Principal Cairns | Page 6

licentiate of the Church of Scotland except the sending in of one exercise, This exercise he could never be persuaded to send in, and that not because he had any speculative difficulties as to the truth of the Christian revelation, nor yet because he had any exaggerated misgivings as to his own qualifications for the work of the ministry; but because he preferred the teaching profession, and was, moreover, indignant at what he conceived to be the overbearing attitude which the ministers of the Established Church assumed to the parish schools and schoolmasters. This feeling ultimately became a kind of mania with him. He was at feud with his own parish minister, and never entered his church except when, arrayed in a blue cloak with a red collar, he attended to read proclamations of marriages; and he could make himself very disagreeable when the local Presbytery sent their annual deputation to examine his school. Yet he was essentially a religious man; he had a reverence for what was good, and he taught the Bible and Shorter Catechism to his scholars carefully and well.
As he disliked the ministers, so he showed little deference to the farmers, who were in some sort the "quality" of the district, and to such of their offspring as came under his care. The farmers retaliated by setting up an opposition school in Cockburnspath, which survived for a few years; but it never flourished, for the common people believed in M'Gregor, whom they regarded as "a grand teacher," as indeed he was. He had a spare, active figure, wore spectacles, and took snuff. There was at all times an element of grimness in him, and he could be merciless when the occasion seemed to demand it. "Stark man he was, and great awe men had of him," but this awe had its roots in a very genuine respect for his absolutely just dealing and his masterful independence of character.
John Cairns first went to Mr. M'Gregor's school when the family removed to Cockburnspath from Aikieside, and he made such progress that two years later, when he was ten years old, the master proposed that he should join a Latin class which was then being formed. This proposal caused great searchings of heart at home. His father, with anxious conscientiousness, debated with himself as to whether it would be right for him thus to set one of his sons above the rest. He could not afford to have them all taught Latin, so would it be fair to the others that John should be thus singled out from them? The mother, on the other hand, had no such misgivings, and she was clear that John must have his Latin. The ordinary school fees ranged from three to five shillings a quarter; but when Latin was taken they rose to seven and sixpence. Mr. M'Gregor had proposed to teach John Latin without extra charge, but both his father and his mother were agreed that to accept this kind offer was not to be thought of for a moment; and his mother was sure that by a little contriving and saving on her part the extra sum could be secured. The minister, Mr. Inglis, who was consulted in the matter, also pronounced strongly for the proposal, and so John was allowed to begin his classical studies.
Within two years Greek had been added to the Latin; and, as the unavoidable bustle and noise which arose in the evening when the whole family were together in the one room of the house made study difficult, John stipulated with his mother that she should call him in the morning, when she rose, an hour before anybody else, to light the fire and prepare the breakfast. And so it happened that, if any of the rest of the family awoke before it was time to get up, they would see John studying his lesson and hear him conjugating his Greek verbs by the light of the one little oil-lamp that the house afforded. Perhaps, too, it was what he saw, in these early morning hours, of the unwearied and self-forgetful toil of his mother that taught him to be in an especial degree thoughtful for her comfort and considerate of her wants both then and in after-years.
But his regular schooldays were now drawing to an end. His father, though engaged as the shepherd at Dunglass, had other duties of a very multifarious kind to discharge, and part of his shepherd work had been done for him for some time by his eldest son, Thomas. But Thomas was now old enough to earn a higher wage by other work on the home-farm or in the woods, and so it came to be John's turn to take up the work among the sheep. When his father told