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 reading the 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.
[pg 144]
"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!"
[pg 145]
"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,[pg 146] 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."
[pg 147]
"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 told[pg 148] them 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.
[pg 149]
"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 gabble[pg 150] of 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 officials[pg 151] who 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 an[pg 152] education 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 overpower[pg 153] a 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 a[pg 154] lunatic 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 want[pg 155] education 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."
