starved fox with hounds and horses; sport is the cruellest thing in the world. Shooting, fishing, hunting ... men are as cruel and as devilish as the tiger or the hawk, Margaret."
"Animals maybe don't feel the same as we do," she said.
"Don't you lay that flattering unction to your soul," I cried. "I used to believe that comforting tale of the scientist that the lower animals do not feel. I ceased to believe it when I tried to put a worm on a fish-hook. When I saw it wriggle about I said to myself: 'This is pain, or rather it is agony.' Think of the pain that your mares and cows suffer when they are having their young. You and I heard the screams of Polly when that dead foal was born this year.
"When you think of it, Margaret, man's chief end is not to glorify God as the Catechism says; his chief end is to eliminate pain ... human pain. You have heard of vivisection? Performing operations on animals, often without chloroform. What's it all for? Notcruelty, as Bernard Shaw suggests; it's all done with the kindly purpose of finding out new ways to abolish human pain. Rabbits and guinea-pigs are dosed with all sorts of microbes so that scientists might discover how to protect human beings from the pain of disease. The doctors sometimes do manage to discover a new way to abolish a certain pain, and the pathetic thing is that while they torture animals to find a way to abolish pain a thousand scientists are busily engaged inventing weapons that will bring more pain into the world. It is an alarming thought that our doctors and nurses spend their lives trying to keep the unfit alive, while our armament makers spend their lives planning means to send the fit to their death. Lots of people have said that this war shows the failure of Christianity; what it really shows is the failure of Medicine. Medicine's primary aim is to keep people alive as long as possible; War's primary aim is to kill as many people as possible. War is really a battle between two branches of science, between shells and senna. The shell scientist won ... and the medicine man buckled on a Sam Browne belt and went out to help his rival's victims. If the doctors of the world had realised that war was a defeat of their principles they would have gone on strike, and would no doubt have stopped the war by doing so. Every doctor should be a pacifist, but as a matter of fact very few doctors are pacifists."
"What is a pacifist?" asked Margaret.
"A pacifist is a man who loves peace so much that people look up almanacs to see whether his name was Schmidt a generation back, Margaret. He is usually a nervous man with the physical courage of a hen, but he has more moral courage than three army corps. He is usually a Conscientious Objector, and it takes the moral courage of a god to be that."
"They are just a lot of cowards!" cried Margaret with indignation.
"No," I said, "I can't agree with you. No coward will face the scorn of women and the contempt of men as these men do. Think of the life that lies in front of a Conscientious Objector. Nobody will ever understand him; he will be an outcast for ever. Dear, it takes stupendous courage to put yourself in that position, and I can't think that any man could do it unless he were following principles that were dearer to him than the judgment of his fellow men. You see, Margaret, ordinary courage and moral courage are totally different things. I know a man who won the V.C. for a very brave deed, and that chap wouldn't wear a made-up tie for all the decorations in the world; he wouldn't have the moral courage to be seen walking down the street with a Bengali. The more imagination you have the higher is your moral courage, but imagination is fatal to physical courage. Moral courage belongs to the thinker; physical courage to the doer. And I can't help thinking thatmoral courage goes with unhealthiness. I am quite sure that physical courage is primarily dependent on physical health. If my liver is out of order I tremble to open a letter; I can't walk ten yards in the dark; and the arrival of a telegram would give me a fainting fit. Nerves are always unhealthy, and as thinkers are always highly strung people I conclude that thinking is unhealthy. Thinkers are mad, Margaret, mad as hatters."
"Mad!"
"Yes. The lunatic is merely the man whose brain is different from the brain of the average man. The average man does not imagine himself to be Jesus Christ, and when a man does imagine himself to be Christ we say that he is mad, and we shut him up. He may be a Christ for all we know. I don't know why the community didn't shut up Shaw when he first preached that obedience was one of the Seven Deadly Virtues. The average man didn't agree with him, and we can say that Shaw is therefore mad. You see, dear, man is firstly an animal; Joe Smith the butcher down in the village is an animal, a fine healthy animal. He is primitive man, and thinking is the last thing he could attempt. Thinking is an acquired characteristic; it isn't a natural thing, and anything unnatural is diseased. A thinker is as much a freak as a man born with two heads. And that's why I say that thinkers are unhealthy. Blake the great poet was mad; Ibsen the great Norwegian dramatistdied in the mad-house; Shelley was diseased; Milton was blind, Keats a consumptive; nearly every great composer of music who ever lived was mad."
"But," laughed Margaret, "you said that education was thinking, and now you say that thinkers are all mad."
"Yes, but madness is what the world needs. All these villagers down there are absolutely sane, but the world won't be a scrap the better for their existence. I prefer a world of Shelleys and Ibsens to a world of Jack Johnsons and Sandows ... and Joe Smiths. A great German philosopher called Nietzsche preached the gospel of Superman. He wanted a fine race of powerful men who would rule the world. Some people say that Napoleon and Cæsar and Cromwell were Supermen, but the real Supermen were men like Christ and Ibsen and Darwin and Shelley; a fighter is a nobody, but a man with a message is a Superman."
"I don't understand," said Margaret dully; "what do you mean by having a message?"
"A messenger is a man who forces people to consider things that they wouldn't consider without being prompted. Christ's message was love; He encouraged men to act according to the good that was in them; the kindliness, the charity, the love. And the fact that shooting and hunting and lamb eating still persist shows that we pay but little attention to Christ's message. Shelley's message was freedom, freedom to think and to live one's own life. You'llfind that there are only the two kinds of message ... love and freedom."
"The evangelists who were holding meetings in the school last winter used to speak about their 'message,'" said Margaret. "Would you say that they were Supermen?"
"They were Superwomen," I said hastily. "They depended on emotionalism. They said nothing new, and they would refuse to consider anything new if you asked them to. They had no power to think; they quoted all the time. Consequently their message evaporated; when the magnetism of their appeal went away the converts lapsed into their old sinful ways. They didn't understand the message they tried to deliver; they had never really thought out Christ's philosophy. They had got hold of a catch phrase or two, and they kept shouting: 'Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be made whiter than snow.' But I am quite sure that they did not know what they meant by sin. Christ's chief message was: 'Love one another,' but they made it out to be: 'Love yourself so well that you may cry for salvation from the wrath to come.'"
Margaret looked at the clock on my mantelpiece.
"O!" she cried, "it's eight o'clock ... and the class began at seven! I can't go now."
At the door she paused for a moment; then she came back slowly.
"I won't attend his class," she said thoughtfully; "I think I'll just come over to see youevery night, and you'll talk to me and educate me."
"Well," I smiled, "I will give you a wider education than Macdonald can give you. For example ... this!"
"I could get any amount of teaching in kissing," she tittered.
"Possibly, darling ... but there is no teacher hereabouts with my knowledge and experience of the art."
"You horrid pig!" she laughed, and she pulled my hair.