the blue china on the dresser, and catching the yellow lights in Jean's hair.
"What a silly morning for November," growled Jock. "What's the sun going on shining like that for? You'd think it thought it was summer."
"In winter," said Mhor, "the sky should always be grey. It's more suitable."
"What a couple of ungrateful creatures you are," Jean said; "I'm ashamed of you. And as it happens you are going to have a great treat because of the good day. I didn't tell you because I thought it would very likely pour. Cousin Lewis said if it was a good day he would send the car to take us to Laverlaw to luncheon. It's really because of Pamela; she has never been there. So you must ask to get away at twelve, Jock, and I'll go up with Pamela and collect Mhor."
Mhor at once left the table and, without making any remark, stood on his head on the hearthrug. Thus did his joy find vent. Jock, on the other hand, seemed more solemnised than gleeful.
"That's the first time I've ever had a prayer answered," he announced. "I couldn't do my Greek last night, and I prayed that I wouldn't be at the class—and I won't be. Gosh, Maggie!"
"Oh, Jock," his sister protested, "that's not what prayers are for."
"Mebbe not, but I've managed it this time," and, unrepentant, Jock started on another slice of bread and butter.
Jean told Pamela of Jock's prayer as they went together to fetch Mhor from school.
"But Mhor is a much greater responsibility than Jock. You know where you are with Jock: underneath is a bedrock of pure goodness. You see, we start with the enormous advantage of having had forebears of the very decentest—not great, not noble, but men who feared God and honoured the King—men who lived justly and loved mercy. It would be most uncalled for of us to start out on bypaths with such a straight record behind us. But Mhor, bless him, is different. I haven't a notion what went to the making of him. I seem to see behind him a long line of men and women who danced and laughed and gambled and feasted, light-hearted, charming people. I sometimes think I hear them laugh as I teach Mhor. What is the chief end of man … I couldn't love Mhor more if he really were my little brother, but I know that my hold over him is of the frailest. It's only now that I have him. I must make the most of the present—the little boy days—before life takes him away from me."
"You will have his heart always," Pamela comforted her. "He won't forget. He has been rooted and grounded in love."
Jean winked away the tears that had forced their way into her eyes, and laughed.
"I'm bringing him up a Presbyterian. I did try him with the Creed. He listened politely, and said carelessly, 'It all seems rather sad—Pilate is a nice name, but not Pontius.' Then Jock laughed at him learning, 'What is your name, A or B?' and Mhor himself preferred to go to the root of the matter with our Shorter Catechism, and answer nobly if obscurely—Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever. Indeed, he might be Scots in his passion for theology. The other night he went to bed very displeased with me, and said, 'You needn't read me any more of that narsty Bible,' but when I went up to say good-night he greeted me with, 'How can I keep the commandments when I can't even remember what they are?' … This is Mhor's school, or rather Miss Main's school."
They went up the steps of a pretty, creeper-covered house.
"It once belonged to an artist," Jean explained. "There is a great big light studio at the back which makes an ideal schoolroom. It's an ideal school altogether. Miss Main and her young stepsister are born teachers, full of humour and understanding, as well as being brilliantly clever—far too clever really for this job; but if they don't mind we needn't complain. They get the children on most surprisingly, and teach them all sorts of things outside their lessons. Mhor is always astonishing me with his information about things going on in the world…. Yes, do come in. They won't mind. You would like to see the children."
"I would indeed. But won't Miss Main object to us interrupting——"
Miss Main at once reassured her on that point, and said that both she and the scholars loved visitors. She took them into the large schoolroom where twenty small people of various sizes sat with their books, very cheerfully imbibing knowledge.
Mhor and another small boy occupied one desk.
Jean greeted the small boy as "Sandy," and asked him what he was studying at that moment.
"I don't know," said Sandy.
"Sandy," said Miss Main, "don't disgrace your teachers. You know you are learning the multiplication table. What are three times three?"
Sandy merely looked coy.
"Mhor?"
"Six," said Mhor, after some thought.
"Hopeless," said Miss Main. "Come and speak to my sister Elspeth, Miss Reston."
"My sister Elspeth" was a tall, fair girl with merry blue eyes.
"Do you teach the Mhor?" Pamela asked her.
"I have that honour," said Miss Elspeth, and began to laugh. "He always arrives full of ideas. This morning he had thought out a plan to stop the rain. The sky, he said, must be gone over with glue, but he gave it up when he remembered how sticky it would be for the angels…. He has the most wonderful feeling for words of any child I ever taught. He can't, for instance, bear to hear a Bible story told in everyday language. The other children like it broken down to them, but Mhor pleads for 'the real words.' He likes the swing and majesty of them…. I was reading them Kipling's story, Servants of the Queen, the other day. You know where it makes the oxen speak of the walls of the city falling, 'and the dust went up as though many cattle were coming home.' I happened to look up, and there was Mhor with lamps lit in those wonderful green eyes of his, gazing at me. He said, 'I like that bit. It's a nice bit. I think it should be at the end of a sad story.' And he uses words well himself, have you noticed? The other day he came and thrust a dead field-mouse into my hand. I squealed and dropped it, and he said, 'Afraid? And of such a calm little gentleman?'"
Pamela asked if Mhor's behaviour was good.
"Only fair," said pretty Miss Elspeth. "He always means to be good, but he is inhabited by an imp of mischief that prompts him to do the most improbable things. He certainly doesn't make for peace in the school, but he keeps 'a body frae languor.' I like a naughty boy myself much better than a good one. He's the 'more natural beast of the twain.'"
Outside, with the freed Mhor capering before them, Pamela was enthusiastic over the little school and its mistresses.
"Miss Main looks like an old miniature, with her white hair and her delicate colouring, and is wise and kind and sensible as well; and as for that daffodil girl, Elspeth, she is a sheer delight."
"Yes," Jean agreed. "Hasn't she charming manners? It is so good for the children to be with her. She is so polite to them that they can't be anything but gentle and considerate in return. Heaps of girls would think school-marming very dull, but Elspeth makes it into a sort of daily entertainment. They manage, she and her sister, to make the dullest child see some glimmer of reason in learning lessons. I do wish I had had a teacher like that. I had a governess who taught me like a parrot. She had no notion how to make the dry bones live. I thought I scored by learning as little as I possibly could. The consequence is I'm almost entirely illiterate…. There's the car waiting, and Jock prancing impatiently. Run in for your thick coat, Mhor. No, you can't take Peter. He chased sheep last time and fought the other dogs and made himself a nuisance."
