Ranald Bannermans Boyhood | Page 8

efforts were still unavailing. Over a half-mile or so, rendered weary by unwillingness, I was led to the cottage door--no such cottage as some of my readers will picture, with roses and honeysuckle hiding its walls, but a dreary little house with nothing green to cover the brown stones of which it was built, and having an open ditch in front of it with a stone slab over it for a bridge. Did I say there was nothing on the walls? This morning there was the loveliest sunshine, and that I was going to leave behind. It was very bitter, especially as I had expected to go with my elder brother to spend the day at a neighbouring farm.
Mrs. Mitchell opened the door, and led me in. It was an awful experience. Dame Shand stood at her table ironing. She was as tall as Mrs. Mitchell, and that was enough to prejudice me against her at once. She wore a close-fitting widow's cap, with a black ribbon round it. Her hair was grey, and her face was as grey as her hair, and her skin was gathered in wrinkles about her mouth, where they twitched and twitched, as if she were constantly meditating something unpleasant. She looked up inquiringly.
"I've brought you a new scholar," said Mrs. Mitchell.
"Well. Very well," said the dame, in a dubious tone. "I hope he's a good boy, for he must be good if he comes here."
"Well, he's just middling. His father spares the rod, Mrs. Shand, and we know what comes of that."
They went on with their talk, which, as far as I can recall it, was complimentary to none but the two women themselves. Meantime I was making what observations my terror would allow. About a dozen children were seated on forms along the walls, looking over the tops of their spelling-books at the newcomer. In the farther corner two were kicking at each other as opportunity offered, looking very angry, but not daring to cry. My next discovery was terribly disconcerting. Some movement drew my eyes to the floor; there I saw a boy of my own age on all-fours, fastened by a string to a leg of the table at which the dame was ironing, while--horrible to relate!--a dog, not very big but very ugly, and big enough to be frightened at, lay under the table watching him. I gazed in utter dismay.
"Ah, you may look!" said the dame. "If you're not a good boy, that is how you shall be served. The dog shall have you to look after."
I trembled, and was speechless. After some further confabulation, Mrs. Mitchell took her leave, saying--
"I'll come back for him at one o'clock, and if I don't come, just keep him till I do come."
The dame accompanied her to the door, and then I discovered that she was lame, and hobbled very much. A resolution arose full-formed in my brain.
I sat down on the form near the door, and kept very quiet. Had it not been for the intention I cherished, I am sure I should have cried. When the dame returned, she resumed her box-iron, in which the heater went rattling about, as, standing on one leg--the other was so much shorter--she moved it to and fro over the garment on the table. Then she called me to her by name in a would-be pompous manner. I obeyed, trembling.
"Can you say your letters?" she asked.
Now, although I could not read, I could repeat the alphabet; how I had learned it I do not know. I did repeat it.
"How many questions of your catechism can you say?" she asked next.
Not knowing with certainty what she meant, I was silent.
"No sulking!" said the dame; and opening a drawer in the table, she took out a catechism. Turning back the cover she put it in my hand, and told me to learn the first question. She had not even inquired whether I could read. I took the catechism, and stood as before.
"Go to your seat," she said.
I obeyed, and with the book before me pondered my plan.
Everything depended on whether I could open the door before she could reach me. Once out of the house, I was sure of running faster than she could follow. And soon I had my first experience of how those are helped who will help themselves.
The ironing of course required a fire to make the irons hot, and as the morning went on, the sunshine on the walls, conspiring with the fire on the hearth, made the place too hot for the comfort of the old dame. She went and set the door wide open. I was instantly on the alert, watching for an opportunity. One soon occurred.
A class of some five or six was reading, if reading it could be