A Dominie Dismissed. Alexander Sutherland Neill
We built the pigeon-loft and the rabbit-hutch. We fed our pets together. We——"
I don't know what happened after that. I took out my handkerchief, but not to blow my nose.
"The bugle," I managed to say, and someone shoved it into my hand. Then I played "There's No Parade To-day," but I don't think I played it very well.
Only a few went outside; most of them sat and looked at me.
"I must get Jim to save the situation," I said to myself, and I shouted his name.
"P-please, sir," lisped Maggie Clark, "Jim's standin' oot in the porch."
"Tell him to come in," I commanded.
Maggie went out; then she returned slowly.
"P-please, sir, he's standin' greetin' and he winna come."
"Damnation!" I cried, and I bustled them from the room.
A quarter-past six! It's time Jim came for these boxes.
* * *
I am back in my old rooms in a small street off Hammersmith Broadway. My landlady, Mrs. Lewis, is a lady of delightful garrulity, and her comments on things to-day have served to cheer me up. She is intensely interested in the fact that I have come from Scotland, and anxious to give me all the news of events that have happened during my sojourn in the wilds.
"Did you 'ear much abaht the war in Scotland?" she said.
I looked my surprise.
"War! What war?"
Then she explained that Britain and France and Russia and the Allies were fighting against Germany.
"Now that I come to think of it," I said reflectively, "I did see a lot of khaki about to-day."
"Down't you get the pypers in Scotland?" she asked.
"Thousands of them, Mrs. Lewis; why, every Scot plays the pipes."
"I mean the pypers, not the pypers," she explained.
"Oh, I see! We do get a few; English travellers leave them in the trains, you know."
She thought for a little.
"It must be nice livin' in a plyce w'ere everyone knows everyone else. My sister Sally's married to a pynter in Dundee, Peter Macnab; do you know 'im?"
I explained that Peter and I were almost bosom friends. Then she asked me whether I knew what his wage was. I explained that I did not know. She then told me how much he gave Sally to keep house with, and I began to regret my temerity in claiming a close acquaintance with the erring Peter. Mrs. Lewis at once began to recount the family history of the Macnabs, and I blushed for the company I kept.
I decided to disown Peter.
"Perhaps he'll behave better now that he has gone to Glasgow," I remarked.
"But he ain't gone to Glasgow!" she exclaimed.
I looked thoughtful.
"Ah!" I cried, "I've been thinking of the other Peter Macnab, the painter in Lochee."
"Sally's 'usband lives in a plyce called Magdalen Green."
"Ah! I understand now, Mrs. Lewis. I've met that one too; you're quite right about his character."
If I ever write a book of aphorisms I shall certainly include this one: Never claim an acquaintance with a lady's relations by marriage.
I wandered along Fleet Street to-day, the most fascinating street in London … and the most disappointing. To understand Fleet Street you must walk along the Strand at midday. The Londoner is the most childish creature on earth. If a workman opens a drain cap the traffic is held up by the crowds who push forward to glimpse the pipes below. If a black man walks along the Strand half a hundred people will follow him on the off chance that he may be Jack Johnson. London is the most provincial place in Britain. I have eaten cookies in Princes Street in Edinburgh, and I have eaten buns in Piccadilly. The London audience was the greater. Audience! the word derives from the Latin audio: I hear. That won't do to describe my eating; spectators is the word.
I wandered about all day, and the interests of the streets kept my thoughts away from that little station in the north. Now it is evening, and my thoughts are free to wander.
A few of them would see Macdonald arrive to-day, and I think that in wondering at him they will have forgotten me. Children live for the hour; their griefs are as ephemeral as their joys, and the ephemeralism of their emotion is as wonderful as its intensity. A boy will bury his brother in the afternoon, and scream at Charlie Chaplin in the evening. He will forget Charlie again, though, when he lies alone in the big double bed at night.
Jim and Janet and Jean and the rest have loved me well, but I have no illusions about their love. Children are painfully docile. In two weeks they will accept Macdonald's iron rule without question, just as they accepted my absence of rule without question. Yet I wonder … ! Perhaps the love of freedom that I gave them will make them critical now. I know that they gradually developed a keen sense of justice. It was just a fortnight ago that Peter Shaw was reported to me as a slayer of young birds. I formed a jury with Jim Jackson as foreman, and they called for witnesses.
"Gentlemen of the jury, your verdict?" I said.
Jim stood up.
"Accused is acquitted … only one witness!"
I used to see them weigh my actions critically, and I had to be very particular not to show any sign of favouritism—a difficult task, for a dominie is bound to like some bairns better than others. Will they apply this method to Macdonald? I rather think he will beat it out of them. He is the type of dominie that stands for Authority with the capital A. His whole bearing shouts: "I am the Law. What I say is right and not to be questioned."
My poor bairns!
II.
I went to Richmond to-day, hired a skiff, and rowed up to Teddington. I tied the painter to a tuft of grass on the bank and lazed in the sunshine. For a time I watched the boats go by, and I smiled at the windmill rowing of a boatload of young Italians. Then a gilded youth went by feathering beautifully … and I smiled again, for the Italians seemed to be getting ever so much more fun out of their rowing than this artist got.
By and by the passers-by wearied me, and I thought of my village up north. The kirk would be in. Macdonald would probably be there, and the bairns would be glancing at him sidelong, while I, the failure, lay in a boat among strangers. I began to indulge in the luxury of self-pity; feeling oneself a martyr is not altogether an unpleasant sensation.
I turned my face to the bank and thought of what had taken place. The villagers accused me of wasting their children's time, but when I asked them what they would have me make their children do they were unable to answer clearly.
"Goad!" said Peter Steel the roadman, "a laddie needs to ken hoo to read and write and add up a bit sum."
"Just so," I said. "When you go home to-night just try to help your Jim with his algebra, will you? I'll give you five pounds if you can beat him at arithmetic."
"Aw'm no sayin' that he doesna ken his work," he protested, "but Aw want to ken what's the use o' a' this waste o' time pluckin' flowers and drawin' hooses. You just let the bairns play themsells."
"That's what childhood is for," I explained, "for playing and playing again. In most schools the children work until they tire, and then they play. My system is the reverse; they play until they are tired of play and then they work … ask for work."
I know that the villagers will never understand what I was trying to do. My neighbour, Lawson of Rinsley School, had a glimmering of my ideal.