CHAPTER III. THE MASTER OF LINDSAY SCHOOL
One evening, a month later, Eric Marshall came out of the old,white-washed schoolhouse at Lindsay, and locked the door--which wascarved over with initials innumerable, and built of double plank inorder that it might withstand all the assaults and batteries to which itmight be subjected.
Eric's pupils had gone home an hour before, but he had stayed to solvesome algebra problems, and correct some Latin exercises for his advancedstudents.
The sun was slanting in warm yellow lines through the thick grove ofmaples to the west of the building, and the dim green air beneath themburst into golden bloom. A couple of sheep were nibbling the lush grassin a far corner of the play-ground; a cow-bell, somewhere in the maplewoods, tinkled faintly and musically, on the still crystal air, which,in spite of its blandness, still retained a touch of the wholesomeausterity and poignancy of a Canadian spring. The whole world seemed tohave fallen, for the time being, into a pleasant untroubled dream.
The scene was very peaceful and pastoral--almost too much so, the youngman thought, with a shrug of his shoulders, as he stood in the wornsteps and gazed about him. How was he going to put in a whole monthhere, he wondered, with a little smile at his own expense.
"Father would chuckle if he knew I was sick of it already," he thought,as he walked across the play-ground to the long red road that ran pastthe school. "Well, one week is ended, at any rate. I've earned my ownliving for five whole days, and that is something I could never saybefore in all my twenty-four years of existence. It is an exhilaratingthought. But teaching the Lindsay district school is distinctly NOTexhilarating--at least in such a well-behaved school as this, wherethe pupils are so painfully good that I haven't even the traditionalexcitement of thrashing obstreperous bad boys. Everything seems to go byclock work in Lindsay educational institution. Larry must certainly havepossessed a marked gift for organizing and drilling. I feel as if Iwere merely a big cog in an orderly machine that ran itself. However, Iunderstand that there are some pupils who haven't shown up yet, and who,according to all reports, have not yet had the old Adam totally drilledout of them. They may make things more interesting. Also a fewmore compositions, such as John Reid's, would furnish some spice toprofessional life."
Eric's laughter wakened the echoes as he swung into the road down thelong sloping hill. He had given his fourth grade pupils their own choiceof subjects in the composition class that morning, and John Reid, asober, matter-of-fact little urchin, with not the slightest embryonicdevelopment of a sense of humour, had, acting upon the whisperedsuggestion of a roguish desk-mate, elected to write upon "Courting." Hisopening sentence made Eric's face twitch mutinously whenever he recalledit during the day. "Courting is a very pleasant thing which a great manypeople go too far with."
The distant hills and wooded uplands were tremulous and aerial indelicate spring-time gauzes of pearl and purple. The young, green-leafedmaples crowded thickly to the very edge of the road on either side, butbeyond them were emerald fields basking in sunshine, over which cloudshadows rolled, broadened, and vanished. Far below the fields a calmocean slept bluely, and sighed in its sleep, with the murmur that ringsfor ever in the ear of those whose good fortune it is to have been bornwithin the sound of it.
Now and then Eric met some callow, check-shirted, bare-legged lad onhorseback, or a shrewd-faced farmer in a cart, who nodded and called outcheerily, "Howdy, Master?" A young girl, with a rosy, oval face, dimpledcheeks, and pretty dark eyes filled with shy coquetry, passed him,looking as if she would not be at all averse to a better acquaintancewith the new teacher.
Half way down the hill Eric met a shambling, old gray horse drawing anexpress wagon which had seen better days. The driver was a woman: sheappeared to be one of those drab-tinted individuals who can never havefelt a rosy emotion in all their lives. She stopped her horse, andbeckoned Eric over to her with the knobby handle of a faded and bonyumbrella.
"Reckon you're the new Master, ain't you?" she asked.
Eric admitted that he was.
"Well, I'm glad to see you," she said, offering him a hand in a muchdarned cotton glove that had once been black.
"I was right sorry to see Mr. West go, for he was a right good teacher,and as harmless, inoffensive a creetur as ever lived. But I always toldhim every time I laid eyes on him that he was in consumption, if evera man was. YOU look real healthy--though you can't aways tell by looks,either. I had a brother complected like you, but he was killed in arailroad accident out west when he was real young.
"I've got a boy I'll be sending to school to you next week. He'd oughtergone this week, but I had to keep him home to help me put the pertatersin; for his father won't work and doesn't work and can't be made towork.
"Sandy--his full name is Edward Alexander--called after both hisgrandfathers--hates the idee of going to school worse 'n pisen--alwaysdid. But go he shall, for I'm determined he's got to have more larninghammered into his head yet. I reckon you'll have trouble with him,Master, for he's as stupid as an owl, and as stubborn as Solomon's mule.But mind this, Master, I'll back you up. You just lick Sandy good andplenty when he needs it, and send me a scrape of the pen home with him,and I'll give him another dose.
"There's people that always sides in with their young ones when there'sany rumpus kicked up in the school, but I don't hold to that, and neverdid. You can depend on Rebecca Reid every time, Master."
"Thank you. I am sure I can," said Eric, in his most winning tones.
He kept his face straight until it was safe to relax, and Mrs. Reiddrove on with a soft feeling in her leathery old heart, which had beenso toughened by long endurance of poverty and toil, and a husband whowouldn't work and couldn't be made to work, that it was no longer a verysusceptible organ where members of the opposite sex were concerned.
Mrs. Reid reflected that this young man had a way with him.
Eric already knew most of the Lindsay folks by sight; but at the foot ofthe hill he met two people, a man and a boy, whom he did not know. Theywere sitting in a shabby, old-fashioned wagon, and were watering theirhorse at the brook, which gurgled limpidly under the little plank bridgein the hollow.
Eric surveyed them with some curiosity. They did not look in the leastlike the ordinary run of Lindsay people. The boy, in particular, hada distinctly foreign appearance, in spite of the gingham shirt andhomespun trousers, which seemed to be the regulation, work-a-day outfitfor the Lindsay farmer lads. He had a lithe, supple body, with slopingshoulders, and a lean, satiny brown throat above his open shirt collar.His head was covered with thick, silky, black curls, and the hand thathung down by the side of the wagon was unusually long and slender. Hisface was richly, though somewhat heavily featured, olive tinted, savefor the cheeks, which had a dusky crimson bloom. His mouth was as redand beguiling as a girl's, and his eyes were large, bold and black. Allin all, he was a strikingly handsome fellow; but the expression of hisface was sullen, and he somehow gave Eric the impression of a sinuous,feline creature basking in lazy grace, but ever ready for an unexpectedspring.
The other occupant of the wagon was a man between sixty-five andseventy, with iron-gray hair, a long, full, gray beard, a harsh-featuredface, and deep-set hazel eyes under bushy, bristling brows. He wasevidently tall, with a spare, ungainly figure, and stooping shoulders.His mouth was close-lipped and relentless, and did not look as if ithad ever smiled. Indeed, the idea of smiling could not be connected withthis man--it was utterly incongruous. Yet there was nothing repellentabout his face; and there was something in it that compelled Eric'sattention.
He rather prided himself on being a student of physiognomy, and he feltquite sure that this man was no ordinary Lindsay farmer of the genial,garrulous type with which he was familiar.
Long after the old wagon, with its oddly assorted pair, had gonelumbering up the hill, Eric found himself thinking of the stern, heavybrowed man and the black-eyed, red-lipped boy.