Christine, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr [chromebook ebook reader txt] 📗

in a large pairt o' the school. The bigger lads and lasses will come in the autumn, when the herrin' hae been, and gane."

"I'm not asking anything anent that class. I dinna envy the schoolmaster and mistress that will hae them to manage. They'll hae their hands fu', or my name isna Margot Ruleson. Wha will get the third prize?"

"Our Jamie. And he has weel won it. Jamie isna a lad o' the common order. The Domine says he'll mak' the warld sit up and listen to him, when he comes to full stature."

"The Domine is as silly anent the bairn, as you are. After my ain lad, Neil, I'm expecting naething oot o' the Nazareth o' Culraine. We were a' going to shout o'er Neil Ruleson--weel, we hae had our cry, and dried our eyes, and hae gane on our way again."

"Neil has done weel--considering."

"Gudeman, we hae better drop that 'consideration.' I was talking o' our Jamie. What are they going to gie our second wonder o' a bairn?"

"The maist beautiful book you ever saw--a big copy of Robinson Crusoe fu' o' pictures, and bound in blue wi' gold lettering. The bairn will hae wonder after wonder wi' it."

"Did you buy the book?"

"Not I. What mak's you ask that information?"

"Naething. Jamie should hae had something he could hae halfed wi' Christine. She has spent the best o' her hours teaching the bairn. Few or nane o' the lads and lasses would hae the help o' any hame lessons. It was really Christine put Neil Ruleson among her Majesty's lawyers."

"Weel, then, she'll do her pairt in putting James Ruleson among the ministers o' the everlasting God. That will be a great honor, and pay her handsome for a' her love and labor."

"Gudeman, ministers arena honored as they were when we were young. If preaching were to go oot o' fashion, we----"

"What are you saying, Margot Ruleson? The preacher's license is to the 'end o' the warld.' The Word o' the Lord must be gien to men, as long as men people the earth."

"Vera weel! The Word o' the Lord is in everybody's hands the now; and everyone is being taught to read it. Maist folk can read it as weel as the minister."

"The Word must be made flesh! Nae book can tak' the place o' the face-to-face argument. Preaching will last as long as men live."

"Weel, weel, I'm not going to get you to arguing. You arena in the clubroom, and I'm too tired to go into speculations wi' you. I'm obliged to you, gudeman, for the information you hae imparted. I wad, however, advise the Domine to gie his next secret into the keeping o' some woman, say mysel'. Women arena sae amiable as men, and whiles they can keep a secret, which is a thing impossible to men-folk."

"If they are married, I'll admit there are difficulties."

"Gude night, and gude dreams to you, James Ruleson."

"Ye ken weel, Margot, that I never dream."

"Sae you lose the half o' your life, James. I'm sorry for you. I shall dream o' the three happy bairns, and their prizes. Say, you might hae picked out another lassie; twa lads to one lass is o'erganging what's fair. I'm awa' to sleep--you needna answer."

It was trying to the village that Sabbath had to come and go, before the school examination. But everything waited for arrives in its time. And this was a Monday worth waiting for. It was a perfect June day, and the sea, and the sun, and the wind held rejoicing with the green earth and the mortals on it. If there was envy, or jealousy, or bad temper among the villagers, they forgot it, or put it aside for future consideration. Everyone was in his best clothes, the boys and girls being mostly in white, and the little place looked as if there were a great wedding on hand. Christine had made an attempt to decorate the room a little. The boys cut larch boughs and trailing branches, the men loaned the flags of the boats, the women gave the few flowers from their window pots, and strips of garden, and Margot, a little sadly, cut her roses, and gave permission to Christine to add to them a few laburnum branches, now drooping with their golden blossoms.

The room looked well. The flowers and the flags did not hide the globe and the maps. And the blackboard kept its look of authority, though a branch of laburnum bent over it. The schoolmaster was playing a merry Fantasia as the company gathered, but at a given signal from Christine he suddenly changed it to the children's marching song, and the rapid, orderly manner in which it led each class to its place was a wonderful sight to the men and women who had never seen children trained to obedience by music.

The Domine opened the examination by reading, in the intense silence that followed the cessation of the music, three verses from the eighteenth chapter of St. Luke:

"And they brought unto him infants that he would touch them, but
when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them.

"But Jesus called them unto him, and said, 'Suffer little children
to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom
of God.

"'Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom
of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter therein.'"

Then the schoolmistress touched a hand bell and a crowd of little children, none over five years old, gathered round her. Contrary to the usual practice of children, their behavior and recitals were better than usual, and laughter and hand-clapping followed all their simple efforts. Polly Craig was their evident leader, and when she had told a charming story about a little girl who would do what she ought not to do, the records of the class were read by the Domine, and the prize awarded to Polly.

Willie Tamsen and Jamie Ruleson's classes were treated in a similar way, and were equally successful in their recitations and equally delighted with their gifts. Now, the real joy in giving gifts is found in giving them to children, for the child heart beats long after we think it has outgrown itself. The perfect charm of this gathering lay in the fact that men and women became for a few hours little children again. It was really a wonderful thing to see the half-grown girls, the married women, and even old Judith Macpherson, crowding round Polly to admire the waxen beauty and the long fair curls of her prize doll.

After the school exercises the adults slowly scattered, sauntering home with their wives, and carrying their babies as proudly as Polly carried her new treasure. Truly both men and women receive the kingdom of God and Love, when they become as little children. The children remained for two hours longer in the school room. For the entertainment of their parents the youngest ones had danced some of those new dances just at that period introduced into Scotland, called polkas and mazurkas, and now, to please themselves, they began a series of those mythic games which children played in the world's infancy, and which, thank God, have not yet perished from off the face of the earth. "How many miles to Babylon?" "Hide and seek," "In and out," "Blind man's buff," and so forth, and in this part of the entertainment, everything and everyone depended upon Christine. Mothers, going home, called to her, "Christine, look after my bairn," and then went contentedly away.

They might contentedly do so, for whoever saw Christine Ruleson that afternoon, in the midst of those forty or fifty children, saw something as near to a vision of angels, as they were likely to see on this earth. She stood among them like some divine mother. A little one three years old was on her right arm. It pulled her earrings, and rumpled her hair, and crushed her lace collar, and she only kissed and held it closer. A little lad with a crooked spine, and the seraphic face which generally distinguishes such sufferers, held her tightly by her right hand. Others clung to her dress, and called her name in every key of love and trust. She directed their games, and settled their disputes, and if anything went wrong, put it right with a kiss.

The Domine watched her for ten or fifteen minutes, then he went slowly up the hill. "Where at a' is Christine, Domine?" asked Margot. "I'm wanting her sairly."

"Christine is too busy to meddle with, Margot. She's doing God's best work--ministering to little children. As I saw her half-an-hour ago, she was little lower than the angels. I'm doubting if an angel could be lovelier, or fuller of life and love, and every sweet influence."

"Christine is a handsome lass, nae doubt o' that, but our women are all o' them heritage handsome. I'm doubting if Eve, being a Jewess, could be worth evening wi' us."

"Eve was not a Jewess. She was God's eldest daughter, Margot."

"Then God's eldest daughter hasna a very gude character. She has been badly spoken of, ever since the warld began. And I do hope my Christine will behave hersel' better than Eve did--if all's true that is said anent her."

"Christine is a good girl, Margot. If little children love a woman, and she loves them, the love of God is there. Margot! Margot! God comes to us in many ways, but the sweetest and tenderest of all of them, is when he sends Jesus Christ by the way of the cradle."

All's well that ends well. If this be true, the first session of Culraine school was a great success. It had brought an entirely new, and very happy estimate of a father's and a mother's duty to their children. It had even made them emulous of each other, in their care and attention to the highest wants of childhood.

The whole village was yet talking of the examination when the herring came. Then every woman went gladly to her appointed post and work, and every man--rested and eager for labor--hailed the news with a shout of welcome. Peter Brodie's big Sam brought it very early one lovely summer morning, and having anchored his boat, ran through the sleeping village shouting--"Caller Herrin'! In Culraine Bay!"

The call was an enchantment. It rang like a trumpet through the sleeping village, and windows were thrown up, and doors flung open, and half-dressed men were demanding in stentorian voices, "Where are the fish, Sam?"

"Outside Culraine Bay," he answered, still keeping up his exultant cry of "Caller Herrin'!" and in less than half an hour men were at work preparing for the amazing physical strain before them. Much was to do if they were to cast their nets that evening, and the streets were soon busy with men and lads carrying nets and other necessities to the boats. It was up with the flag on every boat in commission, for the fishing, and this day's last preparations excited the place as if it were some great national holiday. The women were equally full of joyful business. They had to cook the breakfast, but immediately after it were all in the packing and curing sheds. You would have been sure they were keeping holiday. Pleasant greetings, snatches of song, encouraging cries to the men struggling down to the boats with the leaded nets, shouts of hurry to the bewildered children,