Principal Cairns | Page 6

building, roofed with the red tiles
characteristic of the neighbourhood, and built on to the schoolmaster's
two-storey dwelling. The schoolmaster at this time was John M'Gregor,
a man of ripe and accurate scholarship and quite separate individuality.
The son of a Perthshire farmer, he had studied for the ministry at St.
Andrews University, and had, it was said, fulfilled all the requirements
for becoming a 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