“Nay, but Matt wont,” said Jennie Denton, with a quiet decision.  She stood at her big wheel, spinning busily, though it was nine o’clock; and though her words were few and quiet, the men knew from her face and manner that Davie’s licking would not be easily accomplished.  In fact, Jennie habitually stood between Davie and his father and brothers.  She had nursed him through a motherless babyhood, and had always sympathized in his eager efforts to rise above the sordid life that encompassed him.  It was Jennie who had got him the grudging permission to go in the evening to the village schoolmaster for some book-learning.  But peculiar circumstances had favored her in this matter, for neither the old man nor his sons could read or write, and they had begun to find this, in their changed position, and in the rapid growth of general information, a serious drawback in business matters.

Therefore, as Davie could not be spared in the day, the schoolmaster agreed for a few shillings a quarter to teach him in the evening.  This arrangement altered the lad’s whole life.  He soon mastered the simple branches he had been sent to acquire, and then master and pupil far outstepped old Christopher’s programme, and in the long snowy nights, and in the balmy summer ones, pored with glowing cheeks over old histories and wonderful lives of great soldiers and sailors.

In fact, David Denton, like most good sons, had a great deal of his mother in him, and she had been the daughter of a long line of brave Westmoreland troopers.  The inherited tendencies which had passed over the elder boys asserted themselves with threefold force in this last child of a dying woman.  And among the sheepcotes in the hills he felt that he was the son of the men who had defied Cromwell on the banks of the Kent and followed Prince Charlie to Preston.

But the stern discipline of a Cumberland states-man’s family is not easily broken.  Long after David had made up his mind to be a soldier he continued to bear the cuffs and sneers and drudgery that fell to him, watching eagerly for some opportunity of securing his father’s permission.  But of this there was little hope.  His knowledge of writing and accounts had become of service, and his wish to go into the world and desert the great cause of the Denton economies was an unheard-of piece of treason and ingratitude.

David ventured to say that he “had taught Jennie to write and count, and she was willing to do his work.”

The ignorant, loutish brothers scorned the idea of “women-folk meddling wi’ their ’counts and wool,” and, “besides,” as Matt argued, “Davie’s going would necessitate the hiring of two shepherds; no hired man would do more than half of what folk did for their ain.”

These disputes grew more frequent and more angry, and when Davie had added to all his other faults the unpardonable one of falling in love with the schoolmaster’s niece, there was felt to be no hope for the lad.  The Dentons had no poor relations; they regarded them as the one thing not needful, and they concluded it was better to give Davie a commission and send him away.