“And I shall not blame you,” Miss Ailie declared eagerly.

“Though I would a hantle rather,” continued the warper, “waur my money on Elspeth.”

“What you spend on him,” Miss Ailie argued, “you will really be spending on her, for if he rises in the world he will not leave Elspeth behind.  You are prejudiced against him, but you cannot deny that.”

“I dinna deny but what he’s fond o’ her,” said Aaron, and after considering the matter for some days he decided that Tommy should get his chance.  The school-mistress had not acted selfishly, for this decision, as she knew, meant that the boy must now be placed in the hands of Mr. Cathro, who was a Greek and Latin scholar.  She taught Latin herself, it is true, but as cautiously as she crossed a plank bridge, and she was never comfortable in the dominie’s company, because even at a tea-table he would refer familiarly to the ablative absolute instead of letting sleeping dogs lie.

“But Elspeth couldna be happy if we were at different schools,” Tommy objected instantly.

“Yes, I could,” said Elspeth, who had been won over by Miss Ailie; “it will be so fine, Tommy, to see you again after I hinna seen you for three hours.”

Tommy was little known to Mr. Cathro at this time, except as the boy who had got the better of a rival teacher in the affair of Corp, which had delighted him greatly.  “But if the sacket thinks he can play any of his tricks on me,” he told Aaron, “there is an awakening before him,” and he began the cramming of Tommy for a bursary with perfect confidence.

But before the end of the month, at the mere mention of Tommy’s name, Mr. Cathro turned red in the face, and the fingers of his laying-on hand would clutch an imaginary pair of tawse.  Already Tommy had made him self-conscious.  He peered covertly at Tommy, and Tommy caught him at it every time, and then each quickly looked another way, and Cathro vowed never to look again, but did it next minute, and what enraged him most was that he knew Tommy noted his attempts at self-restraint as well as his covert glances.  All the other pupils knew that a change for the worse had come over the dominie’s temper.  They saw him punish Tommy frequently without perceptible cause, and that he was still unsatisfied when the punishment was over.  This apparently was because Tommy gave him a look before returning to his seat.  When they had been walloped they gave Cathro a look also, but it merely meant, “Oh, that this was a dark road and I had a divot in my hand!” while his look was unreadable, that is unreadable to them, for the dominie understood it and writhed.  What it said was, “You think me a wonder, and therefore I forgive you.”

“And sometimes he fair beats Cathro!” So Tommy’s schoolmates reported at home, and the dominie had to acknowledge its truth to Aaron.  “I wish you would give that sacket a thrashing for me,” he said, half furiously, yet with a grin on his face, one day when he and the warper chanced to meet on the Monypenny road.