Geordies Tryst | Page 9

Baxter," he replied, as he ran to check the
wanderings of one of the cows, while Grace stood watching him, as she
pondered how she might best frame an invitation asking him to be her
scholar. He seemed so manly and independent, though he was so young;
and, somehow, it was all so different from how she had planned her
finding of scholars. She had been looking for a cottage where the
tattered children might be crawling about the doorstep, making
mudpies and quarrelling with each other; and then she thought she
would knock at the door, after she had spoken to them for a little, and
ask their mother if she might have them to teach on Sunday. But this
boy, ignorant and neglected as he seemed to be, had certainly a manly
dignity which made Grace's invitations more difficult than she expected;
though, after all, he could only spell words of one syllable, and he went
neither to school nor to church. Surely he was the sort of scholar she
had been in search of. So when he returned to his former position
opposite the stepping-stones, after having admonished the straying
cow--
"Well, Geordie, I am going to ask you if you will come to Kirklands,
where I live, on Sunday afternoons; and since you do not go to any
school, I can read a little to you, and perhaps help you to learn
something?" said Grace, not venturing to be more explicit on what she
wished to teach. "Do you think you would like to come?"
"Ay, would I," he replied, eagerly. "I'm terrible anxious to learn to read
the long words without spellin' them." And then he stopped and looked

hesitatingly at Grace. "Would ye take Jean, I wonder?" he said, coming
a few steps on the stones in his eagerness. "She's my sister, and a good
bit littler than me, and she can't read any, but I'm thinkin' she could
learn," he added, in a sanguine tone.
"Oh yes, certainly; I shall be so happy if you will bring your sister,"
replied Grace, looking radiant, for she had; ust been thinking that
though Geordie was certainly a very valuable unit, he could hardly, in
his own person, make the "Sunday class" on which she had set her
heart.
"But I thought ye couldn't bear poor folk at Kirklands," said Geordie,
reflectively, glancing at Grace, after he had pondered over the
invitation. "Granny's aye frightened they will be takin' our housie from
us, as they have done from so many puir folk;" and then the boy
stopped suddenly, and a deep red flush rose under his bronzed cheek as
he remembered that he must be speaking to one of those same
"Kirklands folk."
"Oh, your grandmother needn't be afraid of that. I am sure my aunt
would not wish to take away her home," replied Grace, hurriedly, also
flushing with vexation, and resolving that she would certainly listen
with more interest, if she happened to be present at the next interview,
to Mr. Graham's narratives concerning the improvements, seeing that
they seemed to involve the improving away of the natives off the face
of the country.
Just then the sound of a horn came across the heather, and Geordie
started off, saying, "There's Gowrie's horn sounding; I must away and
gather home the kye." And he darted off across the hillocks in search of
his scattered charges, giving a succession of whoops and shrieks as he
brandished his cudgel and whirled about in the discharge of his duty,
quite ignoring Grace, who still stood on the stepping-stones, feeling
rather sorry that the interview had terminated so abruptly, for she
remembered a great many questions she would like to have asked.
Presently Geordie, by dint of his exertions, managed to arrange the
cattle, with the formidable Blackie in front, in quite an orderly

procession, and he now prepared to move towards the farm, whose
white gables were visible from the pasture. He never looked back at
Grace, or gave any parting sign of recognition of her presence, and she
began to fear that perhaps after all he might forget about her invitation
and fail to appear on Sunday.
"You won't forget to come to Kirklands on Sunday afternoon,
Geordie?" she called after him, trying to raise her voice above the noisy
little stream.
"Didna I say that I would come and bring Jean? and I aye keep my
trysts," he shouted back again, with a look of indignant astonishment
that she should have imagined him capable of forgetting or failing to
keep his promise; and then he trudged away cheerily, swinging his stick,
more full of the idea of this "tryst" than Grace could guess, though his
mind dwelt chiefly on the thought of what a grand thing it