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Within the long, low cottage the black smoke-polished rafters rose in inky darkness above the rough whitewashed walls, and the mud floor showed the traces of past leaks in many a hill and hollow. The two tiny windows were set breathlessly agape, and through the open door a flood of hot bright sunshine threw a bar of mote-speckled light across the room, gilding the heads of the scholars who sat swinging their legs on the benches and sending a sort of reflected glint from the white wall up into the sombre shadow of the roof. Such was the Episcopal Grant-in-Aid School of Gleneira one July day, some ten years after Paul Macleod had driven down in the mist to catch the Oban steamer.
Without, was a pale, heat-blanched sky set in tall spectral-looking hills which had lost contour and individuality in a haze, blending rock and heather, grass and fern, hollows and heights, into one uniform tint of transparent blue. Between the mountains there was a little level growth of green corn flecked by yellow marigolds, white ox-eyes, and scarlet poppies; then a stretch of dusty road, ending in cool shadows of sycamore and pine, beside the school-house garden.
A wonderful garden this. Of Liliputian size, yet holding in its tiny clasp a specimen of almost every plant that grows and blows. Three potato haulms, four cabbages, a dozen onions, half a yard of peas; a tuft of parsley, two bronze-leaved beet-roots, a head of celery. This, flanked by a raspberry cane, a gooseberry bush, and supported by an edge of strawberry plants, constituted the kitchen garden. Beyond, in the trim box-edged border leading to the school-house door, were pansies, roses, geraniums, lilies, and peonies; every conceivable flower, each family represented by one solitary scion. Last, not least, the quaint drops of the Dielytra; which the children with awestruck voices call "The Bishop." For when you strip away the pink, sheathing petals, is there not inside a man in full white lawn sleeves? And is not a man in lawn sleeves a disturbing element in a remote Highland glen, where half the people are rigid Presbyterians? Here in this little garden the bees hum lazily and the butterflies come and go; sometimes one, misled by the stream of sunshine pouring through the open door, floats in among the yawning scholars, rousing them to momentary alertness and a faint wonder as to the ultimate fate of the wanderer; whether he will philosophically give up the enterprise or, foolishly persistent, lose himself amid the smoke-blackened rafters.
The passing interest, however, dies down again into the sleepy stolid indifference which is the outward and visible sign of that inward desire for freedom felt by each child in the school. No keen longing, but simply a dull wish to be out on the hillside, down by the burn, under the trees; anywhere away from catechisms, collects, or shoes and stockings. The last being the worst infliction of all to these wild little Highland colts accustomed for six days of the week to bare feet, since the coarse knitted hose and hobnailed boots belonging to the seventh are a direful aggravation of the tortures of Sunday school; while even the glorious gentility bestowed by a pair of side springs is but poor compensation for the discomfort to the wearer.
Perhaps that was the reason why each pair of legs on the benches swayed helplessly to the rhythm of a singularly unmelodious hymn which the scholars were singing, led by the master in a muffled nasal chant. The tune itself was old and quaint, having in its recurring semitones a barbaric monotony which a lighter phrase here and there showed was not so much due to the composition in itself as to its present interpreter. The words were still more quaint, forming a sort of Litany of the Prophets, with innumerable verses and many vain repetitions.
Nevertheless, it was an evident favourite with the children; partly, it may be hoped, from its own intrinsic merits, mostly, it is to be feared, from the startling novelties in Scripture history which it was capable of promulgating when, as in the present case, the schoolmaster was engaged in his secondary profession of postmaster.
As the tune rose and fell, there came every now and again a pause, so sudden, so absolute that a passer-by on the dusty road might well have asked himself if some direful catastrophe had not occurred. Nothing of the sort. A glance within would have shown him everything at its usual; the scholars in rows, from the kilted urchin of four--guiltless of English--to whom school is the art of sitting still, to the girl of fourteen, blissfully conscious of a new silk handkerchief and the admiration it excites in the bashful herd-boy on the opposite bench. In the corner, at a table with a slanting desk, the master was busy sorting the letters which Donald Post, as he is called, has just brought in; the latter meanwhile mopping his hot face and disburdening his bag of minor matters in the shape of tea, sugar, and bread, and himself of the budget of news he has accumulated during his fourteen-mile walk; in an undertone, however, for the hymn goes on.
"Whair is noo' the pro-phet Dan'l?" droned the master, followed by a wavering choir of childish trebles and gruff hobbledehoy voices, "Whair is noo' the pro-phet Dan'l?"
The exigencies of the tune necessitated a repetition of the momentous question again and yet again, the tune dying away into a pause, during which the master's attention wandered to a novel superscription on a letter. The children held their breath, the hum of the bees outside became audible, all nature seemed in suspense awaiting the answer.
"I'm thinking it will be from Ameriky," hazarded the master thoughtfully to Donald Post, and, the solution seeming satisfactory, he returned with increased energy to the triumphant refrain
"Safe intil the Pro-mised Land."
The children caught it up con amore with a vague feeling of relief. A terrible thing indeed, to Presbyterians or Episcopalians alike, if the Prophet Daniel had been left hanging between heaven and another place! So great a relief, that the gay progress of the tune and the saint was barely marred by the master's renewed interest in a postcard; which distraction led him into making an unwarrantable statement that--
"He went up in a fiery char-yot."
True, the elder pupils tittered a little over the assertion, but the young ones piped away contentedly, vociferously. The Promised Land once attained, the means were necessarily quite a secondary consideration; and mayhap to their simple imaginings a fiery chariot was preferable to the den of lions.
"Where is noo' the twal A-postles?" led off the master again, after a whispered remark to Donald Post, which provoked so interesting a reply that the fate of the twelve remained trembling in the balance long enough for the old refrain to startle the scholars from growing inattention.
"Safe intil the Promised Land."
The sound echoed up into the rafters. Truly a blessed relief to reach the haven after delays and difficulties.
"They went through"--began the master. But whether in orthodox fashion it would have been "great tri-bu-la-tion," or whether, on the principle of compensation, the den of lions would have been allowed twelve saints, will never be known. The mote-speckled beam of sunshine through the door was darkened by a slight girlish figure, the children hustled to their feet with much clatter of the unaccustomed boots and shoes, and the schoolmaster, drowning his last nasal note under a guilty cough, busied himself over a registered letter. For Miss Marjory Carmichael objected on principle to the Litany of the Prophets.
The rather imperious frown, struggling with an equally obstinate smile which showed on the newcomer's face, vanished at the sight of Donald Post.
"Any for me?" she asked eagerly. It was a charming voice, full of interest and totally devoid of anxiety. An acute ear would have told at once that life had as yet brought nothing to the speaker which would make post-time a delight or a dread. She had for instance no right to expect a love-letter or a dun; and her eagerness was but the desire of youth for something new, her expectancy only the girlish belief in something which must surely come with the coming years. For the rest, a winsome young lady with a pair of honest hazel eyes and honest walking boots.
"'Deed
